World Series most wanted by this blog

Phillies vs. Yankees

Seatbelt Ruminations

As I rode my bike around this afternoon on a beautiful autumn day, I looked around at my fellow motorists, driving their cars and securely buckled in to their seats as required by law. It occurred to me that if driving a car without a seat belt is so freaking dangerous as to be impermissable, why does society permit motorcycle riding at all?

Sad but True

It's Friday night, and I should be doing something fun But what am I doing? Web surfing and blogging. At least the view is good.

Separated at Birth?

New York Yankees pitcher Chien Ming Wang



Bloom County gadfly Bill the Cat

When I was a kid, my dad sold the Chevelle and bought a Buick Electra 225. It was too long to fit in the garage, so dad built an "addition" which was essentially a 48" tall extension out the back with a shed roof on it to accept the nose of the car. Naturally, he didn't bother paving that little bit, so the very back of the garage had a dirt floor.

Well, that soon became a favored cat elimination area for the neighborhood pride, so dad took to dumping the used motor oil back there. I have no idea how many gallons he put there over the years, but it must have been a considerable quantity. Nowadays, that would make dad a felon.

He used to keep Chlordane powder spread around the house for the ants, too. In fact, when they banned it from home use, he stocked up so he wouldn't run out! Ah, those were the days.

Strange Bedfellows

This article from the Times of London proves we live in dangerous times:

Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’

North Korea and Syria? "The enemy of my enemy is my..."

The incessent, bleating, whining nannies have a new target: air fresheners. Yup, the "Progressives" want you to be protected by the government from the deadly Big Air Freshener industry. Check out this overheated bloviating:

… asking the federal government to crack down on air fresheners ...

… strictly regulate the industry ...

… offer no public health benefits yet contain harmful chemicals linked to breathing difficulties, developmental problems in babies and cancer in laboratory animals ...

... significant exposure "to a veritable cocktail of dangerous and potentially dangerous volatile organic compounds ...

... want the federal government to require manufacturers ... to conduct health and safety tests ...

... government should ban ingredients that would cause allergies ...

... studies show that some phthalates interfere with hormonal systems, disrupt testosterone production and cause malformation of sex organs.

... studies of humans have shown a link between exposure and adverse changes in the genitals of baby boys.

Oh, please. Just leave us and our Lemon-Fresh Glade alone. LEAVE. US. ALONE.

This article documents the revocation of the liquor license at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. What got me to chuckling, though, was this comment:

No offense of course, but the mindset in VAb is drink and get drunk. It is a lower class mentality all-around reflective of poor gene pool selection and brain drain of the educated away from Hampton Roads. If you take a venue like Wolftrap under in Northern Virginia, you do not find the fights, the nudity, the wife beater t-shirts, the degenerate mindset, the crassness and the overall lower class way of life. What else would you expect from this area of Virginia?

No offense, of course.

Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow came on the iPod as I was riding my motorcycle today. As I listened, I realized that the Clintons have completely ruined that song for me forever.

Well, this is mesmerizing. To see the photos people are uploading to their blogs stream by on your screen, click here.

What a cool little cross sectional view of blogs and bloggers.

As a Clemson alumnus, I am familiar with nasty football rivalries. But this is ridiculous:

OKLAHOMA CITY — To some Oklahoma football fans, there are things that just aren't done in the heart of Sooner Nation, and one of them is to walk into a bar wearing a Texas Longhorns T-shirt.

That's exactly what touched off a bloody skirmish that left a Texas-shirt-wearing fan nearly castrated and an Oklahoma fan facing aggravated assault charges that could put him in prison for up to five years.

Okay, you say. Bloody brawls happen when people drink too much. But this particular Sooner, a 53 year old pastor (yup, you read that right), is shall we say an overachiever.

When the two men were separated, Thomas looked down and realized the extent of his injuries.

"He could see both of his testicles hanging on the outside of his body," said Thomas' attorney, Carl Hughes. "He was wearing a pair of white shorts, which made it that much worse."

It took more than 60 stitches to close the wound, and police interviewed Thomas at a nearby hospital emergency room.

These are your people, Laurel.

Via Jay Tea at Wizbang! comes this explanation of why we Americans are even crazier than the jihadists who would attack us:

I have news for you. We're more nuts than you, and it should scare you shitless.

We had 39 guys who rented a Beverly Hills mansion, cut off their nuts, built a web site, and proceeded to poison themselves to death to hitch a ride with aliens out on the Hale-Bopp comet.

We made a sequel to Police Academy 5.

We gave an award for singing to two guys who never even sang.

We put little sweaters on dogs.

We shot John Lennon six times and didn't even aim for Yoko Ono.

We think Elvis is still alive.

We put Braille on drive-up automatic teller machines.

