Journalist weasels...

Which one of these is from the journalists who know what we need to see (AFP), because they have training and judgement?




Thank you,

hot air

Save Darfur...

I'm no Oleg Volk in the picture department, but after hearing a pitch to send a million signatures to the U. N., this came to my mind:



Or for those on a budget:

Chicago Animal Control catches more coyotes than our hunt!

Ten to fifteen a year! They need to call the MFHA.

Employees and customers at a downtown Chicago Quiznos sandwich shop were stunned to see a coyote walk through the propped-open front door Tuesday afternoon and lie down in a cooler...

Nazi Hummels...

I have always been crept out by those Hummel figurines. They always seemed a bit pervert- oriented to my eye. Here's another reason to dislike them, these are German post cards from the 1930s. Currently for sale on Ebay, if you like.

I particularly like the little pilot's pistol holster. I can't read German, does the caption read "Off to Rotterdam?"

Seigfried Sassoon and Michelle Norris...

Both earned the same decoration. One brave 19 year old! I wonder what the Queen thought? She started her career pinning these onto Dunkirk and Narvik evacuees.

The old pro still got a good review-

"I was a little nervous but the Queen was brilliant. She told me she was proud to be presenting me with the award and asked me some questions about if I'd be going back to Iraq."

Yes, she is, in November. Some people ARE fit heirs to their ancestors.

I am stolen from...

I hired well reccommended roofers to repair my roof. I was clear and direct about how the work was to be done, the roofer boss repeated the job details to me.

I came home unexpectedly, to find the job being short cut. I remonstrated, and the roofer boss was surly but ended up doing the job right.

When I came home the next day to pay him and his crew off. I noticed that my recently filled 5 gallon gasoline can was not in its correct place on the porch. After I paid him, he drove away in his shiny new looking pickup truck. And when he had cleared the driveway, I saw the gasoline can sitting beside where the truck had been parked.

Yes, only about a half gallon left. He'd obviouslt poured 4 1/2 gallons into his truck.

Although the can says gasoline, I had just filled it with DIESEL FUEL.

I love it when the crime choice process fails dramatically.

The 1984 advert man thinks we need a liar for President...

I loved the 1984 advert when it came out, and the Hillary parody was great- the ipod was brilliant. The maker finally identified himself. In his Huffington post, he says something very revealing.

...Senator Clinton's "conversation" is disingenuous... I also believe that Senator Clinton is a great public servant, and if she should win the nomination, I would support her and wish her all the best.

Now, the American Heritage primary definition of "disingenuous" is "Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating".

So, he's saying that Mrs. Clinton is not straightforward or candid; that she is insincere or calculating, and that she is a great public servant whom he'd support in running for President.

"I like MY liar" is an awful thing to think, that honesty is a lower priority than ideology. Before everybody screams "Bush lies", actually read what I'm writing here.

Honesty SHOULD be a highly valued thing in a republic's officers. Probably the MOST highly valued. In our polity it's become essentially irrelevant.

Isn't this a fine compliment...

Oleg Volk

is sending people my way! He's a marvellous photographer, and a pretty good pictorial polemecist.

The box of joy...

I am remembering a time a couple of years back in England.

I was at Greenwich, which is one of my very favorite places. One of the loveliest works of man, it's so gorgeous and peaceful, a fantastic beautiful work of art to experience. Built to house pensioned sailors, then (after Nelson and Jervis' veterans died off) the Royal Naval College, now it is Trinity College of Music.

I was walking in the courtyard between two of the wings, each 3 stories tall and made of stone. These were the dormitory rooms for the hospital's pensioners, and so they had big windows for light and air. Inside the wings, where I was, the walls are flat so the passer by is in a huge rectangular solid.

This is one of those places, for me, that stores up its memory in itself, in the stones and glass. You can almost see the old tars sitting about, missing bits torn off by shot or sheet or shark, bowed by ten thousand night watches in storm and ice. Spitting tobacco, drinking their beer and dressing each other's queues.

Funny to think that these spaces once echoed to first person yarns of destroying the Armada, circling the globe with Drake or Cook or Anson, shipwreck, rescuing slaves, mapping the earth, and all the other perils and triumphs of the Royal Navy since 1550 or so.

