Dogs and Cats

This sounds very resonable to me.

Excerpts from a Dog's Daily Diary:
8:00am Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30am A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40am walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30am Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00pm Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00pm Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00pm Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00pm Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00pm Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00pm Wow! Watched TV with my master! My favorite thing!
11:00pm Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat's Daily Diary:
Day 683 of my captivity: My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat,while the other inmates and myself are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets.
Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the floor.
Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. The audacity!
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.
I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released --and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded! The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. The captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe....... for now....

Hattip to Hujonwi

Don't "Infringe" On The Gang's Rights

The guy I relieved tonight left a copy of the L.A. Slimes sitting on the desk. I was picking it up to file it in it's proper place (it's circular and get emptied once a day) when one of the headings caught my eye. [all emphasis-mine]

Gang Members charged in killing witness
By Amanda Covarrubias and Sam Quinones, Times Staff Writers
1:26 PM PST, February 23, 2007

Members of a Harbor Gateway gang accused in the racially motivated slaying of 14-year-old Cheryl Green have killed an eyewitness to the attack, fearing he would testify against them, prosecutors charged today.

The Los Angeles district attorney's office accused five members of the 204th Street gang -- one of whom is already charged in Green's killing -- with fatally shooting Christopher Ash on Dec. 28.

Prosecutors said Ash was an acquaintance of the suspects. His body was found on a Carson street; he had been stabbed numerous times and his throat was cut (see below), authorities said.

The charges mark another twist in a murder case that outraged the community and prompted a major LAPD crackdown on gang violence, focusing particularly on crimes in which victims are targeted because of their race.

Green was standing with a group of friends on Harvard Boulevard just south of 206th Street when two men approached in broad daylight. Without saying a word, one suspect pulled a gun and opened fire, killing Green and wounding three others, witnesses and police said.

Authorities declared Green's slaying a hate crime, concluding that members of the Latino 204th Street gang killed her as part of a larger effort to intimidate black residents of the Harbor Gateway district.

I hope you noticed that, once again, the community is outraged, outraged I tell you, that this could occur in their neighborhood. Of course when the Slimes say the community is outraged, that is only the side that had one of their fine upstanding kids killed this time.

In the wake of her slaying, the LAPD vowed to add more officers to the area and listed the 204th gang as one of 11 across the city it plans to target as part of a new crackdown.

And you know, I think this 738th or so "new crackdown" is going to make all the difference in the world. This time when the cops put the pressure on known gang bangers, the lefty activists are not going to start protesting and filing charges of Police brutality and "infringement of rights" of peaceful citizens.

It's unclear how Ash came to witness Green's death, but prosecutors believe the other gang members became worried he would cooperate with authorities.

The five suspects are accused of one count of murder with the special circumstances of intentional murder of a witness to a crime, lying in wait, and carrying it out to further the gang's activities. The suspects are scheduled to be arraigned in Long Beach on Monday.

This is all that's on the online post, but in the paper it has a few more little non-informative things like:This 1st one is the (see below)

Five members of the 204th Street gang allegedly stabbed 21-year-old Christopher Ash 80 times and cut his throat before dumping his body in the middle of a Carson street, according to L.A. district attorney's office.

Several other witnesses to Cheryl's killing have moved out of the neighborhood, said Nahee Ale, an African American activist who has worked to build a gang truce in Harbor Gateway

Doing a good job Nahee.

The 204th Street gang has 120 members and is accused of terrorizing African American residents in a nearly 2-square-mile area it considers its turf, according to the LAPD,

If these people reside there, isn't it their "turf" or does this go back to that Azlan argument?

Another tragic round of nothing happening. A girls dead, a guys dead, a few of the scum off the streets for a while, then back to the same old, same old.

What Being an Immigrant Really Means

Dropped by Lady Heather's sight this evening and found part of one of her posts that I would like to pass on:

Newspapers simply won't publish letters to the editor which they either deem politically incorrect (read below) or which does not agree with the philosophy they're pushing on the public.

This woman wrote a great letter to the editor that should have been published but with your help it will get published via cyberspace!

