In a world.....

It's all downhill from here!

Well, the old man has been diagnosed with the Big C......At 81 years, it looks like he may only have one or two Braves seasons left....

This is the year to win the World Series, for the old man. The most devoted Braves fanatic there is.

I'll be playing with Mudcat @ the Northside next Sat night...

I'll get you, my pretty.......

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=80298&in_page_id=34



It shows Mohammed, 40, with his new 11-year-old wife, Ghulam. Taken by US photographer Stephanie Sinclair, it was named Unicef Photo of the Year yesterday.

The crying Dutchman!!!

He is known as the "hard man" of climate-change negotiation.

But after 12 exhausting days of trying to reach a worldwide agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it was suddenly all too much for Yvo de Boer.

As the 200-nation Bali conference wrangled over a minor procedural matter, the Dutch diplomat in charge of the talks burst into tears and had to be led away by colleagues.

Moments earlier, Mr de Boer had been warning delegates that failure to reach an agreement on global warming could "plunge the world into conflict".

Officials from China, which feels Western countries should do more to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, accused UN negotiators of ignoring conference protocol.

Mr de Boer, distinctively dressed in a floral shirt, stepped up to the microphone to defend his staff - only to find that the words would no longer come.

As his unfinished sentences trailed away, he broke down and walked off the platform to supportive applause.

"He wasn't just wiping his eyes, he was in floods of tears," said one observer.

"Three colleagues - one of them a woman - formed a protective group around him and escorted him out of the hall. It was all very dramatic."

Mr de Boer's breakdown came after nearly a fortnight of squabbling over proposals to cut carbon emissions.

The European Union went to the conference demanding that industrialised nations commit to cuts in CO2 emissions of 25-40 per cent by 2020, a stance which was strongly opposed by the US, Canada and Japan.

America's representatives had also been jeered for insisting on firmer commitments from developing countries --despite President Bush's refusal to sign up to the previous targets laid down in the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

In the end, a compromise was reached with a text that did not mention specific targets but acknowledged that "deep cuts in global emissions will be required".

A wave of relief swept the hall as US delegation chief Paula Dobriansky finally declared: "The United States is very committed to this effort and just wants to really ensure we all act together.

"With that, Mr Chairman, let me say to you we will go forward and join consensus."

The resulting treaty, known as the "Bali road map", sets in motion a two-year process of negotiations designed to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Under the deal, a new pact will be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.

By then, members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - the organisation of which de Boer is executive secretary - should have agreed on a comprehensive plan involving wealthy and developing nations.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn hailed the Bali deal as "an historic breakthrough" and a "huge step forward" in tackling climate change.

But Prime Minister Gordon Brown sounded a note of caution. "The Bali road map agreed today is just the first step," he said. "Now begins the hardest work."

The deal will come as a relief to Mr de Boer, who is known in the Netherlands for his passionate advocacy on the subject.

His reputation as an incisive --and tireless - negotiator has earned him the "hard man" tag.

However, former colleagues said his behaviour in Bali was not entirely out of character.

Political adviser Matthijs Spits said: "We Dutch can become quite emotional --surprisingly so for other nations who think we are cold."...........

........

So two weeks of talks to decide, in effect, to have two more years of talks (let's hope they actually produce more than these talks did), with an admission that "deep cuts in global emissions will be required" (well that was a surprise revelation now, wasn't it?), with no specific target, and with the prospect that even if they do come up with a detailed plan of actions (that's what is needed not a Road Map of infinite meetings) that it's recommendations (some 'new sort of 'Kyoto' replacement) will not come into force until 2013 (and that's 6 years away.)

How anyone can say that this was an historic breakthrough is beyond me - what breakthrough?

It's a two-fer!

What can we say about post election fights? Nobody wins and the country loses a lot.

In fact, arguing about a close election is like having mom and dad scream at each other in front of the children--someone may be technically right but both sides end up losing!

Let's look back.

In 1960, Sen. John Kennedy beat VP Richard Nixon by 112,000 out of 76 million.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1960)

John Fund wrote a wonderful summary of the 1960 controversies--Chicago, South Texas and Alabama. Kennedy's name did not appear on the ballot but he was awarded the Alabama vote anyway:

"Congressional Quarterly, the respected nonpartisan chronicler of Washington politics, spent some effort in the 1960s to come up with a fair way of counting Alabama's votes.

Reporter Neil Pierce took the highest vote cast for any of the 11 Democratic electors in Alabama--324,050--and divided it proportionately between Kennedy and the unpledged electors who ended up voting for Harry Byrd.

Using that method, Kennedy was given credit for 5/11ths of the Democratic total, or 147,295 votes. Nixon's total in Alabama of 237,981 remained the same. The remaining 176,755 votes were counted as being for the unpledged electors.

With these new totals for Alabama factored in with the vote counts for the other 49 states, Nixon has a 58,181-vote plurality, edging out Kennedy 34,108,157 votes to 34,049,976. Using that calculation the 1960 election was even closer than we thought.

Remember this the next time a Democrat complains that President Bush "lost the popular vote."

As Mr. Southwick told me in 2001, "Camelot was made possible by the Electoral College. The same is true of George W. Bush's presidency.

Both were legitimate."(http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110004320)

Did Kennedy win in 1960? He won the electoral college and was awarded a small popular vote victory despite some controversy because of Alabama.

Did Nixon have a case for challenging the results? He did.

Thankfully, Nixon did not challenge the elections. As a result, we were spared a partisan mud fight about dead people voting in Chicago, illegal residents voting in South Texas and Alabama's bizarre count.

It would have been time consuming for Nixon to prove these allegations and find the smoking gun. Nevertheless, it would have made great drama and hurt the country's reputation.

VP Nixon was under a lot of pressure to challenge the results. He did not. No one was more grateful than Senator Kennedy, who faced a divided nation with a weak mandate.

In 2000, VP Al Gore and Gov. GW Bush had another close election. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2000)

Bush beat Gore, 271-267 in the Electoral College. He carried 30 states and Gore 20. But Gore had 543,816 more votes out of 106 million.

Bush won every recount in Florida, including the one done by several newspapers. (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/04/florida.recount.01/)

Did Bush win? Yes, he did. Did Gore have a case? No.

Besides, how do you prove that some voters meant to vote for Gore but voted for Buchanan? How do you prove that? On the Bush side, how do you prove that the premature network call for Gore sent voters home?

Gore would have easily won the election by winning his home state of Tennessee or Pres. Clinton's Arkansas.

Give Gore Tennessee and he would have won the Electoral College, 279-259!

Give Gore Arkansas and he would won, 273-265!

On election day 2000, Pres. Clinton and VP Gore did not deliver their home states and that's why Gov Bush won the election. Florida was close and controversial. Yet, it would have been meaningless if Gore or Clinton delivered their respective home states to the Democrats!

Moral of the story: Win your home state!

In conclusion, Nixon was right in '60 and Gore was wrong in '00.

As we saw in Florida, these challenges divide the country and change few minds. Also, these challenges make extremists more extreme.

Florida gave birth to several myths, such as stories that people were intimidated from voting. Peter Kirsanow is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and he wrote "The Florida Myth Spreads":

"The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights conducted a six-month investigation of the charges and found absolutely no evidence of systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.

The civil-rights division of the Department of Justice also found no credible evidence that any Floridians were intentionally denied the right to vote.

These findings did little to dispel the myth of massive disenfranchisement.

Politicians and activists persisted in circulating outlandish stories of nefarious schemes to steal votes, stories that became more numerous and absurd during the run-up to November 2004.

Speaking before predominantly black audiences, John Kerry repeatedly suggested that a million black votes were stolen in the 2000 election." (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200501100742.asp)

These myths, and the politicians who repeat them, divide us and poison our discourse.

This just in.....

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

His remarks will be made in his annual message for World Peace Day on January 1, but they were released as delegates from all over the world convened on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali for UN climate change talks.

The 80-year-old Pope said the world needed to care for the environment but not to the point where the welfare of animals and plants was given a greater priority than that of mankind.

"Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow," he said in the message entitled "The Human Family, A Community of Peace".

"It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.

"If the protection of the environment involves costs, they should be justly distributed, taking due account of the different levels of development of various countries and the need for solidarity with future generations.

very cool way to stop speeders

I cant stand those lousy speed bumps all over residential Atlanta streets....While going down my old street today, I saw this very lifelike cut out attached to a mailbox.

