The sky is dark and gloomy this morning. We had some big thunderstorms roll through last night and the leaden clouds are still lounging in the sky, pregnant with rain. We needed the rain. My yard was starting to dry up and turn brown. The wife forgot to water a couple of the hanging plants while I was gone for work this week and they have dried in to brown globs. I don't think the rain will revive them to their former glory. I will likely have to mow in the next few days now.

A piece of glass cut me yesterday on the web of my left hand. The cut is  maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter, but it bled like ...well I don't know, let's just say a lot for such a little cut. It would have been much worse if I was not wearing gloves at the time. Am I turning into a closet liberal?  See how I blamed the glass? Goodness. I cut myself with a piece of glass through carelessness. There, responsibility placed on me, me, me not an inanimate object.


I hope your weekend is going well.

For the record

It may be Labor Day Weekend, but I am off to bust my ass helping a buddy do some renovation work. It is going to hot as Hades.

Friday Music

Blasphemy, but Dean Martin was probably a better singer than Frank. From the recordings I have he was a hell of an entertainer. His on stage drunk persona made him famous, yet usually he was stone sober when he performed.

Here is the song performed as originally written by Cole Porter:



For comparison, here is Frank doing the tune:

What a dickwad

Frank Straub was Director of Public Safety in Indianapolis when a cop, smashed into some motorcycles, killing one and injuring two citizens.  The cop is waiting trial for being drunk when he committed this action. The cop has since been busted again for drunk driving. Somehow, the blood draw was screwed up, and evidence tampered with, all under Straub's direction of the department.

Straub is example 1A of the Peter Principle. Now he has turned up as Police Chief in Spokane. He actually blames the murdered victim in a crime for trying to defend himself during a robbery. A retired WWII vet is beaten to death by two thugs (why no, blacks beating a white guy could never be racism) and somehow in Frank Straub's twisted world it is 88 year-old Shorty Belton's fault he got killed.

Frank Straub gives cops a bad name. What a douchebag.

Wednesday Quiz

In 1971 I used routinely published a feature on this old blog called the Wednesday Quiz. You can find it back in the archives. Since I am lazy and cannot think up a witty, or insightful collection of words and phrases today, I am going to bring back an old but good feature. After all, networks trot out new versions of old game shows and Hollywood has made it a staple to remake movies and TV shows into new features. How many more Superman or Batman movies do we need? I will not even discuss the Scooby Doo movies.

So here goes, Here is your Wednesday Quiz for today. Can you ID this hottie from the past?

You will be surprised at my identity -- I'm famous!

No cheating with a search engine.  leave your guess answer in the comments. There will be prizes. At least there as far as you are concerned.

I can't hardly wait

It looks like the Administration is planning attacks in Syria. I cannot wait for the Liberal bloggers to go bat shit.  I occasionally read one in particular who believes that the Bush incursion into Iraq was "the most shameful action in the history of the country".

It is ironic, in Syria we will be supporting Al Qaeda.

Remember when prominent Democrats claimed the President had no authority to send troops into a foreign nation without Congressional approval?  Remember when prominent Democrats wanted to impeach GW for the attacks that led to regime change in Iraq?  What? You want me to name names?  OK, one of the Senators who was adamant the President needed approval was some guy from Illinois called Barack Obama. The Senator calling for impeachment was Joe Biden.

I guess Libya did not count, since we were "leading from behind".At least Bush had the excuse of broken UN sanctions on his side. Syria is just a mess.

Liberals, progressives, Democrats, hypocritical types will cry for proof. How about letting top Democrats speak for themselves?:

Worst President Ever

I have made no secret I think Obama is a lousy President. I find it hard to point to one positive accomplishment. Perhaps getting us kinda, sorta, mostly out of Iraq qualifies. I might even point toward setting an end point to our involvement in Afghanistan, but the way we are going about it seems like the whole last decade was an exercise in wasting the lives of thousands of young Americans. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives pissed away in the arsehole of the earth with the end result leaving the Taliban in charge and nothing different from September 10, 2001. Bin Laden is dead, there is that.

The failure of the war on Terror can not be laid completely at the feet of the current occupant of the White House. The previous administration (and the one before that) have tried to wage  bloodless war. We have opted for high precision attacks, hoping against hope that no Americans die, no civilians die, and only the worst of the enemy leaders expire. It seems the politicians, the press, and perhaps even the people no longer have the stomach to unleash the dogs of war. I did not serve. Perhaps that sentiment is well and good. I am in no position to say what is the right way to wage war.

Anyway, I was reflecting on the achievements of the current occupant of the White House before I was sidetracked by my own wandering mind. Is Obama the worst President in history? He is not the most ineffective, Carter still wins that battle.  His has wrought changes that may well bode ill for the future. One can not argue Obama is incompetent and ineffective then blame him for ObamaCare and massive deficits. You can not attribute long-term damage to society, the economy, and the American way and then call him the golfer-in-chief.

