Happy Birthday, USA. Well, Sort Of.

Today is supposed to be Independence Day, for reasons that escape me. It was 233 years ago, July 2,1776 when the vote was taken. Twelve votes for Independence, one abstention. By rights we should have celebrated on the second. Oh well, I should be happy that they haven't pushed this off into the Monday Holiday thing.

It's just about the hottest day of the year, so far. The temp is supposed to be about 103 in the middle of the D/FW Metromess. We don't dare go anywhere we can't take the dogs when it's this hot, they simply can't stay outside all day in this heat.

I can hardly wait for the fireworks to start. CAP always goes into hysterics, Ming tries hard to scare them away with her furious barking. This will Bingo's first July Fourth with us, oops! The kid 'cross the road set off the first firecrackers. Bingo and Ming the Merciless both went crazy.

Our celebration will be very low key. We are just going to watch Yankee Doodle Dandy on the Teevee. One day a year I'm a Yankee. I'm not the world's greatest fans of musicals but this is the one I watch every time I can. I may not have been born on the Fourth of July but, today, I am that Yankee Doodle Boy.

I have more to talk about but, later. For now, Happy Independence Day. Pray that there is more ruin a Nation can handle than one Administration can deliver.

What's Next. Sarah?

I first thought Sarah Palin was not running for reelection because she wanted to run for President. Then I realized she was resigning. Regardless that Obambi started running for President before he found his desk in the Senate, her resignation is supposed to be the kiss of death. Well, maybe.

My first thought was that they are going to find Excitable Andy Sullivan in an alley with Todd's bootprints all up and down his backside and Sarah is quitting to raise money for Todd's defense.

I do know one thing. Leftist activists have been making one ethics complaint after another against her. Fifteen have been investigated so far, each found groundless. Each one cost tons of money to defend. The closest thing to any wrongdoing was a minor deal over that troopergate thing. There she wasn't found guilty, just close to an edge. Hey, somebody beating my sister I'd be close to an edge, too.

Thing is, there is no penalty for filing even frivolous ethics complaints. And no matter how frivolous, each complaint must be defended. And there is no Department of Defending Against Frivolous Complaints, expensive lawyers must be hired. And, of course, the people making these complaints then go out and say "look at all the ethics complaints".

I do not know how to solve this. I suspect it will not stop until we on the right find someone with enough time and their hands and low enough morals to do the same thing back to them, file stupid, silly ethics complaints against their people. Trouble is, name a Democrat that HAS any ethics.

I do not know how that works. Seems that everyone going to the courts wanting to see Barry's US birth certificate lacks standing. Now I'm not one of those birther nuts but it sure seems to me that a United States citizen and voter sure has the standing to demand proof that the President of the United States is qualified for the job.

That is why I can't be a judge or a lawyer. Obambi can spend millions of dollars of other people's money going to court to avoid having to show a ten dollar copy of a birth certificate. I can't be a judge because that makes no sense to me.

Anyhow I hope there are no big health problems causing Sarah's decision. I'm sure we'll learn far more in the future. With Sarah dropping out the Republicans have a mighty thin bench right now. Let's see, there was Sarah and...

Dear Barry

Barry, I've been following your antics and I'm beginning to wonder why you ran for President. Don't get me wrong, I realize that politics requires a large dose of narcissistic tendencies but the job also requires some action.

Almost every President we have ever had, save maybe Jimmie Carter, loved this country. I'm wondering, Barry, when you might show us that you also love this country. I'm wondering if you might show us that you love freedom and a constitutional republic. You see, Barry, you are not showing us that.

Iran has God only knows how many people killed, more jailed and tortured for the crime of wanting a fair election. Your reaction?

We have Honduras wanting their President to follow their constitution and then canning him, in accordance with their law, when he refused. Your reaction? Cutting off much of our aid and canceling our military ties.

Barry, it would be nice if you, just once, even by accident, side with liberty and the rule of justice and law. You are not giving us much confidence that you even believe in the rule of justice and law. Barry, you do not want to be anywhere in the country if Americans stop believing that our votes matter.

