Waging war against war {and stuff}

..and those who make war and those who dont care much one way or the other and those who just want to get to work and those ipod wearers and cellphone talkers and meat eaters and everyone else who consumes anything without praying to it first.

Daily Ablution, always good for poking sticks at the lunatic left has a good one here:

Towards a Deep Green Stone Age - By Any Means Necessary

About a gathering of 'concerned citizens'...

"We will broadly outline our options for confronting and dismantling civilization, the pros, cons, and considerations of each,and a sharing of resources for people interested in considering different avenues of action."
.."Is a serious meeting to address the destruction of our planet and potential effective resistance. It will include theoretical discussions of serious and confrontational strategies and tactics."

Summary: Civilization offends us we will pluck it out.

For all their moronic blather about "creating a world based on mutual aid, love, justice, and connection to the living world", inspired by "environmentalism, feminism, deep ecology, spirituality, anarchy, indigenous lifeways, anti-oppression politics, peak oil and collapse theories, and past struggles for justice", a look just under the surface reveals their real aim - to bomb us back to the stone age. Literally.

While most of us following the links in that might dismiss these nutjobs, I'd advise against it. We did the same about Islamo-terrorists {some still do}. and the danger of these lunatics aligning with Al Quaeda, with whom they fully sympathise and admire, makes a pretty effective fringe group.

I think the real problem is that it's possible for someone who is certifiably insane to actually put together a program that sounds somewhat reasonable to those who worry constantly about the earth being destroyed by us.
And these people are well on the way to certifiable lunacy.. especially considering their implausible outcomes by method used.

The desire for humanity to revert to stone age 'hunter gatherer' status totally ignores that doing so will result in only the strongest and most wily surviving their blitzkrieg against any form of industrial process.

If you looked at the backgrounds of these people, it's highly likely they fall into the urban academic. In the society they advocate, they would be the first to wither away and die.
Because the same stone age 'da Vinci' they admire for his cave paintings probably did them right after bashing in the head of the cave-painter from the next clan over in a dispute over a possum. Or, if he was vegan, a cluster of berries.

So even Ward Churchill, who preaches regularly from the pulpit of academic idiotry, though he claimed to be indian, probably never learned to live off the land. One assumes he would survive by eating fawning graduate assistants.

To wit: Only NRA members, and Pro Bass fishermen have a good chance of making through their desired holocaust. And Ted Nugent will be their prophet.

And if wishing for your own type to become extinct in the name of saving the earth for those you despise isnt insane, what is.

An Old Fashioned Blog

One of the problems with being inspired to write by reading is once the habit is started, you cant get rid of it.

You change the choice of topics, but it's reading nonetheless. And it's worse when you're interested in EVERYTHING!

For example, I can give you detailed, flow sequenced, training in how auto fuel injection {almost all based on the Bosch Jetronic system, did'ja know!} works... and how to solve engine problems based on that. Of course that's one of the PRACTICAL things I have read.

But mainly I read on politics, which can drive you crazy when you pay too close attention.

So it's great and refreshingly distractive when I ran across a real old fashioned blog - two links away from Tim Worstall, of course.

Free Man in Preston is a GREAT read... the guy has everythingto appeal to a former corporate IT wonk like me. He doesnt go into the tech stuff, though... he just observes from that particular perch in what is essentially a witty diary.

Handle With Care Friday, Jan 19
“Tim, the reason you’re going nowhere,” said Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, blazing into the conversation like she’d been shot from a cannon, “is that you don’t have clearly defined goals. You don’t know where you want to be.”

What I was actually intending to say, before she’d interrupted, was that I was going nowhere until I’d finished my lunch, in response to an order from Death to fetch some stuff from the data centre. I tried explaining this to Stella but once she starts, she’s not easily stopped.

She was wearing a black trouser suit, expensive looking, finished off with orange trim. It said “I’m a not to be fucked with executive, with a hint of Hare Krishna to show my spiritual side.”
I meanwhile was wearing my new jumper, in black of course, woven from a supernaturally soft fabric, probably wool or something like it, which I was casually splattering with tomato soup. It said “Boyishly cute. Sloppy eater.”
We appeared disconcertingly colour co-ordinated.