Anyway, it was a warm autumn day, and all the windows were open. From each window came the sound of a beautifully played instrument or an amazing singing voice. Each different, each playing a different melody. Each student was practicing (as he or she thought) alone. But for their secret auditor, it was like being in a giant reverberating stone box of joy, roofed with a bluer than possible sky.

The world can hold such unexpected brilliance.

Sophie's healthcare choice...

But it's FREE! FREE medical care!

Couple faced choosing which one of them should go blind

Building Bin Laden's Rifle...

I first started reading the O.C. Weekly for the

Haidl coverage. Scott Moxley is a

great, evenhanded and honest reporter. Not just for

perverts , either. And yes, I read

Ask a Mexican and

Savage Love. But when they try to build a terrorist rifle, someone should call Jim Zumbo!

...killing is itself a violent act for a gun...

A present selecting tip...

Apropos of nothing, here's a present choosing tip from B. B.

Man was going to a do for a 15 year old girl. Rather than take a guess at a present for the guest of honor, he went to Tiffany's and asked, "When the 15 year old girls come in here and exchange their presents, what is it that they want instead of what they were given?"

It would work at Target just as well.

One more from the littermate...

"Even when there were problems, I always learned something. Even if it was only something about myself. And it's not like I was left on the curb, well that one time but only four blocks from the house, and that was my fault, I wasn't paying attention. All in all, it was good for both of us."

Talking about the car she left behind her...

Getting into the war...

"This is where the real war is, a war worth fighting. I've never been to Afghanistan and I'm not going to Iraq. But they don't seem to be places that matter, not to me. Maybe, just possibly, we can win a war in Iraq, but sure as hell we're losing the war at our doorstep. You go up to the top of the block and look around. From that roof, you can see power and Parliament, you'll see where all the big people make their money... But if you look down by your feet, you'll see where the war is."

I've given some thought to trying to get directly into the Moslem war. I don't think I'd be much use, but there could be some way that I'd free up a real Marine to fight. But 37 is the sign up cutoff, and that's history for me.

But I've been realising that there are lots of wars going on, and that the one I'm in is still important. More important than the Moslem war, and essential to it. The greatest danger to any people is still tyranny. The Moslems can't conquer us. But our own domestic enemies can. I directly fight, or at least irritate, a major domestic enemy, crime. Crime is an insurgency, too. As criminals control more and more people's lives, all our liberties decrease. And crime will be a basis for our domestic enemies to impose more and more direct limits on us.

Moslems aren't killing, raping, robbing, and oppressing tens of thousands of us every year. Americans are doing that. I cannot imagine the level of peace and freedom and security we could have built at home for a tenth of the trouble and money we've spent on foreigners who hate us already, and who always will.

Just to start with, we could have built and staffed enough prisons so that we could honestly say, "If you kill, rape, rob, or burgle an American, we have a place for you."

Aaaanyway, what got me thinking about this again was the above quoted passage in a book, "Rat Run", a novel by Gerald Seymour, who is a marvellous observer. He has a social worker in a housing project say that, and it's true.

I finally got to say it!

I was in a bail hearing. I looked outside at the snow, and there was no way to stop...

"Your honor might want extra security in the court room."

"Why, General?"

"Because if these defendants get loose, we'll never catch them...

they have chains on!"

Thank you, I'm here all week. Be sure and tip your waiters.

Thank you SondraK, for the referral! I'll post daily, I promise!

My Littermate and condoms...

There are sixish billion people in the world. Although each is unique, not many can be the MOST of anything- fastest, stupidest, best dish washer, whatever.

My littermate is the world's largest....

volume buyer of condoms!

Alas, as she would ruefully say, not for personal use. But still, it's a distinction.

Vive Herouxville!

Non, you can't burn or stone women here!

The Herouxville standards.

La Griffe du Lion added...

Added to the blogroll,

La Griffe du Lion

- clever! He seems to specialise in the places where math, science, race, and politics bump into one another. For example,

I mulled over this problem for several days, until one morning, as Mom packed my lunch for school, the answer struck me suddenly. In the former Soviet Union, the confluence of a failed economic system, totalitarian government and a specific national passion created a circumstance singularly suited to the determination of the Ashkenazic IQ. Out of this joyless society materialized the data required for the calculation. The Soviets had fashioned a threshold that met all the conditions I had imposed, to wit: eligibility to play in the annual USSR Chess Championships.

