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.

Bad News

My Dad, who is 89, is in the hospital. He has been suffering from a urinary infection for the last few weeks, and that on top of his weak heart (although the medicos haven't been able to figure out exactly what is causing the periodic chest pains over the last couple of years) has worn him down. He's lost a lot of weight, is freezing cold all the time. Yesterday his blood pressure dropped dangerously low and he was listless and incoherent.

Luckily my brother lives with my parents and was able to deal with the problems till the EMT's arrived. My Mom is in her 80's also and semi-bedridden (due to breathing problems, that the doctors are also at a loss to explain).

At the ER they got him on IV's and got his BP back up to a safe level and he became coherent again.

Both my parents have live a long time and I know the human body cannot run forever and I haven't seen them since they moved up to Portland over 7 1/2 years ago.. Tomorrow I'm taking Amtrak up to see them, I checked on flights, but to book at the last minute is just prohibitively expensive, being I just blew my discretionary funds in Vegas a week ago. I talk to them weekly, but it always seems like there would be time to get up there.

Well, now time is way to short. Luckily I work with a great guy who will cover a couple of my work shifts plus I'm coming up on my long change (5 1/3 days off), so outside of the 30 hour train rides, I'll be able to spend a few days up there.

If I can get on my Dad,s computer, I will try to post in a couple days, but, there just may be a weeks gap if I can't make a connection.

Vegas-Why I Drive

Well here goes. I said I was going to post about my Las Vegas trip, and damn it, I’m gonna do it. Because I have a lot to expound on this, I’m going to break it into three installments: This one will deal with why I chose to drive to get there, then some observations on gambling and getting around town and finally a post on the drive itself.

I use to love to fly - but not now - not if the trip can be driven in 6 hours or less. I have two airports to choose from: Burbank and LAX. Burbank is very close, but it’s small and they put a surcharge on top of the normal airfare for the convenience. LAX is a bit of a drive, and requires either a heavy sedative or heavy drinking to deal with their setup.

Either airport I choose, I have to get there, which means either get an airport shuttle, or use long term parking – basically a push when time and money are factored. On top of the just getting there, they want you there 2 hours before your flight leaves. S0, with driving to and sitting there forever, you’ve already used up three hours and haven’t even left town.

Shall we mention “security”? You are not allowed to take half the stuff you need in your carry on, so now you are faced with the choice of going shopping when you first arrive at your destination and then chucking the stuff you just bought before going home, or checking your bag and waiting the year or so it takes for them to offload it and get it to the baggage carousel. Both are sucky options and more time, money and effort than it’s worth.

Flight time: one hour in the air – this does not include the planes taxi time.

If going to Vegas (275 miles), it’s taken one hour longer to fly than to drive without rushing. If I were going to Phoenix (380 miles)I’ve saved, maybe, an hour, but in both places I’m still at the airport, I still haven’t gotten to the hotel or house and once at those final destinations, I have no easy or inexpensive way to get around.

Now you may bring up the fact that Vegas just put in a monorail system. Yes, they did, but it doesn’t go to the airport and it cost $15 for a one day pass. Cheaper than taking taxis, but still way overpriced. Also, it goes nowhere close to The Palms our favorite casino, which is located on the other side of the freeway from The Strip

And of course there is no way to Boulder Station which is about 5 miles east of The Strip. Yeah, Boulder Station caters to older clientèle, but hey, we are old now, and this is a good place to go during the day. It has a good movie theater, thousands of machines, lots of TV screens for sports and a payoff rate that is fair enough that you can usually play for hours without losing a lot. This is also one of the few casinos that I have left with more money than I walked in with (once, and not much more).

Duke Rape Case

Watching the news this morning, I got to see Michael Nifong, the "illustrious" D.A. from Durham County, N.C. being hauled before the State Bar on a second charge to explain how withholding evidence from the defense and colluding with another party to keep the information suppressed is justified.

If anyone has ever kept track of the number of times a State Bar has bothered to even investigate a case of ethical behavior involving their members, let alone censor or disbar someone should realize that this is big news.

Even if nothing much comes of the hearings, at least we can be reasonably sure that Nifong's political career is over.

The main thing about the original "Rape Case" that has bothered me most is the fact that nobody seems to remember how many peoples lives were screwed up. You always hear about the 3 guys that were charged, but what dropped off the radar was that 1) the Lacrosse coach lost his job, 2) the entire 46 man nationally ranked team was disbanded , 3) the players were threatened, assaulted and condemned for "covering up" the rape (that did not occur).

Back when this started, I opined that the case would fade away after the election. I was terribly wrong. I didn't know exactly how low Nifong would stoop to keep his phoney-baloney job, but I should have realized you couldn't get anything much lower than a cross between a lawyer and politician.

I won't say the Lacrosse players were upstanding examples of morality, they are what that they are, college age boys. Back when I was their age I think I may have been to a couple of parties where strippers were present. Where it seems silly now to pay to have a lady come take off her clothes and dance for a group of drunks, I can't condemn them going through this "rite of passage" that I would hazard to guess that 90% of guys have gone through at least once.

I'm Think I'm Getting Better

I was going to try to post more regularly this year, but things happen. The getting better part is that I feel I've let myself down by missing a whole week.

When I got back from Vegas, I hand wrote a long diatribe on the gambling and driving in that city and the drive home. However, when I got home, my wife had a huge head cold, which due to the hours I keep in Vegas (about 6 hours sleep over 4 days), I was not in shape to fight off. I spent the last two days of my vacation with mountains of kleenex piling up next to me in bed, then back to work for 6 days on day shift.

My project for this week was to stay out of the way while Schlumberger played with explosives and blew some new perforations in one of our injector wells. The other was to give our yard a high pressure enema to clean out some drains that had plugged up over the summer. If you've worked on oil wells, you know that great smell associated with brine and the wonderful feeling of the crap blowing back on you along with the sludge that builds up in field drains while it's 50 degrees down in the cellar. Cold, wet, stinky...that's how I like to spend my weekends.