“You want to do this and you want to do that, but all your projects end up lost in the fog. You spend your time floundering, blah, blah…”

Oh for goodness’ sake. I looked outside. Today the world through my window - streaked with a thick layer of grime following yesterday’s gales - had a soft focussed, Vaseline on the lens quality about it.
Rex the security guard was clearing up fallen debris - broken slates, the former contents of dustbins, a milk float down by the generators - striding along with slow, deliberate purposefulness. He looked like a character in a bizarre litter themed porn film. Don’t dwell too long on that.

Tabs walked by with an armful of reports and Terry said, “January’s such a miserable bloody month. Some people seem to shutdown through sheer misery.”
“Do you actually have any ambition, Tim? At all?” asked Stella.
“Yes,” I said. “For you to stop bugging me.”
“It’s beyond me,” Terry continued, lost in the dimly lit cubicle of his mind, “how anybody is ever born in September.”

Rex was fishing milk crates out of branches with a long pole. It reminded me of those hooked poles they had at school for opening windows with. Terry said that sometimes he knows how those Jehovah’s Witnesses must feel. They keep knocking on the door but they’ve long since given up hope of ever being invited in. Milk bottles were scattered on the grass like rotting apples.

Later on, after the going home bell had sounded, Stella told me how her friend Becky has been offered the chance to work in China for three months. It would be a great opportunity for her, career-wise and as “an enhancing, you know, life experience”. She’s an ambitious girl, and the bank she works for would look on it favourably if she were to go. Less favourably if she didn’t. I guess this is what today was all about.
“Just three months?” I asked.
“That’s what she said.”
“And when does she have to give her answer?”
“Possibly longer if it goes well. And if she wants to.”

Ivan the Terribly Thorough swept into the room, a one man flash-mob with a vacuum cleaner. He switched off to dust around the window sills and said that ambitions are all well and good, but handle with care.
“They’re like wishes. Allow them a little privacy,” he said, as dust spiralled skywards above the radiator.
“It’s bad luck to say them out loud,” and then he was gone.

Oh, to write like that!

The Great Global Warming Swindle

From UK channel 4 - 75 minutes: The thread is unraveling from Enviro-Emporer Gore's New Clothes "We've almost begun to take it for granted that climate change is a man-made phenomenon. But just as the environmental lobby think they've got our attention, a group of naysayers have emerged to slay the whole premise of global warming. According to a group of scientists brought together by documentary-maker Martin Durkin, if the planet is heating up, it isn't your fault and there's nothing you can do about it." So there!

18 Doughty Street & : A new 'Appreciate America' movement!

The love between America and our Motherland, despite all efforts of the left in both countries, is not dead. 18 Doughty Street is a web streaming 'alternative political views source attempting to provide encouragement for those who don't buy the "Evil America" or the "BusHitler" meme.

The associated blog, BritainAmerica.com has already attracted the vultures.... who desperately attempt to keep the nonsensical Bush Bashing paradigm alive.

Comments

I am a Tory who loathes Bush.

I object to:
- misleading people over fsith-based welfare
- a scandalous fiscal record
- a remarkable disregard for the stature of the Supreme Court
- a terrible record on human rights

I would certainly have voted for Kerry.

Posted by: Mike A | March 06, 2007 at 03:09 PM

* * *

JF
Problem is most Americans have a super-individualistic mindset. Most decent Brits would regard the average American voter as selfish in the extreme. Most normal people over here would have happily voted Kerry.

Its time we decent Conservatives dissocitated ourselves from the loutish bible bashing Republicans accross the atlantic.

PS Theres a reason the Bush heartlands are referred to as the fly-over states!

Posted by: si | March 06, 2007 at 06:47 PM

* *


Scooter Libby - Don't drop the soap or you'll get what the American people have had since 2001.

Posted by: Volunteer | March 06, 2007 at 10:13 PM

* *
So if you don't love President Bush you have no 'recognizable Conservative values' according to JF. What a complete moron!

Posted by: malcolm | March 06, 2007 at 10:59 PM

Which comments of course encourage talking point circles, as we have to point out that Bush is only conservative on national security and tax-cut-fueled economic robustness. On spending initiatives, and illegal immigration, he is anything but conservative.

And of course, since I'm a fairly independent thinker, I'd like to point out a few 'simplistics' in this video ad, from 18 Doughty Street; A World without America.



