I wish my guidance counselor had just leveled with me . . .

thanks colleen

Lassiter in OUTER SPACE

Wow, I thought my delusions of grandeur were profound, but this guy Lassiter is way out there.

Happy Holidays from the Desk of Nancy Pelosi!

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress,non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions ofothers, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all, and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006,but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. Accordingly, this wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual and generally accepted application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first. Warranty is limited to replacement of this wishor issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

NOT VALID IN PUERTO RICO OR GUAM

A Tale of Two Robertsons . . . .

But really just one.

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources. In a move reminiscent of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, and his 10 Commandments stand in Montgomery, U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court turned in his walking papers. Hoping to further fuel a nascent political debacle, Robertson, not to be confused with the Chief Justice of either Alabama or the U.S., played the coy boy when asked about the reasons for his resignation. Allegedly, a crack team of Democratic strategists, including Martin Sheen and Michael Moore, are locked deep beneath secret ACLU headquarters in Islamabad, crafting a speech for the former FISA judge to give at his moveon.org coronation later this spring, at the event formerly known as the Academy Awards. An unidentified Robertson' spokesperson admitted that the judge is looking forward to a brief swell of adulation followed by a precipitous fall into anonymity.

The Nation, It Really is That Obtuse

This is a first for me. After being highly amused at this rant from The Nation, I actually found some sober, well thought out commentary in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

After the hysteria disperses, there will be a better Iraq

Victor Davis Hanson
is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution

'I implore you to inaugurate or invite proposals for peace forthwith. And in case peace cannot now be made, consent to an armistice for one year."
What unpopular war was that?
And does the following gloom about American military prospects also sound familiar? "Unless some positive and immediate action is taken, hope for success cannot be justified... final destruction can reasonably be contemplated."
The first throw-in-the-towel remark, however, did not come from Howard Dean or U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.) - but from Horace Greeley about the Civil War during the depressing summer of 1864. And the second quote is Douglas MacArthur's bleak assessment not long after the Chinese Red Army crossed the Yalu River in the autumn of 1950.
Similar despair could be recalled from the winter of 1776 or the early months of 1942 following Pearl Harbor and the Allies' loss of the Philippines and Singapore.
America has not fought a war when at some point the news from the battlefield did not evoke a frenzy of recriminations.
After the carnage of the Wilderness, Cold Harbor and Petersburg in 1864, the conventional wisdom about the Civil War was that the bumbling Abraham Lincoln could never win reelection. Instead, all summer the veteran Gen. George McClellan assured the Northern populace that there was no hope of military victory.
In November 1950, after Americans were sent scurrying southward by the Chinese, most pundits wrote off Korea as lost - before the unexpected counteroffensives of Gen. Matthew Ridgeway saved the Seoul government by the next spring.
We can derive three historical lessons relevant to our present finger-pointing over Iraq.
First, hysteria arises at home in almost all our wars. We almost forgot that after the miraculous, but atypically quick victories in Panama, the first Gulf War, Serbia, Afghanistan and the three-week toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Instead, Thomas Paine's labeling those who bailed on George Washington in December 1776 as "sunshine patriots" and acrimony over a completely surprised Navy at Pearl Harbor are more indicative of what occurs during American conflicts.
Lincoln was often cartooned as an ungainly ape. During the hysterics over the Korean War, George Marshall - who earlier oversaw the U.S. military victory of World War II and aid to a postwar starving Europe - was called a "front man for traitors" and "a living lie" by Indiana Sen. William Jenner.
In this context, Howard Dean's assertion that the present war is unwinnable or John Kerry's claim that our troops are engaging in terrorizing Iraqis is hardly novel. Second, there is also no necessary connection between occasionally terrible news and the final outcome of the war. The near-fatal losses of the Army of the Potomac in 1864, the advances of the Kaiser's armies in the 1918 German offensive, or the carnage on Okinawa in May and June 1945 nevertheless all presaged our own victory not much later.
Third, American history is far kinder to those who persevered than those who alleged that their country's victory was impossible. Most today revere Lincoln and Marshall, along with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who weathered unimaginable slurs. A Gen. McClellan or Sen. Jenner - who opportunistically piled on when news from the front was bad - was mostly forgotten when things inevitably improved.
The same will probably be true of Iraq. Last week's election will prove the most successful yet. The Iraqi army gets bigger - and better. The Pentagon now does not fret over the need for more American troops, but agrees that evolving events on the ground will allow measured withdrawal.
Attacks by insurgents have been growing less frequent since October, according to Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a spokesman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq. Democracy, not al-Qaeda, is the new buzz on Arab streets. Seventy-one percent of the Iraqis in a recent ABC/Time magazine poll "say that their own lives are going well" now. The fatwas of Ayman Al-Zawahiri sound ever more desperate and shrill.
In response to all this, sober leaders of the Democratic Party will soon politely tune out the John Murthas and Nancy Pelosis. Expect the erratic copperhead Howard Dean to quietly, but prematurely, leave the chairmanship of the Democratic Party. Perennial gloom-and-doomers such as Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) who see our efforts through the prism of Vietnam won't again be nominated for president.
Some Americans cannot see any of this yet, since we are still in our own summer of 1864. But as the conditions in Iraq improve, and comparisons to our sole loss in Vietnam ring hollow, expect critics to grow silent. And savvy fence-sitters such as Hillary Clinton will begin to preen, rather than express ambivalence, over past votes to remove Saddam.
The blame game is not unusual on the impatient home front during American wars - and is soon mostly forgotten after we finally win. Iraq is, and will be, no exception.