If I can make it through my shift tomorrow, I will try to get my musings on the trip posted. I got over the cold last Friday, so I'm almost back to feeling normal.

Home Agian

Wonderful time, and came home under budget.

Snowed, froze,laughed (a lot) and caught up with my friends.

Around six hours sleep over three days has left me a little tired, so I'll try to post more tomorrow.
I've still got 3 days vacation to recuperate.

Getting Ready For Fun, Maybe

I'm getting things together for my trip to Vegas. Picked out some DVD's to watch while we're out there, got some CD's together to stay awake on the drive back and forth and found my "Preferred Sucker" cards for the different casinos.

The first problem I've had with the trip, is that I save up aluminum cans between trips to help defray the cost. Upon loading my truck with all the cans I could carry and driving down to Glendale to cash them in, I find that they've moved the Recycling Center that I've gone to for the last 6 or 7 years....No sign of where they've gone, nothing. I'm now at home have found the new location, but will now have to delay my departure time to deal with this tomorrow morning.
In one way this is good. After thinking about leaving early (5:00 am) to beat the traffic, I realized I'm driving NE most of the way and would be driving into the rising sun most of the trip, so leaving around 10- 11, after morning rush, isn't so bad.

My new jacket hasn't arrived at my door yet, but the UPS tracking says it's on a truck for delivery. It better get here, as the projected high for Saturday is 38 degrees, and this SoCal boy doesn't do well when temps get below 60.

I'm going to keep a positive attitude and figure these little annoyances will just help me appreciate the time away more.

Christmas--Vacation

Christmas is arriving a little late this year. Due to budget constraints at the North Pole, Santa had to defer the delivery of one of my presents till the new year.

I just got word today (placed my order) that this beautiful (I mean that in a manly sense) jacket will be arriving at my house no later than Wednesday, January 10th. Just in time for my trip to Lost Wages, Nevada to blow a lot of cash, but also get to spend time with friends from my wasted days at ASU back in '79-80. These Frat brothers (ΘΔΧ) are still my closest friends, even after all these years.

This trip to Vegas is the first vacation I've had since '05. Due to all the crap that's been going on at work, even though I've put in for vacation time, it kept getting put off "cause we're going to start up next week, and we need you there". We never started up and the company finally had the opportunity of 1) I take all my vacation right now and I'll see you in a month, 2) Pay me now for the vacation time I wasn't allowed to take or 3) Carry it over (not company policy) and I get to use it in '07. I know the company is short of cash, so I accepted the carry over, now I've got 6 weeks vacation to use up--minus the 7 days I'm using now.

Typically, now that I get to take vacation, my wife can't get the time off. Just before the end of the year, the guy that knew all the secrets to get the jobs done at her company left. Now they "can't spare anyone until they get things under control again".

We'll still get to spend time together, as I won't leave town until Thursday, but she still has work. This is still an improvement over our normal schedule as I'll be home and awake while she's home. Being on a rotating shift schedule can take a big toll on together time. I don't think she knows how much I appreciate her tolerance of things not getting done around the house when I'm on graveyard and the day or so period when I try to force my body back onto a daylight schedule.

My major project over the next week is to cash in all the aluminum cans I have been saving for my Vegas trip over the last year and a half. This should be fun, as we tend to drink a hell of a lot of coke (and another thing thing that comes in cans), so I probably should be able to gamble with little or no drain on our banked money. I actually have $100 left from my last gambling trip stashed, so that will make my spree that much cheaper (Ha-rationalization at it's best).

All I can say is those Video Poker machines had better watch out, they won't know what hit them with all the money I going to pull out of them. Hoped the cashier has stocked the vault.

RFC-Don't Go Here

While at work last night (between rounds), I decided to see if I could find out what ever happened to a Classic Rock internet radio station I really liked. One week it was there, and the next gone... without a word. Originally I just figured the guy got tired and gave it up.

I ran some searches and got all kinds of speculation on why it went off line without any notice. To me, the guy that ran it, Gary Burke, seemed to just get closer to the edge of nuts, whether due to the pressure of running a 24 hour station solo, or some other reason.

Once after he had upgraded to a new server and the feed keep getting dropped, I wrote an E-mail just to tell him that I loved the station, but they were having major problems and they might want to get it what they were paying for, I got a replay back that was insulting and downright mean.

Well, Radio Free Colorado is back online. I was able to sneak in (the server always seems to be full) and if you want Classic Rock, no advertisements or talk, this is the best. Now if the formats the same as before, Gary may get on once a day and express his opinions for about 20 minutes, and he is a real left winger, but it's his station and I can wait for the next song.

I'll warn you right now, getting on during normal hours is next to impossible and if you get on, make damn sure you're done, cause it will be a battle to get a slot in the limited space he has.

Last night I turn off the TV at work for the first time in ages. I don't really watch anything until TVLand shows Gunsmoke at 3am, followed by Bonanza (love those show I grew up with), and just listened to a good mix of music that I grew up with.

The reason I say don't go there, is because I would prefer that there were a slot open for me when I want to listen.

It's 2007, Happy New Year

I've had another exciting New Years Eve, sitting in the office at work for the fourth straight year. At least I haven't heard any bullets bouncing off the roof this time around.

Not that it really matters. The years prior to my getting stuck on graveyard shift, I was to the point of going to bed before 11:00. I like the idea of a new beginning, but I like to sleep also, and drinking heavily and staying up till midnight got old. I prefer getting up in sunlight to greet the new year, kinda like a sunrise service.

To any and all that pass by here, I wish a a sincere, heart felt wish for a great year coming up for you and those you love.