In the height of the Cold War, it was common for the Soviets to claim that Russian Scientists had actually invented most everything credited to the west, including the Telephone and wireless communications {yes, I'm aware of Marconi}. As one who has read up on various technology historical claims, I'd have to say that it's indeed possible that they were correct.

Not 'probable' but possible. The difference in how those discoveries would have been handled, of course, makes the issue moot. In Czarist Russia, there would have been no appreciation of the value to the average person. In the Soviet, even more, the inventions would have been looked on with suspicion and distrust.

So what is really important is not that some technology was born or made practical in the US, but that there was a freedom to exploit it. And, unlike more restrictive societies, the products quickly trickled down to all of us.

And THAT is what makes the difference, in more ways than just market forces but political agendas as well.

Here's how the above video came about, what judges for the winning ad wanted to see:


To me, this video is more evocative than the result. Of course, we have no way of knowing that without the US, there wouldnt have been some other balancing force, perhaps Great Britain, as it is closest than any other country to our ideals... I cant even rule out Japan. But the point is that just like our humble hero in "It's a Wonderful Life" America HAS made a difference.

Death of a WebSite

Matchnight.com, which a few years ago was one of the influential soccer sites in the US is shutting down on March 31.

Not only was it the official host site for the Columbus Crew, before MLS consoplidated all club sites for marketing purposes, it continued to be host for the official Crew messageboard, as well as hosting numerous other 'unofficial' MLS and USL fan oriented forums and news sites. Most of those will find new hosting resources and continue on, but it wont be easy, anymore, for fans to just click a dropdown and see what fans of the 'other sides' were saying.

But it's the forums which were the 'canaries in the mine' on this. When you see partipation on a messageboard go from hundred of posts a day, and upwards of 20 or so members and lurkers, down to 1 or 2 at a time and maybe a couple posts a day, the writing is on the wall.
No matter there is a nice layout, and occasionally good articles, it's the daily conversation that makes a website, or a happy-hour bar, for that matter.

For such a sport site is a 'community' and when the residents drift away there is no more need for the structure where the community gathers. the reason for the vacancies are legion, perhaps, and never as easy as you might think. I used to argue my politics on there, against the typical 'lib-meme' advocates who never had an answer for any of the hard questions of history. there were one or two who saw things differently, they could post reasoned responses, but it was the 'role-playing' on there which caused me to throw up my hands and quit.
I left to argue my politics on Another soccer site. and found this time I was alone... this time I didnt have 'CrewArsenal' occasionally watching my back. But, while I had to argue against the dark side on my own, at least I dont have the tantrum-throwing infants responding with various cute 'smilies' dredged in from somewhere else.. where words and reason are discarded in favor of 'attitude'.

Sooner or later, though, 'attitude' wins out. All they need do is keep on throwing their tantrums and adults leave for more serene surroundings. Which is somewhat ironic, as the only choice left for the Crew fan seems to be 'BigSoccer' which is the archtype of the restrictive, market driven site. A case where there was a product before there was a site.

Such is life, though.. and something always comes up to replace that which you love. Just waiting.

Super Bowl Entertainment Committee for '08... Get Weird Al!

Like most occasional music fans, who NOW watch halftime mainly to see how bad the entertainment is.. no, not to see if someone's boob flops out.. I have to say that Prince's effort was among the recent best And I never much liked him. Ummm,never mind the 'Purple Rain' rendition; what a 'walk-through'!

But the PRODUCTION still sucks! The whole concept of 'filling the field with kids and air-pressure props and marching bands and light shows and smoke machines' has become a parody of itself.

And since that isnt likely to change much as the Half-Time committee seems to think any performance has to be dumbed down for us older/hick plebes, I have an great idea.

Let's go whole hog and embrace the nuttiness.

And there is no one better at that than Weird Al Yankovic. It would be a snap for him, he can take on elements of ALL the past mediocrity of the show and make us like it so much he'll get a standing ovation.

And it fits in well with the drift of the Super Bowl Commercials over the past ten years... gone are the 'break-through ads' like Apple's famous '1984'; now all the best are keyed on either irony or whimsy, or parodies of themselves.

What's even better is that Al has a great voice and an excellent music and production staff and those who didnt get the humor {or listen to the lyrics} would think they saw a really good musical performance.

