"I can see your house from here"

This is a bit creepy. That's my home. The little one in the middle of the block. I am glad nobody was doing any nude sunbathing on the top deck!

(Link won't work with Macs.)

I once asked my wife (a social worker) why she thought so many people that "go postal" are postal workers.

After a little reflection, it occurred to her that many attributes of the postal service probably tend to attract the less than stable - rigid rules, a semi-government organization and rules structure, pseudo-police uniforms. She speculated that many people that might have otherwise been interested in police work or the military might end up at the Post Office after failing to make it in, or even into, those professions.

Health Care in Massachusetts

Current Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has big presidential aspirations, is getting a lot of publicity from his plan for "mandatory" health care. He plans to make it illegal to live in Massachusetts and not have health care.

He defends this by saying it is mandatory to carry auto insurance if you want to drive, so why shouldn't the same be true for healthcare. Unfortunately, he has a point because our society continues to bail out stupid people and bad companies with taxpayer dollars.

When a company is on the verge of bankrupctcy like the airlines or auto industry, nowadays, the taxpayers bail them out. When someone can't pay or chooses not to pay for the health care we, the taxpayers, bail them out.

We were not always like this. Whatever happened to Packard and Studebaker? They're all gone - bankrupt.

We are a nation that doesn't believe in personal responsibility for your actions anymore. Someone will always bail us out like a magical Nanny McPhee.

Tort Reform

And I thought the USA needed tort reform, well, it seems Italy has us beat for ridiculous lawsuits.

A man is suing a local priest for fraud because he claims that the Catholic Church has been lying for 2000 years by "passing off John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala, as Christ."

Say what?!?

A sheepish mistake

I see this malapropism way more often than I should, and it still cracks me up every time. This was a Contractor's question:

Are YKK and Kawneer acceptable window manufacturers under specification section 08520-2.1 as was listed under WEST CHILLER PLANT?

And the architect's response:

Yes. As long as these (or any) manufacturers can meet all of the requirements of the specifications. (Pay particular attention to mutton size requirements).

Just to clear the record:

mun·tin : a strip separating panes of glass in a sash
mut·ton : the flesh of a mature sheep used for food

More Insanity in Massachusetts

Newton, MA is considered one of the best places to live according to CNN Money. After last week's events, we all know that is certainly one of the best places for Al-Qaeda or other terrorists to live or at least just hang out and use the library. More about it here and here but not all for free.

It seems a bomb threat was emailed to Brandeis University around 11 AM on Jan. 18 in neighboring Waltham, MA. Brandeis is a famously liberal college with a high percentage of Jewish students, which in my mind would make any terrorist threat very serious and plausible.

And Brandeis officials took it seriously evacuating 12 buildings and a nearby elementary school (Waltham is densely populated). Brandeis also contacted the police who then contacted the FBI.

The FBI tracked the email to the computer lab at the Newton public library at which point they wanted to take away the computers it was emailed from. The librarian and mayor refused to let the FBI take the computers without a warrant. This all happened around 2PM.

Jack Bauer, the clock is ticking!

It wasn't until 11:30 PM at night that the FBI and police were able to take three computers. Luckily it was probably a hoax.

Newton Mayor David Cohen and the ACLU were very proud of the librarian's actions.

I'm disgusted and can't believe the lack of common sense used by the librarian and mayor just to make a political point. God forbid if it hadn't been a hoax.

Uh Oh!

It seems like the cereal might be getting a little soggy.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A deal that would send Indians outfielder Coco Crisp to the Boston Red Sox for pitcher Guillermo Mota and third base prospect Andy Marte was endangered when the right-handed reliever failed a physical in Cleveland.

If that deal falls through, the Sox will be really hurting in center field. You can't just stick a rookie out there and expect him to figure out the Fenway geometry. Not to mention the vagaries of playing next to Manny everday.

Newsweek has a cover story about how we're screwing up educating boys in the USA. Anne Althouse has an interesting take on it here.

