Safe Extraction

All those of you who think B HUSSEIN is having it both ways in his 'support' for the troops by saying he's going to end the war immediately, but will cover the withdrawal with troops to make sure the withdrawing troops are safe, are forgetting Slick Willy and Kosovo.

Those of you with memories long enough to have been paying attention during the glory days of the Clintonistas, will recall that Der Schlimeister had to sen peace keepers over there but promised to bring them home by Christmas.

I'm sure you remember that, Law and Order had several episodes covering the behavior of those blood thirsty bastards on both sides of that little dust up - our guys and their guys.

Do you remember that Slick Willy made good on his promise to bring the troops he sent over there home by Christmas? He did you know. All the troops he promised he'd bring home by Christmas did come home by Christmas.

Of course Kosovo was still a dangerous place, and precipitously withdrawing our blood thirsty, I mean, peace keeping troops would expose them to un necessary danger.

So Slick Willy made sure those troops could come home safely. He sent another set of troops, ok, a one for one replacement set of troops, to Kosovo to cover the safe withdrawal of the troops he brought home for Christmas.

I think those troops are still there.

Watch B Hussein do the same thing in Iraq, if he wins....

If you loved Clinton, you'll be ecstatic with B-HO.

Rattle Snake Etiquette

I enjoy a good hard run. I have always maintained that it will cure a cold, the flu, whooping cough, Liberalism, and many other common maladies.

Sick? Go for a good hard run. A good run of five or so miles gets the old heart rate up and flushes your system of toxins more quickly than a bike ride, unless the bike ride is a six per cent six mile climb at 3,000 feet. When you get oxygen debt, you get close to God, which in itself is therapeutic.

Trouble is, a bike ride takes time if you don't have a life sucking mountain near by. I have no time, and no life sucking mountain.

So I do the good hard run when I am sick, or when I need an attitude adjustment.

Around here in the South OC, there is a great trail that runs from Cook's Corner in the foot hills to the Top of The World on the coast. I run or ride parts of it at least three times a week.

There are side benefits to running the trail. Little blessings from God, I call them. The first time I ran it, I saw an odd looking dog jogging down the trail ahead of me. It had a short tail and orange and black fur. When it ducked off the train and into the brush, I realized it was a bobcat, not a dog. Funny, though, how its gait was just like a dog's.

Another time, I rounded a curve and came across a red tailed hawk, wings spread, feinting at a coiled rattler. The hawk no doubt was timing the snake's strikes, and would hit it on a recoil when it got the timing right.

Trouble is, I was already in both animals' fight or flight zone. The hawk took off, the snake uncoiled and slithered into the brush, and I cursed my lack of a helmet cam.

One little blessing I always enjoy, I mean besides the murders of crows, the buzzards overhead, and the rabbits and squirrels running for cover every few yards, is the mothers and fathers I see jogging with the strollers that are holding their babies. OK, I enjoy seeing the mothers more than the fathers, but what says 'daddy' more than a father willing to take a baby for a jog?

My last run there, I started around 0730 to avoid the social riders and runners who think the paved two lane trail is there so they can run or ride 47 abreast and scare the hell out of solo runners who they meet on curves. I don't know why there aren't more head on crashes. Anyway, I run about a quarter mile on the paved trail, then take a dirt path that circles down by the creek and up over a hump that must be 30 or 40 yards of 11% or 12% grade. I was coming up on the dirt trail when I came upon one of the treats God always has for me.

There was a young woman jogging behind her stroller and she had a dog running with her, a double blessing. I passed her just as the dirt trail came up and as I ran up the little hill at the trail's start I heard some, I don't know, was it yelling? behind me.

I didn't think anyone would be hailing me, more likely it was a group carrying on as if they were driving with a cell phone at their ears, so I kept on.

The dirt trail runs parallel to Aliso Creek, then loops around and ends up rejoining the paved trail at its far end. I always take the paved trail back, using it more as a cool down run than the more rigorous dirt trail. About half way back to the start, I again came across the mom with babe and dog.

As I passed her, I again heard something, only this time I could make out "Rattlesnake" as one of the words. I turned around and could tell it was the woman, and since no one else was around, I figured she was talking to me.

"Pardon?" I said.

"You took the snake trail," she said. "I used to go that way, but I saw way too many snakes."

No wonder she ran with the dog.

"Did you see any?" she said.

"No," I said, "Not today. But, you shouldn't be afraid of them. They are way more afraid of you than you are of them. Besides, you probably saw corn snakes rather than rattlers," I told her. "Look for their tracks. The rattler makes a very pronounced 'S' trail, the corn snake's track is a lazy 'S', more like a slight squiggle in a line than an 'S'."