I got my New Years present about 1:00 PM (PST) when my Raiders lost their last game and the Detroit Lions won theirs, clinching our bid for the first round pick in the next draft. Now it's just waiting to see how bad Al Davis can screw this up. He'll probably go for another quarterback using the idea of "with no offensive line, we need to be deeper".

Right now I'm sitting and waiting to see how long the company I work for can continue to make (or not make) decisions that achieve nothing, nor produce anything resembling income, not to mention profit. We get instructions to run equipment that just costs us money to have it going, delay repairs on equipment that doesn't work correctly and jump from a project that is half finished to another project that we stopped working on (half finished) two months ago, and for some reason we pull off that before it's finished and go to something else.

I've got a couple irons in the fire, but I know this place could make money again and I like the job, when thing are going right. I must say though, that after 9 months of no income, my outlook isn't positive.

As far a resolutions, I believe they're crap, but I'll make one anyway. "I RESOLVE TO POST ON A MORE REGULAR BASIS SO THAT THE WORLD CAN BENEFIT FROM MY BALANCED AND LEARNED OPINIONS." Let's see how long that sticks.

Remember Today

We were basically at peace. We didn't really want to get involved with the problems of all those people half a world away from us. On this day we were forced to take a position. The number of dead wasn't important. The ships lost, the airplanes, the point that woke us up and showed us that there was an enemy out there and they wanted to destroy our way of life was that they attacked America herself.

Bless those. like my Dad, who at a time where we easily could have given up with our fleet destroyed, could have just given up, but instead signed up to defend the principles of our country.

The sacrifices were incredible, to our unreal beliefs of how a war can be fought today (our soldiers don't get shot and there are not civilians caught in the fights). Thousands dying in one day, but no backing down on the home front. They knew evil when they saw it and were willing to stand up and face it.

My undying gratitude and God bless you all who fought or those who worked to support this cause.

Saving My Past

Between my wife and I, we must have over 300 vinyl records, LP's. We haven't had a decent turntable to play them on in about 10 years. I have now undertaken the task of trying to digitalize our musical past.

One of the major decisions I have to make on every recording, is do I keep those clicks and pops that were a feature of this medium. To me that was how I remember listening to these songs. Without that little pop at that certain point, sometimes it just doesn't seem the same.

The crystal clear sound of the CD makes sure that you always get the same sound every time you hear it, but after a needle has drug through the grooves of a LP a few hundred times, that particular album becomes part of your personal history and all it's little flaws actually become endearing.

Just Stupid

I'm still catching up from my being away, but this is amazing. Go watch and come back, I'll wait. From Hot Air.

The idea of stereotyping another ethic group, even if you are supporting them, while making fun of another guy for stereotyping an ethic group, even if he was trying to make a point (badly) about supporting them is just stupid. I wouldn't expect anything less from the likes of O'Donnell (I don't think that's an Italian surname) who, according to librul laws, may have the right to bring up "Potato Eaters" but not "macaca", except for that corollary of librul's cannot be held to the same rules as everyone else.

Minimum Wage...Again

I heard on the news the other day that 2% of the work force make minimum wage. A majority of these people making minimum wage were either students or retired people looking to supplement their income.

Every company that has a work force in the U.S. pays more that the Federally mandated rate, even above the California state mandated rate.

For many years now, I have thought that this was just a ploy by the Unions to drive up the wages of their members, but being Union employees make much, much, much more that this wage there had to be something else.

TAXES

In the society where all people are entitled to the same level of prosperity as everyone else, regardless of your contribution, you have to have a base line to delineate what is excessive. This is the level of income that can be taxed at an exorbitant rate (think 75%) because you don't deserve to earn that much more than your fellow man, you should be required to help the less fortunate, regardless of whether they are an addict or have had 5+ children without getting their HS diploma or bothering to marry one of the men who got them pregnant.

I am amazed, that in the United States, that the government would have the balls to tell me that I have worked to much and that that I don't deserve credit for the hours and commitment that I have put in to make my life better than the ones who just show up for their job and don't bother to take the responsibilities to advance in their job.

One thing that has always stuck with me was that one of the biggest spokespersons of my generation, for equal opportunity and reward for all people was John Lennon. Where did he decided to live? In the United States. Why? I wasn't that he loved the U.S. more than his home country, as he bitched constantly that we never did enough for the poor, but in that period Britain's tax rate was around 75%, and this hero of the common people didn't want the government to take his money. Basically he was doing what the leftards accuse big corporations of doing and putting his earnings into off-shore accounts to protect them from excessive taxation.

This taxation level will not be enacted in the next 2 years. It can't be done without controlling the President's office and having a larger majority in both houses, but enacting this feel good proposal is just the groundwork for the next step.

Time Flying By

I can't believe the amount of time since my last post. Life just got kinda busy and flew by.

At work we actually got the OK to start up the site this week, but because of a shortcut taken, wee had a big problem, so now we have a work-over rig back in the yard to fix what we wasn't checked for a week and a half ago.

My Raiders have reverted back to form and are again in the run to position themselves for next years draft. Walter was sacked 7 time in the first quarter, the Seattle defense were past the offensive line and in the backfield waiting for Walters to get there.

The GOP got it's butt kicked in the election, but in what could be considered a minor victory, the Dems that were elected ran mostly on a conservative platform, so now it's a wait and see if they really were advocating what they said, or where just lying till they got in office.

The worst part of the election is Pelosi becoming Chairman of the House. The word is that most Americans don't know who Pelosi is, man are they in for a shock. I live in California and have watched this woman's policies enacted around the San Francisco area and I don't believe her assertion of bi-partisanship. I remember when Bush put out his hand in bi-partisanship to Ted "the Swimmer" Kennedy on the "No Child Left Behind" program, and *hic* Kennedy *hic* had stabbed Bush in the back before he had made it to the corner liquor store for his daily restock.

Well, I got something down, now I have to work harder to get back in the habit of scribbling something more often.

