George Bush ... The Man ... The Legend

I was having a e-mail debate about our president and received this in the end:

"i think a change will be good but, i believe God achieved what he intended to when he put President Bush in there. i believe President Bush was absolutely vital at key times in the past 7 years for the well being of this nation, within the dangerous global society that we exist. thanx to him our taxes are lower and thanx to him we are not currently controlled by the terrorists. we fight on their soil today, NOT ON OUR SOIL, due to President Bush.

the man means well and (although he is not the most plished or graceful person) he spends the first hour of his time in the oval office praying every day. then, he continues to walk as a Christian for the rest of the day, making me proud to be a Christian/American/Texan every day. No hand goes un-shaken near him. No one is brushed off. He prays with his visitors and looks them in the eye to ask how they are doing. You may not agree with free enterprise or with helping small business or with private health insurance but, you cannot show a man like that disrespect. He respects everyone, as God's creatures. He is brave and smart. Don't you ever think that any of our presidents were not smart. it takes brains, courage, tons of energy and tons of patience to become and to be President. He is more respectful and compassionate to those around him, democrats and republicans alike, than our previous president. He is a man of honor. if you would not treat him like a dog in person, then please do not treat him like a dog behind his back".

Woooo .... I guess I was put in my place. Nah ...

Good Quote after another "Presidential" Debate

This quote seems fitting after another "Presidential" debate.

Thomas Jefferson:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be".

Glenn Beck - CNN Idiot

Just another of those things that needed to be passed on:

I wonder: is nationally syndicated radio talk show host and CNN blowhard Glenn Beck vying with Rush Limbaugh to see who can pack more stupid statements into one segment?

Beck's latest bloviation is on global warming. It was on his radio show, not CNN, so it's possible a few people actually heard it (oh, snap!). He said at least six dumb things in two paragraphs-- assuming it was just stupidity on his part and not outright lying. Media Matters has the goods:

BECK: We'll tell you the truth. We'll tell you the things that are politically incorrect. I'll go on and I'll tell you the fires have very little to do with global warming, if anything. The globe was the hottest in 19 -- was it 1934, Stu [executive producer Steve "Stu" Burguiere], or '37? -- '34, 1934 was the hottest year. A stat, by the way, that was, I believe, intentionally distorted by the guy the left holds up as the scientist on global warming. America's temperature peaked in 1934. Since 1934, the hottest year on record was 1998. It has not gotten warmer since 1998. That's a fact.
Now, why are these fires burning out of control? Al Gore and everybody else will have you believe that it is all about global warming. Well, really? A one-degree temperature change that happened at the first part of the century, not in the last part of the century, at least most of it, and a temperature change that hasn't changed since 1998 is causing superfires in California and only California? Only America? It's in the American borders. How is that possible?

Wow. So much to say...
First, 1934 was the hottest year in the US, and not the globe (to the neocons, of course, the rest of the planet doesn't count). 1998 had basically the same temperature as 1934, within errors (Beck should know about errors). The temperature didn't "peak" in 1934, and in fact the last 25 years have seen a strong upsurge in temperatures in the US (this inconvenient fact is generally ignored by those who deny global warming). No one intentionally distorted the temperatures, there was a correction issued to the calculations. Sometimes people correct mistakes they make.

That's called science.

Somehow, between Britney Spears updates, CNN manages to give this guy a full hour every weekday to spew his nonsense. It's sad and maddening that he gets to distort reality on what used to be a fine network like CNN.

Bad Astonomy Blog - Glen Beck Idiot
The Huffington Post - Glenn Beck - Global Warming Idiot

Great California PR Line

I was just reading thru some blogs and came across this line. It was just a comment to another blog but to me it just sounds ....

"Come to California. The wine, of course, is excellent. And now the cheese is smoked!"

Classic!

War And Death

I came across this while I was skipping through blogs. It was written by David Hardt who is a soldier in the Stryker Brigade. He has just returned from Iraq. It is just so well written. A must read if you are anti-war, pro-war, or whatever.

"It can happen to anyone at any given time, anywhere — and that is facing mortality. It can happen to the best quality person, one who tries to do the right thing in life. Or it can happen to a person who takes life for granted, making everyone around him miserable. You read the paper and watch the news, and there is something tragic happening every day of the hour across the globe. It's a fact that once we are born we begin to die. But it's how you will die that reaches out and makes you think on occasion. How will I die? Will it be painful? Who will be there? Where will I be? Will I be able to say my last words? ..... "

Read All Blag-ah: David Hart
StrykerNews.com

Classic Joe Paterno Story

This will not mean much to non-sportsfans or for that matter non-football fans. but this is just a classic Joe Paterno story. Ya gotta love the guy. All 80 years of him!

"Paterno Describes Road Issue ....