The Unpaid Dell Software Mechanic

I'm still fighting with the new computer. Internet Explorer has decided to go on strike. Half the news and fun sites I visit would come up, then a few seconds later a box would pop up saying Internet Explorer can not open the site. Meanwhile I'm looking at the site but can not scroll down to read it.

Meanwhile the McAfee had disappeared again. Back to the Dell help desk. Naturally typing only worked for a few minutes and it was back to the cell phone in one hand and the mouse and keyboard in the other. It's bad enough that I'm half (or more) deaf, the help desk people are all in India. It's as bad as talking to a bunch of yankees. Hey! I'm a Texican. We talk slower down here. And we have no accent. Y'all have accents and you talk too fast. Everybody isn't from New Jersey and Boston.

So now everything is slowed to a crawl while everything we paid for is downloading, again. I did not realize that I was signing up to a new career, I thought I was just buying a computer.

So today I don't know much about what is going on in the world. I'll try to catch up when everything is finally downloaded. What happened to Algore's promise of fast internet service everywhere? Oh yeah, he's busy saving the polar bears. He's getting enough blubber to feed a polar bear family for a week, he ought to go up there.

I assume Michael Jackson is still dead. He managed to wipe Iran out of the news. And now Honduras. It sure is crowded under Obama's bus. Seems that just once, maybe by accident, he'd side with freedom. He did have the gall to claim victory in Iraq, after years of trying to achieve defeat. And he's put slow Joe in charge of getting reconciliation in Iraq. Yep, Biden. The new Sheriff in town. One would think that he had enough to do, overseeing well over three quarters of a trillion dollars in pork, er stimulus money.

I noticed that I had no picture of Linda Lou in the Karson birthday pics so here is one in her new natural habitat. She and Ming the Merciless out on the deck. Call this pic "the girls". Okay, call it the reason I'm living.

Karson Has A Birthday Party

Satuday was Karson's first birthday party. Because Dean's mother had to be at work by two PM they held it at the ungodly time of ten AM. Ten AM doesn't sound so early to normal people but I worked the swing and graveyard shifts for most of my life. And we live a very long way from the northern suburbs of Dallas,

What makes it worse is that I'm part vampire, I simply do not do mornings. So I went to bed about three and a half-four hours early, at midnight. I then tossed and turned, and did not sleep I simply annoyed Bingo, who can sleep day or night. Every time he got nice and comfy I rolled around. Finally I got up at three thirty AM, relieved my now tiny bladder and got to sleep. Funny how so many of my body parts have enlarged with age but my bladder has shrunk to the size of a grape.

At any rate my disgustingly cheerful Linda Lou came in at seven AM to wake me, her being all nice and awake. It didn't hardly work until she set Bingo on me to wash my face with his little sandpaper tongue. That didn't work too well, either so he switched to cleaning out my ear. That got me up, I just wasn't ready for an all morning wet willy.

I stumbled out and got a cup of coffee. A while later I had another cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal with a banana. I never know if they are going to feed us, this time they were going to. Naturally I wasn't hungry.

Anyhow we got in the car and drove to town. And drove, and drove some more. What ever possessed us to move so far from everything? I swear, we get yesterday's teevee programs over the satellite! If we decide we'd like to shop in town by the time we get home the milk is sour, canned goods are way past their sell by date and any electronic goods are three generations obsolete.

Anyhow we got there before the kid was old enough for his learner's permit, only a half hour late. We were not there but a few minutes when Karson's Mama started opening his presents. Note to the young: One year old babies do not understand birthdays. Although birthday parties are a good way to score some new toys and clothes, as well as baby wipes and diapers, the older kids do not understand, either. Especially William. Now that boy wants to be the center of attention. He wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. (Thanks, Robert A Heinlein!)

