Friday, October 30, 2009

Nancy Pelosi Thinks You're an Idiot!

So did you catch the "Nancy Pelosi Dog and Pony Show" on the news yesterday? You know, the one that took place on the West Wing of the US Capitol Building where she and her band of merry idiots announced the introduction - keep that word in mind - of a new Health Care bill?

What, you thought that all of the hoopla was about the passing of the bill? You did? Really?

You were supposed to. See, that's why I told you to keep the word "introduction" in mind.

About the only positive thing I can say for that little media circus yesterday is that the person who planned it is a genius at the art of manipulating the people, the media, and putting on the best sleight of hand show I've ever seen. Other than that, it was nothing but pure bullshit, a turd that was nicely polished up and presented to the public for consumption as something else. And Pelosi is banking on the public at large being so stupid that we won't notice.

Surprise, bitch. We noticed.

In the first place, that kind of ceremony for the mere introduction of a bill by the House, a bill that hasn't even made it to the Senate yet much less to the President for signature, is unheard of. If ever I saw a premature celebration, this was it...of course, there was a reason for the celebration, that reason being to mislead the public. And I'm sure that there's a large portion of the public out there that bought it, unforutunately.

The location of the celebration was also carefully chosen. The celebration was held on the same spot where The Great Pretender took his oath of office last January - a spot, by the way, that is not the usual location for the adminisration of the oath for a president. Obama chose this spot to break with tradition, to show that his administration was going to be different. This spot was chosen by Pelosi to send a clear message, the message being that this bill was Obama's baby, and that Pelosi was delivering it for him.

Noticeably absent from the drooling band of merry idiots standing behind Pelosi was a representative from the Republican party. That's because there's no place for Republicans in Pelosi's grand scheme of things; also because there are very few Republicans who support the Democratic version of the bill. One of the Democrats behind her, however, was Chuck Rangle of New York, who is currently under investigation for tax fraud, I believe. Yeah, buddy, now there's a man you can trust!

For Pelosi to be the one who has most loudly and publicly berated the Republicans for their partisan feelings and non-support of the Democrats in Congress, this sure seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Just another reason to despise the bitch.

Then there's the bill itself. One of the selling points, the one that Pelosi really harped on, was that this bill came in under NObama's limit of one trillion dollars, weighing in at a mere 890 billion. This is, of course, before the bill goes into debate and is modified by both sides; this modification will of course include more expenses, more taxes, and more "add-ons" by both sides that will inevitably push the bill WAY over the President's limit.

But Pelosi doesn't want you to know that just yet.

Instead, Pelosi tells us all that the bill is being posted on the Web "as we speak" and will remain posted for 72 hours. This is so the general public can review the bill in its entirety for themselves.

All TWO THOUSAND PAGES of it!

The average novel is 400-600 pages. This monster of a publication that Pelosi is only giving you 72 hours to review is more than three times the size of an average novel! So tell me, can YOU read 2,000 pages of LEGAL MANUSCRIPT in 72 hours?

I sure as hell can't! And Pelosi knows you can't, too...she's using an old legal trick to overwhelm you and keep you from seeing things she doesn't want you to see. It works like this: when a lawyer requests documents from another lawyer or from a company lawyer, that lawyer or company lawyer will send over every single piece of paper ever associated with the case; this will result in boxes of documents being delivered, and somewhere in those documents will be the one single document needed. It's up to you to find it.

It's called the "Needle in the Haystack" trick.

Here's one of the needles Pelosi hopes you won't find: in the bill itself, the word "shall" is used more than three thousand times. That's more than once per page, in case you missed it. In my life's experience, anytime the word "shall" is used in a document, that means the document is issuing a directive which you MUST obey.

Which brings us to another needle Pelosi hopes you won't find.

This bill is nothing short of a government takeover of the health care system, period. It's not designed to "supplement" anything; that's pure bullshit that Pelosi and the Demoncrats (no, I didn't misspell it) are hoping you'll buy. The bill is designed to replace the current health care system with one controlled by the federal government.