We think that a simple button on a web site that says "Do not click if you're under 21" will do anything but cause a person under 21 to click on it.

We sell hot dogs in packages of ten and the buns in packages of eight.

We can't even decide if pitchers should have to bat for themselves or not.

All those baseball fields we've got. And none of them are even remotely the same size.

We've managed to keep the formulas for Coca-Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken secret for decades, we encrypt the most banal communications on our Information Superhighway, and yet we given away our most important nuclear secrets to the Chinese and Russians at the drop of a hat.

That’s good stuff from Laurence Simon.

Here's an interesting article detailing some of the goings on at Club Gitmo.

A Yemeni detainee, Mohammed Ali Em al-Zarnuki, warned his panel of three U.S. military officers that inmates would attempt suicide unless guards stop interrupting prayers, moving detainees during prayer time and whistling and creating other distractions.

They're going to kill themselves in retribution for whistling??? Here's another interesting anecdote:

Another detainee described how interrogators said he resembled Cuba Gooding Jr., and later brought him photos of the star because the detainee had never heard of the actor.

So the guards brought a detainee pictures of an American movie star. Interesting, I suppose, but hardly earth shaking news. Finally, the article concludes by describing how an Algerian detainee throws feces at and spits on guards he doesn't like. Charming people, these Muslim detainees. To me, though, the real kicker is the AP headline for this story:

Guantanamo detainees tell of abuses

You have GOT to be kidding me.

"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers. In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials - after the fact."

- Robert E. Lee, 1863

Here's proof that no matter how "green" you are, no matter how liberal, how left-wing, how PROGRESSIVE! You are never good enough. There's always some nut job out there to your left willing command how you live your life. Even if you're Algore:

Citing United Nations research that the meat industry is worse for the environment than driving and flying, animal rights groups are directing a campaign at the former American vice-president's diet.

When he delivers a lecture on global warming in Denver next month, protesters will display billboards bearing a cartoon image of Mr Gore eating a drumstick and the message: "Too chicken to go vegetarian? Meat is the No 1 cause of global warming".

The campaign is being organised by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and is backed by other animal rights groups.

"For Al Gore, the fact that his diet is a leading contributor to global warming is a highly inconvenient truth - pun intended," said Matt Prescott, a spokesman for Peta.

I am so, so tired of hearing this sort of pedantic whining from every intellectual child on the planet with access to a microphone. Matt Prescott is just the latest example.

Guns don't Kill People. Gun Bans Kill People.

The mayor of Washington DC is taking his overturned gun ban straight to the Supreme Court, saying “We do not need more guns in this city.” Never mind that a gun ban by definition only bans legal guns. People that shouldn’t have guns don’t follow the law anyway.

Meanwhile, here is clear evidence that gun bans don’t work:

In 1997 Great Britain instituted a ban on firearms. For those of you relying on the government for your education, that was 10 years ago. So ... that would mean that Britain has just been a perfectly safe place to live for ten years or so ... and getting safer, right.
Wrong.
It would seem that crimes committed with guns have just about doubled since the ownership of these guns was banned. Let's say it again ... ban guns, gun crime doubles.
[...]

And so it is around the world. Ban guns and gun crimes increase. Legalize guns and crime rates drop. How in the world do we get liberals to understand this?

I see that Steve Fossett is missing:

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who has cheated death time and again in his successful pursuit of aviation records, was missing Tuesday after taking off in a single-engine plane the day before, federal officials said. […]

In 2002, Fossett became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon. In two weeks, his balloon flew 19,428.6 miles around the Southern Hemisphere. The record came after five previous attempts - some of them spectacular and frightening failures. […]

Fossett has climbed some of the world's tallest peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He also swam the English Channel in 1985, placed 47th in the Iditarod dog sled race in 1992 and participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race in 1996.

In 1995, Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, landing in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Fossett was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July. He told a crowd gathered at the Dayton Convention Center in Ohio that he would continue flying.

If Fossett doesn't turn up alive, it will be as if Jacques Cousteau had drowned in a bathtub accident.

One of the problems with socialism is that it cannot coexist with capitalism. All the beloved social programs of the collectivists only work if participation is compulsory. That's why Hillary Clinton's plan made it illegal to hire a doctor outside her system - the best doctors would work outside the system, and we would end up with a two-tiered system. That would be unfair, and the socialists can't tolerate unfairness.

Well, now John Edwards has his own plan, and not surprisingly, it is a dictatorship:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

I particularly like the part in which Edwards says "if you are going to be in the system," as if any of us would ever be permitted to opt out.

I would also be interested in how Senator Edwards would compel us to go the doctor. Imagine if you will an armed government health minister arriving at the door and dragging you down to the Edwards Clinic for your annual checkup. It's for your own good, dontcha know?