New Immigrants From: "David LaBonte" My wife, Rosemary, wrote a wonderful letter to the editor of the OC Register which, of course, was not printed. So, I decided to "print" it myself by sending it out on the Internet. Pass it along if you feel so inclined. Dave LaBonte (signed) Written in response to a series of letters to the editor in the Orange County Register:

Dear Editor,

So many letter writers have based their arguments on how this land is made up of immigrants.

Ernie Lujan for one, suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because the people now in question aren't being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry.

Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr..Lujan why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer.

Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home. They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.

Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany, Italy, France and Japan.

None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan. They were defending the United States of America as one people.

When we liberated France, no one in those villages were looking for the French-American or the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here.

These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.

And here we are in 2006 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. (and that includes my fellow American "enablers", those that want to grant them the right to vote, credit cards, and a "right" to taxpayer funded welfare and other benefits- LH)

I'm sorry, that's not what being an American is all about.

I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.

And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of Liberty, it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are voting on the immigration bill.

I wouldn't start talking about dismantling the United States just yet.

Illegal Immigration

I found this as a draft that I wrote a year ago. Why it didn't get published, I don't know, but I still think it's pertinent.

Three stories today on immigration.

Marchers decry U.S. immigration policy, wall plan from the Miami Herald
Resistant TB from Mexico feared from WorldNetDaily
Illegal Iraqis nabbed trying to enter U.S. from WorldNetDaily

About 250 migrant activists and their supporters marched through the center of Mexico City on Sunday to protest U.S. immigration policy, which they say is racist and deadly.
Shouting "justice for migrants," the demonstrators tore apart a giant paper wall, a symbol of a planned fence along large parts of the United States´ southern border, which the demonstrators say will violate human rights and cause more deaths.
WTF? Because we want to have some control over who comes and goes that makes us racist and violates “human rights”? Can somebody show me where it is written that anyone has the “right” to enter any country without some sort of permission of the host country? Cause more deaths? We have a system to allow people in; we would just like them to ask so that we know why you’re coming. You want a job, if you can show there is a job where you want to go, we’ll let you in, providing you can also show you’re not going to cause problems i.e.:

A drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis from Mexico is worrying U.S. health officials.

I use to work in a Respiratory Hospital years ago and I saw this coming.

With MDR-TB (multidrug-resistant tuberculosis), a patient's immune system does not respond to basic antibiotics rifampin and isoniazid.
The costs to the state are staggering. While a standard TB patient costs some $2,800 for about six to nine months of treatment, an MDR-TB treatment runs about $250,000 for two years, said Charles Wallace, manager of the state's infectious disease, intervention and control branch.
and
According to the Herald, in 2005, the county health department handled 101 new cases of TB, a 25-percent increase from 2004.
and
One family in the Rio Grande Valley with nine members afflicted with MDR-TB recently cost the state $4 million over a three-year period, including drugs and multiple hospitalizations.

This is a major problem. We had this disease practically eradicated 30 years ago.
Without a screening process to catch this before they come into the country not only are the US taxpayers having to pay for the treatment, but their health is put at risk. TB is spread by just coughing or sneezing. With so many illegals working in the food industry the danger of spreading this disease to many, many people is far to grave.

And lastly:
Mexican officials say they've arrested four illegal-alien Iraqis trying to sneak across the border into the United States.
Acting on an anonymous tip, police found the four aliens on a bus in Navajoa, about 375 miles south of the Arizona border, Mexico's attorney general's office said.
Mexican immigration officials are investigating to try to determine how the Iraqis got into the country.
OK, they find four Iraqi’s in Mexico trying to sneak into the US, but the Mexican government doesn’t know how they got into Mexico. So they don’t know who is in their country, but we should allow people to cross our border freely. Now the Iraqi’s most likely were not terrorists, however if they just stroll into here and they are terrorists, I don’t think we would like the way we would find out.

Put the military on the border now. Close it off and get things under control, find out who we’ve got in the country now and what they are doing. Then we can talk about Guest Worker Programs and making it less of a hassle for Mexicans to come and go.

But, Things Were Suppse To Be Different Now.

