Monday, July 27, 2015

Flowing Curves Of Beauty

Men who have pierced ears are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry. 





Sunday, July 26, 2015

Your Dazzling Moment Of Zen

CNN/ORC Polling For July 22-25


The complete polling results can be found here.


Why the Daily Show is Such a Success, Illustrated:

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“Washington Cartel” Savaged By Ted Cruz

Is it true that Ted Cruz refrained from criticizing Donald Trump after the firestorm over his comments belittling John McCain’s war record to pick up some of The Donald’s support should he drop out of the race for president? 

In an interview with Bloomberg Politics Cruz said, "My view on John McCain is explicit and unambiguous. He's an American hero and he's a friend.  I'm not going to just take a stick to fellow Republicans or for that matter to Democrats.  In my time in the Senate I haven't impugned the character of Republicans or Democrats and I don't intend to start today."

In his March 23, 2015 presidential announcement speech, Cruz cited Ronald Reagan who popularized the Eleventh Commandment:  Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

On Friday, however, the gloves came off.  He accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying to his colleagues.

Elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell has been labeled “one of the most corrupt members of Congress” by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). 

Cruz’s broadside of McConnell came after he set up votes on the controversial issues of the repeal of Obamacare and the reauthorization of the Export-Import bank. Though McConnell has personally spoken against the Ex-Im Bank’s reauthorization, Democrats said in June that he had agreed to schedule a vote on the bank in order to get highly divisive trade legislation passed.

“I asked the majority leader very directly: What was the deal that was just cut? The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said, ‘There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.’ Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times,” said Cruz.

The bank’s reauthorization expired on May 31, 2015.  Ex-Im subsidizes innumerable export transactions with guaranteed loans to make exports cheaper for American products.  In March, two months before the reauthorization expired, the bank’s $100M cap had been reached.

Critics of the bank call it “Boeing’s Bank” because of its interventions in financial assistance to the aircraft manufacturer in selling planes to China, India and other nations thus allowing U.S. trade policies to be set by market-distorting foreign governments. The bank is only lightly constrained by the law that supposedly leashes it.

As Sallie James of the Cato Institute notes, government favors flow to the politically connected.  Favor-dispensing institutions such as the Export-Import Bank are dispensing incentives for private interests to develop lucrative political connections.

Are charges by Cruz that McConnell is “running the Senate in much the same manner” as Harry Reid did when he was Majority Leader true?  Hell yes.

“There is a profound disappointment among the American people because we keep winning elections, and then we keep getting leaders who don’t do anything they promised,” Cruz said. “We’ve had a Republican majority in both houses of Congress now for about six months…This Senate operates exactly the same, the same priorities.”

According to published reports, McConnell was not on the floor of the Senate during Cruz’s “outburst”.  When he learned about it McConnell barred Cruz from discussions regarding the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate Armed Services Committee.


The full speech is here.

Friday, July 24, 2015

Naïve Blunderer Feeling Sheepish

In the prelude to the 60-day congressional review of the Iranian nuclear deal, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told Secretary of State “Frenchie” Kerry on Thursday, “Not unlike a hotel guest that leaves only with a hotel bathrobe on his back, I believe that you've been fleeced.'  He also said that “Iran did a masterful job of giving you a talking point” on centrifuges used to refine fissile material for nuclear weapons.

A clearly riled up Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) further pummeled the naïve blunderer saying, “With all due respect, you guys have been bamboozled and the American people are going to pay.”

Kerry, smug asshole that he is, insisted that critics of the deal are pushing an unrealistic alternative that he dismissed as a “sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran's complete capitulation.”

Jonathan Tobin characterizes the “deal” in this manner:
“…allowing an Islamist theocratic tyranny that is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with hopes of achieving regional hegemony and pledged to the destruction of Israel to have a nuclear program is a threat. Giving its nuclear infrastructure western approval and a path to an eventual bomb is a danger to the entire region as well as the West. Handing it a massive cash bonus in the form of relaxed sanctions will enhance its ability to foment terrorism and spread violence through its auxiliaries and allies.” 
“Opponents of the deal rightly decry this embrace of Iran not just because the inspections are insufficiently rigorous, the nuclear provisions weak and will eventually expire giving the Islamist regime a clear path to a bomb. They also oppose it because despite their occasional attempts to pose as tough-minded in their approach to Iran, the basic premise of the deal is President Obama’s quest for the regime to ‘get right with the world.’”
[SKIP] 
“Iran won the lenient terms of the deal by being tough in the negotiations and convincing weak-willed interlocutors such as Obama and Kerry that they would never be moved by Western pressure or threats. Critics of the deal view it with disdain because they correctly perceive its premise to be the hope of an entente with Iran, not a treaty aimed at limiting its power. Seen from that perspective the details of the deal are not only unpersuasive, they are beside the point despite the effort of the Times and other pro-Obama media cheerleaders to depict the GOP as knee-jerk naysayers. That is why sensible Republicans and Democrats will reject Kerry’s arrogant lobbying efforts and vote a deal rooted in appeasement down.”