And I guarantee that the day-after water cooler talk would be great.

Fulham faces West Ham; and Boa Morte, Who Has a New Shirt and Something to Prove

It's been just over a week since Fulham reached a deal with West Ham United transferring Luis Boa Morte, from his Craven Cottage home of five years, to Upton Park.

Saturday, West Ham host Fulham with Boa Morte and his team looking to get even for comments made by Fulham boss Coleman about his former skipper's play this season and predictions that West Ham is relegation fodder.

These two teams drew 0-0 at Craven Cottage just three weeks ago on December 23rd. In that match, West Ham left-back Paul Konchesky was shown a straight red card.

While newly appointed manager Alan Curbishley enjoyed a dream start to his managerial duties at ther East London club with a 1-0 win over Premiership leaders Manchester United on December 16th, things have gone south since then in league play. Over the busy holiday fixture period the Hammers lost to Portsmouth and Manchester City at home and also fell to Reading by a whopping score of 6-0 on New Years day.

Last weekend the Hammers did put things together in the 3rd round of the FA Cup with a 3-0 win over strugglers League One strugglers Brighton. And Boa Morte, playing in the new shirt for the first time, figured mightily in that crucial win with an assist for the first, and a set-up for the second goal.

Fulham on the other hand comes into Saturday's match on a bit of a roll. While it is not a winning roll, it is not a losing roll either. Fulham has gone six matches in all competitions unbeaten with the last five being draws. Their last loss came at Liverpool on Saturday, December 9th.

Since the defeat at Liverpool, the Cottagers defeated Middlesbrough and drew with West Ham, Charlton, Chelsea, Watford and most recently Leicester City in the 3rd round of the FA Cup.

One might look at the recent run of form by Fulham as the Cottagers missing opportunities to pick up six Premiership points against strugglers West Ham, Charlton and Watford, but a draw is always better than a loss.

Clint Dempsey, though signed wont be eligible to play for another week, while paerwork is processed. The other new acquisition, Montella, is expected to see action.

Prediction: West Ham 2-1 Fulham Reason, too much hot blood for Fulham to handle.

Blatantly cadged from Chicago Tom's match preview on FulhamUSA

Jimmy Carter: A retrospective.


Some years ago I watched Jimmy Carter on an interview on Charlie Rose. I was moved to gush on a forum I wrote on, then, that he probably was the finest human being ever to be President. With the publishing of his new book and reading some critique and news around it, I am tempted to repudiate that view.
But I wont.. though I now believe the man is unfit to ever hold public office; unfit then, unfit now!

If I had to write a one-line view of Jimmy Carter, it is:

Jimmy Carter: Always ready and willing to give away that which is not his.

Lamar Hunt: The Measure of a Man

This isnt going to be a lengthy thribute to Mr Hunt. There are, at the same time, many and not nearly enough personal testimonials available by Google.

All I can add is that all those players and reporters from Football, Soccer and Tennis realms are exactly right.

How do I know? Because I spoke to him for about thirty seconds, and that's all it took to find out about Lamar Hunt. When I spoke, he paid attention, shook my hand and focussed on me and what I had to say.

And imagine how many times that happened to him every day

'Breaking News:' Circumcision and STD's!

Forbes: Circumcision Reduces HIV Rates, U.S. Studies Confirm

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. researchers in Africa said Wednesday that they found that circumcision is such a good defense against HIV infection that they shut down two studies early, and instead offered all participants a chance to be circumcised.

Altogether, now...

Duh!

Muslim speaks out! Here's what we need more of..

From a Muslim outlook, imams have missed the point on flight behavior

The first thing one must understand about this whole hullabaloo with the Muslim imams taken off a Phoenix-bound plane in Minneapolis is that it most definitely was not about the right to prayer or freedom of worship.
.... it is certainly not about victimization.

But let us look at the response of the imams since the incident.

They rushed toward the media never looking back. They have taken their story of victimization to every soft media they could find. They then stoked the same tired Muslim flames of victimization through their own political pulpits in mosques around the Valley.

Organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and the Muslim American Society also immediately jumped on board, even before the imams' flight reached Phoenix the next day, and began whipping up the drums of victimization.
...
As a devout Muslim, I have watched this painfully protracted saga unravel, fearing what comes next. The media, especially print media, have bent over backward to hear minorities' fears.
Yet public opinion has not seemed to budge in favor of the imams. The lesson here lies in why. It has to do with credibility.

