COURTESY LINK

Right Wing News "The Rightosphere Temperature Check For June: Sanford, Atheists, Health Care, Oh My!", in which I took part - my answers explained:

Do you think Mark Sanford should resign as Governor of South Carolina?
Yes, he lacks the moral authority to govern. In order to hold public office, you don't have to be an angel, but you shouldn't be an asshole. Adultery on the public dime is a disqualifier for anyone with a sense of shame.

Do you believe manmade global warming is occurring right now?
No. If we're warming, it's because of variations in the sun's activity. Or the oceans. Or volcanoes. Or clouds. Or - most likely - the impossibility of gathering meaningful "global" temperature readings, combined with data fudging for the purposes of garnering federal grant money.

If Barack Obama's health care plan were to pass, do you think care would become:
More expensive and of less quality. There's a reason sick Canadians come here.

What grade would you give Barack Obama on his handling of the crisis in Iran?
D-F. This would be a great time to start covertly shipping in money & weapons.

Do you think groups like the Club for Growth that back primary challenges towards Republican candidates they view as insufficiently principled are helping or hurting the conservative cause?
Helping. You reward what you want to see more of.

Would you vote for an atheist for President?
Yes. As long as he was a capitalist.

Do you believe, as a general rule, that conservatives are more moral than liberals?
Yes. I reach that decision by asking myself "if I lost my wallet, and I could choose one of two people to find it, but all I knew was that one was a conservative and one was a liberal, which one do I think would be more likely to return it with all the money still inside?"

THIS IS A LOT BETTER IF YOU'VE SEEN "THE GREAT ESCAPE"

But it's still pretty good even if you haven't.

HEY! I'M REQUIRED READING!

While sniffing through my Sitemeter referer logs, I stumbled across this link and discovered that I was part of a University of Missouri English course on blogging:

Does that mean I'm cool now?

IT'S MY 6TH BLOGIVERSARY AND I'M FEELING SENTIMENTAL

So I'm gonna do the same thing I did 3 years ago:

Make you look at my very first blog post.

Then ask you to play along with this meme again:

"Remember the time we..."

Please post a comment with a completely fictional memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad, silly or stupid, believable or not, but it has to be fake.

Go for it.

LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE FOR ANSWERS

Democrats are utilizing a "morning-after" loophole to completely ignore President Obama’s ban on cash from lobbyists.

This will, I'm sure, lead to calls for a ban on morning-after donations.

Ludicrous.

The problem isn't on the demand side. As long as politicians have favors to sell, lobbyists will line up to buy them in either the white, black, or gray markets of influence-peddling.

The answer is to hit the supply side. Cut back the number of favors politicians have to sell. Take away as many regulatory powers as possible.

Once upon a time, information travelled so slowly that companies could get away with screwing people over because no one would find out.

Communication technology has changed that. If a company screws someone over in Boston, the news will be tweeted to LA in 30 seconds, their reputation will be in shambles by the end of the week, and they'll be out of business by the end of the month.

We don't need government watchdogs when everyone owns their own pitbull.

6 ON SUNDAY

6th blogiversary in 3 days.

And like the Cylons and John Kerry, I have a plan...

ENVYING BASIL'S PARODY SKILLS

Basil of Basil's Blog has a delightful parody of the classic Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life", now starring Barack Obama in the role made famous by Billy Mumy.

It's a GOOD thing.

Yes, it's a VERY good thing.

MSM HOPES YOU CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MILITIA AND A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

Headline - "FBI Investigating Alleged Militia Training Camp"

Bullshit all the way.

It's not a militia training camp, it's just a shooting range.

The reason it's being investigated is that one guy who goes there regularly was a convicted felon who owned guns that were stored in a locker there - which is against the law.

However, shooting ranges are not required to perform background checks on people who use the range.

Why its being referred to as a "militia training camp" is a little fuzzy from the story, but it sounds like the FBI's informant heard other users refer to it as such.

According to the story, the owner "claims the word 'militia' is just a part of an inside joke. He says his group is a local chapter of Project Appleseed, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching marksmanship and preserving gun rights."

The idiot who wrote the story didn't figure out something I Googled up in 10 seconds.

Project Appleseed is a bunch of liberal busybodies who want to infect schools.

The Appleseed Project is the organization dedicated to marksmanship & gun rights.

Take this story for what it's worth. Which is nothing.

But reading between the lines, the REAL story is that the FBI is trying to use the word "militia" as an excuse to go after your guns.

Quite troubling, that.

SIKHS IN SERVICE

Sikhs want to serve in the military.

Only problem is, they need to wear beards & turbans for religious reasons.

I'm torn. I believe that part of military discipline is holding to somewhat arbitrary standards of personal appearance so as to provide a uniform image by all members at all times. Civilians should be able to look at you and say "he's obviously military. God bless him".

On the other hand, I know for a fact that there are very few things the military doesn't have a waiver for. Shaving is high on that list. Fact is, due to the fact that black people have curly hair, they are very susceptible to ingrown facial hair, which causes bumps on their faces, making daily shaving difficult and painful. A lot of black guys weren't required to shave for medical reasons. Didn't make them any less capable of serving.