Sure, that's just what we need - MORE federal control and intervention into our lives. One step closer to socialism, when you get right down to it.

And that's just what Pelosi and Obama want, in case you're not paying attention. And I, for one, ain't havin' none of it.

I'm hoping that this bill will die in committee once it gets to the other half of Congress, and that the Republicans kill it quickly. It damned sure won't be the savior of the health care system that Pelosi says it will be. Of course, when it dies you can count on Pelosi holding another news conference in which she will be surrounded by the same band of drooling idiots as yesterday, and all of them will be lamenting the "partisan politics" of the Republican party. She'll be counting on YOU to have forgotten - if you noticed at all - the partisan Demoncratic celebration she staged yesterday.

Will you forget? I sure as hell won't.

One last parting thought about "socialized" anything, a quote for you to dwell on this All Hallow's Eve:

"The government that is powerful enough to give you everything you need is powerful enough to take away everything you have."

Happy Hallowe'en.

IHC

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

10 Things I Hate About the Internet

I love the Internet, absolutely…it allows me to occupy myself when I’m bored, lets me increase my knowledge of things that I want to know more about, lets me keep in touch with my friends around the world, allows me to talk to my family via web cam FREE whenever I want, and a dozen other things I could name. Yeppers, the Internet has been one of the most important and significant inventions in the history of mankind.

But man, there are some things about the Internet that just annoy the piss outta me! And I’m willing to bet that as you sit there reading this, you’re gonna find yourself nodding your head and saying, “Yeah, me, too!” right along with me.

Let’s see, shall we?

1. Viruses - Yeah, I know, all of you Mac users out there can thumb your noses at this, but I ain’t a Mac user, so I’m always on the alert for this. For the most part, the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs out there do a really good job of preventing your computer from picking up a virus, but the fact that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than sit around and think up new and devious ways to get around your anti-virus program and screw up your computer just galls the living crap out of me! I mean, what’s the purpose of this, really? What are you accomplishing by creating a virus that does nothing but cause your hard drive to self-destruct? Did your mother not show you enough attention as a child, or what?

2. Pop-ups – One of the very first things I learned to hate about having a DSL connection was the popup ad. I remember very clearly sitting in the living room of our house in New Jersey, listening to the “boink!” “boink!” “boink!” “boink!” coming from the den two rooms away as the always-connected DSL program just installed on our computer was deluged by pop-up ads, even as we weren’t online! But the computer was always connected, one of the marvelous things about DSL, so the popup ads flourished. When I went into shut the damned thing off, there were no less than 65 popup ads on the screen! Thank God the ISP I was using at the time – Earthlink – quickly developed an anti-popup program and included it in their basic service at no charge.

3. Pop-up banner ads – This is the next generation of popup ads, and I find them even more irritating than their predecessor. This little annoyance comes up when you go to a web page and your cursor is at the top of the screen; the bar with the ad in it appears as a fairly narrow ad at the top of the page, but when you scroll your mouse across it the damned thing pops up to cover half of the page! You hit the “CLOSE” button in the corner, thinking that you’ve taken care of it, but the thing is the ad is designed to automatically return your cursor to the place it was before you caused the ad to pop up – so when you move your mouse down the page again, the ad pops up again. You have to be REALLY quick to move your cursor away from the top of the page once you close the popup to avoid this. I usually just say “screw it” and close out the whole page.

4. Redirects – When I click on a link that is supposed to show me a picture of the newest model Harley to hit the streets, I don’t want to be redirected to a page offering me free porn or a free Internet singles website. ‘Nuff said.

5. Fake “Your Computer is Infected With A Virus!” alerts – These programs, called “aware,” are especially difficult to get rid of for several reasons. First, they appear to be genuine since they are patterned exactly after Windows alerts. Second they embed themselves in your computer programming sequence so that they’re next to impossible to find and get rid of, unless you either use your computer’s “restore” function or you have a really, really good anti-spyware/aware program. Even then, sometimes a “restore” operation won’t work. The program I use, McAfee, is excellent at preventing infections such as these. They even have programs out there that show a jpeg so big that it appears to be your desktop picture alerting you to a virus infection, but in reality it’s a jpeg shown really, really big – and when you click on the box that conveniently shows up, you’re taken to a website where you can purchase a program to eliminate the virus. The program, of course, is designed and marketed by the same company that designed and spread the virus in the first place. A nice strategy – market the virus so you can market the cure. Nice. Very nice. Assholes.