Thanks to Mr. Reed for the suggestion.

Letter to TheFirstPost about prosecuting...

TheFirstPost seems to think we run the police department.

And a response, from some other hunting prosecutor! Who-woop!

And a response, from some other hunting prosecutor! Who-woop!

M(r, Miss, Mrs, Ms.). Bright is dead on, though there's quite as much whipping in as there is hunting with that pack. I suspect dramatic silliness on the stupidity machine has led British audiences to misunderstand our system. It looks very interesting to see some suit (usually well filled by someone who looks like Angie Harmon or Jill Hennessey) telling the detectives to dash out and do something, but there is much more to it.

We are separate organisations with separate functions and chains of command. I can't make myself a witness, either, or I can't try the case.

I'll give an example. Some years ago, there was a murder in my county. The murderer (a well known dangerous and violent criminal) told his
roommate (a mousy, inoffensive character) what he had done, and the roommate
called the police. In the course of searching the house, arresting the
killer, and so forth, I was already envisioning the trial. I suggested to the
officers, "What will the defendant try to present as a defense? He will say the
roommate did it." Knowing the two people as we did, the theory was silly. But
a jury wouldn't know them. So I suggested that every thing we did to confirm
the defendant's guilt- gunshot residue tests, fingerprints, shoe dirt samples-
we would hear about at trial, because the defense would say we "rushed to
judgement" and should have done the tests for the roommate, too. So they saw
the need to do everything on the roommate. The police officers weren't stupid,
their focus was just different.

Which is an important point, NO ONE wants to charge the innocent, so
eliminating them is something we both want to do.

The British system as it is is unfortunately our default system, too. In MOST U.S.
jurisdictions, including mine, prosecutors have NO connection with a case until they see it in court. I am unusual in working with officers. Most prosecutors have full plates just going to court, and rolling out at two in the morning isn't something they can reasonably be expected to do. I'm considered a bit odd for doing it, fortunately I have no life.

It's a shame, too. I believe that a good, enthusiastic prosecutor and good, enthusiastic police officers have better success in forcing the system to put criminals away. And just as in hunting, a good staff can improve indifferent hounds, and vice versa.

But I do recommend TheFirstPost, it's great. (Servant Problems especially.)

England and France are too rich!

I see by the Torygraph that the hard working tax payers of England are about to pay a bunch of money to a group of dope fiend criminals. These slugs are being paid because their prisons cut them off heroin too quickly!

And then, as I was driving in France between Reims and Verdun, I came upon scores of concrete shapes- spheres, pyramids, cubes, triangles, etc.- artfully coloured and placed beside the freeway. I thought to myself, not one in a million people would trash up his own property this way, but someone in the French ministry of cul-chah is convinced that it’s the way we want to spend our tax euros.

We are too rich. And too stupid, we could change it all.

A moving blog by a dead person...

Really. Words of Grandma is diary entries from the poster's grandmother's diaries. Here's one from 1945-

"I hope Duane doesn't have to go - not that he's better than anyone else but . . . I love him."

How many people have said that over the years. The dead have monuments and holidays, the veterans (SHOULD) have respect in the free country they fought for, but remember the sacrifices of the ones left behind.

Back to the U. S. A...

Or as my littermate calls it, "God's own country".

Glad to be back! Unfortunately CNN did not vanish during my absence, but it still provides TV-B-GONE with lots of fun as I stroll the halls.

Airplane boarding is delayed because the airplane has a flat tire!!

No, wait, it's a thumbtack! I'm off!

I RODE THE SLIDES !!!

They are SO FUN !!!!

A friend suggested that I try these out, so I did. The first time I couldn't get tickets, so the next week I arrived at 7:30 on Sunday morning. The next person in line (at a more sensible 9:30) was a fellow American from San Francisco. By the time the doors were opened, there was a long line. SF had spoken with a slide veteran who revealed that the fourth floor slide was the one to finish with, so our selected order of go was 5-3-4. Up to the 5th floor, feet in the bag, and WHOOSH! There is no way to describe it other than being sucked down the drain! Not some weak drain, but some sort of power assisted evacuation pump from a battleship or a skyscraper.