Yes... exactly, the good doctor sees what we all see. It's all about acting out, then crying victim!

Because these imams and their handlers just don't get it, it's time we Muslims found leadership and organizations that do.

Our predicament is unique, fragile and precarious. We Muslims are a relatively new minority in a nation that gives us freedoms that no other Muslim nation would allow.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, a radical subset of our faith community is seeking to destroy the basis for this liberty.

Either we predominantly direct our passions against these radicals or Americans will not count us as allies in this consuming struggle.

God bless and protect you, doc!

Keep trying to get that message out.

An easy path to a BCS playoff?

As things are turning out, it looks like the BCS National Championship game will pit the two concensus top teams.. as long as USC doesnt stumble under the hooves of a Trojan Horse.

But there will still be whining and moaning, particularly from SEC teams fans.

Can we all agree that any of the top 5 teams might deserve the crown?

Can we all agree that any SEC team (for example purposes) that cant make the top five rankings DOESNT deserve a shot?

Good.. most of you get it. For the rest of you, maybe it's the SEC that should adjust.

Now, can we agree that the BCS ranking processes legitimize in-season games and preclude both scheduling of outright patsies and looking too far forward to bigger games? By that statement I refer to computer rankings which have some pretty sophisticated algorithms to rank based on strength of schedule down three or four levels.

So..IF we must have a playoff, then I suggest we do it as a modification of the current system.

Top 5 BCS qualify for the national championship.

#1 automatically in the NC game. This is NOT a free pass! It's a reward for being top of national rankings.

Then:
2 plays 5
3 plays 4
ALL at neutral sites at least 100 miles from home stadium; winners play a semi-final in New Years Bowl Games (alloted as current system does)

NC game a week later, as it is now.

If BCS takes the end-of-season #1 as automatic qualifier, that means you cant just schedule patsies and go to the playoffs. And means the season will be played to win each and every game.

Some are, strangely, moaning that too much is made of computer rankings but they will also complain that the 'big schools' get too many votes.
I humbly remind them of the two 'humans' voting WVU as #1 for several weeks running.
We all knew, at least I did, that was idiocy. And it has proven to be idiocy. But I dont think the computers ranked them #1, did they!

I have gotten over the 'Hate Notre Dame' syndrome specifically because of introduction of computer rankings. It wasnt that I just hated them... I hated them because, watching their games, I felt they were highly overrated.

The reason I came up with that playoff scenario is that it would require the least reorganization of the bowl system and guarantee a clearly able top 5 contender a real shot at the national championship.

I dont see how anyone could mind doing away with conference championship games but I dont think my system would necessitate that; it's up to the schools, as it should be.

The gospel of Tony Hendra

How to become a serious HuffPost contributor:

Attend Cambridge to understand world and how it really works

Become intellectual by consorting with Cleese and other Monty Python originals

Somehow, while writing on the New York scene'; become 'saved'*

Write a book about it: Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

Have your daughter claim you sexually molested her as a child, and of course deny it. Of course that might be because, as you admitted, you ignored your family 'in order to screw as many hippie chicks as possible'.

*Or ... maybe you WEREN'T actually 'saved'....

A Christian might harbor dark thoughts about an 'enemy' .. might even wish him dead... surely, though, he wouldnt repeatedly invoke God in a prayer wishing him dead.

Any more than he would ask God to help him get in his neighbor's wife's pants. But, somehow, that wouldnt surprise me, either.

Ohio State - Michigan: No Rematch, Please!


It has turned out as I said.. or feared; Michigan a 3 point loser in Columbus, which may result in them ending up ranked as #2 at the end of the season.

Mike Hart of Michigan said after the game that he wanted a rematch and that it would turn out differently on 'neutral turf'.

It very well might... the problem with that idea, though, is that the National Championship game is being played in the home of the Fiesta Bowl. And if you think that is 'neutral ground' you havent been paying attention the last few years.
It might as well be Paul Brown Stadium. Guarantee Buckeye fans already have scooped up most of the hotel accomodations; and to locals who are interested, the Buckeyes are probably their second team.