It works! It makes EVERYBODY slam on thier brakes. Hilarious!

nit wit

Hokey in the Pokey

Thus ends the saga of Mike Vick, the sick dick ( hat tip to William Smythe).

23 months, 1 served. That means he's gonna really be locked up for 19-20 months...

If he hadn't flunked that piss test he KNEW he had to take, or lied to the judge ( he did so THIS MORNING!!) he could have saved his career. What a colossal dumbass.

It's very entertaining hearing the people feeling sorry for this douchebag because his attorney asked for him to be able to wear a suit, like a civilized man. But the 'hanging judge' he lied to said 'uh, nope. Your gonna wear black and white stripes like the thug you izz. Keep it real!'

So now the civil rights warlords are going to be beside themselves because a white judge made a black man wear stripes like he was on the chain gang.

From rags to riches to black and white britches. Karma's a bitch, huh?

a great article from the uk

Friday, December 07, 2007 at 05:56am

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_welcome_to_my_nightmare/


I can’t remember exactly what I wrote that was so evil. So much to choose from.

Was it that I refused to be freaked by this latest panic attack that global warming was blasting in and . . . Oh, my God, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Or was it that I wouldn’t listen to that frenzy of activists insisting the genetically modified canola oil I use to fry my chops would nuke us all into an explosion of pustulating tumours?

Anyway, one young reader was furious that I’d yet again stood snobbily apart, while his mob ululated warnings of some fresh horror.

“You’d be on your own,” he sneered in an angry email.

True enough, my young critic, I do often feel lonely in this astonishing age when to panic is a sign of virtue and to reason a sign of a cold heart.

But do you know my problem?

It’s not just that I hate mobs, knowing there’s no wisdom in them.

It’s not even that I’m stubborn by nature, and like the answer Albert Einstein gave to One Hundred Authors Against Einstein—that all it took to defeat his Theory of Relativity was not 100 scientists but just one fact.

My real problem is simply that in my 48 years I’ve lived through so many pack-panic attacks over nothing that I won’t fall so easily for the next.

Your parents or grandparents may know what I mean. Go ask if they remember all those plagues we were told would surely smite us if we didn’t sign some cheque, praise some god, or vote for some politician.

Ask if they remember scares like the nuclear winter, DDT, mega-famines, global cooling, acid rain, Repetitive Strain Injury, bird flu, the millennium bug, SARS, toxic PVC, poisonous breast implants, the end of oil, death by fluoride, the Chernobyl doom, the BSE beef that would eat your brains, and other oldies and mouldies.

It’s amazing we’re still alive after all that, let alone richer and healthier.

So, my furious friend, don’t try to panic me now about global warming, GM food, peak oil or ADHD. I’ve seen too many.

You want to know how they’re tricked up? First, you get a possible problem—preferably with some skerrick of truth.

You then get some expert, or maybe an Al Gore, to make wild assumptions or faulty extrapolations. You know the kind: that if a dodgy levee breaks in New Orleans, the whole world is gonna drown.

And then you whistle for the carpetbaggers—journalists keen to sell a sensation, business keen to sell a cure, and politicians keen to sell themselves as the solution.

And bang, you have a mass panic, with more people gaining from the scare than are game to expose it.

I guess you’re shocked by my cynicism. Would it help if I gave some examples of the panics I was once fed?

Here’s the very first I remember. When I was a student, too, my earnest teachers used to tell me the world was running out of food, and show pictures of starving Indians, which made me worry a lot.

They were repeating the hot theories of people like green guru Prof Paul Ehrlich, whose 1968 book The Population Explosion sold in the millions.

“The battle to feed humanity is over,” Ehrlich preached. “In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.”

He was wrong, of course. Better crops, better communications, better transport, better education—and see now. Famines are now virtually unknown outside of war zones.

But such apocalyptic talk was everywhere then. Take the Club of Rome, a top think tank, which in 1972 warned the world’s economy was about to hit a wall. We were running out of oil, gas, silver, tin, uranium, aluminium, copper, lead and zinc, it warned in Limits to Growth, which sold 30 million copies, becoming the best-selling environmental book in history.

Panic spread. “We could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade,” warned US president Jimmy Carter.

Except we didn’t. Instead, we’ve now got bigger reserves of all the things the Club of Rome said would soon be used up, except for tin.

But those panics about resources were nothing compared with the full-blown hysteria that was now being whipped up over the environment.

These eco-scares really took off in 1962 after Rachel Carson published her Silent Spring, using now disputed or discredited evidence to claim DDT was such a menace in the food chain we had to ban it to save whole species.

So DDT spraying was largely halted to save birds and fish, even though that meant killing tens of millions of Third World children, who were left with no good protection from the malarial mosquitoes against which the DDT had been used.

Never mind! We were too busy then panicking over a fall (sic) in global temperatures. In April 1975, for instance, Newsweek ran an article, The Cooling World, warning of “ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change”, exposing us to floods, “catastrophic” famines, “the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded” and “drought and desolation”.

The panic attacks were now coming in waves. There was “acid rain”, which the United Nations in 1986 blamed for damaging a quarter of Europe’s trees.

Now, of course, we know “acid rain” is hardly harmful, and Europe’s trees are blooming.

There was then the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, also in 1986, that was said to threaten millions of people with death and so terrified women that the International Atomic Energy Agency said as many as 200,000 had abortions. Now we know that the true death toll so far is fewer than 60.

There was the warning by British officials in 1996 that more than 500,000 people faced death by BSE, a brain disease they could catch from infected beef. Now we know—after eight million cattle were slaughtered—that the threat was wildly exaggerated, and the 100 or so victims might not have even got the disease from eating beef.

But don’t stop panicking! So we panicked instead about bird flu, with newspapers running screaming headlines such as: “Pandemic Could Kill 150 Million, UN Warns”.

But now we know the UN was just plucking figures from the air, and there’s still no proof this disease, caught from heavy exposure to sick birds, can leap from human to human.

How many more scares should I describe, each quickly buried in embarrassment, rather than held up as a warning to be slow to panic?

Remember the fear that the world’s computers would crash the second the clocks ticked over to the year 2000? Planes would fall from the sky thanks to this Y2K bug, which the world spent an estimated $300 billion “fixing”. But what happened at midnight? Tick, tick, tick . . . er, tick.

It was in the 1980s that I first declared my personal war against panic, after thousands of Australians suddenly started to complain of what they called Repetitive Strain Injury.

The theory was that typing for hours gave them a crippling wrist pain that would never go away.

So firmly was this believed here that by 1985, RSI was blamed for a third of all claims for compensation for disease, and every federal public servant who put out a sore hand was simply paid off.

What struck me, though, was that all the sufferers I knew seemed to be moaners by nature, or already unhappy. Even odder was that this disease seemed to hit only Australians and only in some workplaces, such as Telecom and the Commonwealth Bank—often heavily unionised or soggy with complaint.

You see, as psychologist Professor Robert Spillane says now, RSI was actually not a medical problem but a social one, suffered largely by unhappy people “who chose to become patients” and who had there-theres murmured to them by compensation lawyers and the new breed of occupational health therapists.

But who gets RSI now? It’s like a magic wind blew it away, overnight.

So that, my young friend, is why I refuse to join your latest panic party.

Sneer at my loneliness all you like, as your howling, screaming, gasping mob gibbers in unison with a fear you seem to catch from each other.

I’ve learned that if I wait long enough, you’ll come to your senses.


http://www.reason.com/news/show/34823.html

300

Mom knew Evel

it's true. My mother and Evel were high school classmates in Butte, Montana.....

Some people said he was stupid. Other's called him a 'hero'. I'd say he was somewhere in between.

Fairwell, R.C..... I played with your toys as a child!




Friday, November 30 marked the end of what will forever be remembered as the longest and most courageous battle between one man, a man we all know as the world's greatest daredevil, and death. Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel died in Clearwater, Florida, finally succumbing after nearly a three-year bout with the terminal lung disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He was 69.

His death was preceded by more than 40 years of constant battle against the persistent pain of broken bones and severe trauma after jumping and crashing motorcycles like no man had ever done before. In addition, he fought to overcome the tremendous obstacles of diabetes, hepatitis C, a liver transplant, numerous surgeries and two strokes.

Knievel's legacy as America's Legendary Daredevil, Last of the Gladiators, and King of the Stuntmen will undeniably live on among millions of fans, past, present and future.

However, the memories of the man apart from his legend will live on even stronger in the hearts of his friends and family. Despite his well-known swagger of self confidence, the legacy he wished for most of all was simply to be an inspiration.

