Powerful Piece on Why / How Libs Are Ruining Our Country

I always figured it was just plain naivete that caused bleeding heart liberals to support the causes they support and oppose rational governmental policies. They couldn't be consciously saying and doing totally stupid things, could they? I knew they were wrong but just couldn't articulate how and why they were wrong.

I just finished a spectacular article from "American Thinker" that spells it all out. Holy Freakin' Cow. You know how sometimes you know things - your gut just tells you that something is right even though your mouth can't explain it. Well my gut has been vindicated. Read this article by James Simpson and your feelings will be vindicated. I knew power was in there someplace, but to see that it is all part of the "Make the USA a communist / socialist state" playbook.

This is one of the most frightening things I have read in a long time. It honestly makes me fearful for out future. There are too many people who will unthinkingly buy into the plays and be led, like lemmings, off the cliff.

Just When You Think Things Can't Get Any Worse

We ride out Hurricane Ike - no electricity for four and a half days - and things seem to be humming along nicely when BOOM! The DVR on our Dish Network system goes OUT!

Can we not live in a civilized manner any longer? Do we have to watch everything in real time? What happens if we get a call during a favorite show? No "pause" function. No "rewind" to have a second look at a golf shot or completed pass or snappy line. No "record" function to get shows that are playing after bedtime. Ohhhh, the humanity.

I am especially annoyed, as I deserve to be, since all our friends and acquaintances have their power back on (except for Ray).

A replacement DVR has ostensibly been shipped, but I can almost promise complications.

Yet Another Revelation About Palin

Just discovered this one on the news site - The Onion. This is absolutely scandalous!

• In addition to the five children that the media are aware of—Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig—Palin also has nine secret children: Frag, Moss, Scoot, Skiffer, Minnow, Plow, Snatch, Twiglet, and Drum

There are others. Read 'em & weep. Seriously.

Here it is.

That talent in the Miss Alaska competition sounds like a winner though.

Ike's Gone and We're Baaaack

Some hairy times Friday night and Saturday morning. The lights (and television and refrigerator and internet) were snuffed about 5:00 Saturday morning, and we awoke Saturday to high winds, torrential rains and several pounds of debris per square foot of our lot in Willis. In many ways it was a textbook hurricane.

Don't know if you've seen the commercial in which the guy doesn't have a high def tv so he ends up watching the live action out his window. That was me. We opened the blinds and turned the loveseat around so it faced out the window to the street in front of the house. With no other entertainment, I watched the wind blow the rain and the occasional branch horizontally down the street. That was pretty entertaining for 15 or 20 minutes of every hour for about six hours.

Our neighbors across the street had company and every 30 minutes the winds would buffet their car alarms into action. The lights would flash and the horns would beep for five minutes and then go dormant again. Why they felt the cars had to be locked in these kind of conditions was somewhat of a mystery, but, hey, eventually the winds calmed and their card never did get stolen or even broken into.

We heard things hitting the roof every once in a while and the first couple of times I donned my rain slicker and headed outside to see what it was. They were evidently glancing blows because I never saw any big chunks of anything on the roof but saw plenty of branches laying around the house. As I looked up to the roof I saw the 100 foot-plus pines in the neighborhood sweeping across the sky and thought, "Hmmm, one or more of them could fall over ... on ME." And back into the house I would scurry.

On about my third trip out, I looked to the south of our street and saw one of those pines that had been sweeping across the sky was now sweeping the street. It was a big 'un, 16 inches in diameter. It had uprooted from our next door neighbor's front yard. As we go around the neighborhood later, it had lots of company. Perhaps two thirds of the trees had uprooted and toppled over and one third had snapped off. Most of the downed timber didn't hit houses or vehicles. Maybe 20 percent did.

While we had built up a supply of ice and didn't have too, too much food in the fridge, in most other ways we were not nearly as prepared as we should have been. We didn't have any "D" batteries that would refresh the flashlights we had. We didn't have a battery powered radio, although after another tour of the house, Pammie found a small transistor M&M radio that took "AA" batteries so we were able to monitor a couple of stations that were still broadcasting.

Our household telephone line continued working for half a day after the power went out but, of course, our portable phones were out of commission. I had a hard-wire headset phone in my study and remembered that Pammie, who you may now realize has every M&M novelty item known to man, had an M&M phone. We plugged it in and it worked just fine.

Most of Houston has been without power since the wee hours of Saturday morning. My BMW dealership had power restored on Wednesday, and we got out power back at home at about 5 p.m. Wednesday. Not surprisingly it went out again an hour later, but after a few more hours, it came back on to stay (knock on wood) at about 9 a.m.

The last two nights were spent in driveway revelry with a few neighbors cleaning out their coolers and liquor cabinets. With the power back on we will retreat, at least for a few days, into our routines, but we all vowed to get out more and have a driveway feast every couple of weeks.