I do think we are in the midst of a long period of very bad Presidents. The string of Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama will likely vie with the stretch of Presidents starting with William Henry Harrison through Buchanan (Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Filmore, Pierce, Buchanan) for the weakest string of Executives in American history.  Just as I forget Filmore when trying to recite the list of Presidents in my brain, future Americans will likely forget the weak sisters that occupied the White House at the turn of the millennium.

Obama can rest assured, he is not the worst President in history. That mark must now and forever belong to adopted Indiana son William Henry Harrison who managed to get sick at his inaugural. He spent the next month wasting away in bed before croaking. There is nary a positive action on his part as Chief Executive.

Tips for pruning a Japanese Maple

It is Monday, here you are fresh off your weekend looking to me for your Monday entertainment, political analysis, and sheer profundity.  I am drawing a big old bucket of blank. Oh, I could revel you with tales of my weekend, of my personal issues, of my deepest secrets and fantasies, or the cool stuff going on in my life. I could. I won't. I might on another day.

Instead, I will toss up a video of my favorite band. You will watch it.  You will like it. You will buy the music on iTunes or Amazon. If necessary, you will even lie to me in the comments and confirm all of the above. Remember this post?

Here is a video of the event.

Weekend Funny

I just received an audit on my tax return for 2012 back from the IRS. It puzzles me!!!
They are questioning how many dependents I claimed.
I guess it was because of my response to the question: "List all dependents?"
I replied: 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads;
42 million unemployed people on food stamps,
2 million people in over 243 prisons;
Half of Mexico ; and 535 persons in the U.S. House and Senate."
1 useless President.
Evidently, this was NOT an acceptable answer.
I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, WHO DID I MISS?



h/t Otter

Stuff I have seen

Cruise ships in dock -- Nassau, The Bahamas

I was down at the local booze bazaar last night picking up some beer. The guy in front of me was probably in his late twenties/early thirties. The clerk asked for ID. he already had it out and ready. The clerk apologized and told him company policy was to see two forms of identification for anyone under 40. She looked sheepish and said "Its not my rule, OK?" The man was not upset, but told her he would have to fetch it from his truck. He came back in moments and his transaction was completed.

I stepped to the register, she rang up my beer and told me the amount.  I handed her my debit card. As she did the swipe thing I asked her if she needed to see my driver's license. She looked at me for 1/100000th of a second and said "No, I think you are OK". I laughed.

But I cried inside.

Friday Music

One of my favorite tunes.  Steve Howe plays some beautiful guitar solos starting at the 4:15 mark.



I like the live version even better. Again, listen to guitar at the 4:08 mark and the extended solo starting at 9:25.

The live Yessongs album is probably my most played record.  I went through two copies on vinyl(three albums!) and now have the 2 disc set on CD. I probably listen to parts of the album at least three times a week.

Does anyone even listen to these Friday tracks?

Does anyone care?

Mostly 'cause I don't want to change, that is why.

Educators and the elites are always clamoring that Americans need to be bi-lingual.  Most high schools and universities have a foreign language requirement. Who among us has not been confused by the conjugation of verbs and still remembers the little French dity about three cats out on a lake, "un, deux trois quatre cinq". Or how to say "Where is Jose?" in Spanish.

Yet just this morning  I read an article in Scientific American telling me my unique bi-lingualness when it comes to measurements makes me an ignorant fool. The only real argument the author makes as to why we should adopt the metric system is the old "everyone else uses it". Didn't your Mom ever explain that being a lemming is unacceptable, Mr. Wogan?

Look, anyone involved in science or manufacturing or who has contacts in international business already uses the metric system.  I know the magic '2.54' formula by heart. If you read an assembly drawing or manufacturing specifications I bet you do too.  But if you do not need to use a metric measurement, then who cares if you use a quart when estimating the quantity of blueberries or your own personal unit of measure such as "half of that old coffee can"? Most of us do not have an exact knowledge of how many tomatoes are in a peck, but we can agree that that little basket of yellow ones and red ones is what I want to buy. I'll be damned if I know exactly what volume makes up a bushel of apples, but I know it is what fits in that basket under the workbench.

I have metric wrenches and sockets in my tool box. You might argue it is silly to have two sets of everything. I don't mind. So what if in my brain water boils at 212 and freezes at 32?  I know zero is really cold and 100 is really hot weather and that means far more to me than 40 Celsius. I know a pint's a pound, and every damn recipe my grandma and mom perfected over the years works in ounces and cups will not convert perfectly in grams and centiliters.

I know how much gas is a gallon. I may have to buy my Coke in a 2 liter bottle, but I also know when I go to Florida and the grocery is pawning off three liters of milk as opposed to a gallon for a similar price I am getting cheated. Buying gas in Canada may sound cheap at 1.89/ liter, but when that converts to more than seven bucks a gallon the price is pretty damn high.