I made my (semi) daily cruise by Barking Moonbat Early Warning System to see what was on the Skippers mind and he had a post on how the Dimacrats are going about the "getting rid of the lobbyist corruption that those evil Republicans were guilty of".

Democrats Offer Up Chairmen For Donors
Party’s Campaigns Had Faulted GOP For ‘Selling Access’
Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, February 24, 2007

Eager to shore up their fragile House and Senate majorities, congressional Democrats have enlisted their committee chairmen in an early blitz to bring millions of dollars into the party's coffers, culminating in a late-March event featuring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and 10 of the powerful panel chairs.

Well it certainly didn't take them long to "forget" about that campaign promise. I mean really, what's more important, keeping your promises, or getting enough money in those old campaign coffers so you can pay for more ads to disperse your next set of promises out to the public to get reelected and then ignore those promises.

"Financial services companies are inclined to give to me because I'm chairman of the committee important to their interests," said Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, who will headline a breakfast Wednesday at a D.C. hotel, for which donations range from $1,000 to $15,000 for the Democratic National Committee. "I'm fundraising to give to others so I can help stay in the majority and do the public policy things I want." [All Emp.-mine]

At least he isn't lying now. He know it's two years until the next elections, so grab the cash now and the sheeple will have forgotten all about come time to vote.
Earlier this month, Frank traveled to Charlotte, home to two of America's largest bank companies, for a similar fundraising breakfast, for a fellow Financial Services Committee member, Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.). Donors got to hear firsthand about Frank's plans for upcoming banking legislation. He assured attendees that more federal regulation of banking is on the way and that it will help banks to prosper.
The old "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" meme. Get ready for the return and/or increase of all those banking fees to help fund the government's help.

But it was in part a Republican lobbying scandal -- GOP lobbyist Abramoff's defrauding of Indian tribal clients and the subsequent investigation into his efforts to influence lawmakers with lavish gifts -- that gave Democrats their opening to regain control of Congress. Democrats took over in January after a campaign that accused Republicans of fostering a "culture of corruption" in Washington and "selling access" to lawmakers. Abramoff has been convicted of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy and is in federal prison.
Now, with the tables turned, Democrats are courting Abramoff's most famous clientele -- Indian tribes.

But this is different, can't you see.

Found the Flaw I Was Fearing

With the upgrade to Haloscan, all the old comments prior to installation have disappeared. Bummer.

I'll spend some time to see if they still exist and if they are retrievable. I knew some problem would be lurking to bite me in the ass, but if this is the worst, I can live with it.

I've Upgraded The Upgrade

I now have Haloscan installed for the comments. This is just to much fun.

I Don't Care Who You Are, Now That's Funny

"Borrowed from my good friend GuyK, who shouldn't complain as he "borrows" a few things himself.

I'm Still In Love With Pat Benetar

Working graveyard and the site is down, so I'm just a well paid night watchman tonight. I've been able to patch this blog up with a couple of the things that got lost in the upgrade and drop by some of the other blogs that I've neglected lately. I'd forgotten how good some of these people write. Makes me jealous.

I've been listening to Radio Free Colorado with it's superb streaming audio and "Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benetar came on. When I was at ASU in '79, she was the hottest thing in Rock and everyone I knew lusted after her in the worst way. I got to see her in concert twice out there, once at a outdoor festival and once in a smaller auditorium. Great shows, both of them, and I can actually remember being there and what songs were played.

This is a later song from 1984, but it was the one that started this drift back to the old days. Sorry the video stops a little short.



God, what a voice.

Maybe It Won't Be Too Painful

This is the upgraded template. A few things are missing and I think I can pull them off the hard copy I saved. I'm on graveyard shift tonight, so I can put some time in to reinserting the dropped stuff, and maybe have some time during the week to try using some fancy do-dad's like Haloscan comments and such and so forth.

I Really Wanted to Post

I have had things to post on, but I've been leery about putting things on. Google has taken over Blogsnot and wants me to "upgrade" to their "easier to use" template. It's tempting and I think I'll give it a try.

My fear is my history with using upgrades. I can safely say about 90% have given me trouble, anywhere from just requiring fine tweaking to total system crash.