On Their Way

Well, the Raiders ruined their perfect record and actually won a game. I'm cetain with the way my luck runs, that they are going to win just enough games that they'll screw up their position in the draft.

The Bears had a bye, so the games yesterday didn't mean to much, although the Giants-Cowboys game tonight should be fun with both teams at 3-2.

Silly

This is just silly, but it got me laughing...and don't think the German's (I believe this is German) don't have a sense of humor. This is a slow loader at the home site, so it may take a bit.

I Thought It Might Of Been Me

For most of the game last night, I was afraid that I was going to have the whole town of Chicago trying to hunt me down and kill me.

It almost seemed like I had brought a curse on the Bears by picking them as the team I will root for to bet the the Super Bowl. I know the Cardinals aren't as bad as their record, but I never would have dreamed that the game could have gone like it did. I was just about ready to shut the TV off and go to bed when the Bears had their rally.

Anyway, I feel safe for another two weeks, as Chicago has a bye next week, then have to play the 2-4 49ers at home.

Raiders Maintain Their Perfect Record

The only thing wrong is they've got the numbers on the wrong sides of the hyphen. 0-5. God, how things have changed in a few years. Ever since the playoff game against the Patriots in 2001. I felt then that that was going to be the last Super Bowl chance for a while for the Raiders, they were old and weren't likely to be able to hold it together for another year.

A rebuilding was due, but because of that loss, they tried to stick it out longer by bringing in more old players to fit into the system quckly. It didn't work and I'm paying for it now.

I'm resigned to one of those periods like the Packers went through from their glory days in the '60's till they aquired Farve and bult a team around him in the mid '90's.

Here's hoping I'm not going to be in my 80's when the Raiders field a winning team again.

Oh, and congrats to GuyK and his Bucs for winning one.

Military Capability

I've been hearing a lot over the weekend about the military capability of the United States. The consensus has been that we do not have enough to handle the problems that are facing us.

The fact that everyone overlooks is that we could handle all the problems, simultaneously, in any way we choose. We can pursue peace, or we could just make you not a problem.

The small detail that we could wipe out the entire planet and still have military capability left over seems to be dropped from the equation of what is going on.

If we really wanted Mid-east oil to fuel our military industrial complex and to keep the sheeple happy, we could take it today, and nobody could stop us.

However, the world would rather listen to the "dignitaries" from the NKPR or Iran about our country dreaming of an empire.

Our culture may be taking over the world, but that is a choice, but we have not added one square foot of territory to the United States by hook or crook, so you can just bite my ass about the "Imperilalistic American Agenda".

If I was you, I would pray we wanted your country, which we don't, cause, if we really did, you would be gone by now.

Floriduh!

I know, with where I live I shouldn't be besmirching other states...but, why does it seem that just about every nutso news story nowadays seem to be emanating from the Sunshine State? All the sensless murders, car chases and whatever has outpaced California and, if this keeps up, will make us look like a run of the mill state.

You know what, you guys are welcome to it. If we can just get rid of the 9th Curcuit (although that encompasses more than California), we could drop off the news altogether.

On Being republican in California

I registered Republican in '79. I have never received anything from the GOP in the mail outside of a few mailers from some of the local races.

My son just registered as Republican and has received nothing from the GOP.

My wife who is Democrat, and hadn't registered to vote until she was in her 40's (sorry, the ragging about her opinion didn't count cause she didn't vote backfired on me) gets at least 2 mailers or letters per day.

We can elect a Repub governor, but "my" party is so convinced that this state is a lost cause that they will not invest any money is trying to get their message out, even to those of us that could help them bring sanity to this state. They are so convinced that Feinstein and Boxer cannot be challenged on their respective dismal records, that there is no use in even trying to do battle with their socialist platforms.

I wonder why I even bother to vote for the Statewide positions. If the GOP has given up on California, why should I bother to fight for it?

I will continue the fight, but it sure would be nice tho have alittle backing of the party.

I Feel a Burst coming On

After a week of hell on my graveyard shift, I have a few things stored up. Get ready for some rapid fire posts that have been building up.

Switching Teams

Well, I've finally gotten over my depression regarding the Raiders season. It took me an extra day after I heard one of the after game analysts say that the Raiders had to be that worst team in sports, not just football, all sports, and I had to agree.

How they can come out a play a good game for the first half, then go in at half time, make adjustments and come out so inept in the second half is sickening.

I'll still watch any Raider game on TV and root for them, but this is another of those years where breaking .500 is a victory, and I'll be amazed if they make that.

So the team that I'm going to support for the Super Bowl is the Chicago Bears. What I've seen of them this year, they have the tools, a defense that won't let anything go unchallenged and an offense that can put lots of points on the board.

Another reason is I have two friends, one a Viking fan and the other a die-hard Packer fan and this will give me a good chance to needle them without mercy, being they'll each have to play Chicago twice.

PO'd

I haven't been here in a while because I was working days. My company was supposedly going to start production, but that's off. My job over the last week was to haul solidified chunks of rotarty mud out of the cellar (16 steps), I've got weak knees and multiple trips up and down these stairs are wearing. By the time I get on-line and visit my regular sites, I'm just to burned out to care about posting.

I've written before that the production site I work at has been down for quit a while now. We have gotten the okay to start up the site again, with some limits, once we get an injection well operating. I've still got all my vacation time and was told to use some of it before we started up, so I put in for weeks worth.

Turns out the time I put in for coincided with the go ahead date given us by the State. My vacation was cancelled, and due to not getting the work done on the well that we need to inject our production water, we haven't started up either. Now I can't take vacation because the foreman is taking his vacation, and probably won't be able to take mine because when he gets back, we are into the holiday season and off time is restricted.