What it DOES do, though, is cause a little resentment among their co-workers. NOBODY wants to shave every day, and it's a pain in the ass, even if you like the clean-shaven look. So it's a small cut to morale and unit cohesiveness. Then again, when you serve in the military, EVERYTHING is a pain in the ass, and adding one more item to the list is just a tiny drop in the ocean of things that military folk bitch about, yet still accept as "part of the job".

So in balance, I say Sikhs should be allowed to serve with beards & turbans, but in exchange, they have to realize that we're fighting a war that involves killing Arabs. So if they want to serve, they can't bitch about being offended when someone makes a comment about wanting to kill "hairy-faced rag-heads".

Fair enough?

ON LETTERMAN

I don't think David Letterman should be fired for making tasteless jokes about the Palin family.

The only reason a host should be fired is if his show isn't drawing enough advertising revenue, and the producers think that he could be replaced by someone who could reverse the trend.

It's a financial decision that should be left up to the powers-that-be at CBS.

Personally, I give the guy credit for making "Stupid Pet Tricks" and "Top 10 Lists" into household phrases, but outside of that, his comedic style has always struck me as too ploddingly-paced and flatly un-clever to be particularly entertaining.

But if people really want to watch his dull caperings, I won't stop them.

MY EYES!

Is this one of Sasha's grade-school art projects?

Seriously, we really need to stage an intervention to keep Michelle from wearing this kind of shit out in public.

I'm pretty sure the guy on the left agrees with me.

NEVER THOUGHT THEY'D SAY IT OUT LOUD

Number of jobs created by the stimulus package?

Completely made up:

What [Butler County, Ohio, Community Development Director Donna Everson] has more difficulty counting is the number of jobs the project will create.

It's a common complaint from local community development officials: the Obama Administration wants to see evidence that the stimulus is putting people to work, but hasn't given any guidance on how to count those jobs.

"It's totally a guess how many people it's going to take to do this," said Everson. "That's our concern with all these project estimates coming down. The regulations and rules keep changing on us."

The locals just pick a number they think the Feds want to hear

And I'm guessing that the locals aren't the only ones rounding up.

D-Day +65

[Originally posted 2004 as part of the MilBlogs And Friends Special Edition of the Sixtieth Anniversary of D-Day. Please click the link to see the excellent work done by the other participants]

(click to enlarge)

When over 100,000 men hit the beaches of France 65 years ago, they were well-prepared. They had training, they had practice, they had equipment, and they had their mission.

They also had the right attitude. They were landing on these beaches, not to catch a bare toe-hold in the sand, but to begin a push that wouldn't end until they marched down the streets of Berlin and looked Hitler right in the eye.

But if they saw him, they wouldn't see Hitler as we see him today - a legendary figure of personified evil and a demi-god of power and malice.

Not hardly.

To the troops coming off the boat, he was nothing but a spastic, greasy-haired, one-balled, lunatic Austrian paper-hanger with a bad moustache.

Because back during the early 40's, Americans didn't fear their enemies. They made fun of them.

Why?

Dictators HATE being made fun of. Hitler even made it a crime to tell anti-Nazi jokes. So if you were caught saying something like:

Hitler and his chauffeur are whizzing along a country road when a pig rushes out and is hit by their car. Spotting a nearby farm house, the chauffeur is sent up to inform the occupants of the demise of their animal. He returns with an armload of food and wine. Hitler is amazed.

"Why did they give you that?"

"I do not know. All I did was knock on the door and say I am Hitler's chauffeur and I killed the pig."

or

Hitler asked his astrologer on what day he would die.

"On a Jewish holiday," the astrologer replied.

"But which holiday?"

"Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday."

or

There are two kinds of Aryans: non-Aryans and barb-Aryans

or

A fatally wounded German soldier asked his chaplain to grant one final wish. "Place a picture of Hitler on one side of me, and a picture of Goering on the other side. That way I can die like Jesus, between two thieves."

or

Goebbels was touring German schools. At one, he asked the students to call out patriotic slogans.

"Heil Hitler," shouted one child.

"Very good," said Goebbels.

"Deutschland Uber alles," another called out.

"Excellent. How about a stronger slogan?"

A hand shot up, and Goebbels nodded.

"Our people shall live forever," the little boy said.

"Wonderful," exclaimed Goebbels. "What is your name, young man?"

"Israel Goldberg."

or

"What is the difference between an Nazi and a dog? A Nazi lifts his arm."

or

A German father instructing his son on how to say grace.

"From now on you must thank God and Hitler when you pray," says dad.

"But what happens if Hitler dies?" the boy asks.

"Then you just thank God."

The consequences would be dire.

But in America, it was an industry.

Warner Brothers studios put out several classics cartoons mocking this failed house-painter and part-time goose-stepper, including: Herr Meets Hare, The Ducktators, Daffy - The Commando, and Scrap Happy Daffy.

Disney got into the act with Der Fuehrer's Face and Education for Death.

Popeye took a whack with Seein' Red, White & Blue and Spinach Fer Britain.

And did you think that Dr. Seuss just wrote quaint little children's books? You might be surprised to learn that he did a large number of political cartoons during the war. Like the one at the top of this entry.