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Lower The Flag

Today I did what the president would not do.  I am paying my respects to the fallen service members slaughtered in Chattanooga last week.

I arose before the sun came up this morning.  I went outside to water my shrubbery and rose bushes while the temperature was still tolerable.  I came inside to get a bite of breakfast before going back outside to water my lawn.  As I sat down to eat, Fox News was interviewing Mike Shepard, a Marine whose love of country runs deep.  Shepard blogs at Dc Gazette.

“Most are fully aware of the president not showing support for our fallen and flags continue flying high in the sky.  He invited the family of a traitor named Bergdhal to the Rose Garden to celebrate the release of our enemy. He has yet to call out the terrorist who shot up two recruiting stations in Chattanooga.  Well, we don’t need permission to show our respect for five lives lost. I am reaching out to you America in hopes that we teach Obama about respect.”
“I say we should come together and fly our flags at half-staff until the 30th of July. The 30th will mark the two week anniversary of this tragedy. Let’s show the president what it is to respect this country and our fallen. If you drive by a business, please go in and ask they fly their flag at half-staff.  If we get the whole country to do it the president might get the message.  The message that he is just one man while we are the voice of America. If he won’t call for flags to be flown at half-staff the American people will. Please share this and together we can show Washington what it means to respect… May God forever bless you all, Shep.” 
“Come join our FaceBook Half-Staff Challenge page and share your thoughts and post pictures of your American Flag at half-staff so Obama can see that We the People want and will honor those brave warriors killed on American soil!”
After watching the interview with Mr. Shepard, I was swept up in his plea to lower the flag outside my home to half-staff.  My neighbors, who were retrieving their morning newspapers, asked why my flag had been lowered. I explained it was to mourn the loss of five of our service members in Chattanooga because The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer had not ordered the flag over the White House to be lowered.

Mine is the only home in the neighborhood with an in-ground flagpole. My neighbors asked how they could join in the observance since their house-mounted flags cannot be lowered. I informed them that flagpoles mounted on their homes should have a black ribbon or streamer at the top of the American flag.  Neighbors who only display the Stars and Stripes on the Fourth of July brought out their flags.  I cannot adequately express my gratitude to them for uniting in this expression of respect and mourning.

According to Stars and Stripes, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) proposed legislation to arm recruiters against attacks similar to Chattanooga.  On Monday, his staff criticized the president for not issuing a proclamation to lower flags.

“They deserve our respect, and the significance of this event should be matched by the lowering of the flag,” said Joe Kasper, Hunter’s chief of staff. “It’s a simple gesture that will reaffirm to the military and millions of Americans that these servicemen will be rightly honored. This is one that shouldn’t take any second thought on the part of the White House.”

The president eventually ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House in the noon hour, but not before critics and the American public condemned him.  Shameful.  Simply shameful.

Monday, July 20, 2015

Flowing Curves Of Beauty

Blonds must have more fun; how many brunettes do you see walking down the street with blond roots?





Friday, July 17, 2015

El Chapo - The Motion Picture

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"Is San Francisco's Sanctuary Policy a License to Kill?"

The headline of this post, "Is San Francisco's Sanctuary Policy a License to Kill?", and the dead tree editorial I took it from, might seem to be a bit hyperbolic, or extreme. Until you consider when it was published: December 5, 2012.

Debra Saunders wrote a piece on the appalling regularity that illegal aliens* are involved in fatal car crashes, highlighting the death of a motorcyclist, Drew Rosenberg, who was hit by an illegal alien, driving without a license, who then proceeded to back over the victim's body. Saunders notes:
This sanctuary city has been so eager to protect illegal immigrants who cannot obtain California drivers' licenses (written in 2012) that in 2009, then Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that the city would no longer impound the cars of unlicensed drivers automatically.
The law** was written that unlicensed drivers, all of them, without exception, as a deterrent, should forfeit their vehicles as a result of their lawlessness. However, in their magnanimousness, San Francisco decided that while confiscation of cars from pallid people without licenses was perfectly just, some accommodation needed to be made for those among us without the proper documentation, thus, a "Get out of Jail & Keep Your Car" card for those unable to obtain Green cards.