There's lots of opinion in the press, including the Detroit papers, against a rematch, and I think they are right. It would cheapen the unique BCS process which I'm beginning to like more and more {obviously dont know if I'd feel the same if the Buck's lost, but I think I would}.

And if OSU plays someone else and beats them soundly, and Michigan trounces whoever they play in the Rose Bowl, that will do more to establish who is really king on the hill than if they played each other.

Unless you want to see the Buckeyes REALLY paste the Wolverines.. which I dont. One of the unique characteristics of college football fandom, which makes it fun is the illusion that 'your team' might have won the big National Championship game, "IF ONLY....".
Well, I'd like to bash the illusions out of the minds of some of them... and, for that, there's be nothing better than if OSU pounded Notre Dame into dust and Michigan pushed USC into the Pacific.

The "Godfather Dems" of our times..

Reading back-posts on Gateway Pundit on how we keep getting fooled it occurred to me that Jimmy Carter is a very dangerous man.

The mullahs have fooled Jimmy Carter and other democrats before and they are fooling them again now says Zucker. Hasn't Carter done enough in creating militant Islam? When is the left ever going to learn? Why do we have to pay for their ignorance and cluelessness?

Read it all... it also explains how Carter gummed the works with North Korea.

And it struck me...

If Al Gore invented the Internet, didnt Jimmy Carter 'invent' international terror by weapons of mass destruction and Islamic Terrorism?

Of course, Gore didnt REALLY invent websurfing and such, I doubt he even thought of it; he was pushing a national supercomputer consortium in which net connectivity was vital.. and Carter didnt intend for things to turn out as they have when he gave up tokens, as a gesture of good will, with both Iran and North Korea.

Nonetheless...

The 2007 US Congress.. what we can look for? More of the same!

Forget Pelosi's blathering on "Culture of Corruption" ... for House Majority Leader she's nominating John Murtha who has never passed up a piece of pork, and brags about it, or stopped looking for the big under-the-table payoff... so much so that he's under the constant eye of the fed's.
Looks like another issue where Progressives and Conservatives can be on the same page.
Ed Morrisey has more
Who, among the literally one or two readers here, thinks it's bad enough that Murtha will chair the Appropriations Committee?

But, - in some ways, even worse - Republicans in the House are installing the same old regime in Leadership positions... forgetting in record time WHY they were voted out of the Majority.
Not that Boehner, etc; are as corrupt as Murtha but conservative voters meant to send a message... they made it loud and clear... and the survivors seem to have learned nothing.

So the 'accomodations' between the Bush Administration who are NOT really looking to reduce government spending, and the 'old guard' who still think their constituents are just 'not well informed of Realpolitik will do nothing to satisfy the desires of the American People.

Dark -but fitting - Thoughts on Armistice Day.


I don't want to soil the memories, all too little celebrated these days, of the heros of WW I, which heros should be honored without rancor to anyone..

But this is also a good time to reflect on the far-reaching effects of selfish national interests on the world we live in.

My point is that France should forever be banished from any influence in international politics.

It was the terms of the Armistice, which were largely dictated by France, that led to WW II; France was mostly interested in making sure that Germany was destroyed economically and humbled to the point of a third world nation.

Unfortunately the allies went along with this. And that selfish, over-punitive effort gave rise to Hitler's Nazi's.

Later... it was France's bumbling, 19th century, short-sighted defense program that allowed Germany to practically walk into France and hand power to the Vichy government, which didnt resist sending Jews to the east in cattle cars.

Then there is France in Algeria..
Then there is France in Indo-China: when they got humilated at Dienbienphu, militarily and strategically, they came to the US with their hat in hand and asked us to take over for them in Viet Nam.
After which, they got chummy with their former enemy Ho Chi Minh.. and their intelligentsia did everything possible to see us defeated.
- why was that?
Because France HATES to see anyone succeed where they have failed, and that says it all!

And recently, of course..their underhanded ass-buddy relationship with Saddam and the Oil for Blood deals Chirac and his cronies made with him, under the auspices of the equally corrupt UN.

And now when France is failing in 'uniting Europe' in their mold. And has not a clue of how to fix their ridiculous situation in which they are not only fostering Youth/Muslim riots by their parochial and biased social/employment programs, but ALSO building resentment and breeding neo-nazi 'strike-back' feelings. I find they (as a country... I will never disparage the courage of individual French, which has been proven time and again) are showing their true grit... NONE!