On top of this, last night, when I got to work I was informed that I was to go to our other site (23ed) and work there. I was originally hired to operate that site and worked there for about four months, but because of some politics, I got sent to the site I work now (Broadway). I didn't really care outside of the first site had just been gone through and had all updated equipment and the site I ended up at had by-passed just about every piece of automated equipment.

In the three years since I last worked at 23ed, the guys working there have abused all the equipment and the place is a mess. Equipment is bypassed, tanks have been run over (and were running over when I showed up last night) and equipment and procedures have been changed.

At 9:30 PM, I'm getting a tour and rundown on what has to be done. It's dark and not incredibly well lit, so I'm trying to figure out how everything ties together without being able to trace the piping from one vessel to another. On top of this I'm being told that some alarms may go off, but if it's this or that, don't worry, it isn't important.

I'll be honest and state that retirement is my goal. I love to work, but I would rather do it on my schedule, what I want done, when I want to do it. On my last job, I didn't mind the 12 to 16 hour days, because I thought the owners were serious about trying to keep the company going, turns out I was wrong, but I loved the job and I was willing to put in the effort.

The company I work for now seems to have no plan. Work on a well, hit a problem, stop and go to another well, hit a problem, repeat. Nothing gets fixed and no long range planning. We've had 8 months to fix (from what I'm learning now) anywhere from 5 to 18 years of neglect, I don't expect it all to be done right now, but the owner seems to be thrashing about trying to find the easiest way to get back to production, and it ain't working. We are no closer to starting up now than we were five months ago.

I'm pissed and I'm tired. Usually going to a new site would invigorate me with a challege, but this time I'm just fed up.

DKos Sucks

This is just my opinion and I'll stand by it.

1078

I've Got To Say Something

This man is an ass. He seems to have no recollection of what really happened during his term as president. Now, he may have done no more, or no less than the ones on either side of him, but you cannot just say I did so-and-so and make it the truth. And the last thing you should do is tell people to go read a book to get the facts and then have the book say the opposite of what you just professed. Guess he never read the book, just figured the author would just parrot the points on the list handed out at the end of his term.

The other thing that has bothered me quit a bit about the video that follows, is that here is a past president just jumping into that space we all carry around with us that you just don't enter unless it's for physical reasons, either love or hate. We are not a touchy-feely society, so when someone gets within a foot of you and/or starts touching you, it's either a threat, or to be close with someone you trust. Being he was poking and speaking loudly. I would consider that a threat. I'll give Wallace credit, if someone had done that to me, they would be on their butt. Now Clinton is a big guy, 6' 1" and hefty enough to have to watch his weight, so if he was in my face talking loud (he die keep it below a shout) I would feel threatened.

Go here to watch the video: Clinton vs. Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” Update: Wallace asked Rumsfeld same question in ‘04

And if you think this is the first time Clinton has threatened the press, here he is letting that poor Canadian Peter Jennings know where he stands. Clinton points finger at Jennings, enraged at moral questioning (more video added).

I think that the message was clear, you don't question what I did with facts, because if my wife gets elected President, we've got another 4 to 8 years to make your life hell, and we will.

Louisiana and New Orleans have Seceded From the Union Again

How else do you explain this?

the City of New Orleans persisted in desperately clinging to its anti-gun agenda by contemptuously arguing just the opposite--that the Second Amendment does not apply to residents in the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans.

Seems to me that the only way you could argue that ANY part of the Constitution would not apply to you would be if you were no longer a part of the United States.

Youth

A few of us were sitting around the office BSing today as the site is still down and there wasn't anything to do. We started out with some of the stupid stuff we did as kids that really should have maimed us badly if it didn't kill us outright. We all said that our kids don't seem to go out and stir up trouble like we did.

One guy who's Dad was career Army said his family didn't get a TV till he was 11 and permanently stationed state side, so he would be out of the house as quick as he could. The rest of us all had TV's, but Saturdays, cartoons were over at 10:00 AM, so we'd scoot until it was dinner time.

We didn't have computers, cell phones, DVD players that seem to keep kids in the house most of the day. I lived in the mountains just north of Los Angeles, so we'd be up the canyon having BB gun wars and digging mines, or just wandering the hills.

When we got to the asinine things we did with cars, we all talked about that first POS that we bought and spent half the time repairing. The water pump, the brakes that were shot when we got it and we put another 5,000 miles on till the squeal got annoying because we didn't have the cash being we had to buy the damn water pump. A car that squealed, but ran, was better than as safe car that wouldn't run.

When we started to talk about how nowadays you can't work on cars due to all the computers, we realized that anyone we had hired that was born after the mid 70's does not seem to have any mechanical skills. Most kids you hire for working a job that involves repair work, you literally have to start at the beginning with what a tool is and how to use it properly.

There are no Shop classes in Middle School, no Auto Shop in High School. They don't offer trade clases, everything is geared towards college or the technical fields. It's good to design a new device that will catch a mouse more efficiently, but who is going to build the damn thing?

Ah, Sunday

I'm relatively sure the Raiders were able to get through this Sunday without losing. Next week is the big test, the fearsome Cleveland Browns. a loss next week and I can pretty much give up the season.

I'm leaning for going for the Seahawks, but their 4th quarter play today unsettled me a little. Leading 42-3 going into the 4th, they proceeded to give up 27 unanswered points to win 42-30. It may wake them up to the fact that no matter what your lead, don't let up till the game is over. I'm sure that Coach Mike Holmgren will explain this to the team.

My condolences to GuyK who's team lost their QB due to a ruptured spleen. A iffy year to begin with, I guess this will go down as a training year and a chance to get some high draft picks next year. Just don't take all the good offensive linemen. The Raiders could use about six.

One More Thing

I couldn't help it. I just had to sneak back out of bed to play with the new toy one more time.

I said in the previous post that Pink Floyd and bowie share the number one spot, so I just couldn't short-shift Pink Floyd. I picked the title track form MY favorite album of theirs. "Wish You Were Here".