The metric system is taught in our schools, at least in backwards Indiana. Those of us who need to use the SI (metric system) can and do. Frankly, I do not really care if someone in Europe can make sense of an inch or a pint. I can converse with them in their language of measurement when I need to. Isn't that enough?

As a personal aside, if one of my friends insisted on conversing with me only in Celsius and liters and meters, I would consider him a total dickwad, a typical liberal snob, and an all around pompous ass. The author comes across as an elitist, the sort who only buys carrots fertilized in the shit from wild coyotes and tofu processed with the sterilized piss of rare albino squirrels.  I suspect he drives his Prius 30 miles round trip to buy only free range pesticide free organic corn for $6.00 an ear. I have no doubt the author is chagrined and angry that the farmer won't take his Euro in place of the good old US dollar. After all, the Euro is the currency of Europe, a billion people use the Chinese Yuan, why should we use something different in America?

Who is with me?

There has been a lot of talk in Republican circles and conservative-leaning publications about defunding ObamaCare. The argument centers around whether the upcoming vote on a Continuing Resolution (CR) should include the funds to administer the roll-out and administrative costs for the ACA (ObamaCare).

The Congress uses a CR to fund the government for a certain period of time in lieu of actually passing a budget. I suspect I am in the minority when I say I don't care if Republicans cut ObamaCare funding in the CR or not. Let me explain. I am steadfast in opposition to a CR at all. One of the few requirements of Congress is to pass a budget. Under the Constitution, the standing army must be refunded every two years. No money can be spent from the Treasury except by law. I maintain the Congress should do the hard work and pass a budget. The House of Representatives has passed a budget, we all know what is in it.  The Senate refuses to pass a budget or compromise. Democrats do not want to be on the record for supporting trillion dollar deficits. They do not want to make responsible fiscal decisions.

So here is my position, if my Representative or Senator votes for a Continuing Resolution, I will never vote for them again. It is time I was represented in Congress, not the Republican or Democrat party. If my elected representatives do not take the pulse of the district or State and vote accordingly, then they do not represent me, and I will not support them going forward.

We are at a crossroads. To paraphrase Reagan, we will see in the coming months if the Republican Party has left me.

My one post of true genius

I was skimming the archives* and I ran across this post.

I think it is not only one of the best things I have ever written, but it is just as true and relevant today as in August of 2010 when I penned it.


*never you mind why.

Sometimes you find stuff on the interwebz that is too good to ignore

"The only known witness, the man who allegedly wouldn’t shut up, refused to give a statement to police."

The rest is pretty amusing too, but in a sad way.  Having your drunken troubles splattered across the front page is the price you pay for living in a small town. Believe me, the gossip was far sharper and cut deeper in Mayberry than in Mount Pilot.

Things that make me smile

I always liked Ryan Dempster in his Cubs days. I really like him as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox yesterday.

Last night I was inspired to cook a decent supper. I grilled up some chicken breasties and a couple of pork chops. I smothered them in BBQ sauce right at the end. I also threw a few ears of sweet corn on the grill. I sliced up a couple of yellow and red tomatoes my Mom gave me from her garden and made a nice cheesy hash brown casserole. I ate until I felt like Mr. Creosote.
Later, because I could, I made a batch of homemade ice cream. Some days it is good to be me.

leopards and spots

As I get older and reflect back on my life and my youth, I realize I was an incredibly obnoxious and annoying kid. Some things never change.

Stuff I have seen

St Thomas, USVI

Bow before my greatness

Look at that -- four posts in two days.  I imagine that makes up for not posting Wednesday, eh Rita?
And I am not even counting this one!

Bwa ha ha ha

A short tale wherein I am an ass, even when I try to be helpful

Because I am a prince of a human being I accompanied my wife to the tourist mall located in downtown Indianapolis last night. The 'why' to our being there is a long story and not germane to this tale. As usual, we were there when the mall closed. We made our way to the lowest level of the parking garage underneath the mall. As we were getting into our car an older couple approached and asked us where the Carson's exit was in the parking garage. The Carson's department store closed at 8:57 (I know I was sitting just outside their door) and this couple was trying to find their car, since they had to come via a different escalator to the parking garage.  I told the lady the Carson's area was "over there" pointing in the right direction.

As we were driving through the garage towards the exit ramps, we saw the man and wife wandering through the parked cars. I pulled up, rolled down my window and again pointed the couple in the right direction. As we drove past where I thought the Carson's parking area was I saw only a blank wall. It occurred to me that we were on the lowest level of the parking garage, and the Carson's escalator area was on the next floor up. It was right where I indicated, only on a different floor! Quote the wife (laughing): "Wow, you are an asshole, even when you try to be nice".

If that was you roaming the dimly lit parking garage looking for your car, sorry. Perhaps next time you should pay attention to the floor and area where you park.