The sensation is just delicious. It is sudden, instant, and intense. And over WAAAAY too quickly, before I knew it I was spewed out onto the landing ramp, slowing to a gentle stop. I had a HUGE SMILE and my whole being was shouting, I WANT SOME MORE OF THAT !!!

So I barreled up to the third floor, a little line but only a couple of minutes. Whoosh! Not as long as 5, but similar.

Dash to 4, a 5 minute wait. The attendant made his sliders put on elbow pads. Feet in the sack, push off...

WHOOSHBAMWHOOSHBAMWHOOSHBAMMMWHOOOSH!!!!

THAT's what I'm talking about! 4 is not just a cork screw, it has straightaways. So in addition to being sucked down the drain, there is this powerful side to side slamming sensation.

The only way I can describe it is that I felt like a living physics experiment. No, I became physics, a living demonstation of Newtonian dynamics.

PROFOUNDLY head clearing.

I don't know who you are, gentle reader, but YOU WANT TO DO THIS.

SF, who had to leave to catch a flight, was in the landing area and pressed an extra set of tickets on me. Turns out that the admitters had provided an extra set upon SF's request. So I used those, and waited for one more round. And I was still driving past Heathrow at 11.30.

I spent about 10 minutes in the landing area watching the reactions. EVERYONE had a big smile, except for one child who had bumped his head.

Sliding tips-

GET THERE EARLY.

5 and 4. Don't bother with the others.

I saw all ages from 7-8 to late 60s.

Wear clothes without big buttons or other protrusions, be "slick".

Keep your head off the bottom of the slide and your elbows in.

Try it with eyes closed, also eyes open. Just for variety.

Spend a few minutes watching the landings.

Final event, when I was leaving I was meeting an incoming group of twenty five year olds who looked like the sort who go to modern art galleries for the effeteness fix. Front and center of the group was a standard artsy pretty girl, with a Persian cast to her features. She had the standard "I am so above/bored/uninterestable" expression, her mouth a dead straight line and her face like a botox advert. Clearly she was out to impress the boys around her with her unimpressability.

Having been on holiday for a month, I was at the no editing at all stage of behaviour. The slides had pasted a huge dazed idiot grin across my face, which stayed there as the group and I approached. I looked her full in the face, and we made eye contact. My smile got even bigger as I thought, and then said, "You won't look like that after you ride the slides- you'll look like THIS, too!" (Pointing to my face.)

Her mouth twitched just the least little bit, and she looked down to avoid showing emotion. But she smiled later, I'll bet.

And to the San Franciscan, thank you for the guidance, the tickets, and mostly for the improvement that sharing brought. Seeing you experience it and light up too made the day even better. I hope you made your flight.

Am I looking for or at trouble?

The commenters to my last post, though they seem to have misunderstood the complex phrase "hope there areN'T any bombings", ask a fair question. So I thought about whether I am too insouciant about death. Even we crackpots wonder about larger issues on occasion.

Every year we all have two anniversaries. We know our birthday, but we also pass the unknown date on which we’ll die.We live in a strange culture which tries to hide death, at least as a personal rather than an entertainment experience. I use that term carefully, because we produce and buy thousands of hours of moving picture slaughter in which the dead are explicitly not like the viewers. And aside from the death on the stupidity machine, most Americans see little death close up.

I have had enough of my own “marked for death” experiences that I’m perhaps more aware than I should be that I’ll personally find out what is on the other side of the door. I think of death not as just something that happens to other people but as something that will happen to me.

Fear and gloom about death are harmful. Worrying about anything is useless at best, and usually makes the event seem worse than it is. That’s been my experience so far, with few exceptions. And death is the most completely, utterly, entirely inevitable event of all, isn’t it? Sure, there is an element of whistling in the dark there, too. The dark is lonely, so why not whistle? I can't sing worth a hoot.

On the specific level of the war, the jihadis want us afraid. Every packing of a suitcase requires thoughts about the holy 19, and that’s all the faithful are getting out of me. I know that living one day in anytown, USA is far more dangerous than flying. I’m at more risk from a cell phoner on the road or some pistol waving dope fiend than I am from all the minions of Allah. So why not have a laugh at the shaheed? If the best they can do to destroy western civilization is to blow up a Jordanian wedding and make some happy, decent people into corpses, widows, and orphans, they deserve mockery, not fear.