6. “OBAMA SAYS” ads – Is the craze over the first black president ever gonna stop? I’ve lost count of the ads on the side of your screen that says, “OBAMA SAYS FOR ALL MOMS TO GO BACK TO COLLEGE,” or “OBAMA SAYS FOR ALL DADS TO GO BACK TO COLLEGE” or some crap like that. Obviously, the people who design these ads are trying to cash in on the public’s frothing at the mouth for anything and everything Obama, and are doing their best to make money off of it. And the sad thing is that there are droves of people out there who buy this load of crap, every single day! I got a news flash for you, people – Obama didn’t say shit about anybody going back to college, or refinancing your house, or trading in your car, or any damned thing like that, so stop being a freakin’ lemming and think for yourself for a change! Jeez!

7. Ads in general – If I want to see an ad for anything, I’ll go buy the newspaper. Which I don’t, by the way. Thank God for Mozilla Firefox which blocks ALL ads from its browser, no matter what web site you’re looking at. This is especially handy when running Facebook. (Yeah, I’m on Facebook. Deal with it.)

8. Racist websites – and I mean both ways. What, you don’t think there are racist, anti-white websites out there? What world are YOU living in? Just check out a web site called “Blackvoices.com” if you need a jolt of reality. This is the same web site, by the way, which railed and complained loudly whenever Obama was compared to a chimp, but which also ran a picture of a pig’s face next to that of Sara Palin during the election, riding on the coattails of Obama’s comment that if you put lipstick on a pig, it was still a pig. But it’s only racist if a white person does that, right? Don’t get me started…..but as I said, racist web sites of any and all kinds are an aberration to the web and humanity in general, but tracking down and eliminating them is next to impossible. It’s like trying to catch the wind in a bag – you just can’t do it. Besides, there’s this pesky thing called “free speech” and the First Amendment to deal with. Yeah, I know, the First Amendment doesn’t say that, but you know damned good and well that’s what the lawyers are gonna say in court, and the lemmings on the jury will believe it. Go figure.

9. Unwanted downloads included with stuff you really want – the best example of this I can think of is the Incredimail e-mail program I run. Every time the program updates or offers you a new service that you want or need, it will also include a program to change your default home page and search engine to their own page and search engine – and you can’t download the stuff you really want without downloading this crap along with it. I’m seriously considering dumping Incredimail for just that reason.

10. Pictures you can’t save by right-clicking on them – this little feature forces you to go back to a specific web site if you want to look at a picture you like instead of being able to save it to “My Pictures” and look at it without all the crap on the site along with it. Yeah, a minor irritation compared to the rest of the stuff here, but it still bugs me.

And that’s it. So tell me, did you find yourself nodding your head and saying, “Yeah, me, too!” at least once while reading this? If so, great! If not, well, I can’t help ya. You were born without a sense of humor, and there ain’t no cure for it that I know of.

Until next time, then…

IHC

Sunday, October 25, 2009

The Anti-Obama Speech You Never Heard

What follows is the text of a speech given by former Vice President Dick Cheney on October 21, 2009. This speech was not covered by ANY of the news media in any way, although portions of it have now begun to show up on Fox. This is proof positive that the recent brag by members of the Obama administration that they "control the media" is true, and gives us all more reasons to doubt the current administrations' claim to be running the most "open and transparent" administration ever. Instead, what we have is the most secretive, clandestine administration since - as one friend on another forum said - "Tricky Dicky."

Read and decide for yourself.

Center for Security Policy As prepared for delivery October 21, 2009

"Thank you all very much. It’s a pleasure to be here, and especially to receive the Keeper of the Flame Award in the company of so many good friends.