The assure me that they will save a copy of my old template, but if it's a total screw up, I may not be able to get back to the old one.

I have copied and save a hard copy, so I hope that saves me a little grief if only minor problems arise.

If things look a little askew here for the next week or so, you can be assured I'm trying to fix the problems, but I'm not a programmer, so it may take a bit of research and begging friends for hints.

Wish me luck.

Brit Hume Rips Murtha

From Hot Air

Damn, I love Brit Hume. The man is smart and lays the facts on the line. Today on Fox News Sunday, he let Murtha have it on his position on the Iraqi War, stopping just short of calling him senile.

Hume: Murtha is not “well informed about what’s going on over there [Iraq]” and he doesn’t have the “foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.”

'Nuff said.

Somebody Found Me-Tagged Dammit

Even though I've tried to keep a very low profile, Blackiswhite, Imperial Agent Provocateur found my backwater site and tagged me. This will be remembered BisW.

Six Unusual Things About Me.

I almost cheated here by saying I'm so ordinary that I don't think I have 6 things that are all that unusual, but I won't . So here goes...

1. Even though my entire academic career from 6th grad on was directed towards going to college and getting a degree, after a year of college I ended up working as an oil field hand.

2. My employment at my first oil company was "just until I figured out what I wanted to pursue in a year or so", those few years turned into 29 (so far).

3. My house and garage are total chaos, yet at work I go ballistic when people can't pick up the tools when finished with a job, or file paperwork in the proper place.

4. I can appreciate and enjoy any style of music (inc. Rap, Duranguense (Mexican polka), Raga, Britney Spears) for at least two songs, but that's about my limit on most crap.

5. I've survive 50+ years with all the stupid ass stunts I've pulled, knowing at the time I was most likely going to kill myself trying it. I wasn't trying to prove anything (machismo or through a dare), just wanted to see if I could do it.

6. I'm actually happy living a middle-class life. I've got what I need and I'm comfortable, so I don't feel a driving compulsion to own more.

Anti-Cat Blogging

For those of you that are tired of your cats using up your bandwidth with their incessant attempts to blog, I've run across that much demanded software to put an end to this.

It's called PawSense (winner of the Ig Nobel Prize in 2000) and will put an immediate end to your cats opining on your dime.

For the meager sum of $19.99 (plus S & H) you can purchase this product and save the world from cat's pushing their attempt with their feline agenda of human inferiority.

And No, GuyK, it doesn't come with an interface to attach a shotgun.

They Raised theMinimum Wage And...

Got this through rightwingprof:

New wage boost puts squeeze on teenage workers across Arizona

Well, now isn't that interesting? In order to help those on minimum wage attain a better life style they enact a law that wipes out existing jobs and puts a stopper on creating new ones.

"We're from the Government and we're here to help." Oh stop it, you're killing me!!

"Workers affected by the minimum-wage increase are less likely to be supporting a family than the typical Arizona worker," it stated. "For example, 30.4 percent of the workers are living with their parent or parents, while only 7.6 percent of all Arizona workers are in this category." [emp-mine]

Like most of the Dem's feel good plans, it looked good on paper and sounded good to the idiots that have never run a business, but after it gets enacted and reality sets in, it's to late for the person that lost their job. So sorry.

Well, I Know a Guy Who Knows A Guy Who Isn't Doing Well

Here's one of those things that they just can't find time for on the news. Not with all the breaking reports about Anna Nicole Smith, oh, and that unprecedented white stuff that is piling up in the northeast (I think they're calling it snow?).

US Tax Revenues Up 9.7% through four months, Deficit Down 57%; US Media Outlets Mostly Ignore the News

May God have mercy on our souls.

Home From Portland

Dad's much better and was released yesterday. What had put him in the hospital was an bladder infection, dehydration, and another of those small heart attacks.

He is able to dress himself and get around with a walker.

Thanks to those of you who sent their best wishes, it was appreciated.

Amtrak ran 4 1/2 hours behind schedule coming home, so I arrived in L.A. at 1:30 AM on Tuesday and had to be at work for afternoon shift the next day, so I haven't gotten back on schedule yet.