And NO, I do NOT slow down to look at traffic accidents, and I have seen, smelled, and heard enough people burned alive to last me more than a life time. I feel for the mourners, and I do NOT take the tragedies of others as entertainment.

So there are some thoughts, for what they are worth.

On HOLIDAY...

I'm off! I'll blog now and then. Let's hope there aren't any bombings where I am this year as there were last year. If there are, I'll get the feeling it's personal.

Whooo- WOOP!

Best voting or election comment ever...

On the night of the election, a friend told me,

"I don't vote, because I'm afraid I might make a difference."

What he meant was that he found himself unwilling and or unable to educate himself to understand enough about the issues to make an informed decision.

His attitude is WAAAAAY better than "I always vote for the (name of party)."

It's a great line, anyway.

Montage, c'est tout...

Eisenstein said editing is everything, and I enjoy the genre of reedited movies. Check YouTube for words like "recut" or "reedited".

Election approach question...

I've been getting a lot of election telephone calls, computer ones and live too. I saw on a lefty web site the other day a suggestion that when a call comes from a "Rethuglican", to not hang up but to spin out the call as long as possible, thus decreasing the enemy's contact time with voters.

This sort of tactic is, to my mind, right up there with stealing yard signs. But my question is, how do others handle these election calls? I've already voted, so I just hang up.

The German pastor is not the first...

person to self immolate over the religion of peace.

"Dr. Darabi practiced for two years in Bahmanier, a village in northern Iran. In 1968 she passed the Education Council Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) examination and came to the United States to further her education in Pediatrics. She later specialized in Psychiatry and then in child-psychiatry and was licensed to practice medicine in the States of New Jersey, New York and California. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in mid 1970's...

When a 16 year old girl was shot to death in Northern Tehran for wearing lipstick about a month prior to her death, Dr. Darabi could no longer handle the guilt she felt about her favorable involvement in the Iranian Revolution, and the way women were being treated in Iran, she finally decided to protest the oppression of women by setting herself on fire in a crowded square in northern Tehran, on February 21, 1994. Her last cry was
Death to Tyranny
Long Live Liberty
Long Live Iran. "

I have never understood this sort of self destruction, and believe it is madness not self sacrifice. I suppose he despaired, but is not as though no one knows about the problem. Find another way to help.

The box of joy...

I am remembering a time a couple of years back in England. I was at Greenwich, which is one of my very favorite places. It's so gorgeous and peaceful. Anyway, the old Royal Naval College, a fantastic beautiful work of art, is now

Trinity College of Music

. I was walking in the courtyard between two of the wings, each 3 stories tall. It was a warm autumn day, and all the windows were open. From each window came the sound of a beautifully played instrument or an amazing singing voice. Each different, each playing a different melody. Each student was practicing (as he or she thought) alone. But for their secret auditor, it was like being in a giant reverberating stone box of joy, roofed with a bluer than possible sky.

The world can hold such unexpected brilliance.

Pastor sets himself on fire as a warning...

There's no other word but Christ, is there?

"In a farewell letter to his wife the vicar wrote that he was setting himself on fire to warn against the danger of the Islamization of Europe."

Of course, "Bishop Noack emphasized that the motive for the suicide complicates matters. He said he hopes that the affair and the question of how Christians should relate to Muslims will not lead to unrest."

Because there isn't any unrest already. Oh no, pay no attention to those youths behind the banlieu, the great and powerful PC has spoken!

A great new holiday...

Top of the blog roll!

"There should be a day, every year-- a new holiday: Tell Them Day. A day when we all, together, gather Braveness in our hands and Run to those we love silently, and Sing."

"Maybe there should be a day when we actually come out and tell someone we don't love them too. Maybe it could be the same day. I think that part would be even harder."

If Kerry were a man, or an American,

This is what he'd say:

"There is no excuse or explanation for my comment. I am so ashamed of my insult to the millions, living and dead, who have served and saved our liberty as enlisted service members that I am today resigning from the senate and retiring from public life. Any pension to which I am entitled will go to (name of charity serving enlisted service people). That is all I can do to demonstrate my shame. Thank you, and once again I apologise for what I said, and more for the fact that I thought it.