But, hey! In for a penny, in for a pound. SF was already in violation of federal law in shielding illegal aliens, why not violate state law as well, to shield them from the consequences of their actions.

Saunders then went on to detail the various organizations rallying to the defense of illegals - all the usual suspects-, but then, in her naivete, she suggests that illegal aliens who use vehicles to kill somebody should be deported.

I say naivete, because we now know, from the example of Francisco Sanchez, that deportation is not a deterrent, not when we have a revolving door on the border. The most pressing issue we have with illegal immigration is not the status of those who are already here, but slowing and deterring as much as humanly possible, the entry and reentry of undesirable persons of every race and color.

*non citizens who enter the country illegally, for those of you who have trouble grasping the concept of "illegal"

**law: that thing which is supposed to be binding upon everyone without exception when it comes to, say, Obamacare and gay marriage, but is totally optional for discriminating liberal municipalities who, to quote Ms. Saunders once again,
"...care more about people who break the law than the law abiding public."

Monday, July 13, 2015

Flowing Curves Of Beauty

If a man prepares dinner for you and the salad contains three or more types of lettuce, he is serious. 





Friday, July 10, 2015

An Open Letter to Trump Supporters: Stick a Fork in Him, He's Done


I am no Trump fan, but I have generally given him the benefit of the doubt, but I doubt no longer. Trump from 2008:
"Bush has been so bad. Maybe the worst president in this history of this country. He has been so incompetent, so bad, so evil, that I don't think any Republican could have won"
Does this guy's judgment match your own? Or when, in his estimation, George Bush attacked Iraq
"...just because he wanted to do it"
But wait! There's more! To Greta Van Sustern:
His (Obama's) speech was great last night. I thought it was inspiring in every way. And, hopefully he's going to do a great job. But the way I look at it, he cannot do worse than Bush.
It may sound trite, Donald, but,
"You're Fired!"
At the risk of piling on, Trump is also the 'rodeo clown' who said of Charles Krauthammer, whose books the Donald has not read, perhaps, because they have insufficient pictures?
(Krauthammer’s) “a totally overrated person that dislikes me personally. I’ve never met him. He’s a totally overrated guy, doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Beach Trip

It’s time to head to the beach.  The heat around here has been like 12 yards of hell so I might as well go where there’s strings of seagulls in flight, sand, salt water and briny air to make the heat more bearable.

I’ve loaded up the PT Cruiser and my furkid, Sophie, will ride shotgun.

This visit, one of many I’ve taken of late, will not be to help my friend who was recovering from carotid artery surgery but to have sheer fun.  My itinerary will include renting a jet ski and terrorizing the sea life, shopping at Broadway On The Beach, enjoying a night out at the Carolina Comedy Club, pigging out on seafood and homemade peach ice cream and ogling the hunky menfolk with killer tans who smell of coconut oil.

My friend’s son has planned a pool party replete with burgers and dogs and all the fixin’s.  Admittedly a pool is not the same as swimming in the ocean.  What it lacks in excitement, it more than makes up for by not having scary critters trying to bite you.  Sophie has her own doggie floatie to join in on the fun!

I’ve already purchased tickets to see the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, a Chicago Cubs farm team, play the Carolina Mudcats.  I’m going to get in big trouble in the stadium rooting for the Mudcats because they are one of the minor league farm teams for the Atlanta Braves.  Our seats are in the field box smack dab behind home plate.  How sweet is that?

Proof is going to look after the place while I’m gone.  I’ve let the cops know to keep an eye on him. 

See ya soon.  Take care everyone!



Sunday, July 5, 2015

“Buffalo Hill” Wild West Show

Gorham, NH was the scene of a rootin’, tootin’ circus-like “Buffalo Hill” Wild West Show where several trick roping events were held including the all-around body looper rope trick.

Members of the press were ramroded down the street a “safe” distance from the Democratic monarch-in-waiting.  A group of protesters followed her along the parade route shouting, "What about Benghazi?" and "Show us your e-mails!"