Another thing we discovered is that the Safety Nazis have really worked over children's toys. Linda Lou remembered that kids of Karson's age just love those toy telephones, Oddly the Fisher Price toy telephone still uses a dial. To heck with the children of that age, have their parents ever seen a telephone with a dial?

That is not the important thing, though. The "cord" between the bottom of the phone and the ear-mouthpiece has shrunk. It's like six inches long, it's impossible for a baby to goo goo and shriek over the telephone to his imaginary friends without lifting the whole thing off the floor. This is not the way these things were when Karson's parents were that age. I know it's the Safety Nazis protecting the children! from being strangled. Well, now I'm sixty-two years old now and have been a news junkie my whole life. I'd like to know just how many of the children! have been killed or seriously injured by too-long "cords" on toy telephones. Names, dates and coroner's reports, please. I suspect we'd be better off killing the Safety Nazis and letting kids grow up with a little risk, the way we did.

Then it was Karson's lunchtime. He is still eating that Gerber stuff. He has switched to the stuff that is a little more textured, he's not quite sure about it. I couldn't get a good pic pf his "do not want!" face.

Then it was time for cake. Naturally they gave the birthday boy some to eat with his hands, judging from the look of things his knowledge of persactly where his mouth is is still somewhat tenuous. The other kids did their part, too. We left just as the fire Department came to hose the place down. Really, the one that got the best part of this shindig was Pele the dog. He scored two unattended hot dogs, a hamburger butt, some chips and a plethora of crumbs.

Then we drove home, wondering why we don't go see the kids more often.

The Reaction To Michael Jackson Explains Obama

I never understood the huge orgy of "grief" when JFK was killed. Yes, too bad, he was fairly young, although ancient to my fifteen year old self, with young children. It's not like any of those crying kids, much less the adults, had ever met him. I'm not sure when this began but I think it was with Kennedy. The media had much to do with this of course, Kennedy was not a particularly good President as well as being a horndog first class. This was well known to the Washington press corps but, for some reason was none of our business, even though the public was paying his salary.

I remember my parents, depression kids who came to adulthood before the development of Sulfa and Penicillin. So they were used to people dying young, Most people today cannot imagine how many people died young even in the first half of the 20th Century. I do not think people would have had time to do all that weeping and wailling over strangers in, say, 1920.

Of course, it's getting worse and worse. There are still thousands of people going to Graceland, people crying in America over Princess Di.

What I've noticed most on this latest death is what all these "grief stricken" clowns are saying. Maybe it's what they've always said but as my hearing problems progress I'm not listening but reading. These "grief stricken" clowns aren't talking about MJ or his family, they are talking about themselves.

What Michael means to me. What I think about his death. What his music means to me.

Listening to these people is like listening to an Obama speech. I. Me. There is no him. No you. Although these people are Americans I do not know them. They do not grieve so much as scream "look at me! I'm grieving!" Kind of like Obama, not wanting so much to be President but to scream look at me, I'm President!

This would not have happened to the men and women who broke their backs on farms and ranches, in mines and factories in the 19th Century. It is a measure of how frivolous our society has become. Trouble is, the frivolousness is just about to ruin the last best hope of mankind. Once Obama finishes collapsing the economy, the America I grew up in will be gone, perhaps forever.

In more important news than Jackon, Obama or the future of the nation, yesterday was my youngest grandson's first birthday party. I'll be posting pictures tomorrow while Linda Lou is off to a doctor's appointment.

The U. S. House of Representatives Declares War On U. S. Businesses, Workers and Homeowners

I guess I'm not quite smart enough to understand how shipping more jobs overseas will help the American economy. I am not quite smart enough to see how adding thousands of dollars a year more to the average household's bills will help the economy. And with the average world temperature dropping and some migratory birds losing their mating season because Canada is too cold, is this really the time to attack glow ball warming? Especially since a lot of real climate specialists say that what we do, within reason, has nothing to do with the climate.