"The fame of great men ought to be judged always by the means they used to acquire it." By this maxim, nothing will ever be able to take away or challenge the things accomplished by Evel Knievel.

Whether it was unmatched courage or just an absolute unwillingness to give in to fear, Robert Craig Knievel was a man's man through all the days of his life. He took great pride in the simply stated, yet most difficult to accomplish principles: always living up to his word, never shirking the responsibility or consequences for his actions regardless of the personal risk, and never, not ever, failing to stop trying.

Knievel was born in Butte, Montana on October 17, 1938 to Robert Edward and Ann (Keough) Knievel. He and his younger brother Nic were raised by the loving family of paternal grandparents Ignatius and Emma Knievel.

Growing up and living in Butte were some of the most valued times of his life. His fame took him far and wide across the country and even over seas, but Knievel never let go of the love and pride he had for his hometown.

Growing up in a blue-collar mining town, Knievel attended Butte public schools before serving in the U.S. Army reserves. As a young man he was always an exceptional athlete, hard worker and determined individual. Knievel explored and excelled in many different professions, if only for a short time, before finding his calling as the ultimate daredevil.

During his prime as a bona fide celebrity, Knievel enjoyed his spoils to the highest. He loved fast cars, private airplanes, fancy yachts and the finest clothes and jewelry money could buy. He was sought out by Hollywood and remained friends with many famous people until his death.

In the end, he had a few regrets, but he always sincerely strived to do the right thing. He never forgot who his real friends were. He never forgot his love for his family. And he never forgot the place from where he came, what he'd learned or what others had done to help him get to where he did. The red, white and blue for which he is famous were a tribute to his Butte character as much as they were for America. In his last years, one of the greatest honors was being able to share his hometown with his world of fans and to participate and take pride in the celebration of his annual event, "Evel Knievel Days."

He dearly loved his grandchildren and he always made it a point to stay in touch with the people he loved the most, his friends and family. And lastly, most important to him above all was his new-found faith in Jesus Christ. Just as he always took great care in surrounding himself with the best people he could depend upon to help him make his jumps during his motorcycle career, Knievel found his greatest friend of all in preparation for his final leap from life. He was profoundly happy that he gave his life to God, who comforted him and gave him the strength he needed to make it through the end.

Knievel is survived by his loyal friend and wife, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, whom he married in 1999. She stood by his side through his greatest struggles with health until his death. His in-laws include Krystal's mother Sylvia and her husband Wayne Croft; father Glen Kennedy, and Krystal?s sister Shawn and husband Rory with their two children.

He is also survived by his former wife of 38 years, Linda Bork Knievel. Though they divorced, Linda and Evel had four children that all made them proud. Son, Kelly Knievel and daughter-in-law Shelli with granddaughter Lily; son, Robbie Knievel and granddaughters Krysten and Karmen, with great-granddaughter Analiese; daughter Tracey and son-in-law Mitch McCloud with grandchildren Josiah, Jesse, Melody, Cody, Cole, Casey and Dusty with wife Rachel and great-granddaughter Lucy; and his youngest daughter Alicia, with son-in-law Matt Vincent and grandchildren Madelyn, Jaicee, Rye and his sixteenth grandchild expected this June.

Other surviving family members include his stepmother, Mrs. Robert Edward Knievel; brother, Nic and his wife Rusty; sister, Kristy and brother-in-law Hugh Lawrence; sister, Renee and brother-in-law Bill Slaughter; sister Robin and brother-in-law John Dick; and sisters Loretta Young and Kadie Boney. His is also survived by numerous nieces, nephews, extended family, friends and his millions and millions of fans.

Public services will be held for family, friends and fans at the Butte Civic Center at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, December 10th. A private Christian burial and graveside services will take place at the Mountain View Cemetery.

Hawaii should play in the BCS title game!

Pour yourself a big Glass of Shut Up Juice, LSU and Bulldawgs fans.



So Hawaii had a weak schedule: Woop-De-Do! That will happen when Michigan, Michigan State, Florida, and USC run and hide when you try to schedule a game. If the BCS conferences want to whine about Hawaii's weak schedule, then they only have themselves to blame.


12 of the top 5 ranked teams went down to unranked teams this year. Hawaii beat every unranked team they came across.

Make all the rationalizations, calculations predictions, statistics, and temper tantrums you want, but at the end of the day, big guys just couldn't get the deal done and Hawaii did.

What bias?

So let me get this straight.

The Democrat candidates refused to debate on FOX News, but the GOP goes on CNN and has not one, not two, but three plants in the audience?

"The signs for all are obvious and should have revealed themselves through a quick click-through to each YouTuber's bios and other videos. The girl who asked the abortion question is wearing a John Edwards t-shirt in one of her videos."

http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/510e25b1-bd33-49de-8443-91f18fd3d5a8

Wow. Sure glad there's no 'bias' there, huh? Dontcha know that if FOX News held the Dem debates and a bunch of GOP plants were there, why we would not hear a peep about it, right?

You dont even have to 'expose' CNN, it does the leg work for you. Either this is clear bias, or a terribly unprofessional job...There is no other explanation!

What bias?

nude beach

the first heartbreak...

While cleaning out my basement yesterday, I came across this hilarious picture.

Yes, that is a 16 year old Evan in the picture. This would be about 1983....A couple years before I discovered 'breakdancing' and 'parachute pants'!

The tall girl in the picture with me was my first 'real girlfriend'. I was a good looking kid in general, and I never had a problem courting the young ladies. But, I was a lowly kitchen worker at the time: I washed dishes and cooked food while my older brother who I lived with ( in order to go to the School for Creative and Performing Arts) was a camp counselor at Fort Scott summer camps...

Shawn was a college freshman, a statuesque brunette that towered above me at 6 foot. She was 'model material', and the opportunity to bag a 'college girl' while still in high school and a virgin was quite a feat. Yet, somehow I managed to do just that.

Shawn worked as an equestrian counselor: I grew up around horses, and I can't stand them. Before the summer was over, she would take my virginity in a freezing barn late one night.

We continued to see each other most of the summer. With 2 weeks left to go, I saw her one evening walking to the barn with a tall, handsome guy, holding hands. I was devestated. I ran back to my cabin and weeped for hours.

The tall, handsome guy was Richard Stenger. He was one of my older brothers best friends. I hated him with a white hot intensity that still lingers today.

Years later, I would run across him in a late night Gay bar called 'Weekends'. It was where everybody went to score drugs. He approached me and said 'hello' and asked if I knew how to get him some drugs. I told him I could get him some LSD, I then went in the bathtroom and found a business card in my wallet. I cut 2 small squares off of it, then urinated on them. Then I dried it under the hand dryer, came out and charged this guy 20$ for his 'hits'. He put them in his mouth, and I left the bar. I never saw him again.

But, his little brother lives in town, and I see him occasionally, and I am quite fond of him. Wierd, huh? When my older brother comes calling, he always see's him!!

It's very strange that when I first saw this picture: I immediately recalled that heartbreak. I felt just as wounded yesterday as I felt so many years ago. I'm happily married with a baby boy, but sometimes when I hear certain songs, I can bring back that bittersweet pain, all over again.

Who knows where Shawn is today? She will never know the role she played in my life: she taught me a very valuble lesson, one that I desperately needed to be taught. You see, I was quite the 'heartbreak kid', I went through a lot of girlfriends, and I would dump them as quickly as I was dumped. I would continue to do this for years to come, but I did think about the girl's feelings when I would break up with them. I would still do it, but I would feel a little guilty...

Oh well.

Derrick Boazman. Stuck on stupid, on the down low.

Flashback to July 2005, when the Georgia Aquarium opened...

"Bernie Marcus, the billionaire co-founder of the Home Depot, is one of the chief benefactors in the massive construction project known as the Georgia Aquarium. This aquarium situated in the heart of Atlanta has been trumpeted as the largest Aquarium of its kind, with fish from around the world. This aquarium is also expected to bring millions in tourist dollars to the city, not to mention the jobs it will provide for Atlanta residents.

For some local politicians, however, that isn’t sufficient. Local activist and former city councilman, Derrick Boazman has issued a threat. Hire the homeless and back off support for a downtown panhandling ban or we will shut down the aquarium thru protests.

This blowhard of a politician shows all the hallmarks of an up and coming young demagogue. Boazman’s threat highlights two inescapable realities. In the first place the left can turn anything, however good and beneficial it may be into a negative and secondly these so-called activists will do anything to grab the media spot light.

