Okay, repeat after me...

Children's sports like T-ball are a game. They're meant to be for fun. It's not fun when you hire a player to bludgeon another player on your own team. No, really, it's not.

A/T to Lance Salyers, who's a good sport all around.

I don't really have time to be doing this...

...but if I'm going to have to work on a Sunday, I'm jolly well going to take a moment every so often away from the drudgery. This was too good an ego trip to pass up.

You Are Incredibly Logical

(You got 100% of the questions right) Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

My kids would be the first to dispute the result. Let 'em. Neener neener!

Feeling profiled? Try being a pit bull.

All I'm gonna say is this. You whiny, European Arabs better just cut the drama, people. It's quiet time for you.

All this concern that you're all going to be profiled, and singled out because a few repressed homosexuals in your broad religious category can't keep their smelly mitts off the exploding cummerbunds. Well you don't know profiling until you've been one of Me, mister.

See, I just finished eating a diabetic octogenarian with a MedicAlert bracelet. Quite frankly, the attack was totally unprovoked. But I've got a good case against my owner, and the ability to look like I've been daily threatened with a cutting torch. He's going down if there's any trouble.

Sometimes you just want to jump to your feet and shout "Amen," at least until you remember that you're in a crowded office and would rather the boss didn't notice you reading blogs on company time. So read the whole thing when you get home.

A cautious A/T to Protein Wisdom, whose author may or may not foam hilariously at the mouth, but I'm in no hurry to find out.

I wonder what the other 29% is

You Are 71% American

Most times you are proud to be an American. Though sometimes the good ole US of A makes you cringe Still, you know there's no place better suited to be your home. You love your freedom and no one's going to take it away from you!

How American Are You?

I have to admit I fudged a bit on a couple of the questions. The Lee Greenwood song was a source of goosebumps the first thousand times or so that I heard it, but now I just want to pimp-slap the next person who plays it in a public place. And the cheese question was severely lacking. How is a good northwesterner supposed to refrain from singing the praises of Tillamook cheddar? Also, I wear an Akubra instead of a Stetson (and Mexican boots!), but the quiz thankfully didn't ask about that.

And I don't care what they say, American beer – the mass-produced kind – reminds me more of hop-flavored pond water strained through the kidneys of a sick coyote. (Don't ask me how I know what that tastes like; it's not a pretty story.)

A/T to Fr. Tucker, who probably only scored so low because he's a Confederate at heart.

This is sad through and through

A toddler whose father was using her as a shield was accidentally shot by the police. It's hard to blame the cops; the louse was shooting at them from behind his daughter. Maybe they should have handled it differently, maybe not, but it's not a decision I'd want to make in the heat of the moment.

It was unclear who fired the shot that hit the girl, but officers were struggling with the thought that they killed a baby, McDonnell said.

"The officers are taking it very hard," he said. "Anytime you have a baby killed, it takes its toll."

On the positive side, Planned Parenthood sent the officers a very nice congratulatory card and the promise of a cash bounty for future incidents of this kind.

My horse for a kingdom!

This is kind of fascinating. The idea of creating a nation where nobody else has is kind of a fun thought, if a little daunting. I remember seeing an article about Sealand back in the 70s on TV, and I'm surprised it's still a going concern (at least as much as it ever was).

When you consider how young some parts of the US are, and how easily some of this territory could have been Mexican or British (or Russian, or French...), the possibilities come home a little more.

For more countries you never heard of, check out Footnotes to History. A history fan can read these for hours at a time.

Welsh statesman, or Oregon Catholic Press hymn?

"The countries of the world must unite against international terrorism, and unite in the work of making injustice and poverty - wherever they exist - history.."

Dafydd Iwan has been my hero since I was a teenager, but his unflinching leftism gets my goat. (My sheep? This is Wales we're talking about.) In particular, I hate to hear him sound so much like something out of a bland OCP missalette. Especially since he's a master of political rhetoric - he was a protest singer back in the sixties - Mr. Iwan should be able in these of all times to find something stronger to say about the sort of pig-droppings-disguised-as-men who would blow up civilians in the hope of intimidating soldiers.

I'm sorry, but we're not going to make these people go away by eliminating injustice and poverty. Would that it were that easy. Injustice and poverty are not the problem; evil is. The correct response to evil is not compassion and equitability; it's contempt and eradication, and those right quickly. Any other method of dealing with it is like taking small doses of antibiotics - you don't get rid of the disease, but you eliminate your ability to cure it.

They said if you was to kill him...

...it'd only make him mad.