Hillary’s drovers tried soothing the butthurt lapdogs, telling CNN: “While the GOP might want to spin a good yarn on this, let’s not get tied up in knots. We wanted to accommodate the press, allow (Clinton) greet voters (sic.) And allow the press to be right there in the parade with her, as opposed to preset locations.”

Aaron Short of The New York Post wondered, “Maybe next time she’ll have them hogtied.” 

It’s a cinch these tinhorns didn’t much appreciate those spurring licks on their thin, delicate hides.

Rowdy Yates and Gil Favor could not be reached for comment.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

May The Grace Of God Continue To Shine On Lovers Of Freedom Everywhere

When you watch the embedded video below, I hope you will enlarge it to appreciate the imagery within.  The back-story, according to Deseret News, is that Grammy-nominated violinist Jenny Oaks Baker chose to collaborate with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on a rendition of “Amazing Grace” following a speech by Rice at a BYU Management Society event in April 2012.

The duo recorded the track in July 2013 and a year later, Baker flew to San Francisco to record the video with Rice. Now, two years after the recording process began, the video has been released just as Americans across the country gather in celebration of the country and those who have sacrificed so much for freedom.

The song is currently available as a single through iTunes. According to representatives at Shadow Mountain Records, all proceeds from the sale of the single will go to the Wounded Warrior Project.

I must confess I had a lump in my throat watching the beauty and grace of these two women and the truly wonderful gift they have given us on this Independence Day.

Friday, July 3, 2015

That’s What America Means To Me

I’ve been a witness to history just as you have.  America has been the noblest country the world has ever known and nothing the other side says will ever persuade me to change my mind.

The greatest generation liberated Europe in the Second World War, we sent a man to the moon, we led the Industrial Revolution and ten days after the attacks of 9/11 when the nation was so terribly sad, my beloved Atlanta Braves played the New York Mets in Shea Stadium in the first public event after the attacks.  The stadium was still being used as a triage center.

After Marc Anthony sang “The Star Spangled Banner” the rival teams, standing on the first base and third base lines, crossed the diamond to hug each and shake hands. Everyone was rooting for the Mets to win as a symbol of the nation’s resilience.

For game three of the 2001 World Series, President George W. Bush walked ramrod-straight onto the field of Yankee Stadium and threw out the first pitch.  His pitch was a perfect strike.  The crowd erupted into chants of “USA, USA, USA.”

The city of New York had been reduced to rubble, but the crowd swelled with national pride.  If baseball could carry on, then so could we.  Watching President Bush toss that ball gave me a lump in my throat and every, and I mean every time I hear the national anthem I get a lump in my throat.

A “Gibraltar in cleats”, Lou Gehrig, on July 4, 1939 gave his farewell speech to baseball in Yankee Stadiuma place dedicated to the courage of men.  Seventy-six years ago, with tears streaming down his face, Gehrig humbly told 61,808 fans in the bleachers that he had been forced to retire due to ALS.

We are the country that authored the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and we’ve had more than our fair share of heroes. 

This July Fourth I will ignore the people in the beltway with abscessed hearts who try desperately to divide us.  I am going to remember what America means to me.  Come Monday, I will take up the fight again.

On this most American of holidays, I will dwell in a happy place and enjoy the most American of things:  baseball, apple pie and Independence Day.

I wish you all a safe and happy Fourth of July.  God bless America.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

SHARK!

At least 11 people have been attacked along the coast of the Carolinas this year, seven in North Carolina and four in South Carolina. Most of the attacks have occurred since June 11. The seven attacks in North Carolina are the most recorded in one year since the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File began keeping records 80 years ago.

Forty years ago, Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster hit about a calculating, diabolical, giant man-eating shark grazing on beachgoers plugged into our primal fear of monsters.  Some sources claim that humans killed anywhere from 63 million to 100 million sharks in the last 12 months.

A recent spate of shark attacks in North Carolina may have been partly caused by global warming, an expert has claimed. The warmer weather not only brings sharks further north, but also entices more people to get into the water. Coupled with other factors such as higher salinity, an increased number of bait fish and fishing near swimmers has supposedly created a ‘perfect storm’ of conditions for shark attacks.

Speaking to National Geographic, George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said global warming could be a factor in the increased number of incidents.  He is clearly a hotcoldwetdry guy that has bought into the global warming hooey hook, line and sinker.  (Pardon the pun.)