Indeed, Marcus has done more for the homeless than Councilman Boazman could ever claim, having donated over half a million dollars to a local homeless shelter. This is unimportant to Boazman, just has the financial benefits of this tourist attraction are also unimportant.

What is important is media attention and the rush of power and influence he believes he has. Boazman’s actions should not come as a surprise, it is the expected result of an entitlement attitude. In Boazman’s mind, there is nothing wrong in demanding jobs for the homeless, regardless of whether or not they may be qualified for such positions. This is the typical entitlement attitude, one which is based on the premise that people should be rewarded regardless of merit.

If Bernie Marcus was smart, he would call Boazman’s bluff, demolish the aquarium brick by brick and take his multi-million dollar investment to some place where it will be appreciated."

http://wsbradio.com/news/0725homelessmarcus.html

so here we have a local rich dude, who donates a nice tourist attraction to help revitalize downtown....He is met with scorn by Derrick Boazman.

Now, Grady Hospital is going broke. It cannot operate at current levels due to insufficient funding, or so 'they' say.

The City of Atlanta seized the airport years ago, and takes all the $$$$, yet can't seem to fund 'free healthcare' for the poor or illegal immigrants.

"The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce in July proposed that Grady change its governing structure to create a nonprofit board to control daily operations, though the current board would retain ownership of the health system. The plan has been met with skepticism from activists and citizens who fear the change would threaten the hospital's mission as a safety net hospital that cares primarily for the city's poor.

Under the resolution adopted Monday night by the Fulton Dekalb Hospital Authority Grady's current 10-member board the Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation would be created as a 501(c)(3) and composed of 17 members, four of whom would be members of the current board.

The nonprofit board would have a lease agreement with the current board. Several conditions of the proposal hinge on that agreement, including a $200 million, four-year commitment from the business, charitable and philanthropic communities including $50 million in cash or in escrow before the lease agreement is executed;

A commitment to raise $100 million in private donations over three years by the same groups;

An additional $30 million from the state of Georgia, to which the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the house would commit in writing."

Okay, what seems so 'wrong' about that?

"State Sen. Vincent Fort and activist Derrick Boazman were involved in a scuffle with Grady Hospital security outside of the hospital board room shortly before the meeting was moved across the street. Fort told the board members that he was skeptical about the proposal.

``Y'all ought to be ready to stay here all night,'' Fort said when board members asked him to conclude his speech. ``The fight ain't over. If some of us have to go to jail, so be it.'"

http://wsbradio.com/news/112707grady3a.html

Broadcaster Freedom Act

The mainstream media likes to brag about bringing us all the news that’s fit to print. Remember these recent stories?

Public schools in California next year will be required to teach 5-year-olds that homosexuality is normal and healthy — and that kids pick their "gender."

Television meteorologist John Coleman, who founded the Weather Channel, published a scathing article dismissing global warming as "the greatest scam in history."

Rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq fell in October to the lowest level in 21 months, after peaking in June before the "surge" in forces got under way.

Draw a blank? It could be because the mainstream media mostly ignored these stories, or briefed them on page A13. To hear about them, you likely had to rely on talk radio.

Buried speech isn’t free.

That’s one more blessing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: Ordinary parents, taxpayers and voters still can get news that matters to their lives. Talk radio remains one of few places to hear a trustworthy voice probing subjects of consequence — whether Rush Limbaugh or Alan Colmes is our cup of tea.

And no thanks to some in Washington.

Just this summer, liberals such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin complained that conservative media bias killed amnesty for illegal immigrants. Their remedy for the non-existent problem: resurrect the misnamed Fairness Doctrine to force the same "balance" on government-licensed broadcasters that had stifled public affairs programming until 20 years ago.

Talk radio began to prepare its audience for battle, but the liberals fell silent, biding their time. Perhaps they’re calculating it’ll be easier to clamp down on free speech once Democrats take back the White House and strengthen their hold on Congress.

Not everyone got the memo about keeping quiet. An Oregon newspaper, the Bend Bulletin, quotes a spokesman for Rep. Maurice Hinchey saying the New York Democrat will fold a new Fairness Doctrine into legislation to limit consolidation of media ownership.

Such a post-election scenario is “an existential threat to talk radio as we know it,” says Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican.

Pence, determined to confound the Democrats’ stealth strategy, wants a House vote before the election on the Broadcaster Freedom Act. That’s the bill he sponsored to forbid future presidents from re-imposing Fairness Doctrine-style constraints on broadcasters unless authorized by an act of Congress.

Speaker Pelosi, the House’s top Democrat, has bottled up the Broadcaster Freedom Act. So on Oct. 17, Pence filed what lawmakers call a discharge petition, seeking signatures from 218 members (a simple majority) to mandate an up-or-down vote on his bill.

Pence needs 24 more signatures. So far, 194 of 200 Republicans have signed. But not one of 233 Democrats has had the courage to break ranks in favor of debate, amendments and a vote.

The stakes are huge, says Pence, a former radio talker himself. If liberals succeed in setting the standards for political content on the public airwaves, he warns, "free talk radio would wither on the vine." Most stations would switch to country music or another format to escape a tangle of red tape dictated by Washington.

Pence’s prediction is based on past performance: In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission fashioned a rule that broadcast radio and television stations — a fraction of today’s media mix — must "afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial matters of public importance."

Station owners and managers eventually retreated to bland programming to avoid all the paperwork, costly legal challenges and political pressure from the White House down. In 1987, the FCC rescinded the Fairness Doctrine, calling it a “government intrusion” serving neither the Constitution nor the public. Little wonder that, since then, the number of talk radio stations more than tripled — to 1,400.

The standoff is awkward for Democrats, since 107 of them joined Pence and the Republicans in June to forbid the FCC from reviving the Fairness Doctrine on its own. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), who supports the Broadcaster Freedom Act, told Roll Call newspaper he’s not certain the bill warrants bypassing procedure and bucking leadership.

But Republican strategists think Pence has a shot at breaking the logjam by arguing the merits of unfettered talk radio to Altmire and other Democratic freshmen in Republican-leaning districts.

"They don’t want to be the reason some day,” as one House aide puts it, “that their district’s favorite talk shows are gone."


Ken McIntyre

old golf joke

A father, son and grandson go out to the country club for their
weekly round of golf. Just as they reach the first tee, a
beautiful young blonde woman carrying her bag of clubs
approaches them. She explains that the member who brought her
to the club for a round of golf had an emergency which called
him away and asks the trio whether she can join them.

Naturally, the guys all agree. Smiling, the blonde thanks
them and says, "Look, fellas, I work in a topless bar as a dancer,
so nothing shocks me anymore. If any of you wants to smoke cigars,
have a beer, bet, swear or tell off-color stories or do anything
that you normally do when playing a round together, go ahead. But
I enjoy playing golf, consider myself pretty good at it, so don't
try to coach me on how to play my shots."

With that the guys agree to relax and invite her to drive first.
All eyes are fastened on her shapely behind as she bends to place
her ball on the tee. She then takes her driver and hits the ball
270 yards down the middle, right in front of the green. The
father's mouth is agape.

"That was beautiful," said the dad.

The blonde puts her driver away and says, "I really didn't get
into it and I should have faded it a little more."

After the three guys hit their drives and their second shots
(she was closest to the pin) the blonde takes out a nine iron
and lofts the ball within five feet of the hole.

The son says "damn, lady, you played that perfectly."

The blonde frowns and says, "it was a little weak. I've left
a tricky little putt." After the son buries a long putt for a
par, dad two putts for a bogey and granddad overruns the green
with his pitching wedge, chips back and putts for a double
bogey, the blonde taps in the five-footer for a birdie.

The guys all congratulate her on her fine game. She puts her
putter back in the bag and says, "Thanks, but I really haven't
played much lately, and I'm a little rusty. "Maybe I'll really
get into this next drive."

Having the honors, she drives first on the second hole and
knocks the hell out of the ball, and it lands nearly 300 yards
away smack in the middle of the fairway. For the rest of the
round the statuesque blonde continues to amaze the guys,
quietly and methodically shooting for par or less on every hole.

When they get to the 18th green, the blonde is three under par,
but has a very nasty 12-foot putt on an undulating green for a
par. She turns to the three guys and says, "I really want to
thank you all for not acting like a bunch of chauvinists and
telling me what club to use or how to play a shot, but I need
this putt for a 69 and I'd really like to break 70 on this
course. If any one of you can tell me how to make par on this
hole, I'll take him back to my apartment, pour some 25-year
old Royal Salute Scotch in him, fix him dinner and then show
him a good time the rest of the night."

