For "mornin":

Now, don't you actually HURT anyone while you're over there, y'hear?


From Charles at LGF

"The Marines - two in uniform and two off-duty - were polite but curt while chatting with Kerry, answering most of his questions with a "yes, sir" or "no, sir."

But they turned downright nasty after the Massachusetts senator thanked them "for their service" and left.

"He imposed on us and I disagree with him coming over here shaking our hands," one Marine said, adding, "I'm 100 percent against [him]."

A sergeant with 10 years of service under his belt said, "I speak for all of us. We think that we are doing the right thing in Iraq," before saying he is to be deployed there in a few weeks and is "eager to go and serve."

My question would be, what would John Kerry say to a United States Marine?

"I'm sorry."?

Trust me, it takes some practise to say it, error-free.

Mo Rocca Mocha Ocarina Macarena

Tee Shirt of the Month

I AM A BOMB TECNICIAN. IF YOU SEE ME RUNNING, TRY TO KEEP UP.

from Jeff Jarvis

Gillette disposes of common sense.

In a marketing coup, Gillette handed out 30,000 gift bags at the Democratic National Convention this week. Included in each gift bag was a Mach III razor. Small problem: Razors are on EVERYBODY'S list of prohibited items EVERYWHERE but your store, your car and your bathroom. Hence, every single one of them (30,000) had to be discarded by the delegates during bag searches prior to entering the convention floor. No doubt Gillette Corp. will be doing some shaving of their marketing staff in the near future.

From: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via News Forum

Hey, I know. Start handing them out at airport, bus and train terminals!

Balloons, Must have more balloons! 


The curse of the Bambino lives:

As broadcast live on CNN last night;

DNC convention centre director Don Mischer, 'No confetti. No confetti yet. Go balloons. Go balloons. More balloons. All balloons. All balloons. Come on guys, let's move it," began a relatively calm Mr Mischer.

"Jesus, we need more balloons. I want all balloons to go, goddamn. No confetti. No confetti. No confetti. I want more balloons. What's happening to the balloons? We need more balloons. We need all of them coming down... balloons.

"Go balloons, balloons... what's happening balloons, there's not enough coming down. All balloons - where the hell - there's nothing falling," Mr Mischer said, before finally exploding: "What the fuck are you guys doing up there?"

According to
NEWS.com.au

Update: Should it have been hell instead of hell?  Or maybe hell?

"I was there, before I wasn't."

Casper Kerry? 


NASA ordered to pull Kerry's photos from the Web, per Drudge.

The Cover 


Drudge Report: Buy This Book!

Drudge says,

Swift Boat Veterans began to fume after Kerry's campaign used a photograph of John Kerry and 19 other Coastal Division 11 Swift boat officers [taken at Ton Sun Nuht Air Base on January 22, 1969] in a pro-Kerry advertisement.

William Shumadine, a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pictured in the photograph, explains in UNFIT: "John Kerry's use of a photograph with his nineteen comrades, with knowledge that eleven of them comdemn him and six who cannot or do not want to be involved, is a complete misreprentation to the public and a total fraud."

We need to take a look at this, because:

A new bombshell book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations (#1 and #3) resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire.

The startling Purple Heart accusations, outlined in detail for the first time, are found in UNFIT FOR COMMAND, Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

Self-inflicted? If this is true, or cannot be disproven, then Kerry is toast.

Esquire: The Case for George W. Bush, i.e., What if he's right? A Liberal Has Second Thoughts

In Esquire today,the most intriguing article. A confirmed Bush hater ("What an asshole. Ah. That feels better. George W. Bush is an asshole, isn't he? Moreover, he's the first president who seems merely that, at least in my lifetime.") begins to think, I mean really think.

The writer is Tom Junod, about whom I know little. After reading this, I will do some research. He writes after viewing a photo taken of Mr. Bush at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony and relates his first impression.