It's nice to be a survivor.

Hurricane Ike - Geraldo's On the Scene

Just tuned into Fox News and see that Jerry Rivers (aka Geraldo Rivera) is being beat about the head and shoulders by 120 mph wind-driven rain on Seawall Blvd in Galveston. Shouting in his high pitched monotone and leaning into the gusts, he's going got the glory. All is right with the world.

(Where's the hail when you need it?)

Hurricane Ike - About to Hit Land

Of course at 8:53 p.m. it is totally dark out. The wind is still brisk here on the shores of Lake Conroe but according to the news, the tropical force winds have hit Galveston. The obligatory slickered news wienies are standing out in the driving rain, demonstrating that with a hurricane approaching, the wind blows and the rain falls, albeit not straight down.

I was reading a website - Weather Nerd - and it laid out a couple of phrases that slightly increased my fear factor:

1. I think the general public, nationwide, is going to be stunned and confused when a “Category 2″ or “weak Category 3″ hurricane causes the sort of catastrophic damage that Ike is going to cause.
2. Although still of Category 2 strength, Ike remains larger and more powerful than Category 5 Katrina or Category 5 Rita. As I discussed in yesterday’s blog entry, a good measure of the storm surge potential is Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE). Ike’s Integrated Kinetic Energy has fallen from 149 Terajoules this morning to 124 at 3:30 pm EDT this afternoon. However, this is still larger than the total energy Katrina had at landfall, and Ike’s storm surge potential rates a 5.1 on a scale of 1 to 6.

Right! What he said about the Terajoules.

Night Falling - 7:12 p.m. on September 12

It's cloudy and getting dark. The wind picked up significantly about an hour ago. It's still 84 degrees and very humid. We figured we might as well start cleaning out the freezer so we had a nice steak this evening and will go to work on the ice cream a bit later. Wouldn't want it to go to waste would we? I mean, it's Blue Bell, and we have a few raspberries left. Mmmmm.

Hearing the wind whooshing through the trees is a reminder that we have trees around the house. With the front end of Ike we will be getting the strongest winds from the East. No trees likely to hit the house. After the eye passes over the house, there are about half a dozen really tall pines that would slice through the house like a hot knife through buttah. The bottom end of Ike should be a bit weaker than the top end.

SwoboBLOG First Look: The 2008 Election

It's been a long slog already. Only a couple of months to go. The finalists have been selected. Being a conservative libertarian (not an oxymoron) you can imagine that John McCain was not my first pick. But faced with the choice between John and Barack, there really isn't a choice. J-Mac will likely do less damage to our country than Barry Zed.

I am not a hero-worshipping, celebrity adoring person. I don't go out of my way to see celebs, I do not ask for autographs (except for two occasions when I got them, really, for my son-in-law who is into sports memorabilia - one was Hank Freakin' Aaron), if I do happen to encounter a celeb in the course of my daily life, I may or may not engage them in normal conversation. (Of course I brag about it afterwards.)

But I am not swept up by soaring rhetoric or eloquent speechifying. As a registered cynic, I am insistent that a candidate for office show me actions and not try to bullshit me with words. I have a pretty good radar for authenticity and want my leaders to be authentically authentic.

I am also a believer in low tax, minimal regulation small government that encourages - make that insists on - self reliance. I want a government that will protect us from our enemies. And the first step in protecting us is knowing or at least acknowledging who the enemy is.

J-Mac will probably do a better job at this than B-Zed.

The fun part of this election is the injection of Sarah Palin. Could J-Mac have found a stronger candidate? The knee jerk answer is "probably." But offhand I don't know who it would been. I mean, you never know for sure about a person until they're in a difficult position. You see how the person responds and make a judgement from there. When you don't have the benefit of that kind of evidence, which you don't for either Saracuda or B-Zed, you have to make the call based on values and attitudes.

When you pit B-Zed against J-Mac, the answer is a no-brainer from my perspective. When you pit Saracuda against BiJoe, you are able to see what Biden would probably do in a wide range of situations, although as a legislator, he has never had to make executive decisions. From what I know about these two's attitudes, I gotta go with the chick.

I used the same approach in hiring people. And when all other things were equal, I'd go with attitude. I would hire a person with good humor, rational humility, and a can-do attitude. I understand this is kind of a leap when picking a national leader, but that's what we're left with. When faced with less experience (or the wrong experience) I always opted for attitude.

I may be wrong, but I think Saracuda, if she can put up with the ceaseless, increasingly hostile attacks over the next 10 days, and barring some gotcha (like her verifiable appearance in a porn film made while she was pregnant with Trig), she will continue to win people over to her side and she and J-Mac will win handily. (Sorry to contradict you Bill.)