The yuppie son jumps at the thought. He strolls across the
green, carefully eyes the line of the putt and finally says,
"Honey, aim about 6 inches to the right of the hole and hit
it firm. It will get over that little hump and break right
into the cup."

The father kneels down and sights the putt using his putter
as a plumb. "Don't listen to the kid, darlin', you want to
hit it softly 10 inches to the right and run it left down that
little hogback, so it falls into the cup."

The old gray haired grandfather walks over to the blonde's
ball on the green, picks it up and hands it to the her. "That's
a gimme, sweetheart. Your car or mine?"

wierd

so I had to pick up a Honeybaked Ham for the kid's thanksgiving pot luck at school...Little did I know it would be a 45 minute excursion!

Here's a tip for the good folks at Honeybaked hams: if you have 50 people waiting over a half and hour in line, how 'bout some samples? Nothing beats standing in line sniffing mouth watering pork all morning.

Another wierd practice that only happens in the 'hood is showing the food to the brothers. Order chicken wings, and the counter lady has to open the box so that Jamal can peer inside. Imagine a pack of people all wanting to get a peek at thier new ham. The poor gals had to unwrap every ham, slowing the process to a halt!

Mudcat's back from Europe so I'll probably get to see him this weekend @ the Northside Tavern....

boy inventor

Jake Wulf wants to keep the lid on it. The 9-year-old Odebolt boy flushed out a plan for a foot-activated toilet seat lifter that is called the "Privy Prop," designed to lower and raise the toilet seat.

While her son, who is in the school's Talented and Gifted program, manages assignments with ease, he has one weak spot: remembering to lower the seat after he's done, Beth Wulf said.

"My mom was getting mad at me for forgetting to put the toilet seat down and she was falling in," said Jake, a fourth-grader at Odebolt-Arthur Elementary School.

"He's done this pretty much all his life," his mother said "He's in too big a hurry to take care of that. He's been reminded thousands of times over the years."

In future news: Jake Wulf dead at the age of 11 from an 'Atomic Swirlee' administered by his classmates.

selected, not erected.

It was very early morning on Wednesday November 9, 1960 and the mood in John F. Kennedy’s hotel suite was somber. Theodore H. White, whose Making of a President 1960 is the gold standard of campaign chronicles, describes the emotions in that room as whipsawing back and forth all night between a kind of giddy elation and premonitions of doom.

Early returns from the east coast had given Kennedy a huge lead in the popular and electoral vote. But by the time the polls closed in California at 11:00 PM EST, Nixon’s strength in middle America and the mountain west had brought him within striking distance of the Massachusetts Senator. States still in play included Texas and Illinois where the last great playoff between Democratic and Republican vote fraudsters was about to play out over one the longest nights in election history.
In any other context besides electing the leader of the Free World in extremely perilous times, this contest between the old-time political machines in the big cities and rural counties might have been seen as either high drama or low comedy depending on your point of view. As it was, it proved that both sides were in deadly earnest to come out on top and if it became necessary to bend, break, or mutilate the rules to do so, no stone would go unturned in “finding” enough votes for their candidate to prevail.

Indeed, as the night unfolded, partisans in both states played cat and mouse, reporting the “results” from various precincts in a chess game of cheating that included elements of psychological warfare as well as simple vote fraud.
Actually, there was nothing simple about it. The great political reporter Earl Mazo from Hearst’s New York Herald Tribune investigated the shenanigans in Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Chicago and ferreted out the truth of what happened that night. It seems that the downstate Republicans were cooking the results in the precincts they controlled – “long tallies,” fraudulent counts, and other well worn gimmicks boosted Nixon’s total over Kennedy from 9,000 – 16,000 votes for most of the night.

After the GOP would dutifully report a few dozen precincts for Nixon, it became Daley’s turn. But Daley was playing it cagey. He would only pull enough votes out of his hat (Mazo actually saw the cemetery where the names of the dead people had been registered to vote and had been checked off as having voted) to pull Kennedy close enough to Nixon, hoping to panic the crooks downstate into putting all their cards on the table and completing their precinct tally.

At around 5:00 AM, a Kennedy aide approached Bobby Kennedy (JFK had already gone to bed) and glumly reported that Nixon had a lead of almost 10,000 votes in Illinois with just a few precincts in Chicago still out.

Kennedy smiled a tired smile and told the aide not to worry, that Daley had those downstate Republicans right where he wanted them. And indeed, despite Nixon taking 91 out of 103 counties in Illinois, Kennedy won the state by nearly 9,000 votes. He did it thanks to Daley’s machinations which gave the Democrat an unbelievable 450,000 vote margin in Cook County.

No such drama was necessary in Texas. In counties along the Mexican border, it has been alleged that simple vote buying by the Lyndon Johnson political machine ended up giving that crucial state to Kennedy as well. By winning both states by razor thin margins, Kennedy was able to best Nixon in the electoral college 303-219 while beating the Republican by 110,000 in the popular vote.

It is said that the defeat so affected Nixon that he swore in 1968 that he would never let the Democrats steal another election from him. This led to Watergate and the rest is tragedy.

Following the numerous accusations of fraud in the 1960 election and in order to be able to accurately report on individual precinct tallies, AP, UPI and the 3 news networks entered into an agreement to monitor vote counts at the precinct level using volunteers who would then call the results in to a central location where they would be tallied and sent along to the networks. Called The Voter News Service, the VNS used everyone from senior citizens to boy scouts in order to get the raw vote totals from as many precincts as possible. Sometimes, there was a lack of cooperation.

Chicago, for example:

After the 1960 scandals, Republicans and some reform Democrats, under the leadership of corporation executive Charles Barr, launched “Operation Eagle Eye,” a bipartisan anti-fraud effort. In the 1968 June primary, Eagle Eye poll watchers ventured into 600 machine-controlled precincts, many for the first time. They were offered bribes, threatened and terrorized. Their car windows were smashed, their tires slashed.
But generally speaking, the VNS (now known as the National Election Pool or NEP) did more to make American elections more honest than any citizens reform movement in history.

But really all it did was drive the fraudsters to come up with more inventive ways to game the system. While playing fast and loose with actual raw vote totals became much harder, the cheaters in both parties began to concentrate on more subtle forms of fraud. And each party has become adept in different areas of voter fraud over the years to the point that it is believed that American elections are now in danger of once again falling victim to being stolen given the right circumstances.

Beginning in the 1970’s, Republicans began local campaigns to intimidate minority voters to keep them going to the polls. There were many techniques used by the GOP including “election observers” who would ask for identification at polling stations and turn away those without valid ID - despite the fact they had no statutory authority to do so. There have also been reports of mailings made in black precincts that informed potential voters that if they had an unpaid parking ticket, they would be turned away from voting.

It is unknown just how much these tactics tamped down the minority vote. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. charges in a widely read Rolling Stone article that up to 350,000 minority votes were prevented from being cast or simply not counted thanks to GOP cheating in Ohio. What Kennedy didn’t mention in his article was the shocking amount of fraud committed by Democrats which included taking a page from the GOP intimidation handbook as thousands of Ohio Republicans were called and told the wrong date of the election and given false information on where they could vote. Then there was the gaming of the registration system by the notorious fraudsters in ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) – a voter registration organization that pays its workers for each registration acquired.
ACORN not only submitted thousands of fraudulent registration forms. They submitted them at the registration deadline hoping to overwhelm the registrars, forcing them to rubber stamp the registrations without checking to see if they were legitimate. And a glance at the names on some of those registrations would have raised a few eyebrows; Mary Poppins, Jeffrey Dahmer, George Foreman, Michael Jordan, and Dick Tracy were just a few of the famous “Ohioans” whose names were gathered by ACORN.

Clearly, there was fraud on both sides in Ohio in 2004. Other states also had suspected fraud occur including Wisconsin, a state John Kerry won by 10,000 votes in 2004, which witnessed 83,000 election day voter registrations in Milwaukee county alone – around 20% of the vote total. Experts find that number highly suspect. And in Florida, Republicans were up to their old tricks with a mass mailing in parts of Dade County that warned African Americans to stay away from the polls if they ever got a traffic ticket.