Don't Worry About the Flag, Burn Hillary's Bill

Don't let the real brains of the Clinton family fool you again by outlawing flag burning. She equivocated her way to a Senate seat and now she's trying for the big one. Flag burning is a great issue for her. 70 per cent of Americans would agree with a bill outlawing the practice. Hillary can appear a good patriot and accomplish what she truly loves, a larger more intrusive centralized government. Keep in mind, her bill would only outlaw flag burning intended to "intimidate any person or group of persons". Does that language ever sound familiar. Hillary gets a shiny red button on her big blue suit and the Jack-Booted PC Police get another strong link in the sensitivity chain that is slowly strangling the life out of the great American individual.

So, if you see someone burn a flag, don't call your representative, buck up, walk up, and smack him right in the mouth. Chances are 7 out of your ten jurors will understand.

You mean ANWR isn't the name of a town?

"For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end."

This is a must read for all.

Wing Bowl Redux . . . .

thanks for the Wing Bowl photo MikeZornek.com

and it still sucks.

Because I have seen a few blogs linking to my previous Wing Bowl rant, it would only be just for me to rectify my incomplete sermon. I did fail to mention the new contestant policy.

The new contestant policy, only new contestants may apply, is a ridiculous farce trumped by no other since the Dukakis campaign. How ridiculous is it that the legends of Wing Bowl have been cast asunder for a crop of unknowns? The Black Widow, whom I shielded with my very own coat last year as the beer rained down on her entrance, is out. Badlands Booker, out. Their replacements, a pathetic lot of has-been's and never-will-be's who can only qualify through depleted standards. True, Philly hated the BW because she whooped our asses and only weighs 32 pounds, but the villain made the story. This year there is no story-line. No compelling comebacks. No champion defending the crown. No heated rivalries. Nothing. Unless you count the Wingettes, but everyone knows those girls are little more than beer-goggle geishas, good from afar, but far from good.

My only hope is that the fury of Philadelphia hatred bubbles up and a crowd of maddened WB aficionados falls down upon the Wachovia Center with the vile contempt of rabid jackals, ripping the philistines responsible for this mess from their illegitimate thrones and stringing them up from the rafters, where we can all take turns pelting them with the vomit that is sure to ensue from the mealy mouths of their woefully inadequate contestants.

Ed Asner!!! The World Can't Wait . . . . .

For you to shut the hell up.

I know you and Marty Sheen played really important men on TV, but in the real world, the rest of us are just tired of your Neiman-Marxist, bloated, haven't graduated from college or had a real job, communist sycophant, culture of victimization politics. In fact, you are so far removed from us by the good fortune of your chance meeting with fame, that often times, we can't even understand what in the blue blazes you are talking about.

Take, for example the full page spread you endorsed in the New York Times, equating Bush to Hitler, and our troops to the Mongols.

I know that you don't understand half of what the ad says, nor actually believe it. But the sad fact remains, that you are morons. And morons with enough money and fame can really cause a lot of damage.

Honestly, I love you both. I mean, come on, Rhoda . . . .what a show. And, Marty, well you gave us that time bomb Charlie and Emilio Estevez. Enough said. So, to help you both out, here are some talking points, based on the petition that you signed, that might help you understand.

SIGN THE CALL TO TAR AND FEATHER THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT

Your organization, on the basis of outrageous lies, is causing Ed Asner to look much more foolish than he actually is.

Your organization is openly torturing our ears and causing great pains to our digestive systems.

Your organization is confusing older hipsters by allowing the merest suspicion that pony tails and flannel shirts are still in vogue and sexy.

Your organization is each day moving toward an autocracy, based on denying any competing points of view through abusive shouting and poor oral hygiene, in a fashion that may have made Adolph Hitler blush.