I’m told that among those you’ve recognized before me was my friend Don Rumsfeld. I don’t mind that a bit. It fits something of a pattern. In a career that includes being chief of staff, congressman, and secretary of defense, I haven’t had much that Don didn’t get first. But truth be told, any award once conferred on Donald Rumsfeld carries extra luster, and I am very proud to see my name added to such a distinguished list.

To Frank Gaffney and all the supporters of Center for Security Policy, I thank you for this honor. And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is – the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States.

Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before. You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors. You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier. With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action. And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country’s word.

So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration, I consider the abandonment of missile defense in Eastern Europe to be a strategic blunder and a breach of good faith.

It is certainly not a model of diplomacy when the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic are informed of such a decision at the last minute in midnight phone calls. It took a long time and lot of political courage in those countries to arrange for our interceptor system in Poland and the radar system in the Czech Republic. Our Polish and Czech friends are entitled to wonder how strategic plans and promises years in the making could be dissolved, just like that – with apparently little, if any, consultation. Seventy years to the day after the Soviets invaded Poland, it was an odd way to mark the occasion.

You hardly have to go back to 1939 to understand why these countries desire – and thought they had – a close and trusting relationship with the United States. Only last year, the Russian Army moved into Georgia, under the orders of a man who regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. Anybody who has spent much time in that part of the world knows what Vladimir Putin is up to. And those who try placating him, by conceding ground and accommodating his wishes, will get nothing in return but more trouble.

What did the Obama Administration get from Russia for its abandonment of Poland and the Czech Republic, and for its famous “Reset” button? Another deeply flawed election and continued Russian opposition to sanctioning Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In the short of it, President Obama’s cancellation of America’s agreements with the Polish and Czech governments was a serious blow to the hopes and aspirations of millions of Europeans. For twenty years, these peoples have done nothing but strive to move closer to us, and to gain the opportunities and security that America offered. These are faithful friends and NATO allies, and they deserve better. The impact of making two NATO allies walk the plank won’t be felt only in Europe. Our friends throughout the world are watching and wondering whether America will abandon them as well.

Big events turn on the credibility of the United States – doing what we said we would do, and always defending our fundamental security interests. In that category belong the ongoing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need to counter the nuclear ambitions of the current regime in Iran.

Candidate Obama declared last year that he would be willing to sit down with Iran’s leader without preconditions. As President, he has committed America to an Iran strategy that seems to treat engagement as an objective rather than a tactic. Time and time again, he has outstretched his hand to the Islamic Republic’s authoritarian leaders, and all the while Iran has continued to provide lethal support to extremists and terrorists who are killing American soldiers inIraq and Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic continues to provide support to extremists in Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, the regime continues to spin centrifuges and test missiles. And these are just the activities we know about.

I have long been skeptical of engagement with the current regime in Tehran, but even Iran experts who previously advocated for engagement have changed their tune since the rigged elections this past June and the brutal suppression of Iran’s democratic protestors. The administration clearly missed an opportunity to stand with Iran’s democrats, whose popular protests represent the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979. Instead, the President has been largely silent about the violent crackdown on Iran’s protestors, and has moved blindly forward to engage Iran’s authoritarian regime. Unless the Islamic Republic fears real consequences from the United States and the international community, it is hard to see how diplomacy will work.

Next door in Iraq, it is vitally important that President Obama, in his rush to withdraw troops, not undermine the progress we’ve made in recent years. Prime Minister Maliki met yesterday with President Obama, who began his press availability with an extended comment about Afghanistan. When he finally got around to talking about Iraq, he told the media that he reiterated to Maliki his intention to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq. Former President Bush’s bold decision to change strategy in Iraq and surge U.S. forces there set the stage for success in that country. Iraq has the potential to be a strong, democratic ally in the war on terrorism, and an example of economic and democratic reform in the heart of the Middle East.

The Obama Administration has an obligation to protect this young democracy and build on the strategic success we have achieved in Iraq.