Trying Some New Stuff

It's Saturday and I had a shitty day at work. All the parameters for selling natural gas were in the green, but the damn Gas Co. equipment went kaput. I had to shut down the entire site till Monday because we have no where for the gas to go. It will be a long boring shift at work tomorrow and the Raiders have a bye, so I can't just sit in the office and watch my team play. I can watch the Seahawks-Giants game and the Denver*spit*-*spit*New England*spit*(How do you root for both teams to lose?).

So anyway, here are the things that I wanted to try.

1) Putting a picture, somewhere besides the top of the post.



















That worked very well. Why I didn't think of that a long time ago is beyond me. I probably could have asked one of the other Blogsnot users that I visit how they did it, but I'm hardheaded and sometimes just like to figure it out the hard way on my own.

2) Embed a YouTube player and have it work.


This is to easy.

I picked Bowie because he and Pink Floyd are sharing the number one spot in the Rock'n'Roll category. I picked this song just because it's newer and on the album the last line during the fade out where he's listing all the people that say "hi", he includes 'Your big fat dog" which just cracked me up the first time I caught it. We had a Lab, that was a runt, so her legs were a little shorter than normal and she got very round as she got older and I would just call her "Fat Dog". A dumb story I know, but I started to give you the reason and that's it.

Well, this went well for attempting new things, so I think I'll leave off here before I try something and mess up and have to stay up all night trying to repair the damage.

New Attitude

I have a problem with my posting and I just realized what it was. I have things to say, but by the time it comes to post my thoughts, I have been to numerous sites that, I feel, have said what I wanted to say, and said it so much better.

Starting tomorrow, or maybe today, being it’s after midnight already, I’m just going to go ahead and post on whatever it is that bugs me at the moment.

For some reason I thought that people who had read something on one of the popular blogs I go to, would stop by mine and go “Oh, he just lifted that from there”. Well, I do go to a lot of sights that reflect my leanings, so yes it may be a rehash or conglomeration of other sites, but if I write it down, it means I believe it.

I’m not a writer and have never been known for my scathing commentary, but this site was for me to put down what I feel, for myself. I only have to learn to let my sarcastic side out when I write. A lot of people won’t get it, but tough, like I said, this was started for me.

Let’s see how this goes.

Hey Muslim Mo'fo's

Have I got your attention now?

I have a simple question. It's really not hard to answer, it's just yes or no, but I want the answer what is in your heart.
DO YOU RESPECT MY VIEW OF RELIGION?
Pretty simple isn't it? The only problem is all I hear is that we do not respect your religion and then you destroy someone or something. How about respecting my beliefs?

I'll allow you some time, not a lot, to decided. Are you going to let me go on and live my life as I see fit, or, because I will not accept Islam, I must be killed or degrinated by Dhimmitude?

Let me know because the way you are acting now, I just figure you want me dead because of my belief, and you ae going to have a fight on your hands if that's what it comes to.

In the mean time, don't mind if I keep you at arms length, cause I cannot trust you. Your mullahs say death me me and mine, yet you say we all should just get along. You tell me who I should believe or trust?

You may say that I'm judging all muslims by the acts that I see on TV with the killing of Nuns and burning of churches, well, yes I am. You give me a good reason to ignore your actions and "fatwahs" against everything you percieve to be a slight and maybe I'll change my mind. Like always, it'll be....*crickets chiping*.

Admitting the Truth

If you wonder why you should read blogs, I think this is a good example. To get a perspective from people that have been through what we try to grasp and nail that feeling that just won't gel, but we know is there.

From doc Russia

we are apparently doing everything but killing people and breaking things which is exactly what winning a war is all about. He who killls more people and breaks more things generally wins a war. But we are not doing that. No, instead we are talking about what kind of memorials to erect "to commemorate the courage and the sacrifice of those who died." Hey! aside from flight 93 (which certainly should be a lesson to us all), and except for maybe Rescorla, most of those people were just victims.

...And we just love our victims.

We are at war! If you do not want to recognise that fact, then I pity you and the world you are willing to leave to your children. They will never know the freedoms afforded by the system of government founded back in 1776. They will also never see the world you envisioned where every culture is equally "revered". The people we are fighting want their ideals imposed on all, and you, nor your children will never have a say in it.

The Long Season

It took me 24 hours to pull out of my funk regarding the prospects for the Raiders this year and I have resigned myself to a long and unhappy season.

At first I was blaming lack of production on Brooks not fitting into the scheme, but now it's obvious that the raiders just have no, none, nada front offensive line. They can't stop the rush for 4 seconds, they can't stop the rush for 2 seconds. If the opposing team didn't have to run over them just by their bodies being there, we could just eliminate those positions.

The high point of the game for me was the defense. Playing the whole first quarter, outside of the few plays where the offense just gave the ball back to the other team, held the Ravens to just 3 field goals.

Next week at least we have a 50-50 chance of not hurting ourselves---we have a bye. Then the test. We have Cleveland and San Francisco, if we can't win these games, then I'm going to have to pick another team for the rest of the year. I'll still be a Raider fan and watch and root for them, but reality has to take hold at some point and I can't be completely depressed for the next year hoping for the impossible.

Vaudeville Night Again

It's that time where we once again get to celebrate the old time entertainment, before TV, movies or radio. Vaudeville...the precursor to the variety show.

The thing that amazes me most about this yearly hadj to this event for my wife and I, is that my 17 year old son has looked forward to this every year.

The main difference this year is that they have a new headline act, instead of "Ian Whitcomb and his Bungalow Boys" (who are very good) they have "Janet Klien and her Parlor Boys".

Here's the lineup:

Opening the show will be
America’s enchanting ukelele chanteuse JANET KLEIN and her Parlor Boys
playing nostalgic music from the vaudeville era.