He not only has led us into war, he seems to get off on war, and it's the greedy pleasure he so clearly gets from flexing his biceps or from squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw or from landing a plane on an aircraft carrier-the greedy pleasure the war president finds in playacting his own attitudes of belligerence-that permitted me the greedy pleasure of hating him.

Then, Mr. Junod reads the speech that Mr. Bush gave.

Then I read the text of the speech he gave and was thrown from one kind of certainty-the comfortable kind-into another.

and

Still, I have to admit to feeling a little uncertain of my disdain for this president when forced to contemplate the principle that might animate his determination to stay the course in a war that very well may be the end of him politically.

more,

The people who dislike George W. Bush have convinced themselves that opposition to his presidency is the most compelling moral issue of the day. Well, it's not. The most compelling moral issue of the day is exactly what he says it is, when he's not saying it's gay marriage.

and

We were attacked three years ago, without warning or predicate event. The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about death-that honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and global-and if it does not warrant the expenditure of what the self-important have taken to calling "blood and treasure," then what does? Slavery? Fascism? Genocide?

and

If we do not find it within ourselves to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evil-and to pronounce ourselves morally superior to it-then we have lost the ability to identify any evil at all, and our democracy is not only diminished, it dissolves into the meaninglessness of privilege.

Read it all, but pour a cup of coffee first, because it is a long one. You may want to read it a couple of times, so as not to miss any salient points.
Warning: It is neither pro-Bush nor anti-Bush, neither Left nor Right, neither liberal nor conservative (disappointing everyone, I suppose.) Mr. Junod simply makes the following observation;

I have to admit that when I listen to him speak, with his unbending certainty, I sometimes hear an echo of the same nagging question I ask myself after I hear a preacher declaim the agonies of hellfire or an insurance agent enumerate the cold odds of the actuarial tables. Namely: What if he's right?

Photo Mania!

I am using a program from Picasa called HELLO to post photos to my blogs (this one and Aviones America Latina). There follows a copy of a note that I sent to these people today. I seldom complement someone on a job well done, but this is a glaring exception. If you already have it, use it, and if you ain't got it, get it!

Hello to Hello,

I am a new blogger (6 months) and even newer user of Bloggerbot (3 weeks) and I want to tell you folks that this is the neatest thing since hollow-point bullets. If you object to that analogy, please disregard in favor of the following; It is the neatest thing since round spaghetti (The Chinese invented it square, so it stacked up on your plate, but Marco Polo said,"Hey! No way! We'll make it round so that it swirls onto your plate". Of course, it also slides off of your fork or out of your spoon directly into your lap, but that's another story. Lady and Tramp loved it.)

Seriously, although I have little influence, if you ever need a testimonial, feel free to contact me.

Shocked, just shocked!

Arabs Shock Europeans, Refuse To Condemn Anti-Semitism

Shocked about what? What planet do these Euros live on? It must be in a galaxy far, far away.

YOU WOULD VOTE FOR THESE?

Nyaaaa, What's up, Doc? 


I was OK 'til that house fell on my sister. 


I thought the Dem's mascot was a donkey. I see now that it is a jackass.

Update:

The Kerrytubbies! 


PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!

I in 32 Americans

One out of every thirty-two people in the United States is in prison, on parole from prison or on probation, one step away from prison. Incredible statistic. Why?

SHOVE WHAT, WHERE?

Teresa Heinz Kerry gives a speech begging for civility and respect during this presidential race, then does a flip-flop of which hubby would be proud. Immediately after the speech, she pushes her way through the crowd to tell a reporter to "shove it".

Matt Drudge and The Pittsburgh Channel have both eyewitness reports as well as video. So as to eliminate the usual suspects; BushliedVastRightwingConspiracyZionistPlot,etc.,etc.,etc..

Oh, by the way, this is my first attempt to use "Blog This" from my Google toolbar. What do you think?

Update: I screwed it up. Got the text but not the link (added the links from the post edit window). Oh well, I'll try again.

Hello, I'm back!
 
I've been down with a vicious cold.  I have now been on ampicillan to the tune of 1500 mgs. per day for 9 days and it's still with me.  I guess I'm not going to die, so I may as well blog, no?