Is there any way to safeguard the process while still making it easy and convenient to register and vote? Probably not. The ways to game the system are too numerous and our society is too open to absolutely guarantee that fraud of one kind or another doesn’t occur.

But there are rational, reasonable steps that nearly everybody agrees can help. Currently, only 17 states require the voter to show identification prior to casting their ballot. Despite support for such a measure approaching 80% of the American people, a very loud and vocal minority is resisting. Apparently, advocates for the poor believe that fees for identification are beyond the financial reach of those in poverty. And even if the state were to supply the ID’s for free, there are some who believe it constitutes an unnecessary burden on the people.

What it does is place a burden on those who shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the first place; illegal aliens.

John Fund, whose book Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy details dozens of voter fraud cases, recently wrote of the Voter ID Laws and the resistance to them by advocates for illegal immigrants:
The potential for fraud is not trivial, as federal privacy laws prevent cross-checking voter registration rolls with immigration records. Nevertheless, a 1997 Congressional investigation found that “4,023 illegal voters possibly cast ballots in [a] disputed House election” in California. After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote.

Under pressure from liberal groups, some states have even abandoned the requirement that people check a citizenship box to be put on the voter rolls. Iowa has told local registrars they should register people even if they leave the citizenship box blank. Maryland officials wave illegal immigrants through the registration process, prompting a Justice Department letter warning they may be helping people violate federal law.

We’ve come a long way from the days that George Washington hosted a kegger on election day for the House of Burgesses, buying votes by getting his constituents liquored up. That and vote buying were early traditions in this country, as much a part of election day as the flag and apple pie. Gradually, people started to demand that their vote actually count – that it count only once and that it count in their name. It was a long time coming, but various reform movements, both Democratic and Republican, eventually cleaned up much of the overt fraud and corruption, making elections cleaner and more fair.

But resistance to common sense measures today to reduce voter fraud as well as a reluctance on the part of many to acknowledge that it is even a problem, threatens to make the American people even more cynical and disgusted with politics – a pretty good trick considering how far the bile has risen in their throats these last few years because of the faithlessness and corruption run rampant in our nation’s capitol.

Without trust and faith that the people have a say in their government, this Grand Experiment will wither and die. Securing our elections better will be a small but significant step toward restoring faith and keep the flame of liberty burning in the treacherous winds of politics.

The story of '2 America's' as told by John Edwards

The Treasury study examined a huge sample of 96,700 income tax returns from 1996 and 2005 for Americans over the age of 25. The study tracks what happened to these tax filers over this 10-year period. One of the notable, and reassuring, findings is that nearly 58% of filers who were in the poorest income group in 1996 had moved into a higher income category by 2005. Nearly 25% jumped into the middle or upper-middle income groups, and 5.3% made it all the way to the highest quintile.
Of those in the second lowest income quintile, nearly 50% moved into the middle quintile or higher, and only 17% moved down. This is a stunning show of upward mobility, meaning that more than half of all lower-income Americans in 1996 had moved up the income scale in only 10 years.

Also encouraging is the fact that the after-inflation median income of all tax filers increased by an impressive 24% over the same period. Two of every three workers had a real income gain. This is even more impressive when you consider that "median" income and wage numbers are often skewed downward because the U.S. has had a huge influx of young workers and immigrants in the last 20 years. They start their work years with low wages, dragging down the averages.

Those who start at the bottom but hold full-time jobs nonetheless enjoyed steady income gains. The Treasury study found that those tax filers who were in the poorest income quintile in 1996 saw a near doubling of their incomes (90.5%) over the subsequent decade. Those in the highest quintile, on the other hand, saw only modest income gains (10%). The nearby table tells the story, which is that the poorer an individual or household was in 1996 the greater the percentage income gain after 10 years.

Only one income group experienced an absolute decline in real income--the richest 1% in 1996. Those households lost 25.8% of their income. Moreover, more than half (57.4%) of the richest 1% in 1996 had dropped to a lower income group by 2005. Some of these people might have been "rich" merely for one year, or perhaps for several, as they hit their peak earning years or had some capital gains windfall. Others may simply have not been able to keep up with new entrepreneurs and wealth creators.

The key point is that the study shows that income mobility in the U.S. works down as well as up--another sign that opportunity and merit continue to drive American success, not accidents of birth. The "rich" are not the same people over time.

The study is also valuable because it shows that income mobility remains little changed from what similar studies found in the 1970s and 1980s. Some journalists and academics have cited selective evidence to claim that income mobility has declined in recent years.

But the 58% of lowest-income earners who moved to a higher income quintile in this study is roughly comparable to the percentages that did so in several similar studies going back to the late 1960s. "The basic finding of this analysis," says the Treasury report, "is that relative income mobility is approximately the same in the last 10 years as it was in the previous decade."

confused again!

So, the reason the writers are on strike is because they dont 'feel' they are getting enough $$$ on residuals for content sold online or in DVD's? That's about it, right?

I'm trying to see it unbiased here. The 'company' or 'producers' pay you to write for thier late night shows, sitcoms, drama's, etc..The writers get residuals for every time the footage is aired on TV. But the internet, or DVD repackaging is making alot of $$$. The technology and platform are relatively new, and the legalities of 'residuals' has not been ironed out.

Why 'go on strike' to accomplish this? Won't this hurt or destroy this season more then the '4 cents on a DVD' they stand to lose? It seems a little 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'.

American Idol will be back, and Reality TV , Sports,and scab programming will fill the niche. For those pining for 'My Name Is Earl' or 'The Office'on NBC, they will find it online done by more creative,independant studios outside of Hollywood and NYC, and for free. Often, without commercial interruption!

I liken this to AM radio: consultants and technology have sapped the 'soul' out of it, and left a shallow husk of it's former self. Yet it still makes $$$, though it has been steadily declining. If I want AM programming of the type I used to get, I can still get it, just with a different delivery system now. It doesn't mean I no longer listen to AM radio, just in smaller amounts now.

I think the same will hold true for TV. But, hey I've been wrong before.

a picture is worth a thousand words!

Ron Paul~ crazy like a FOX?

Lot's of news about my man, Ron Paul.


Here’s a prediction I’ve been making for a couple of months now:

- Paul continues to rake in millions of dollars and perform well in straw polls and internet polls, while having the strongest net-roots of any candidate

- Paul continues to underperform in scientific polls, although his numbers increase marginally

- Paul does not win Iowa, or New Hampshire, or South Carolina, or any other the other early primary/caucus states, but he stays in the race nonetheless while other candidates drop out

- When the GOP race is down to just two or three “real” candidates left, Paul will still be in it, refusing to drop out. But the Republican Party will decide to bar him from further debates as his numbers creep up a little more

- The GOP nomination is won by someone other than Ron Paul, but Paul still refuses to concede or release his delegates

- Ron Paul demands that he be allowed to deliver an unedited Prime Time speech at the Republican National Convention in exchange for releasing his delegates and giving a luke-warm endorsement to the GOP nominee. These demands are refused, so he basically tells the GOP to go to hell and runs as a Libertarian or Independent.

- Ron Paul is endorsed by Ralph Nader

- Ron Paul’s supporters quickly gather enough signatures to get him on the ballot in most states (40+). He continues to raise millions of dollars, making him the best-funded Third Party candidate since Perot.

- Because the GOP nominee is pro-war, and the Democrat nominee is seen as not sufficiently anti-war, the majority of Ron Paul’s support comes from the far-left.

- In the general election in November 2008, Ron Paul receives millions of votes, possibly as much as 10% of the total number of votes cast. Exit polling shows that the majority of these voters are young people who would have otherwise voted for the Democrat candidate (or not at all). If it’s a close election, this could provide the margin of victory for the Republican candidate.

Questions:

Assuming the above scenario plays out, who do you believe would be Paul-s running mate?

Would Ron Paul receive endorsements from any major anti-war celebrities?

Would any Republican (or Democrat) Congressmen endorse Ron Paul?

conflicted.

With the writers now on strike, it's time for the Darwin-esque world of Reality Television to rear it's ugly head again. If you recall, the writers were holding out when the first 'Survivor' aired, and the success brought in a whole new genre of television, supposedly without the need for 'writers'. It's time to brainstorm for a new market....

I have an excellent solution: it's a 'Reality Show' concept I've come up with called 'Salvation'. The idea is: you find a terminally ill Athiest man or woman, and put them in a house for thier final months with a Buddhist, Baptist,Hindu, etc....The idea is whoever gets the guy or girl to convert get's a fat check for thier faith: and the terminally ill person get's a dowry for thier remaining family as well as providing ' an important commentary of religion and death'. At least that's how Fox would spin it.