The US House of Representatives does not agree with me, though, so they passed another huge bill that no one has read. I know this because there were over three hundred pages added after three AM this morning. Remember this day. Be sure to defeat everyone who voted for this monstrosity.

In other news I went to the supermarket after the hottest part of the day passed. While I was traveling the awful bill passed. Then, a while laterthe news came on. Now the most important item on the news? Not cap and tax but the earthshaking news that it may be weeks before we know why Michael Jackson died.

I never paid much attention to him, for some strange reason they didn't play much of his stuff on the country stations. I am blessed that I don't watch TV much anymore. So I was spared the Princess Di like crap. Okay, he's dead. Along with Lord only knows how many Iranians fighting, unarmed, for liberty. I'd trade a dozen pop stars for one of those Iranians.

Actually of the stars that died, Colonel Ed McMahon, USMC(R), retired and Farrah Fawcett were both each worth ten Michael Jacksons. Each of them stood up to be counted. Lord only knows how much of her own money Fawcett put up to aid battered women. And McMahon was on his way to the Pacific to fly fighters off carriers when we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then he flew those single engine Cessna Bird Dog spotter planes in Korea. As low and slow as those things flew I always expected the men who flew those things over combat zones to have to walk bowlegged. So, what do we get? Michael. Remind me again why the news media is dying.

A Politician Can't Keep His Zipper Up, Imagine That.

One would think by now the news would be that a politician could avoid being led around by his small head. But no, the big news of the day is that some clown, governor of a fairly unimportant state, South Carolina, got laid. Outside of his marriage. Now it's very important, unlike when getting laid outside of marriage (and lying about it under oath) was none of our business.

So, one was President and had the D behind his name, the other, Mark Sanford had the R. So, it was only about sex then and not important. Now it's knocking Iran out of the news.

Okay, for the record I deplore Sanford's behavior. I am not going to vote for him, even if he moves to Texas or runs nationally. Now, Sanford, will you please shut up and go away. We have more important fish to fry.

In Iran platoons of thugs fired automatic weapons into unarmed crowds. Axe wielding goons went into those crowds chopping on unarmed citizens. Note to the national media: let the Mayberry Clarion or whatever other papers they have there cover Sanford and y'all cover Iran and the Norks. Yeah, the ones that are going to fire a missile toward Hawaii. We'll deal with Sanford if he tries to run our electric bills up madly or take over a couple of car companies, or, worse, dismantle the best health care system in the world.

Slaughter In Iran

Someone please explain to me exactly why the Mullahs of Iran are still alive. We should have killed them back in '83 when they sent their boys to blow up the Marines in Beirut. We should have killed them when they sent their boys to blow up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

We should have killed them a hundred times over for shipping those EFP bombs into Iraq, yet they still breathe air that decent people may need someday. And now they send their boys to slaughter unarmed citizens of their own country.

So, what does it take? After the unpleasantness of 1939-1945 we swore "never again". Yet it keeps happening, again and again. Seems like the rules could be made a little simpler and easier to understand. How about Rule number one: Kill unarmed citizens and we kill you. Rule number two: Sneak weapons and such into a country where there is no declared state of war, we kill you. Rule number three: Bomb people without a declared state of war, we kill you.

Instead we just let these murderous thugs get more and more powerful. I know, lets do it like we did with the Chinese, let them murder their people and let's help them get their missiles to fly. That will show them we mean no harm! Meanwhile a small voice on a mostly unread blog says just because we mean them no harm does not mean they mean us no harm.

I've said this before, just because we have no interest in war does not mean that war has no interest in us.

Update: You want to stop this nonsense? Put in a world wide Second Amendment. Meanwhile make it a world crime to use tanks and armored vehicles internally. Make it a world crime to have the military personal weapons unavailable to the citizens. Yeah, we might lose a few more politicians that way but politicians are a renewable resource. They breed like flies. We lost two Kennedys in five years but we still have those vermin all over. and the best of that family was the bootlegger/Nazi sympathizer.

I submit a new world order, one where the governments are afraid of the people, not the other way around.