You know, Al-Qaeda pretty much loathes all Westerners, so setting off bombs in London was not a smart thing to do, given how many other places they could have attacked. The English have never really forgotten that they used to run a fifth of the globe, and they're really sensitive to attacks on their own islands. If the IRA and its spawn haven't managed it in a century of car bombs, what makes Al-Qaeda think they can intimidate these people?

Note to Al-Qaeda: If you try to invade Britain, don't do it through Fishguard.

Incidentally, after you've read about Jemima Fawr from the above link, check out this for a good chuckle on the subject. Don't mess with Mam!

Interesting

If you do a google news search on "Lance Salyers," "Mathias Heck," or "Mathias H Heck," the only reference that comes up in the results to Lance Salyers' axing is Dawn Eden's article in the NY Daily News. Not a word in the local Dayton Daily News. Is it not news, or is Lance under a Spokesman-Review-style blacklist?

More racism!

Oh, the humiliation! It's bad enough that Oprah Winfrey wasn't allowed to shop in a closed store where other people, mere peasants maybe, were shopping in plain sight. Now, she's being denied her basic civil right to be a Zulu.

"I went in search of my roots and had my DNA tested, and I am a Zulu. I feel so at home here," Femalefirst quoted her as saying.

"I hate to tell Oprah this, but she is sorely mistaken," Zulu leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi was quoted as saying.

This sounds like a discrimination lawsuit to me. Maybe she could do a class-action thingummy with Ward Churchill.

The Francin' of the Oprah

You know, I don't always get let into stores after hours, either, and I'm white enough to suit Robert Byrd. Of course, I'm just a disreputable-looking wage slave, and even the local Stop-n-Rob store has its standards. But when Oprah Winfrey is expected to adhere to a store's shopping hours, that's a racial incident.

"People were in the store and they were shopping. Oprah was at the door and she was not allowed into the store," Winfrey's friend Gayle King told US show Entertainment Tonight.

Apparently, heads haven't rolled at Hermes, which is snooty enough to turn away anybody they want to with impunity. I'll bet there were some eyes rolling, though.

A/T to my LaBW.

Just in case she comes by here...

I wanted to say "hi" to my Reverend Auntie Sister Cutlass of Love and Mercy. So, what do Unitarian Jihadists find in heaven (or cultural equivalent) when they die? Seventy-two virgins would seem a little... well... oppressive and patriarchal.

Just wondered.

Don't you know that freedom of speech doesn't apply to the other guy?

That's what my Lovely and Brilliant wife said when I told her about this. Anybody who questions a news report, she points out, is accused of violating the freedom of the press. That's what seems to have happened here.

A priest who has defended Jim West against unsubstantiated allegations is himself now being tarred with the child-abuse brush.

Michael Ross and others are demanding that the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, longtime ranch director, be removed from that post after a newspaper this week published allegations that he had a long history of striking boys with paddles or his fists.

The newspaper in question (surprise, surprise!) is the Spokesman-Review, which has been gunning for West since last fall when he didn't play ball with the paper's owners on a real estate deal.

Does anybody remember Pastor Robbie Roberson, during the Wenatchee sex-rings witchhunt? He spoke up to say that the charges against some of his church members were highly unlikely (read: stank like an old flounder), and the next thing he knew, he was arrested himself. This is from an AP report of 11/7/95:

The nine remaining cases are pending, including the trial, starting Tuesday, of Robert "Roby" Roberson, pastor of the Pentecostal Church of God House of Prayer in East Wenatchee, where authorities say one of the rings was based.
According to affidavits from children and statements from adults who confessed participation, parents and children would gather in the church basement to sing and listen to Scripture. The adults would then order the children to undress and have sex with them, the documents indicate.
The statements further allege that Mr. Roberson, 50, used sermons to whip his flock into a sexual frenzy and once called a teen-age girl to the altar and had sex with her there, telling the faithful he was driving out the devil.

Of course, all those convictions were eventually overturned, but the families were broken up permamently as children were adopted out and parents had to prove their innocence. When a priest (or a pastor) is targeted for retaliation for speaking up, who will speak up for him? And when the primary news outlet in the city is doing the retaliating, how can anybody speak up at all?

Steven Smith makes me ashamed to be a journalist.

No good deed goes unpunished

I sure hope there's more to this story than meets the eye.

Police say Dave Newman, 48, disobeyed repeated orders by emergency personnel to leave the water. The police report does not mention Newman's rescue of 35-year-old Abed Duamni of Houston on Sunday afternoon...

"When he came across the river, the officer stuck out his hand like he's going to help him out of the water, and he put cuffs on him," said the Rev. John Parnell, pastor of St. Augustine Old Roman Catholic Church in Fort Worth.