We should all be concerned as well with the direction of policy on Afghanistan. For quite a while, the cause of our military in that country went pretty much unquestioned, even on the left. The effort was routinely praised by way of contrast to Iraq, which many wrote off as a failure until the surge proved them wrong. Now suddenly – and despite our success in Iraq – we’re hearing a drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan. These criticisms carry the same air of hopelessness, they offer the same short-sighted arguments for walking away, and they should be summarily rejected for the same reasons of national security.

Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.

President Obama has said he understands the stakes for America. When he announced his new strategy he couched the need to succeed in the starkest possible terms, saying, quote, “If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.” End quote.

Five months later, in August of this year, speaking at the VFW, the President made a promise to America’s armed forces. “I will give you a clear mission,” he said, “defined goals, and the equipment and support you need to get the job done. That’s my commitment to you.”

It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.

Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops. This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered. The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt. The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision – a good one, I think – and sent a commander into the field to implement it. Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.

It’s worth recalling that we were engaged in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, supporting the Mujahadeen against the Soviets. That was a successful policy, but then we pretty much put Afghanistan out of our minds. While no one was watching, what followed was a civil war, the takeover by the Taliban, and the rise of bin Laden and al-Qaeda. All of that set in motion the events of 9/11. When we deployed forces eight years ago this month, it was to make sure Afghanistan would never again be a training ground for the killing of Americans. Saving untold thousands of lives is still the business at hand in this fight. And the success of our mission in Afghanistan is not only essential, it is entirely achievable with enough troops and enough political courage.

Then there’s the matter of how to handle the terrorists we capture in this ongoing war. Some of them know things that, if shared, can save a good many innocent lives. When we faced that problem in the days and years after 9/11, we made some basic decisions. We understood that organized terrorism is not just a law-enforcement issue, but a strategic threat to the United States.

At every turn, we understood as well that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. We had a lot of blind spots – and that’s an awful thing, especially in wartime. With many thousands of lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.

The intelligence professionals who got the answers we needed from terrorists had limited time, limited options, and careful legal guidance. They got the baddest actors we picked up to reveal things they really didn’t want to share. In the case of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, by the time it was over he was not was not only talking, he was practically conducting a seminar, complete with chalkboards and charts. It turned out he had a professorial side, and our guys didn’t mind at all if classes ran long. At some point, the mastermind of 9/11 became an expansive briefer on the operations and plans of al-Qaeda. It happened in the course of enhanced interrogations. All the evidence, and common sense as well, tells us why he started to talk.

The debate over intelligence gathering in the seven years after 9/11 involves much more than historical accuracy. What we’re really debating are the means and resolve to protect this country over the next few years, and long after that. Terrorists and their state sponsors must be held accountable, and America must remain on the offensive against them. We got it right after 9/11. And our government needs to keep getting it right, year after year, president after president, until the danger is finally overcome.

Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after 9/11 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America … and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.

Eight years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive – and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed. So you would think that our successors would be going to the intelligence community saying, “How did you did you do it? What were the keys to preventing another attack over that period of time?”

Instead, they’ve chosen a different path entirely – giving in to the angry left, slandering people who did a hard job well, and demagoguing an issue more serious than any other they’ll face in these four years. No one knows just where that path will lead, but I can promise you this: There will always be plenty of us willing to stand up for the policies and the people that have kept this country safe.

On the political left, it will still be asserted that tough interrogations did no good, because this is an article of faith for them, and actual evidence is unwelcome and disregarded. President Obama himself has ruled these methods out, and when he last addressed the subject he filled the air with vague and useless platitudes. His preferred device is to suggest that we could have gotten the same information by other means. We’re invited to think so. But this ignores the hard, inconvenient truth that we did try other means and techniques to elicit information from Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and other al-Qaeda operatives, only turning to enhanced techniques when we failed to produce the actionable intelligence we knew they were withholding. In fact, our intelligence professionals, in urgent circumstances with the highest of stakes, obtained specific information, prevented specific attacks, and saved American lives.

In short, to call enhanced interrogation a program of torture is not only to disregard the program’s legal underpinnings and safeguards. Such accusations are a libel against dedicated professionals who acted honorably and well, in our country’s name and in our country’s cause. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future, in favor of half-measures, is unwise in the extreme. In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.