Then, live on stage will be:

Who's On First?
DAVIS & FAVERSHAM
Tribute to Abbott & Costello

Jovial Jaunty Juggling
BEEJAY JOYER
Masterful Manual Manipulations

Maestro of the Glass Harmonica
MICHAEL GREINER
Creator of Crystal Melodies

From Bulgaria!
STOIL & EKATERINA
Masters of Magical Transformations

True to the vaudeville genre, the evening concludes on the big screen with a Walter Lantz cartoon BROADWAY BOW WOW'S and Charlie Chaplin’s, 1916 comedy classic ONE A.M. starring the loveable tramp and to close, Buster Keaton in PARDON MY BERTH MARKS.

And if Lady Heather ever drops by, just to make her jealous, here is what we get in November:

Larry, Moe and Curly!
9th Annual Three Stooges ™ Big Screen Event!

We celebrate the 9th year of our popular “Stooge-fest,” a collection of five classic short subjects cherry picked from the Columbia Pictures’ vaults by our blue ribbon panel of Stooge-o-philes.

This year our theme will be:“Saving Private Curly... Stooges in Arms”

Each of the shorts has some sort of military or wartime theme.

I’ll Never Heil Again (1941)
Three Little Sew and Sews (1939)
Boobs in Arms (1940)
Uncivil Warriors (1935)
Fuelin’ Around (1949)

Plus there will be a surprise clip from a great Three Stooges™ film to cap off the program.

Come join us for the wacky Thanksgiving weekend event that has become a holiday tradition for Stooge fans of all ages.

They Expect Me To Work

After 7 months with the site being down and having no production of oil or gas (hence no company income) we got the OK from the Gas Company to start seeling gas. The main problem with this, is that the State of California won't let us start pummping the oil producing wells until next week. If we can't pump the wells, we can't get the oil and water out of the way to let the gas out. This means we get a very low flow of gas that is wet from passing through a few thousand feet of liquid.

The gas we sell has limits on BTU's and inerts. Max But's = 1150 and max inerts = 4.001. In order to get the BTU's down to where they can be sold, we refrigerate the gas through two "bundles", "A" & "B". With the low flow and amount of liquid suspended in the gas, the bundles have a tendency to freeze, so you get about two hours on one side until it freezes up, then you switch to the other. The valves are stiff as hell and about 6 1/2 feet off the ground. I have opened and closed these valves so many times over the last three days that my shoulders and neck are screaming from yanking on those bastards.

I should also mention that I am the lucky SOB on graveyard shift. Alone and in the dark (half our lights are out and "we can't afford to buy light bulbs at this time").

The "best" thing about this whole start up is that all the automated valves and limiters that haven't been used for the last seven months and were only borderline working back then, are now not functioning. This means the Operator's are now tasked with being human actuators. We get to scurry from one end of the production pit to the other opening and closing valves, trying to keep things balanced.

My best night was the second day of running the site, I start at 9 PM and at 9:30 I got my first alarm. It wasn't something big, just a scrubber was filling with liquid, I just figured the guy I relieved had missed it being we had been off for so long and it would take everyone a few days to get back into swing remembering all the things to check at end of shift.

When the same alarm went of at 10:00, I started searching for what could cause it and found that my whole gas system was full of water. This is not a good thing. Liquid causes the bundles to freeze and if it hits our gas compressor can destroy it. It took me until amost 4 AM to find where it was coming from, someone had the bright idea of running the water/gas well we had pumping through a different separator that had been non-fuctional, but "they had fixed" and neglected to inform the next operator of this change. The fix had obviously lasted for a few hours, because the guy I releved hadn't had any major problems, but by the time I came on, hell was at the doorstep.

On top of the adventure of trying to running all night solving this mystery, I got to pull a double shift and stay through to 1 PM to cover "relief day" being we had someone quit a few weeks ago and haven't hired anyone to replace him. Then it's 8 hours off and back to work. I was so wound up when I got home, I couldn't get to sleep, then the wife got home just after four and Ralph, my 83 pound dog, decided the shortest route to greeting Mom was across my stomach. so I was up, having gotten maybe three hours sleep. Back to work by 9 PM and another shift of being a human actuator. This night was not bad, just busy.

I am now on my "long change", off for 5 1/2 days and boy do I need it. I sleep for 13 hours straight on Thursday, which is amazing. If Ralph took the shortcut across me, I didn't notice.

The Case for Rage and Retribution

My first inclination was to just have the simple post below and let everyone keep their own thoughts on this day, but, going through my daily blogs, I came across as article quoted at Right Wing Nation that caused me to change my mind. this was just to powerful to not pass on.

The Case for Rage and Retribution
By LANCE MORROW

Posted Wednesday, Sep. 12, 2001

For once, let's have no "grief counselors" standing by with banal consolations, as if the purpose, in the midst of all this, were merely to make everyone feel better as quickly as possible. We shouldn't feel better.

For once, let's have no fatuous rhetoric about "healing." Healing is inappropriate now, and dangerous. There will be time later for the tears of misfortune note.

A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury—a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness or into the next media sensation (O.J. … Elián … Chandra …) or into a corruptly thoughtful relativism (as has happened in the recent past, when, for example, you might hear someone say, "Terrible what he did, of course, but, you know, the Unabomber does have a point, doesn't he, about modern technology?").

Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa. A policy of focused brutality does not come easily to a self-conscious, self-indulgent, contradictory, diverse, humane nation with a short attention span. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self-confident relentlessness—and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred.

As the bodies are counted, into the thousands and thousands, hatred will not, I think, be a difficult emotion to summon. Is the medicine too strong? Call it, rather, a wholesome and intelligent enmity—the sort that impels even such a prosperous, messily tolerant organism as America to act. Anyone who does not loathe the people who did these things, and the people who cheer them on, is too philosophical for decent company.