I say it's all ridiculous. I still can't find crap in my briefcase, lose focus in meetings, lost focus in class in college (the ones I actually went to anyway), but I managed to graduate with an advance degree and hold a steady job. Go figure? Sounds like these male issues really need fixing.

Hey there's a solution. Maybe we should just fix all the baby boys right from the start, geld 'em and be done with it. There are sperm banks anyway, so what are us males good for anyway?

Bo Sox signing Breakfast Cereal

That's right! In center field the Red Sox will be starting none other than Coco Crisp.

No word on whether Snap, Krackle, and Pop will be ball boys in 2006.

Also rumored is that Coco's brother Fruit Loops will be marrying his domestic partner at Fenway Park in a very quick ceremony before all the guests get soggy.

But seriously, comparing his offensive numbers to the recently departed Johnny Damon, it looks like a solid replacement.

I have the DirecTV Total Choice Plus package. Over 185 digital channels, including all my local stations.

Last week, I picked up a high definition off air tuner, which gives me access to about six hi-def channels, five of which were already available in standard def on the satellite.

The hi-def programs are so much more compelling than even the digital DirecTV offerings that I find myself watching less interesting programming simply to witness the marvel of high definition.

I am a child with a shiny new toy.

Why Guns? Why the 2nd Amendment?

Alex Kosinski, an immigrant from Eastern Europe and now a federal judge, knows why:

[T]he simple truth - born of experience - is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.

The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

That's why we need guns in the hands of responsible civilians. That and Crackpipe Willy up the street.

Things that make you go "Hmmm"

I have often wondered how advocates of "domestic partnerships" would handle brother-brother, or brother-sister, or even mother-son "domestic partnerships." Think about it: if the criterion is "two people who love each other" are entitled to rights equal to married couples, don't all those "relationships" apply? It seems I have finally found an answer, as offensive as it may be:

University of Florida employees have to pledge that they're having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new health care plan at the university.

The partners of homosexual and heterosexual employees are eligible for coverage under UF's plan, which will take effect in February. The enrollment process began this month, and some employees have expressed concern about an affidavit that requires a pledge of sexual activity.

There you have the hypocrisy of left summed up in a neat little package. The protectors of the "right to privacy" and the "freedom of choice" would have you sign a freaking pledge that you are indeed having sex in order to qualify for their largesse. I guess if your "partner" has a heart condition, or suffers from neuromuscular disorder you will have to beg a liberal for some sort of "sex exemption" in order to qualify.

Isn't it funny how every liberal "civil rights" policy puts another liberal in a position of administrative power? Maybe the leftists civil rights propaganda is more about solidifying their own political power, not about achieving any real civil rights.

Blog I didn't know about

Dave Barry, who used to be a syndicated humor columnist, has a blog.

It is mainly a ton of funny links but every once in awhile there's some of that really funny Dave Barry wit.

(Note: blogspot's spellchecker doesn't recognize "blog" or "blogspot" as properly spelled words, how bizarre)

Dispatch From the Religion of Peace

It seems that Palestinians are finding it increasing difficult to kill Jews, thanks to Sharon's fence:

Suicide bombings in Israel had developed into a bloody and lucrative industry for Palestinians who carried out 39 attacks in 2002. But, since Israel began constructing its anti-terrorist fence, the Palestinian human-bomb industry has been reduced to bankruptcy by producing only 11 attacks in more than two years.

What to do, what to do. Here's the Palestinian's replacement source of recreation:

Honor killing, on the other hand – which has always been an integral aspect of Palestinian life – began gathering momentum. With horrifying zest, weapon-wielding fathers, brothers, uncles and sometimes mothers, hunt down their daughters and sisters and commit shocking acts of violence for real and imagined immoral transgressions.