Your organization makes a mockery of science by endorsing the author of "Holla' If Ya' Hear Me" as a bona fide social scientist.

Your organization is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to shave their armpits and wear matching lipstick.

Your organization enforces a culture of compulsory consensus, foolishness, reckless adherence to antiquated ideals of communistic authority, and a general disregard for the mental health and welfare of your own members.

People look at this and cannot believe that you somehow survived in a time warp to emerge in the present day, from the 1960's, and somehow emerged in the 1960's from time warp beginning in the 1860's. People are scared of this because it is unnatural and your ideas have already been disproved by the world's greatest century of conflict and progress.

Weaver Family! You Suck!

Honest Services Fraud?

That's the charge and the verdict is . . . . . . Guilty!!!!!!!!!! Of course it's guilty, but at least the latest Street stooge, Leonard Ross, had the foresight to plead guilty, hoping for a reduced sentence. 18-33 months is the possibility of jail time, but it is unlikely he will even see that.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/13398573.htm

Philadelphia Mayor John Street continues to claim ignorance of all the corruption surrounding him. Sure, he found an FBI wiretap in his office during a heated reelection campaign, but that only galvanized his support amongst Philly's wretched masses, catapulting him to a huge victory in a race that was very tight. And why not? Philly has been on a downward slide since WWII. At least, by electing yet another crook from a barbaric Democrat regime, the city insures consistency. Consistent poverty, filth, and an utter disregard for reason.

But, I digress, back to the swine that run the city. Street has now seen his two top advisers go down in flames. Ross was the second, pre-dated by long-time Street ally, Ronald White who at least had the courtesy to die during his trial, saving Street the embarrassment of testifying. However, there are many trials yet to go, with as many as a dozen more City Hall insiders to face the wrath of the Feds. Oddly enough, court time will probably lend further credence to the corrupt political maestros of America's first capital, but it should be a fun show. Here's hoping we can toast to John in the witness box soon, and who knows, maybe even the defendant's chair.

Welcome to the City of Brotherly Love . . .

or, the City that was once, but may never be again.

Why you ask, my curious little friend. Because, Philly is, and ever will be, the little engine that couldn't. Not because, the mountain's too high or the valley too low, but because the conductor seems constantly on the take and the passengers all too willing to ride a steaming shit train into a monolith of corrupt mediocrity, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

And, even when it isn't outright graft that foils our intentions, it is the blessing of acute myopia and half-assed ambition that determines our course. I could spout a list of well-known stumbles on Philly's magnificent road to what could've been; how we constantly tear our own guts from an ever crumbling skeleton like a rusted scythe separating the chaff from the wheat, but I think one little example tells the tale.

What once was a glorious tribute to the common Philadelphia man, the new Wing Bowl is a testament to vainglorious failure. Sure, we know every year the Eagles will fall short of winning the Super Bowl, but the Wing Bowl was our kind of show. Drunken debauchery, wanton lechery, gluttony the scope of which no Californian could ever comprehend. . . . .Fat men eating wings at five in the morning surrounded by a lethal combination of drunken longshoremen, foolhardy students, and slumming corporate execs. Certainly the opportunity for mass carnage is there, but the risk is worth the reward. That was, until they changed the format this year.

What used to be a gratis admission, come if you have the balls, hang-over for free, guaranteed ass-whippin' good time has been ruined. WIP, the sports radio host of the event, decided to charge admission. Admittedly, a nominal fee of $5, but the small cost exacts a huge toll on the spirit of the event. The screwheads found a way to make a few more bucks, bucks which they are guaranteed through obscene pre-dawn beer sales, but bucks nonetheless.

Now, the true crusaders of over-indulgence will be out. Not priced out, but planned out. Planned out by the dweebs who heard about it on the radio and ran to Ticketmaster to buy a ticket. That sort of organization is the very antithesis of the event. Planned out by the yuck yuck corporate fatheads who think it'll be just a "hoot" to take their clients. "Hey Bob, it's better than the zoo." Of course, they have replaced the true animals so the Corporate dinks will only be staring at their own kind. No longer will it be necessary to roll out of a bar Thursday night and head to the parking lot to get in line. That necessity, once removed, will take the fear out of those unworthy to attend. The guys that make Wing Bowl great don't think ahead. God willing, they don't think at all. They just do. And that's the type of scum you want to cheer men on to puking if at all possible.

It's those men who bore the tax burden for the new stadiums in the first place. Why take away their greatest pleasure? By embracing the Corporate, plan it all crowd, Wing Bowl has turned its back on the kick-ass, blue-collar core of the city. We're not New York. What we did have was authenticity. Now that remaining vestige of dignity has been whored out for a Lincoln.