Lessee, The Lance has won the Tour de France, again (sixth straight).  His opposition this year, including the feller who last summer said that he would "squash Lance Armstrong like a toad", melted away like the French defending Paris.

The Yankees are out in front of the Red Sox by 8 1/2 or 9 1/2, depending on what day you check.  Don't blink or it will be 15.

Bush will squash Kerry like a toad (is there an echo in here?).

Our good friends and allies, like the Filipinos, are running, shreiking, from any confrontation that might cause a little blood to flow (unlesss, of course, it's American blood, in which case they are right behind us all the way).

The camel jockies are threatening to send a line of car bombers to make the sreets run red.

The BUSHLIED crowd is frantically searching for something about which he may actually have lied, since the 9/11 panel has concluded that Clarke lied, Joe Wilson lied, Valerie Plame lied, etc., etc.

Kerry visits the auto capitol of the world, Detroit, to speak to the people who assemble the Rolls Royce.  Rolls Royce?  Where is that assembly plant?

So, I see that absolutely nothing has changed since I last blogged.  Maybe I'll take another sabbatical. (The noise you hear is from my many devoted fans screaming, No! No!)

Bye.

LILEKS BLOWS IT!!!!

James Lileks, whom I thought had one of the better minds in all Blogosphere, has, apparently, had the wheels come off. He says, laughably, ridiculously, falsely and libelously, the following, concerning Mad Magazines's Don Martin:

Don Martin wasn’t all that funny, but it looked funny, and in his case that was enough.

Oh, really? Fester Bestertester and Karbunkle were not all that funny, huh?

What about the time that the halitosis-suffering Dr. Fester Bestertester, DDS, drills into Karbunkle's one and only giant front tooth with a hi-speed drill, just as the city suffers a power failure? Remember Karbuncle's face as the drill's rpm's slowed and the bit stuck in his tooth? Not funny? Heh!

And the time that Fester Bestertester and Karbunkle are standing, innocently, on the sidewalk awaiting the military parade when the heavy office safe gets accidently pushed out of a window 30 stories above them. The safe comes screaming down upon the unsuspecting pair and lands, corner first, exactly atop poor Karbunkle's headbone. He is crushed to the ground and his tongue goes lolling out all the way across the street. Just then, the parade arrives with troops, tanks, heavy armor, etc., marching over his outstretched tongue. Not funny? Heh!

I bought a paperback of Mr. Martin's finest Fester Bestertester and Karbunkle work and got thrown out of afternoon studyhall for uncontrollable and unstifleable laughter. Well, maybe that looked pretty funny, too.

HEY! THAT'S US!

...portrays Americans as hog-fat, gun-waving simpletons whose wilful ignorance of the outside world is matched only by their bullying arrogance towards it, and whose pious sentimentality co-exists with a reverence for violence.

Paul Thomas in The New Zealand Herald comments on "anti-Americanism".

An irony here is that one of anti-Americanism's gurus, the film-maker and polemicist Michael Moore, is himself a prime example of Slobbus Americanus.

"Hog-fat gun-waving simpletons" and "Slobbus Americanus." I like that. Read the whole thing, it is really not so critical of us.

You Can't Beat Tradition

To all those disparaging of the Hollywood entertainers' vociferous, obscene and insulting comments at the Kerry/Edwards fundraiser: You really have no right to criticize Whoopi, Billy, John, Chevy, Susan, et al when you remember that they all belong to a long and distinguished line of politically active performing artists which traces its roots all the way back to, uh, John Wilkes Booth.

And do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden time.
-- Churchill on Munich Oct 5, 1938

This from Wretchard at The Belmont Club.

There is lots to read, think about and discuss in Hugh Hewitt's new book, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends Upon It. However, you will NOT find this quote there.

"Lick Bush and Dick in '04"

That would reportedly be from Whoopi Goldberg. Another reason I'll not be voting for the Jackasses this year.