But hold on.  A marine zoologist with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has studied sharks for over 50 years poo-pooed his assertion saying there’s too much natural variability in weather cycles to blame the recent shark attacks on global warming.

There’s no such thing as a shark attack.  We live on the land.  Sharks live in the water.  A shark attack is when you’re where you’re supposed to be and a shark shows up.  If you’re in the shower tonight and you feel a tap on your shoulder, you turn around and a shark asks, “Wassup?” that’s a shark attack.  Getting bitten in the ocean is a shark accident.

Are Cowards Doing America’s Thinking?

Photo credit:  Jon Campbell/Village Voice
On Wednesday evening in New York City’s Fort Greene Park, anarchists gathered to burn the American flag near the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument.  The monument is a memorial to the more than 11,500 American prisoners who died in captivity aboard British prison ships of disease and malnutrition during the Revolutionary War.

The group, Disarm NYPD, was expecting 300 protesters to participate in their rally.  When criticism began to mount against them they issued the following statement:

“…many people are rather offended by our decision to burn the American flag. We find it a sign of the times that people can care so much about a piece of cloth, while at the same time be so quiet about black churches being burned all over the country. Perhaps this is the great difference between us and the so-called ‘patriots’. While they express their loyalty to symbols, we express our loyalty to the lives of the oppressed.

We do not believe the ideals of America are anything to be revered. We are building something that will be much better than America…We dream of what real freedom looks like:  freedom from paramilitaries occupying our communities, beating and killing our sons and daughters; freedom from our communities being destroyed by the speculative capital of gentrification; freedom from mass surveillance; and freedom from systemic racism.

So, we will burn the American flag, a symbol of oppression and genocide, and in the same action, dismantle our stunted, cynical expectations of what is possible in the world…We, the dreamers, are the true realists. We know things can’t continue this way, so we commit to building a better world. A world better than America.”

When the dozen or so activists began burning the flag, a group of counter-protesters approached them and they scattered like scalded dogs.  One man, John Carroll, a resident of Ridgewood, Queens rescued the flag and challenged the little pricks calling them cowards.  Watching the video warmed my heart.

 JOHN CARROLL   Photo credit:  Andy Katz/Demotix
Betrayals come easily.

On Wednesday, June 24, 2015 “Calypso Louie” Farrakhan told congregants at the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC, “I don’t know what the hell the fight is about over the Confederate flag!  We need to put the American flag down because we’ve caught as much hell under that as the Confederate flag!  Who are we fighting today? It’s the people that carry the American flag.  What flag do the police have?  What flag flies over the non-Justice Department?  What flag flies over the White House?”

This quote from Daniel Greenfield seems particularly germane:
“The left will destroy the things you care about, because you care about them. It will destroy them because that gives them power over you. It will destroy them because these things stand in the way of its power. It will destroy them because a good deal of its militant activists need things to destroy and if they can't attack you, they'll turn on the left in a frenzy of ideologically incestuous purges.”

These are the people who find the Confederate Battle Flag offensive.
Photo credit:  Lee Vanden Brink


Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Fax Me A Beer

The minions can photocopy their ass, but this ass can't work a fax machine.  Meh.

A batch of 3,000 of Cankles’ private emails have just been released and it seems she had an excruciating case of bewilderment regarding how to use her fax machine.  In one noteworthy chain of emails there was a “tense email standoff” with her aide Huma Abedin that is sublimely dim-witted:

“Can you hang up the fax line,” Abedin asked Clinton.

“I thought it was supposed to be off the hook to work?” Clinton replied.

“Yes, but hang up one more time,” Abedin shot back.

“I did,” Clinton replied.

Others in the batch reveal more entanglements to Sid Blumenthal, her musings about her relationship with The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, her concern over unauthorized photographs taken with a camera with a “long lens from afar” and her apparent helplessness in fetching herself a cold drink:  (30 September 2009Pls call Sarah and ask her if she can make me some iced tea.)  Damn, bitch, that’s what I call lazy.

And They Call It Puppy Love

Yesterday The Daily Mail published a report that Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, mocked the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to legalize same-sex marriage vowing to travel to the White House and “get down on one knee and ask” for The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer’s hand in marriage.

Mugabe is 91 and it may help nurture this budding love affair if he promises to take TWMDCO to an amusement park and win a giant plush stuffed animal for him.  Studies have shown that this act provides emotional fulfillment and if, at some point, Mugabe tenderly places his jacket over his shoulders that act would seal the deal and they would live happily ever after.