No... I'm sorry, but once again the thoughts on Armistice Day, leave me wondering just how many times the English speaking countries will have to, AGAIN, shed their soldiers' blood to bail these idiots out.

Yes, unfortunately, French IS still the language of world diplomacy:

Je me rends. Queest-ce que je peux te donner?

Google translation for: I surrender! What can I give you?

Election 2006: A Conservative Loss/Win by Pettyfog the optimist

Here's what I see happening:

Dems gain control of the House, GOP hangs onto Senate by a pinky-nail.

Good thing: Dewine gets his just desserts, out of our lives forever.. and hopefully stays the hell away from 'K Street'.

Good Thing: Michael Steele, one of Esquire Magazine's 'GOP Lawnjockeys" gets elected in Maryland because Black Voters FINALLY get fed up with Dem Carpetbaggers.

Good thing: John Kasich comes out of hibernation in Ohio to lead a REAL Conservative GOP makeover instead of 'old line' RINO republicans like Taft.

Good thing: I THINK the Dems are gonna have to put their money where their mouth is... they will do exactly as they {and Republicans} have in the past, once they sober up.... and ignore those whose votes got them over the top. And even when they DONT act like they have some brains, I REALLY get to have some fun!
KosKidz will be furious and ranting at them for just about everything... but hey... I can live with that! More fun for me.

Even the bad things can be good... I REALLY WANT Rangel to bring Bush up for impeachment. Because, dear hearts, they aint gonna be able to prove he lied about ANYTHING, as long as his idiot staffers tell the TRUTH, even if the point seems damaging.

Because, by then... all the original points Bush made will be provable.

They already have been... but YOU GUYS havent read about it.. wonder why?!!

Hell, even the Libby case is gonna be dropped AFTER the election. I'm gonna have FUN with that, too... just as I am with the Texas case against Delay, hopefully Dumbass Tom Delay 'stays the course' and insists on going to trial against Ronnie Earle.

Heh.. like I say, I'm just a cockeyed optimist who likes to have fun.

NFL: When is the "Terrell Owens bye-week"?!!!!

I don't think any more need be said.

Update: Thank you, Tony Romo and 'football gods'!

Battle of Ohio; not much joy for real Bengals fans

Winning is one thing, proving superiority and getting bragging rights at the bar or water cooler for a few weeks is good. But, for us old time Bengals fans, beating the Browns just isnt what it used to be.

Not to mention the injuries some key players got in the game, the result is much like winning a fight with your brother or one of your buddies.

It's just not anywhere as good as beating 'Modell's Team' anymore. Because REAL Bengals fans consider themselves and the Bengals as Paul Brown's legacy to Ohio.
Browns fans for decades deluded themselves with their mighty legacy.. but it was only a matter of time until Art Modell did to them what he had done to Paul Brown in the early sixties. Some of them actually derided Brown as spiteful and trying to make a replica of the Browns.
For me it was HIGHLY satisfying when Modell scuttled off to Baltimore. While I commiserated with Browns fans who really understood the meaning of it, The emblems the name, the impact and identification is nothing without the WHOLE of the Browns Legacy and they were tainted as long as Modell had anything to do with the team.

Now that the Browns logo and mystique no longer has anything to do with Modell, the reason to despise Brown fans isnt there anymore; especially since they are suffering through what we did all those empty years that Mike Brown didnt understand what his Dad learned in the few years after he gave up the coaching role.
Which was you cant micromanage your team. See... you tout the accomplishments of the great man, but also see where he was lacking, and Mike didnt get it, until four years ago.
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Browns dont have that problem with Lerner, but I think as a GM Randy is still learning. It'll come but they are going to have to get over the concept of bringing in 'local boys' as key team leaders.
I think Charlie Frye will be a good QB..but the Browns are going to have to learn to bring in people who dont know a damn thing about Cleveland and make them adopt the city, not the other way around.

Cincinnati, amazingly, has done that very well. All you have to do is look at the numbers of Bengals greats who'd never been there until they arrived at training camp, and live in and/or love the team and city long after they retire.
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Which gets around to what it is to be a Bengals fan.... our pride of legacy is STILL centered around Paul Brown and the sense of community around the team. Which we old timers see as born in Cleveland.