Someone pitch it for me!

November 17: Oakhurst Chili Festival 2- 6 PM

Holla

Every now and then, you run across a true Anti-American.

Check out this smarmy Brit that currently resides in Florida.

Normally, I would not repost an entire article, but this one was worth it.

















Patrick Lockyer
November 4, 2007
If You or Any of your American friends/family are tortured sometime, you might blame Neil Boortz.

There he is on National Radio (today 11/2/07) directing Americans that torture is ok as anyone not in uniform are not covered by the Geneva Accord? He says 'torture the bastards'. But Who are the bastards? Are they the ones in Gitmo scooped up by a 'dead or alive' campaign where anyone could be sold to the US for $5000 as a terrorist and whom most of had to be released to their home countries as innocent in the UK and Australia and Canada for a start. Are the bastards the ones scooped up erroneously and secretly renditioned to torture chambers in Poland and other places with no morals? Are the 'bastards' the ones who just happen to wear turbans and were scooped up just like the Japanese after Pearl Harbor? Imagine the radical school playing this hate tape of Boortz to fire the hatred and your son ending up in the hands of people able to replay the hatred to the captive? How DOES this great nation even allow this man to speak in your name? Do you ever wonder what the Global community make of this acceptance of such evil diatribe? Do you not understand that just as ALL Germans were considered compliant in what atrocities were committed in Nazi times that likewise Americans ARE considered 'compliant' in all that transpires in your nation and BY your nation. Consider this my friends as you contemplate whether to be a 'Boortz' fan. All the French resistance fighters that history admired would have been qualified for torture according to Boortz. The Germans occupying Paris could have and maybe DID justify their evils as not contravening Geneva Accord when they tortured and annihilated Jews and gays and gypsies not wearing the Swastika? Do you not see where Boortz and Hannity take you and your great nation with this philosophy? Do you know how long it takes to build a national reputation and how long it takes to lose one? Think of Japanese torture or German history. How long WILL it take for those two nations to shed that reputation? Get rid of Boortz and Hannity and Limbaugh as the world hears this hatred and tar us all with that same brush. We had a hateful equivalent in the UK in the 60's in the name of Enoch Powell but he was not on a national platform and did NOT have such hateful fervent national evil support? Enoch Powell was NOT allowed to be powerful but Boortz is? Figure?

I am hearing that Neal Boortz is spouting (recently) that UNICEF is not the cause to subscribe to as they are the United Nations and we have to hate the United Nations and if we subscribe to an American Charity the recipients will love us in America instead of loving the United Nations. According to the majority of people I talk to they appear to consider UN to be Anti American? Wake up America. The United Nations is ‘the world’. They are not a separate entity. You are merely the ‘playground bully’ saying ‘no one loves me’. How do you suppose that UN (the World) is about to love, respect, embrace a nation who openly states that they are 1. Opposed to the rest of the world, 2. Hate the rest of the world and find them Anti American, 3.Do not see any need to embrace and be part of the rest of the world. Is it that UN just happens to be located in the States that makes you so pompous? I don’t think that it SHOULD be located there as Geneva is a much more mature location and much more trustworthy. Do you ever ever hear of any other nation BUT the USA talking of being better than the world and talking of being Anti UN or if you like Anti World?

Boortz is now talking about Britain and how many thousands leave Britain to get treatment abroad as they cannot get it at home. Rubbish, there will always be those who want specialist treatments and especially cosmetic ones, as they are not prevalent in the UK. I myself waited a year to get moles removed for free and it might be that some might be rich enough or impatient enough to go elsewhere and even to get it on the cheap in India or Spain. They probably treat it as a vacation at the same time and there are some here who go to Mexico for treatment for just the same reasons. I have seen some gruesome overgrown moles on people here that you don’t see in the UK. Boortz now is stating that someone in the UK cannot get his or her drug, as it is not commonly used in the UK. There are many drugs available for each condition and many will insist on a particular one just as I heard on Howard Clark that a guy was going to need $37,000 for a Colon Cancer procedure that WAS not available on his insurance. No one need to have any money for a colon cancer operation in the UK and that includes a guy on the street?

Boortz is spreading unfettered crap and is able to spout his nonsense without reply and I can just see him rubbing his hands together at having such good fortune that ‘talk radio’ allows that cr*p. Talk Radio in the UK would mean a statement like he made and then the rebuttal from listeners compromising that standpoint and giving two sides to the coin. It is disgusting that he can orchestrate and misquote at his hearts content. How can free speech America not denounce and remove such a denigration biased radio program?

Now we have Limbaugh going on about the same 70,000 British tourists who go abroad for treatment. He says that Brits must be hard pushed if they want to go to Turkey for an operation. I can assure you that they don’t go for heart surgery and a cheap vacation and a bit of chiropody on the cheap? Now we have Hannity saying about UK and that ‘we are headed for a European type nation’ and I wonder what is wrong with that? All over Europe you see a better life style and you see confidence and stress less old age. You don’t hear of people putting a gun to their heads over losing their jobs. You surely realize that it would not matter whether the Conservative party or the Labor Party were in office in Britain that they are not about to change the Welfare System. No one wants a change. Here, everyone wants a change is the difference.

I don’t care whether Hannity wants to think that the UK is in a bad state but I DO object when they lie about the average Brit not being content with his all? The average Brit is more than happy and many many of them wonder what the hell I am thinking of in wanting to be here? I am not here because the situation was bad and that I could not get medical aid or had to ever wait for anything or for a doctor. I do know that people here are living on a knife-edge in being covered and will lie to try and keep their insurance. My ex wife in Pensacola hid her condition of diabetes and I suffered the consequences of her affliction. There is no way that anyone in the UK would hide a condition or be afraid to tell their doctor in case they were refused insurance at some later date. Social medicine obviously makes for a more open and honest society, as I believe that once you start having to lie to survive then it becomes habit to lie to prosper and survive. Then to advance to the top you will have no hesitation in lying as always.

To the girl on Neal Boortz who lost her brother in Iraq and who IS for torture I would like the opportunity to discuss the matter further. Firstly how is it that so many females are 'for' torture and yet where I come from they are not. Even in your situation. What if you were to be captured with your brother and made to watch his torture and were asked to give your opinion on torture to the perpetrators of your brothers torture because you know that IF you are 'for' torture then you have to be acceptant of your brothers torture also? Are we not all created equal? In your eyes and judging by your comments your brother should not be tortured but the Iraqi should as they are not in uniform? Do you then think that the Gestapo had a perfect right to torture the 'terrorists/French resistance' as they were not wearing the swastika? Do you mean to tell me that these people we see in photos with wires and hoods are 100% guilty and deserve torture for being caught? Were this photo one of a German jail in occupied Paris would you draw the same conclusion that the resister/insurgent deserved the torture or if they were a captured American Revolution soldier in plain clothes? Americans need to step across the pond and look back at yourselves. What do you see? Are you proud? Want to go abroad and brag of being American? Did anyone brag of being German? Do they even now? Figure.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=41994

it's a small world, ACHTUNG UBER ALLES

so I have survived yet again another trip to the land that mouse built...And this time, it was about the same.

I cannot figure out what exactly it is that attracts my wife to this 'fantasy land', and I say that with aplomb. It seems we always get there, and then realize a 22 month old ( or a 8, 12, and 15) is not going to 'get much ' out of Disney, but we make the best of it. Personally, for what we spend at a moderate resort @ Disneyworld, we could take 2 weekend cruises out of Cocoa beach or Jax, including a babysitter on board! But it's what makes the old lady 'happy', so since she is earning the $$$, I will choose my battles, and this is one that aint worth it.

I will say this about Orlando, and Disneyworld in particular. Living in the ATL, getting 'basic comprehensive service' on anything such as dining, entertainment, or lodging is impossible. Try coming here sometime and you will see. But such is not the case down there.

I don't know how they do it: but they have service DOWN. From the minute you arrive, from the high priced resort to the lowly 40$ campsite, they never drop the ball. It's positively amazing. I'd like to consider myself well travelled, and I've stayed under bridges and at the Ritz~ but I've never quite experienced what I have at Disney.

Here's an example. On Halloween night, we secured reservations @ the Boardwalk resort, a hoity-toity resort on the 'upper scale' of the DVC properties. While swimming with the family, I turned my back to an oriental guy I thought 'looked out of sorts' to me. He wasn't wearing swim clothes, but he did not look like a bum, and there were other oriental families swimming nearby, so I thought ' oh well, Uncle Crazy can't swim'.