ACTUAL MODERATE MOSLEMS!!!!!!

No, seriously!

(I despise that term, "moderate Moslems". What, they believe in Allah, but not too strongly? That's an insult. What is meant is "decent" or "law abiding" Moslems.)

The dhimmi Manchester Police Department commanded its officers to avoid arresting ROP members during Ramadan as a matter of "sensitivity".

"Police shouldn't hesitate to arrest any Muslims they had planned to during Ramadan. We must all be equal under the law. If people think Muslims are immune from the law, it will only stir up tensions within the community."

That's not me, or some BNP "Racist", but Mohammed Shafiq, from the Ramadhan Foundation! PRAISE BE UPON HIM. When the fatwas come, he's welcome at my house.

And more!

"Boxer Amir Khan is supporting a police campaign to keep the festival of Eid trouble-free in Greater Manchester."

Even more!

"Let not hatred of any people seduce you into being unjust. Be just, that is nearer to piety (al-Ma’idah 5:8). In this context we must state that the murder on September 17th of an innocent Catholic nun in Somalia—and any other similar acts of wanton individual violence—‘in reaction to’ your lecture at the University of Regensburg, is completely un-Islamic, and we totally condemn such acts."

Thans to PC Bloggs and the Dinocrat for the tips.

School shooting solution...

Well, termination anyway.

Of course, the usual suspects have the usual response to the providing of self defense information- doubleplusungoodthink!

"Five or six seventh-grade kids and a 95-pound art teacher can basically challenge, bring down and immobilize a 200-pound man with a gun."

Servant problems...

I may have blogged this First Post series before, but these are some fine honest stories. I'd be intrigued and moved even if I were not a former servant.

I was once accused of the cold, coldness in the heart.

For three months all I hear was "You are stupid"...

Infidel harlot in France stoned for eating a sandwich...

Sorry to steal the

infidelharlot

's name, but really- this 14 year old girl was eating a sandwich in Lyon when some Moslems decided to enforce ramadan.

Do you notice that these characters never go one on one with big strong men? The religion of bullies, too.

The original report is in French.

This is the Babelfish translation. (In France a College is what Americans would call a high school.)

Attacked because she lunched during the Ramadan

The incidents took place in the playground of the Jean-Mermoz college

Four minors were put in examination Tuesday to have thrown stones with a girl who ate a sandwich in a college, in Lyon.

Amélie GAUTIER - 10/10/2006 - 16h49


The headmaster speaks about a "phenomenon of violence in a small college of ZEP", a source of the newspaper the Progress, which reveals information, speaks about teenager attacked "under pretext which it did not observe by the fast of the Ramadan". A pupil of third to the Jean-Mermoz college located in the eighth district of Lyon was slightly wounded Thursday after having received stones thrown by four old boys from 12 to 16 years, according to sources'. The latter reproached him for eating a sandwich during the Ramadan. The facts occurred in the morning in the course of recreation. The supervisors quickly intervened, the 14 year old teenager examined by a doctor was slightly wounded with the face and "very shocked". She did not have a ITT.

"It is a school incident of life which occurs in a a little difficult district", the director of the establishment Philippe Vanzetti in station estimates since September in this small college located at 500 meters of the Large mosque of Lyon. Side of the vice-chancellorship, one refused Monday to evoke the non-observance of the religion as reason for the aggression of the teenager "It is necessary to take time to analyze the facts. However, being in in full period of Ramadan, one can put the question. " According to Progress's, "the thesis of an act related to the non-observance of the Ramadan is however confirmed by the court of Lyon on the faith of the first elements of the investigation". In addition, two minors recognized the facts.

The following day of the aggression, the headmaster joined together all the college "to make a recall with the law". "Each teacher also took time at the beginning of his course to speak about violence at the school with the pupils", specifies Philippe Vanzetti in LCI.fr. And to set up this week of the publicity campaigns at the compliance with the rules "It is necessary really that the pupils understand that violences must remain with the doors of the college", hammers the headmaster. The family of the teenager carried felt sorry for Friday. Six people were heard with the police station of the 8th district. Presented at the court Tuesday, four minors were put in examination.