It's a practical matter, anyway. In war, enemies are enemies. You find them and put them out of business, on the sound principle that that's what they are trying to do to you. If what happened on Tuesday does not give Americans the political will needed to exterminate men like Osama bin Laden and those who conspire with them in evil mischief, then nothing ever will and we are in for a procession of black Tuesdays.

This was terrorism brought to near perfection as a dramatic form. Never has the evil business had such production values. Normally, the audience sees only the smoking aftermath—the blown-up embassy, the ruined barracks, the ship with a blackened hole at the waterline. This time the first plane striking the first tower acted as a shill. It alerted the media, brought cameras to the scene so that they might be set up to record the vivid surreal bloom of the second strike ("Am I seeing this?"), and then—could they be such engineering geniuses, so deft at demolition?—the catastrophic collapse of the two towers, one after the other, and a sequence of panic in the streets that might have been shot for a remake of The War of the Worlds or for Independence Day. Evil possesses an instinct for theater, which is why, in an era of gaudy and gifted media, evil may vastly magnify its damage by the power of horrific images.

It is important not to be transfixed. The police screamed to the people running from the towers, "Don't look back!"—a biblical warning against the power of the image. Terrorism is sometimes described (in a frustrated, oh-the-burdens-of-great-power tone of voice) as "asymmetrical warfare." So what? Most of history is a pageant of asymmetries. It is mostly the asymmetries that cause history to happen—an obscure Schickelgruber nearly destroys Europe; a mere atom, artfully diddled, incinerates a city. Elegant perplexity puts too much emphasis on the "asymmetrical" side of the phrase and not enough on the fact that it is, indeed, real warfare. Asymmetry is a concept. War is, as we see, blood and death.

It is not a bad idea to repeat a line from the 19th century French anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: "The fecundity of the unexpected far exceeds the prudence of statesmen." America, in the spasms of a few hours, became a changed country. It turned the corner, at last, out of the 1990s. The menu of American priorities was rearranged. The presidency of George W. Bush begins now. What seemed important a few days ago (in the media, at least) became instantly trivial. If Gary Condit is mentioned once in the next six months on cable television, I will be astonished.

During World War II, John Kennedy wrote home to his parents from the Pacific. He remarked that Americans are at their best during very good times or very bad times; the in-between periods, he thought, cause them trouble. I'm not sure that is true. Good times sometimes have a tendency to make Americans squalid. The worst times, as we see, separate the civilized of the world from the uncivilized. This is the moment of clarity. Let the civilized toughen up, and let the uncivilized take their chances in the game they started.

5 Years

It's been five years since the nation was shocked into reality by the barbaric acts of men who have no qualms of killing innocent people to further their goal of dragging the world back into the seventh century.

It still seems like it happened yesterday, I don't think there is a day that passes that the images of the Twin Towers and Pentagon don't creep into my thoughts.

I recommend stopping by the "2996 Project" and reading some of the tributes to the people who's lives were cut way to short that day. (Bring a hankie)

You should also go to "Never Forgive, Never Forget", particularly if you haven't seen the video before.

2996

2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers
will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives,
and not by remembering their murderers.

Dale Roe has organized this. Please stop by his site Monday and read some of the posts.

Saturday Blog

This is my Saturday and it's too damn hot (over 100) to go outside and try to do anything.

We had a long discussion on the Rott about the football coach that blindsided the kid for the alleged illegal block after the play. I went and looked at the video and played Replay Official, running it back and forth and came to the following conclusions:

1. The whistle was late, the runner went down then there was a couple of seconds till the whistle. Of course these are not professional refs, but the rules are you play til the whistle and your assignment is the guy in front of you.

2. The hit occurred simulataniously with the whistle.


3. The hit most likely wasn't illegal. From the way the white shirt went down, on his back, that would point to being blocked front or side. White shirt could probably see the runner go down and relaxed, but the other guy is focused on who to block, he dosen't watch the ball.

4. A flying forearm to the back of the head was not the way to handle this.

This was an overreaction on this Dad's part. His son got up and was heading for the sidelines, his demeanor did not indicate he felt he was wronged. His first reaction seemed to be "“Where'’s Dad going?"

The answer to these things is to put your biggest fastest guy on the supposed offender a few plays later and make sure he goes down hard.

When I first saw it on TV, I couldn't hear the whistle and the block went by so fast it was hard to see what happened and I thought it was way illegal, but you play til the whistle and the refs were a bit slow. The block may have been boaderline, but not deserving of what that Dad did.
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If you've been trying to figure out the Lebanese ambulance thing and whether it was attack by missile, machine gun, axe? I ran across a couple of sites, the first one is about every detail you could want on what is know and said, The Red Cross Ambulance Incident via zombietime. The other is a simple video, but does add to the argument that the MSM is going to have to add another layer of fact checkers to the 70,000 they claim to already have. Rocket Ride (Hezbollywood Remix)
at The Jawa Report.

It Was 61 Years Ago , Today

While the normal celebration of the victory Over Japan is August 14, the official end of the occurred today with the signing of the Unconditional Surrender of the Japanese Empire.

How times have changed. Japan attacks us, and we go all out to defeat the enemy. People died, lots of people died, but we knew this was something that had to be taken to a definite and unambiguous conclusion.

moslems attack us and we start with the navel gazing trying to figure out why they would want to do that. I do not care what their reason is, that they want my family, friends, and acquaintances dead is all the reason I need.

When someone declares war on you, you fight the fucking war to win. Afterwards you can work out the differences.

Japan hated us and were taught that we were inferior and not worthy of respect. Well, we won, so I guess we weren't inferior and Japan is now one of the most properous countries in the world and an ally. Not a bad turnout for us imperialistic Americans.

The same has to be applied to islam, as long as their creed is to subjucate us, we have to fight them until they no longer afford to attack us. Then we'll figure out how to deal with our differences.