Here are some more of my favorites. I like them because they show Hitler as a weak, sweaty, nothing of a man.

And let's not forget about Jack Benny in "To Be Or Not To Be".

Or Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator".

And if you're in a singin' mood, there's always Spike Jones' rendition of "Der Fuehrer's Face" (full mp3 available free here).

Now, I'm not saying that a few cartoons and a sprightly war ditty made all the difference on the beaches of Normandy, but I would feel safe in saying that when you've been mocking that "paper hanging son-of-a-bitch" instead of fearing him, it makes finally taking that piss in the Rhine river all the sweeter.

Of course, things are a little different today. The major Hollywood studios don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, so they're out of the precision guided humor business.

Fortunately for us, however, there are those who have not forgotten the lesson, and spare no effort in reminding the public that even though we may have to fight our enemies seriously, we don't have to waste time taking them seriously.

ENCOURAGEMENT

Beloved Wife is trying to discover the joys of running.

She hates it. Can't find a single way to make it pleasant. I had to show her the groin-shaving video just to scare her out of the house today.

Anyone got some ideas to make it less godawful? She already takes her mp3 player with, so I'm looking for more.

WOULD YOU NAME YOUR DAUGHTER THIS?

Beloved Wife swears this is real:

"Satyn"

WEIGHT LOSS HELP

Not for me, but for bloggrandson Petey of Petey's Powderhorn.

He's a big fella, and he'd like to lose some weight. He's started a separate blog to chronicle the effort: The Incredible Shrinking Petey.

Anyone with experience and/or sympathy in this category, please stop by to leave some encouragement. Maybe even offer to form up some sort of buddy-system tag-team thing. Anything you can do would be appreciated.

OPINIONS, PLEASE

Real cream in your coffee.

Love/hate/never had?

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO (SHORT VERSION)

Attending Contagion of Miasmatic Review's Beer Tasting. Pleasant surprises included the very delicious Xingu and - I can't believe I'm saying this - Budweiser's Clamato Chelada, which tasted very much like salty, spicy tomato juice, and very little like Budweiser or clams. Which is a good thing.

The beer tasting was neatly organized and quite efficient this year. Now that Contagion has the hang of it, you really owe it to yourself to attend the next one. It's a very good time.

He asked me to make suggestions for improvement, and I have little to offer. The only possibilities I can think of are a second rinse bucket that's not near the pouring station, and possibly a second person helping with pourings. Depending on attendance, these might become necessities next time.

Around the internet, a few discoveries:

Cake Wrecks - "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong" (via Dave of Sheldon Comics).

Bacon-flavored vodka.

My First Dictionary - really wrong (via Lynn of Violins & Starships)

Bacon sandwich cures hangover.

This Is Why You're Fat - Hard-core calorie porn (via Lynn of Violins & Starships). NSFW if you work in the fitness industry.

Fun With Microwaves from LoadingReadyRun - the Christmas lights are the best.

If you're not following my Capitalist Propaganda series at IMAO, you're missing out big time. It's cartoons & instructional videos made back when people weren't ashamed to say nice things about America. There's even a few modern items, too.

Chart of Federal government spending, 1967 to 2007 - Anyone who talks about spending cuts is full of shit. The number has never gone down. The only thing that's changed is the rate of increase from year to year.

Star Trek: Phase II - Serious actors, small budgets, good intentions, guest appearances by Sulu & Chekov. Nice homage to the original series.

Portrait of the artist as a child.

The difference between your ideal weight and your happy weight (via Lynn of Violins & Starships) - my advice is to go for the latter. Very thought-provoking. If you hate your scale, please read this.

The NeoCube - Want.

RolCats - English Translations of Eastern Bloc Lolcats (as a former Cold Warrior, I find these allusions to Communist propaganda particularly delightful).

Pledge Fabric Sweeper - FINALLY! Something that actually picks up pet hair! But disposable at $5 a pop? I don't think so. I cut a flap in the top so I can empty it. Use a sharp knife and cut slowly. That plastic is brittle.

Is this racist?

Is this?

Who got more halo pictures - Bush or Obama? (inspired by the Scott Adams Blog)

I'm Shakespearioidal.

"If We Were 5 Years Old, We Would Know How to Protect the Environment" - which is why we don't let 5 year olds vote.

FingerStache - dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake - I haven't tried this yet because Beloved Wife keeps baking cookies for me, but it's on my to-do list.

Splicd - a web site that allows you to link a particular portion of a YouTube video instead of the whole thing. (via Physics Geek)

Boxes of aluminum foil have locking tabs that keep the roll in the box - WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME THIS???

Pandora - internet radio that plays only stuff you like. Set up personalized stations based on similarity to an artist or a song. Make tons of different stations to suit your various moods. And yeah, it's free.

Tips for choosing a personal lubricant.

"Trimming the bush to make the tree look taller" - Grointastic shaving tip video from Gillette.

Finally, for those who caught the May 28th Fred Thompson Show and heard this at the 13 minute point:

[Download audio clip (900kb)]

Yes, that was me that Jeri was referring to.