I am stolen from...

I hired well reccommended roofers to repair my roof. I was clear and direct about how the work was to be done, the roofer boss repeated the job details to me.

I came home unexpectedly, to find the job being short cut. I remonstrated, and the roofer boss was surly but ended up doing the job right.

When I came home the next day to pay him and his crew off. I noticed that my recently filled 5 gallon gasoline can was not in its correct place on the porch. After I paid him, he drove away in his shiny new looking pickup truck. And when he had cleared the driveway, I saw the gasoline can sitting beside where the truck had been parked.

Yes, only about a half gallon left. He'd obviouslt poured 4 1/2 gallons into his truck.

Although the can says gasoline, I had just filled it with DIESEL FUEL.

I love it when the crime choice process fails dramatically.

Veil nonsense...

Can you explain the difference? Because I can't. Other than, "My invisible friend told me to".








It is an offence here to go masked on the public streets. It should be everywhere, if you're hiding your face you're up to no good.

And I'd be ashamed to belong to an organisation which required, or even permitted, such a filthy and disgusting practice.

The Turks prohibited the veil 80 years ago, and most of them are still Moslems.

Diversity nonsense increases racial anger...

and more importantly, decreases everyone's liberty.

"While diversity policies are supposedly introduced in the name of protecting ordinary people they inevitably result in policing and managing them, making race relations worse. "

Me on a date...

On the right...

Christmas at Auschwitz...

Or maybe "Last train to Dachau".

Is it just me who thinks this Christmas plate is not as festive as it might be?

Knoxville blogdezvous...

Thanks to Rick's kindness, the "Rocky Top Brigade" held a blogdezvous in Knoxville. I snuck across the state line to attend. It was fun indeed- laughs, dog stories, politics, religion, husbands, wives, sweethearts, you name it. It has been a few years since I was in Knoxville's "old city", which is a gaggle of turn of the last century stores and warehouses whose owners are trying to make into an urban hot spot. All I can say is, if I were spending a half million dollars for a place to live, it wouldn't be a loft in an old warehouse in Knoxville, Tennessee. That's a Somerset house price!

These were the bloggers who showed- Rep. Campfield and Tam had more important things to do.

Shots Across The Bow
No Silence Here
Juliepatchouli
Frank Murphy
Swap Blog
Staghounds
Domestic Psychology
Knoxviews
TN Girl
jonathan hickman
katieallisongranju
Cafkia
Tennessee's Progressive Report

Average Gay Joe...

"How can I NOT blog roll such a great title?"

Kudzu-Eating Goat Died Of Natural Causes...

"...two guard donkeys were being brought to the site today..."

THIS is an immigration procedure...

More Swiss goodness.

Lefties HATE democracy. When the dumb old people make the wrong choice, the answer is to take the people's authority away.

" “The Milovanovics have met all the legal requirements for citizenship: They have paid 1,000 francs for their application to be considered, they have been interviewed by the local council, they have passed German tests, and demonstrated their understanding of the Swiss way of life. But now they have to convince Emmen's 10,000 voters. "

Have to fisk this one, my cracks are italic.

But all this is not enough: The local political parties in Emmen have been holding meetings so that voters can ask the applicants questions.

The Milovanovics answer everything patiently, meekly, with great courtesy.

As I would be happy to do, if I were asking to be given the priviledge of citizenship.

But why submit to such a humiliating public examination?

Um, because they want to be citizens and are happy to show themselves to their new neighbors?

"Well, if it has to be, it has to be,'" she says. "We'll just put up with it." Where is the outrage?!?! Doesn't she understand that she is a VICTIM with a GRIEVANCE?!?!

Locals' whims

This is the lefty world view in two words. When it's a decision we agree with, it's the sovereign majesty of the people's will expressed through the sole legitimate test of democracy. When we disagree, they are "locals" with "whims".

There is good reason for her stoicism; last year when Emmen voted on applications for nationality, 48 out of a total of 56 were rejected. Not a single person from the Balkans was accepted.

Well, Ms. Foulkes, let them come live in your house.


It is democracy gone sour, a way to express prejudice, and punish innocent people.

No, it's democracy with a result you don't like. I don't suspect that you thought the British pistol ban was democracy gone sour or a way to punish innocent people.