Another reason to increase defense spending

Bush Is Creating Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them

Bumper sticker reportedly seen in Washington.

Hmmm, I had never thought of it this way.

Muslim women, it seems, can't win. In Islamic countries they may be flogged for taking off the veil; in the west they can be denied a public education or harassed in the street for putting it on.

Geraldine Brooks in The Financial Times makes a very interesting point.

She also makes it a point to mention the vast difference between growing up a Muslim woman in North America with those in North Africa.

As the mother of one nose-ringed, tongue-studded teenager explained to me: "People in this society are going to have to recognise that a Muslim woman with a nose ring can be just as Muslim as a woman with a headscarf."

And later;

For the immigrant generation, who often grew up in repressive, if not tyrannical, societies, the idea of putting one's head above the parapet and participating in public political discourse can come hard, but this is not so for the American-born, whose background noise has been the in-your-face debating style of Fox News shows and the discourteous demands of rap lyrics.

Take a look at this article. Food for thought.

"we survived Carter and we'd survive Kerry."
Mickey Kaus, July 5, 2004

This is support? Excuse me while I... HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

READ LILEKS NOW, I MEAN RIGHT NOW!

My question is, "How does he do that?" I don't mean the writing because he is a gifted writer, as is well known. I mean, how does he come up with names, dates, places as well as "where they are now"? Incredible. I could have, I suppose, found the names of the KIA from Davisson, MI after a few hours of work. But the American flag poker and the pokee? I wouldn't know where to begin such a search. But Lileks knows.

WOW!

One little problem. He doesn't offer a permalink to any particular post, at least that I can find. So, if you click on the link above, say, tomorrow, you won't see this post, no, this bleat, no, this essay. You will see his newest. If the essay that you find is not about Michael Moore, read the one that you find, then go to his archives for the one about which I am oohing and aahing.

Talk the talk, but...

Mexico's tin-pot military faces down heavily armed Marines.

At the funeral in Mexico of Marine Lance Cpl. Juan López, killed in Iraq, the fearless tin-pot warriors of Mexico's vaunted army showed no fear whatsoever of the U.S. Marine contingent sent to honor their fallen comrade. The Marine Assault force (all two of them) were armed with ceremonial rifles (clubs) and the Marine Reserve force ( all seven of them, armed with bare hands) were in violation of the tender sensibilities of local tin-pot Mexican military forces.

The outgunned Mexicans (twelve of them) bravely fired strong words and later fearlessly blockaded the heavy-armor (a passenger van) of the Marines for some several minutes, before declaring a unilateral cease fire and withdrawing from the field. Stoically enduring the potentially deadly verbal attacks from family and friends of Lance Cpl. López, the tin-pot warriors would say that they were authorized only to interrupt the funeral service, not to explain why.

In all fairness to the Mexican forces, they do not understand the concept of "ceremonial" weapons as opposed to "real weapons that go "Bang-Bang-Bang..." because all of the Mexican Army's weapons are considered ceremonial in nature.

In epochs to come, this episode will no doubt take its rightful place in the near mythical tradition of a long line of Mexican embarrassments, such as;

Emperor Moctezuma (Montezuma in the Marine Hymn), killed by a rock thrown by a rioting subject, not by Hernan Cortez, as taught in the schools)

Emperor Iturbide, shot by firing squad after declaring himself emperor of "free" Mexico upon independence from Spain.

Gen. Santa Ana, captured wearing a woman's dress, without firing a shot, at San Jacinto by Gen. Houston.

Emperor Maximilian, shot by firing squad after being declared emperor by, then not defended by, the French (no surprise, there).

Pres. Porfirio Díaz, after declaring himself President-For-life-with-"free"-elections-every-six-years-whether-you-like-it-or-not, rounded up thousands of Mayas in the Yucatan and shipped them to Cuba as slaves for the sugar plantations, then went north to round up thousands of Yaquis and shipped them south to the Yucatan to replace the Mayas because he needed them to work in the hemp industry (hemp for ropin', not for smokin').