The Arab motivation for murdering their own daughters flows from the same cultural wellspring that produces suicide bombers. The defensive form of honor, called ird, is consumed with female sexual purity and manifests itself in the murder of its own to restore family honor, whereas the offensive manifestation, sharaf, requires positive actions implemented to heighten social status and increase family honor. As Palestinian society retreats from its failure to infiltrate the daily life of Israeli citizens with death and destruction, it compensates by killing its own and depositing ird in its honor bank.

So how does this Palestinian quest for "honor" manifest itself when denied the privelege of murdering Jews? Here are some heartwarming examples:

"... her father bludgeoned her to death with an iron bar."

"... forced his sisters to drink bleach before strangling them."

"... her mother pulled a plastic bag tightly over her head, sliced open her daughter’s wrists and beat her with a stick until she was dead."

"... when a four-year-old toddler was raped by a 25 year-old man in 2002, her Palestinian family left her to bleed to death because her rape had dishonored the family."

Surely, if only these poor, oppressed people had their own county, a Palestinian state with a real government and police force, they would put a stop the barbarity, right? Wrong.

The growing influence of Hamas with its fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic law is concerning women’s groups, which fear it will gain power and moral legitimacy in the coming elections. [...]

In a two-year period between 1996 and 1998, Shalhoub-Kevorkian uncovered 234 suspicious deaths in the West Bank alone, which she believes were honor killings. Palestinian police do not record these deaths as murder but as deaths due to "fate and destiny."

Yeah, let's give 'em country and a seat on the UN Security Council.

Another Phallic Subject

In the spirit of the last post, here is something for the little boy architect in all of us.

Forbes magazine has an article on the world's tallest buildings. Don't miss the slide show at the end of the article!

Interesting to see the person who designed the Petronas Tower 1 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia had such a case of penis envy, that they built two. One for each hand, I guess.

Men vs Women

Why women have two hands.

Why Men have two hands.

Defending Massholes, sort of...

Yeah, but in the field I work in, it is either California or near Beantown.

Not much of an option, Arnie & Pelosi or Mitt "the stormin' Mormon" Romney & Teddy. Neither Arnold or Ted can drive and both get away with traffic accidents.

I could live in NH and work in MA but then I'd pay a ridiculous MA wage tax anyway, but I'd be closer to better skiing.

As far as the legislature in Massachusetts, we just call that a jobs program for drunk Irishmen. And the big dig was the same a jobs program for drunk Irishmen who can't speak in public.

But you'd like where I live two blocks from a gun club, around the corner from a bunch of golf courses, and about an hours drive to diving waters where you can grab lobsters off the bottom, as long as you pay the proper license to the State of Maine of course.

Jeff Jacopy has some questions for Cousin Don:

In the state that produced Michael Dukakis and Sen. Kerry, the concerns of ordinary citizens are so often met with disdain, while the political class lets nothing get in the way of its own appetites and priorities. A state legislature that stays in session year-round? A supreme court that turns same-sex marriage into a constitutional right? Public ''authorities" that answer to no one? In most of America, no way. In Massachusetts, no problem. [...]

Is it such a stretch to imagine that an awful lot of Americans look at Massachusetts and think: How can people stand to live there? Or that a fair number of Massachusetts residents eventually decide that they can't stand to live here?

I Don't get it...

I just don't get the whole NSA wire-tapping scandal. It seems like the democrats have stepped in a time machine and think J. Edgar Hoover is still running the FBI. First of all it is 2006 not 1966 and most of the time they are probably not tapping wires anymore, there are cell phones, the internet, and fiber optics. Sheesh!

Also stop saying they were snooping on Americans without a warrant. The NSA was listening in on calls outside the USA, some of which were calls into our country. This should scare the crap out of us not because the NSA was listening in, but that the terrorists have enough calls coming into the US of A to keep the NSA busy.

Nancy Pelosi and crew would be the first to be screaming at the current administration if something had happened that could have been stopped by snooping in on these conversations.

This is all politics plain and simple.

Now What?

I lost my wife two weeks ago. I am bereft. Now what? How do I fill the gap?