A yard guy found my wallet in the breezeway 100 yards away with the $$$ missing, but all the credit cars and such intact. I had just purchased a beer at the pool bar, and stashed my wallet in a 'fanny pack', so it happened in a five minute interval. The employee noticed the guy, too, and was shadowing him( I think). He dumped my wallet and booked it, taking my 17$. But this guy had the wallet, called security and his supervisor, and was proactive in getting everything right.There is no way this guy could have been 'in on it' for the 17$$ cut: and all the cards were present. He was just an ordinary Disney employee, that was observant, and he didn't really need to be. There were lifeguards and securty galore, but the yard guy had the wallet in my hand in minutes.

The yard guy!

I dont know what they do down there to get results, but Disney does not run a 'Mickey Mouse' operation. They are the best.

?

"What would you rather have? A politician taking stuff and not saying, but making the best decisions and improving things? Or a politician who names all the drugs he or she has taken but makes lousy decisions for the country?" Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying.

"A politician's job is to do what's best for the people and to improve the country, the economy, the environment. Why should I care if a politician takes sleeping pills every night so long as he can do his job?"


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/15/entertainment/main529462.shtml

Go Dawgz! Sic Em!

In lieu of the Georgia Bulldogs defeating the dastardly Gators, here's a joke:


A man wanted an attack dog to protect his business, so he visited a kennel that specialized in attack dogs. The man explained to the kennel owner that he wanted the biggest, meanest, most vicious dog in the kennel, and the owner offered to take the man on a tour of the premises.


After they had been walking for a few minutes, they came upon a large dog. He was snarling loudly and biting and clawing at the cage. "He looks like he'd be a pretty good attack dog," said the buyer. "Well, he's not bad," replied the owner, "but I have something better in mind for you."


They continued walking around the premises, and after a while they found an even larger, meaner dog than the first. He snarled at the two men and tried to bite them through the wire on his cage. "Ah," said the buyer. "This must be the dog you were referring to earlier." "Well, no," said the owner. "I have something better in mind for you."


The men continued their tour. Eventually, they came upon a fairly large dog that was lying quietly on his side, licking his butt. He did not seem to notice as the men approached. "This is the dog I had in mind for you," said the owner. The buyer was flabbergasted. "You're joking!" he exclaimed. "This dog seems quite tame. He doesn't act at all like an attack dog at all. Hell, he's just lying there, licking his butt!"

"I know, I know," said the owner. "But you see, he just ate a lawyer, and he's trying to get the taste out of his mouth."

Atlanta loses another Grady Jackson

so long, my big fat friend.

sad days, indeed.

It was over a decade ago the city lost a great Sax player, Grady 'Fats' Jackson. I played with this legendary musician a number of times. His trick was he could play 2 sax's at one time.

This week, we found out beleaguered Falcons cut our veteran run stopper to give the 'new kids' some more reps.

I am beside myself. Okay, so the guy is old,fat and slow, but why cut him? Sit him on the bench and use him in short yardage situations..Now, he will probably go to another team in our division while we continue to pay his salary.
This old blubberbutt led the NFL last year in tackles for a loss, and was on pace to meet or break it this year. But our vaunted 'coach' cut him outright.

Stupid,stupid,stupid.

Off to Mouseville with the whole fam damnily for next week. I'll try to stop in and update!

It's a small world after all. At least if your name is Grady Jackson!!

public servant

I would like to tell a story in response to a blogger I respect:

http://www.mynameiswilliamsmythe.blogspot.com/

He asks " what would you do in the situation" while watching a display of poor parenting...Read his post and here's a couple of my experiences...


My wife and I were departing a Falcon's home game, after a dissapointing loss to an opponent we were expected to beat, a couple years ago. Before the words 'rape stand' became part of our lexicon...

With 80,000 fans streaming out in various egresses, we took a route that required a long escalator ride in a nearby Marta station. This is a loooong escalator, and since the game was over, they switched the 'in/out' to 'out/out' meaning we were bottlenecked from a drunken crowd into 2 narrow lanes exiting.

I observed an older man of about 50, a typical 'redneck' type with 3 kids in tow, no wife, screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs at a 'Godammned Cocksucking Fuck-a-neers Fan'. He continued this assault, at which point I turned to the guy 4 feet behind him on the escalator " Hey man, ignore this guy...Good game! "

This was almost too much for Bubba. He then turned to me, who was exactly next to him on the escalator down, and said " Hey, you fuckin' punk! Mind your own goddamned business!This guy bumped into my child! He didn't apologize, that piece of shit!"

At this point, I was standing next to my wife and looking down the escalator at the landing below. I knew that the radio station I worked for at the time had an engineer near a van parked near the bottom of the landing. I looked about me, and could tell that most of the people around me were embarrassed as hell, too.

So this one time, I calmly said to him " Well, excuse me but I didn't recognize your 'Father of the year' badge because you were too busy swearing like that in front of your 'children'! ( which were like 13, 10 and 5 yrs old..)

This set him OFF. He then started to say " I'll talk to your punk ass at the bottom! "

Then about 10 people around him said " Shut up and go home! " and I observed his 13 year old boy tuggin on his arms, saying 'c'mon Daddy, dont do this....dont do this!"

He left when we got to the bottom, dragged away by his kids, and the guy I told 'good game' said thanks, looked a little hammered.

I still wonder to this day if he bumped that guys kid!

I puffed up and felt proud at the time. But later, when I got home, I felt like a douchebag. Because I remember being that kid with the faced Daddy looking like a prick at a sporting event, and I challenged the guy. He would have muttered and walked away, but I was being 'a good servant' and thought I was doing the right thing.

About a year ago, while driving down Boulevard, I noticed a pimp beating the daylights out of one of his ho's in broad daylight while my baby was in the car..I slowed and rolled down the window and screamed " Hey! "

The guy hit that girl so hard and looked at me as if to say "Get involved, motherfucker! I need 2 asses to kick today "....So I drove on, and never even called 9-11. But I feel worse about the incident at the Falcons game then this one, and I cannot justify it.

Sometimes you just cannot win. My little man makes a decent cowboy, though.

Sunday in the Park

So last sunday, after I shook off all the Pivo I indulged in the evening before, I agreed to watch my nephews while the newly single mother did some non-mom stuff...A trip to the Zoo in Grant Park where we live was in order. Since were members, we can take visiting in laws kids to the Zoo free of charge.

I enjoy these two chuckleheads. They are in a rough spot, one I can empathize with, but like most kids, they are happy go lucky.Anyways, we get to the park, and I notice a bunch of moonwalks and vendor tents set up! I asked the zoo employee 'hey, what's going on in the park today?'

She replied ' it's muslim day!' And on the the nephews says ' aren't we supposed to hate them?' I almost fainted. I told him, 'nope:only the crazy ones'. But it was a glimpse into something dark and scary for me...

Well, it looks like Farrakhan was in town to rile up the dumb masses. WTG, Louis.

http://breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SAVIOO0&show_article=1&catnum=1

The fiery orator spoke for nearly 2 1/2 hours, touching on issues including the disparities blacks face in areas such as education, health care, voting and incarceration, the Jena Six case in Louisiana, last weekend's arrest of Atlanta rapper T.I. on federal weapons charges, the war in Iraq and the Michael Vick federal dogfighting case.

What does Mike Vick have to do with disparities? He is not poor! Why even bring this old tired dog of a ridiculous argument up again? The guy is pondscum, yet so many of my neighbors thinks he is above reproach.

I had to buy some champagne for a work party my wife is hosting, so I went to the Tower Liquor store on Memorial drive. As I was checking out, the black lady behind the counter commented on my Falcons cap. I tossed off my latest lame one liner: 'Did you hear Mike Vick got a new show contract? HUSH PUPPIES.'

cricket cricket. This lady was not amused. She warned me not to tell that joke 'round these parts', as some people might take it 'personally'.

These parts? My neighborhood?

How much you want to bet if the black guy delivering the hennessee told the same joke, they would have laughed, or groaned, but not acted like they did when I told the joke? That's wrong right there: this guy did a bad thing, but a white guy who funds his team cant tell a lame pun like that without 'offending' the righteous sensibilities of the young madam with the tatoo on her neck and the 4 inch nails on the left hand!

Why is Mike Vick portrayed as a sympathetic creature?