Paterno, on his weekly radio show Thursday night, said the incident happened after he noticed a car had driven through a stop sign.
Paterno said that when the driver stopped, he blew his horn at her. "Then I pulled up beside her because there was nothing coming the other way," Paterno said. He added that he pointed at her and said, "Boy, you went through that sign."
Paterno said he told the driver: "'Don't do that again, because I took your license number.' And I really hadn't taken her license number. All of a sudden, somebody knocks on my window. I put the window down, and he says, 'That's my wife.'"
Paterno said he responded to the driver's husband, "Boy, that's your problem," although he said he later regretted saying that .... "

The New York Times - Paterno Describes Road Issue

And for those who don't know him

Wikipedia - Joe Paterno

Al Gore - Run Al Run - Peace Prize?

Seems Al Gore is back on the front burner - were he belongs! Full page "draft Gore" ads in The New York Times. Possible Nobel Peace Prize. I want him to run but the betting man in me says he won't.

Anyway I give you some links .....

FT.com - Gore tipped to take Nobel Peace PrizeThe Hill's Pundit Blog - Al Gore for PresidentWashington Post - Can He Save the Planet and Win the PresidencyNewsweek - Could Nobel Win Push Gore Into '08 Race

DraftGore.com

One can always hope!

Money and Life

It just came to me this morning ….. I don’t know what it is like to be rich. To have all the money you want or will ever need. To be, as they say, set for life. To have no financial worries anymore.

I really need to experience this!

Maybe one day I will. But I am not going to hold my breath.

Plan A – The lottery

Parrotheads

A good article about Jimmy in last Sunday's Washington Post Mag.

Enjoy

Return to Margaritaville

Looking forward to hearing "Live in Anguilla" .... to be released on November 7th.

Fred Thompson: Iraq had WMDs prior to invasion.

Apparently, Thompson is as delusional as President Bush, who privately insisted through April 2006 that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq Survey Group conclusively proved otherwise.

read more digg story

ThinkProgress.org

(Just testing these cool new digg tools)

'Housewives' Filipino Joke Draws Ire

All I can say is Lord protect us from political correctness!

" .... In the season premiere that aired Sunday on ABC, Teri Hatcher's character, Susan, goes in for a medical checkup and is shocked when the doctor suggests she may be going through menopause.
"Listen, Susan, I know for a lot of women the word `menopause'" has negative connotations. You hear `aging,' `brittle bones,' `loss of sexual desire,'" the gynecologist tells her.
"OK, before we go any further, can I check these diplomas? Just to make sure they aren't, like, from some med school in the Philippines?" Susan fires back

Viewers called the network to complain but the number of callers wasn't available, an ABC spokesman said Wednesday. As of Wednesday evening, more than 30,000 names were attached to an online petition seeking a network apology .... "

The Huffington Post

Springsteen's "Magic" Is Back

I just finished listening to Bruce Springsteen's new CD "Magic". I think it really is one of his best efforts. Now if I could only get me some tickets! Being from south-east Pennsylvania, just across the Delaware from New Jersey, this is much easier said than done.

There is a very good article in the New York Times about Bruce.

"The paradox of “Magic” may be that some of its stories are among the toughest he has told. The album is sometimes a tease but rarely a joke. The title track, for instance, comes across as a seductive bit of carnival patter, something you might have heard on the Asbury Park boardwalk in the old days. A magician, his voice whispery and insinuating in a minor key, lures you in with descriptions of his tricks that grow more sinister with each verse. (“I’ve got a shiny saw blade/All I need’s a volunteer.”) “Trust none of what you hear/And less of what you see,” he warns. And the song’s refrain — “This is what will be” — grows more chilling as you absorb the rest of the album’s nuances and shadows.
..... And while the songs on “Magic” characteristically avoid explicit topical references, there is no mistaking that the source of the unease is, to a great extent, political. The title track, Mr. Springsteen explained, is about the manufacture of illusion, about the Bush administration’s stated commitment to creating its own reality.
..... It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that Mr. Springsteen’s take on the post-9/11 history of the United States can be measured in the space between the choruses of those two songs. The audience is hurled from a rousing exhortation (“Come on up to the rising”) to a grim, familiar question: “Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake?”
..... And so the song’s ("Long Walk Home") images of a vanished small town life (“The diner was shuttered and boarded/With a sign that just said ‘gone’ “) turn into metaphors, the last of which is delivered with the clarity and force that has distinguished Mr. Springsteen’s best writing:
My father said “Son, we’re
lucky in this town
It’s a beautiful place to be born.
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
You know that flag
flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, and what we’ll do
And what we won’t”
It’s gonna be a long walk home.
“That’s the end of the story we’re telling on a nightly basis,” Mr. Springsteen said. “Because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And that’s not the way it is right now.”
..... "

The New York Times - In Love With Pop, Uneasy With the World