Hurricane Ike - Seawall Fountains and Submarine Cars

Really, really cool shots on tv of the waves crashing into the Galveston Seawall. Geysers of sandy, dirty water shooting 50 feet into the air. Still the occasional pedestrian wandering down the thoroughfare just waiting to be swept into the sea. Hope the camera catches one as it happens.

Amazing number of vehicles hip deep in coastal flooding. I am sure these illustrious citizens were caught totally by surprise by this rapidly moving storm system. I mean, gosh, it tore up Cuba barely three days ago. How can you rustle up an escape play in a mere 72 hours?!? My favorite semi-submerged vehicle was the VW Jetta sitting somewhere in the Galveston Strand. The driver thoughtfully had its emergency flashers on so boats wouldn't crash into it. Either that or he was just dashing into his apartment and didn't want the cops to think he was going to leave his car parked there illegally.

The television commentators have been keeping their energy up pretty good. But the day is young. Wait until the sun goes down and we can't get decent live shots anymore. We will be at their mercy as they try to paint word pictures of the devastation for us. I'll let you know.

"Peaceful Warrior" and My Own Shortcomings

One of our only breaks from Hurricane Ike coverage was to watch the film "Peaceful Warrior" on CINEMAX. While it had a lot of made-for-tv cheesiness, I really tuned into the message. It's based on the book about a gymnast who meets(?) a stranger who runs(?) a convenience store. The gymnast seems to have it all, but the stranger, improbably but rather effectively played by Nick Nolte, provides the spiritual insight that helps him get to a whole 'nother level.

That insight involves living in the moment and determining what it is that makes you happy and then devoting yourself to that endeavor. Like most books, short stories, speakers, and films that purport to be motivating at least in some way, it left me mildly depressed. (Yes, motivational speakers depress me, which is a subject for another post at another time.) But this time it also gave me the insight as to what it was lacking in my own self motivation.

I have known for some time what one of my weaknesses is: Laziness. Okay two weaknesses: Laziness coupled with procrastination.

But this film suggests another weakness. I have been confused about what I'd really like to do. With my life I mean. Everybody knows that if you are doing what you love, it ain't like working. Well I want to create nifty stories. But that has translated itself into making a ton of money. Yes, I want to make a ton of money, but for most people, certainly me, this has not translated into actually making a lot of money. So I am going to try to refocus myself on creating neat stories.

Now by creating neat stories I can hope that I won't starve. And the outcome probably can't be any worse than working in five separate and distinct industries, for 30 different companies, over the last 36 years. I mean I'm selling BMWs now. A fine product to be sure, but one that is targeted largely to pretentious moneymakers or rich person wannabes.

I'm not sure where I can take this, but rest assured I will take it someplace. I mean, I've just finished my first two posts to SwoboBLOG in a couple of years. That's worth something. Thank you Dan Millman.

Hurricane Ike Approacheth

Here we sit at home on a Friday afternoon. Unusual because I've been at work every Friday afternoon for the last year. But I'm home today because Houston has (quasi-)officially shut down waiting for Hurricane Ike to hit Galveston and start working itself up I-45 through Houston and into our little community of Point Aquarius located just six miles west of Willis. We're about 100 miles almost straight north of Galveston.

We, my wife Pammie and I, have been watching the non-stop coverage of the storm on our local television stations and the Weather Channel. While it is hard core, no-doubt-about-it, how-many-ways-can-you-say-the-same-thing overkill, we are having a hard time not watching. Besides, at some point the power will go out and we won't even have storm coverage.

The whole concept of hurricane force winds seems a bit remote at the moment, mainly because the sun is shining where we are and the wind is barely whispering, but the coverage is all directed at Galveston and the communities within a few miles of the Gulf Coast. And even though the wind isn't even tropical force there, the surf is definitely up. If I gave it half a chance I could be nervous.

I am amazed at how many civilians are still strolling the breakwater down in Galveston. I'm pretty confident they will be wetting their pants before it's all over. Being the cynic I am, I'm amused at this prospect. As the tv cameras show the lollygagging tourists (they may be locals for all I know, but they're still tourists in the sense that they're wanting to see something they don't see every day) I am swept by the hope that the tv camera will catch them being swept away by an unexpectedly big wave.

I am also rather looking forward to seeing the helicopter shots of idiot "hunker-downers" standing on their roofs - or what's left of them - after the storm has passed and the sun is back out. They all had more than ample warning that the storm was coming, and even now, at this moment, most of them could be in their vehicles driving north. The freeways are, relatively speaking, wide open.

Of course this is easy for me to say, 100 miles north. We're as prepared as we can get with the exception of D-size batteries. Pammie forgot to stock them in on one of her trips to Wal-Mart, and when the power eventually goes out, we will be hot AND dark, save for the flickering light of a scented candle.

But for now, everything is cool and I will check in with you soon.