After watching the goings on in Emmen with increasing unease, I asked a Swiss friend whether it would not be better to take the whole nationality issue away from the local communities and make the decision anonymously at federal level. He too is repelled by the prejudices expressed in Emmen, but he looks at me in surprise.

"That could never happen in Switzerland. The people always have the final say," he said.

If only everyone reacted with surprise to the idea of surrendering his sovreiginty to a faceless, uncontrolled bureaucrat. THAT IS A FREE MAN SPEAKING, Ms. Foulkes.

But because in theory it is democracy, no one, it seems, wants to challenge it.

No, this is GENUINE PRACTICAL democracy. Where is the theory part?

"People would vote the same way in your country if they could," said one Swiss friend.

I am sure many would, but they do not have the right to, and quite frankly after watching the ordeal of the Milovanovics I think I prefer a more limited democracy.

That is to say, not democracy.

The irony of the whole miserable Emmen episode is that if the Milovanovic family's application for citizenship is rejected, they will still live permanently in Switzerland, doing the same jobs, going to the same schools and visiting the same shops.

They seem just fine with that deal. I certainly would be.

But they will be doing it all in the knowledge that for some reason their neighbours did not think they were good enough to be Swiss, and worthy enough to vote alongside them.

An important supplement to the lefty creed. I live in the smallest pokiest house in the best neighbourhood in town. I have never been invited into most of those fine houses. I don't demand or care to be, and that doesn't bother me. They don't have to have a reason, as I don't have to justify whom I have visit me. But that won't do for the lefty. Look at the big house, look at the little house. RESENT.

Swiss Bicycle ANTI TANK UNIT...

I'm all Helvetophilic today. But there are some serious philosophical points in this article.

"We can be sitting in a room and if the call comes for action we can get to anything within 50 km before the tank boys have even got their vehicles ready,"

But year after year, as they wait for this action, the same thing happens, and it is beginning to sap the strength of even the hardiest of them - nobody invades Switzerland.

If nobody invades you, you won.

It is a pattern seen right across Swiss society, a dissatisfaction building up with neutrality and isolationism - both of which seemed wise in the past but do not meet the needs of modern life.

Nobody complained about isolationism and neutrality in, say, 1942. Or 1917.

But it also comes from soldiers who want to practise their craft keeping the peace in the world's hotspots, not sit around at home peering over the mountains in mock fear of the threat they know does not exist.

1. Experts like to work, that's where the ego points are. KEEP THE GENERALS ON A SHORT LEAD. When your tool is a hammer...

2. The threat exists. Just because the old bear died doesn't mean there will never be another bear. See lack of threat in 1872, 1919, 1945...

The soldiers - part of a militia army designed purely to defend Swiss doorsteps - feel particularly excluded from global opportunities and challenges.

Five centuries ago the Swiss were the terror of Europe. There's a reason those long ago warriors passed on the empire opportunity. If it works, don't fix it!

Soon perhaps the Swiss will be in the UN and the EU and their bicycle troops will be reduced to ceremonial duties.

I hope not, Brussels is fouling up enough places!

All penis restaurant...

Aren't you glad you don't work at a place where you have to say to a reporter,

"Women don't come here so often, and they shouldn't eat testicles"?

The Torygraph is direct-

In China, you are what you eat.

Whereas Al-Beeb is informative.

"Snake. Very potent. They have two penises each."

I did not know that.

Terrorism has no religion adverts...

"To reveal the true and ample doctrines of Islam, and expose the contempt these terrorists hold for the spiritual essence of our religion. These terrorists and their ungodly way are the ones responsible for making Islam an easily marked target in the eyes of the world, as well as causing Muslims to be the subject of criticism before the world community."

I don't know how to "embed", so click on the links to see the adverts.

http://www.noterror.info/STL-High.wmv

http://www.noterror.info/Routine-45sec-High.wmv

Click here for the campaign web site. There are also links to the adverts in smaller form, if you can't play the larger ones I've linked.

Thanks to my littermate, living in a sandy place.

An interesting Libertarian take on the burka...

And not just because it describes my attire!

" “Whereas your clothes will never go out of fashion; they'll just look dreadful year after year,” came the cutting reply."