A thankfully dry A/T to Bunnie Diehl.

A day in the life of an internet junkie

Vulgar, depressing and hilarious. At the end of the day I can say that at least I'm not this bad.

7:00 – Wake up, turn on computer, use the bathroom, shower, get ready for work.
8:30 – turn off computer, hug and kiss the monitor and say, “I’ll be seeing you later!” Leave for work.
11:00 – Hit up eBay, try and find an image of the Virgin Mary in a pile of dried vomit some drunken college kid left on the floor from a party the night before. No luck
12:00 – Lunch time! Respond to my personal emails while eating a sandwich and check each one of my email accounts again. 50 new emails, all junk.
12:45 – Step outside for a brief moment, I have to squint my eyes since it’s the first time I’ve seen the sun this month. Run back inside in fear of getting burned alive.
2:30 – Search for random video clips, laugh my ass off at the idiots out there. Someone somewhere is being videotaped getting gravely injured so we can all laugh at them while they sit in the hospital for weeks. Thank You!

Go read the whole thing, if you don't mind the ribaldry. H/T to A Welsh View.

Apes do read philosophy; they just don't understand it

My Lovely and Brilliant Wife suggested that title, from A Fish Called Wanda . Perfect, isn't it?

I'm no fan of Seattle, and even less of Baghdad Jim, but I have to admit his last answer here was a good one.

McDermott says Seattle is smarter, more politically astute and better read than most of the country. "Goldberg can talk about me if he wants, but don't attack my city," he said.

Goldberg responded, "It takes Seattle to create a Starbucks; that wouldn't happen in Kansas City."

"He's right," McDermott said. "He just doesn't know why."

In case you haven't checked out the article yet, McDipstick was ranked #38 among the "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken Is # 37)" in a new book by Bernard Goldberg. Congressman McDirtbag is honored, he says, to be in such company. I don't think he meant to be ironic in saying that.

Another Akubra tip to Jim Romanesko, in whose company I'm honored to blog.

Are you sure she said "wits?"

Where did this happen? Oh, yes, San Francisco. Gee, who'd'a thunk?

Members of the Breasts Not Bombs contingent, which included seven women, three men and two young girls, said the war in Iraq is indecent, not their nakedness.

"Boobies never hurt anyone," said Sherry Glaser, size 40DDD.

After more than two years of opposition to the war, protesters are having a hard time grabbing headlines, said Sheba Love, size 40D.

"We're kinda at our wits' end, so it's come to this," Love said. "But it blows me away that all we have to do is bare our skin and we can cause such a snit."

Me, too, Sheba. I've got a wife and six kids. Ya think I've never seen a hooter before? Of course, I've never been to a nudie bar, so the ones I've seen aren't attached to somebody named "Sheba Love." And I have trouble taking seriously the political opinions of somebody who puts her breast size after her name like it was a degree.

A/T to Jim Romanesko, who hopefully collects neither dollar bills nor olive branches in his G-string.

I, Fido, take thee...

I have to keep reminding myself that the delightfully deadpan Maureen is only kidding. For that matter, she could be kidding, were she a United Methodist Episcopal goatherd. Do we want to go there? I don't think so.

Check it out here. And keep telling yourself that it's only satire. At least until the next Supreme Court ruling.

A little juvenile humor

This is probably beneath the dignity of a blogger (if that's not a complete oxymoron), but I couldn't resist. What do you think?


Montgomery County's Matt Heck and



"Married... With Children's" Steve Rhodes


Separated at birth?

What the heck, Heck?

That's Montgomery County, Ohio Prosecutor Matthias Heck, Jr., of whom I'd never heard until he eighty-sixed one of his assistant prosecutors over a post on his private blog. I don't know all the details, as all I have is Lance's description of what happened, and that's intentionally vague. However, I don't see anything in his post that violated any confidene, or that undermined his employer directly; all I see is that he deplores some unnamed decision by his superiors that he considers cowardly. Apparently, Matt "honi-soit-qui-mal-y-pense" Heck saw more in the post than the blogosphere did, and canned him.

What this tells me is that private speech which names no names and compromises no professional canon is nonetheless subject to censorship by any tinhorn tyrant that has enough brains to sign a paycheck. The result, I suspect, is going to be that Heck ends up having to explain himself to the media - the mainstream media, not us pajamahadeen - exactly what the cowardly act is that has Lance's BVD's in a knot. Otherwise, the world outside Dayton, Ohio might never have known, let alone given a rat's patoot.

I'm inclined to agree with one supporter's e-mail: Heck is going to be sorry as hell he opened this can of worms.

Oh, and an A/T to Dawn Eden for getting this out in the open.