Gen. Victoriano Huerta, who murdered Pres. Madero (who had overthrown Pres. Díaz (President-For-Life-With-etc.-etc.-etc.)), then murdered Emiliano Zapata, then declared himself president, then was exiled to Europe by Carranza, who then murdered Pancho Villa, who was then murdered by ???? (it gets confusing with who shot whom, when, why, and who declared whom presidente, emporador, etc, etc., but they all wore tin pots).

Pres. Pedro Lascur de Paredes, president for less than an hour, who replaced the freshly shot Pres. Madero and was in turn replaced by the aforementioned Gen. Huerta, no doubt brandishing the still-smoking pistol.

Pres. Cárdenas, who nationalized (stole) all property, facilities, equipment, etc. from private oil companies with legal contracts signed by his own government, thereby creating PEMEX, the most inefficient and corrupt oil company on earth (with the possible exception of Nigeria's).

Pres. Echeverría, whose presidency was awarded in return for his ordering the 1968 pre-Olympic massacre of students, police and soldiers in Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City. Either 20 were killed, if you believe the government, or 300 if you believe the lying eyes of survivors. To demonstrate his sense of fair play, Echeverría had the tin-pot army round up some 300 of his own gunmen, all of those who could count higher than 20, and execute them all to preserve the government's census calculations, as well as his future presidency.

Sec'y of the Interior Manuel Bartlett Díaz, who, with a single keystroke, created the computer crash that delayed the presidential election vote count for twelve hours, resulting in the miraculous victory of his boss, Carlos Salinas, over Cuahtemoc Cardenas, son of the aforementioned founder of PEMEX.

Pres. Carlos Salinas, now living in seclusion in Europe and whose brother, Raul (known affectionately during Carlos's term as Mr. Ten Percent), a mover and shaker during the administration of Carlos, is serving a 30 year or 40 year or 50 year stretch for murder and corruption. (Every time Raul's lawyers get a judge to reduce the sentence to 30 years, the government comes back to the table with more charges and gets another judge to jack the sentence back to 50 years.) Carlos artificially propped up the flimsy peso which caused its value to finally crash down on the head of his successor.

Pres. Ernesto Zedillo, who, still reeling from the aforementioned peso crash, appoints the first Mexican Drug Czar, then ten (10) weeks later has to have him arrested after being presented by a library full of evidence by the U.S. ambassador that Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was, truly, a drug czar. Gen. Rebollo is serving a 500 or so year stretch, as we speak.

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.

Conditions of Employment

According to The New York Post, thesmokinggun.com has obtained a five (5) page list of demands that must be met before Sharon Stone will show up for her first day of work. These demands include;

Pilates equipment (Pontius Pilate's? Call Mel.)
a $3,500/week per diem
armed bodyguards
a prohibition against on-set cigar smoking
a chauffeured car with a nonsmoking driver approved by her
a convertible for Stone's personal use
three nannies, two assistants
multiple cell phones and pagers
the presidential suite at a top-drawer hotel
first-class travel (if a private jet is unavailable)
a personal chef
deluxe trailer with air conditioning, heating, private bathroom, shower, TV, VCR, refrigerator, telephone, stove, sofa, bed, stereo and fax machine
She also gets to keep all the clothing and jewelry she wears in the film.

I sympathize with Ms. Stone, as for some time I have had my own five (5) page list of demands which must be met before I will show up for work, to wit;

Page 1: A Job
Page 2: Pages 2,3,4,5 are irrelevent (if a private jet is or is not available)

IT'S SATURDAY AND I AM TEACHING

Saturday is my day to teach at my school in Puebla. What I am teaching today is BLOGS. The wonderful world of the Blogosphere and my own little blogospheroid. I have with me a student named Juan Manuel Romero who is duly impressed with my vast knowledge of the net, etc. Juan says, "Incredible!" and "My teacher is intelligent." As you can see, Juan is one of my very best students and is sure to score well on any and all ESL tests that I grade.