I have ridden motorcycles since my Dad bought us one in sixth grade. I started out as a little guy on one of these, a Honda CT70:



Then, in high school, we upgraded to this, a Honda CB100:



My Dad and I went for lots of rides through rural New Jersey on that little bike, and it served us well. In college, my roommate's brother rode one of these, and he was kind enough to give me a key:



That Kawasaki was one smokin' ride. 500cc displacement, spread across a 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine. That, my friends, is a lot of power strokes per RPM.

Time passed, and I got away from riding. But now I need something new in my life, and at the same time something familiar. I am inclined towards one of these:


Not the girl, idiot! The Harley Sportster 1200!

Cousin Don posted a pretty great quote from William Borah. Following his lead, but with a perspective newly thrust upon me, I offer this from Winston Churchill:

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

I don't know how I am going get through this, but I do know that my Mom did it before she met my Dad, and my Aunt Jackie (Don's mom) succeeded as well. I will somehow follow them through this dark tunnel.

Over in the Blogroll is a link to BlameBush!, a blog that satirizes the liberal propensity to blame every non-positive event that occurs anywhere on George Bush. Well, sometimes truth gets out in front of satire. Check out famed naval navigator Sean Penn:

Actor Sean Penn added to the enthusiasm of the day by stressing that all of the nation's anti-war activism was taking hold and was starting to work - while admitting that the stress of living under the current administration was making it tough for him to quit smoking.

That's right, folks! Sean Freaking Penn can't quite smoking and even that is Bush's fault. These liberals are, quite simply, too much to be believed.

Quotable Quotes

Tim Blair has a terrific roundup of quotes from the first six months of 2005. Here are my favorites for each month, but by all means check out the rest.

January: “The U.S. will be blamed for global warming, global cooling, any flood, any drought, attacks by terrorists, attacks against terrorists, re-acting too quickly, re-acting too slowly, being too involved in other’s affairs, and not being involved enough in other’s affairs.”

February: “Franken’s liberal radio is really taking off. I own a conch shell with more listeners.”

March: “I was in Japan when they had the Kyoto conference. They cut down a forest preserve to create the venue and it was all downhill from there.”

April: “Every minute in the world a woman is raped, and she has no one to blame but herself.” - Sheikh Feiz Muhammad
The Sheikh's April Update: "Maybe I should have said it another way meaning they are ... partly to blame but not fully to blame.” [okay, we've got it now - KF]

May: “The greatest danger for those of us who dislike George Bush is that our instincts may tip over into a desire to see his foreign policy objectives fail. No reasonable person can oppose the president’s commitment to Islamic democracy.”

June: “The more left-wing the Westerner, the more tolerant he is of right-wing Islamic extremism.”

If Frank Beamer was Having Second Thoughts . . .

They're gone now:

SUFFOLK - Marcus Vick, the former Virginia Tech quarterback who was dismissed from the team last week after various troubles on the field and with the law, was arrested and charged Monday with three counts of brandishing a firearm, a misdemeanor.

I guess when Vick said he was "moving to the next level, Baby," he meant Allen Iverson's level.

Dispatch From the Religion of Peace (Does it ever end?)

It seems the adherents of the Religion of Peace are getting more creative with their suicide bombers:

AL-QAEDA is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror.

Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.

Swell. That's all we need. And how do the Islamofascist peace-lovers know this will work? Why, it seems some "experts" told them so!

Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments from a suicide bomber could penetrate the skin of a victim 50 metres away and infect them.

I just have one additional observation: Imagine what it would take to become an "expert" on the penetrating power of bone fragments down range.

60 Minutes Channels Monica

On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, they aired an hour long love fest with President William Clinton.

A president I feel should have been impeached not for the Monica incident, but for how in the world did China get the W-88 missile on his watch. Right around the same time his vice president was collecting money from Buddhist temples.

But guess who was hosting this Clinton love fest? None other then Dan Rather.

A quote President Reagan would love

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. - William H. Borah

By the way this quote is from google.