"Are corn snakes dangerous?" she asked.

"Naw, no poison, and they eat rattlers.... So, well, don't let them keep you from a good jog," I said.

"OK, thanks," she said. "I didn't know all that."

"Oh, you're welcome," I said. "God bless you for being a mom and taking your baby with you. Have a great run."

I took off again, a little faster, a little more energetic.

Personally, I think I got the blessing.....

What ARE You Thinking?

Ya think B-HO's the bomb?

Well here's another example of how clueless, ignorant, and dangerous he is:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/greenberg070108.php3

Bad Moon Arising

If ever there was an example of out of control liberalism, this has to be it.

Via Hot Air: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hP3NgWlUJNbAbMthMB8oZ-tKh2Yg

Not that I think we here in the USA are too far from this....

Fire them All

Tell me, why do we pay for this?

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/28/video-louisiana-legislators-working-darned-hard-for-that-pay-raise/

If you don't think this is a common practice at every level, well, kiss me quick.

Slaves To The Tax Man

Here's something I've been saying for years, just not as well.

From Walter E. Williams, one of my favorite economists, via Town Hall:

Let's do a thought experiment asking whether Americans are for or against slavery. You might say, "What are you talking about, Williams? We fought a war that cost over 600,000 lives to end slavery!" To get started, we might find a description that captures the essence of slavery. A good working description is: slavery is a set of circumstances whereby one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor.

The average American worker toils from January 1st to the end of April, and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor for that period. Federal, state and local governments, through the tax code, take what he produces. A small portion of the fruits of his labor is used to provide for the constitutional functions of government. Most of what's taken, up to two-thirds, is given to some other American in the forms of farm and business subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, welfare and hundreds of other government handout programs. As in slavery, one person is being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person.

You might ask, "Williams, aren't you a bit off base? Slavery means that you are owned by another person." Who owns a person is not nearly important as who has the rights to use that person. In other words, a plantation owner having the power to force a black to work for him would have been just as well off, and possibly better off, not owning him. Not owning him means not having to bear medical expenses and loss of wealth if the slave died. During World War II, Nazis didn't own Jews, but they had the power to force them to labor for them. Not owning Jews meant that working and starving them to death had little cost to the Nazis. The fact that American slaves were owned, with prices sometimes ranging from $800 to $1,300, meant that owners had a financial stake in the slave's well-being and they were not worked and starved to death.

You might argue that my analogy is irrelevant because unlike American slaves and Nazi concentration camp inmates, we can come and go as we please, live where we want, buy a car, clothes and other things with the money left over after the government gets four months' worth of our earnings. But, does that make much of a difference?

During slavery, visitors to the South often observed "a great many loose negroes about." Officials in Savannah, Mobile and Charleston and other cities complained about "nominal slaves," "virtually free negroes," and "quasi free negroes" who were seemingly oblivious to any law or regulation. Frederick Douglass, a slave, explained this phenomenon when he was employed as a Baltimore ship's caulker: "I was to be allowed all my time; to make bargains for work; to find my own employment, and to collect my own wages; and in return for this liberty, I was … to pay him (Douglass' master) three dollars at the end of each week, and to board and clothe myself, and buy my own caulking tools."

There are some benefits to being a quasi free person such as Frederick Douglass. There are two ways U.S. Congress might force me to serve the purposes of another American. They might force me spend a couple of hours each day actually working, without compensation, for another American. Or, they might forcibly take a portion of my earnings so that American can hire someone. I see myself as being better off with Congress doing the latter -- taking a portion of my earnings and giving it away.

Some might be put off by my thought experiment and consider it an illegitimate use of the term "slavery." At what point should we consider ourselves a quasi free American -- when government takes two-thirds or three-quarters of our earnings?

BHO Fatigue

I speak only for myself, of course, but isn't the constant obsessing about B-HO, Sir Shrillarly, and McClinton getting just a little bit wearisome?

There is a strange connection between this and a new book that is all the rage in jolly Olde England.
Nick Davies has written a book about the lack of intellectual integrity in the new media (as if we didn't already know THAT!) which you can find out about here: http://www.flatearthnews.net/

There are plenty of reasons why BHO is dangerous for America and the world, but the media is studiously ignoring those things and concentrating on the personalities of the candidates.

Like running for high school class president, this election is all about popularity, and in true flat earth fashion, since we can't see beyond the horizon, and now reporter is willing to go there and look, that's all we get.

Somebody wake me up when it's over.