For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings – and least of all can that be said of our armed forces and intelligence personnel. They have done right, they have made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.

Last January 20th, our successors in office were given the highest honors that the voters of this country can give any two citizens. Along with that, George W. Bush and I handed the new president and vice president both a record of success in the war on terror, and the policies to continue that record and ultimately prevail. We had been the decision makers, but those seven years, four months, and nine days without another 9/11 or worse, were a combined achievement: a credit to all who serve in the defense of America, including some of the finest people I’ve ever met.

What the present administration does with those policies is their call to make, and will become a measure of their own record. But I will tell you straight that I am not encouraged when intelligence officers who acted in the service of this country find themselves hounded with a zeal that should be reserved for America’s enemies. And it certainly is not a good sign when the Justice Department is set on a political mission to discredit, disbar, or otherwise persecute the very people who helped protect our nation in the years after 9/11.

There are policy differences, and then there are affronts that have to be answered every time without equivocation, and this is one of them. We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys.

We cannot hope to win a war by talking down our country and those who do its hardest work – the men and women of our military and intelligence services. They are, after all, the true keepers of the flame.

Thank you very much."

I don't know about you, but I'm concerned....VERY concerned.

IHC

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

"Am I a Bad American" Updated

This little ditty made the rounds quite some time ago, but there are some things in it that I feel are just as relevant now as they were then. I've also taken the liberty of updating it, getting rid of the Clinton-era jabs at "Slick Willy" and anything else that would serve to "date" it. So here, for your perusal, is "Am I a Bad American?" updated for the 21st century.

I like big cars, big boats, big houses, and BIG bikes!

I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some still-wet-behind-the-ears former junior Congressman who wants to “redistribute” it to unemployed crack-addict welfare mothers squirting out babies.

I don't care about appearing compassionate.

I don’t think that playing with toy guns makes you a killer.

I believe it's called the "Boy Scouts" for a reason.

I don't think being a minority makes you noble or victimized, or entitles you to anything that you don’t have to work for.

I have the right not to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird or piss me off.

I believe that if you are selling me a Dairy Queen shake, pack of cigarettes, or hotel room you do it in English.

As a matter of fact, I believe if you are an American citizen you should be REQUIRED to speak English. If you want to refuse to learn English and continue to speak your native language, then go the hell home. We neither want nor need you here.

I think the cops have every right to shoot your sorry ass if you're running from them after they tell you to stop.

If you can't understand the words “freeze” or “stop” in English, see the previous line.

I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you qualify for any special programs, government-sponsored bank loans, etc., so you can open a hotel, convenience store, trinket shop, or any other damn thing.

I don’t believe in “bailouts.” If a company is run correctly and with common sense, it will survive and flourish. If not, it will fail and another one will take its place. Such is life.

I believe that any company that receives “bailout” money from the Federal government should be restricted from handing out bonuses to employees at any level. Break this rule and you give the bailout money back – all of it, NOW, and then take your chances in the free market.


I want them to bring back safe and sane fireworks.

I believe no one ever died because of something Ozzy Osbourne, Ice-T or Marilyn Manson sang, but that doesn't mean I want to listen to that crap from someone else's car when I'm stopped at a red light. But I respect your right to.

I don't want to eat or drink anything with the words l"ight," "lite" or "fat-free" on the package.

We did not go to some foreign country and risk lives in vain to defend our constitution so that decades later you can tell us it's a living document ever changing and is open to interpretation.

I don't hate the rich.

I don't pity the poor.

I know wrestling is fake.

I've never owned or was a slave, and the vast majority of our forefathers weren't wealthy enough to own one either.

I believe a self-righteous liberal with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell's Angel with a bad attitude.

I own a gun, you can own a gun, and any red blooded American can own a gun, but if you use it in a crime then you will serve the time. A rubber band and a paper clip is also a dangerous weapon in the hands of someone with malicious intent.

We don't need more “gun control” laws. Let's enforce the ones we already have.


I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it pisses you off, invent the next operating system that's better and put your name on the building.

I think turkey bacon, turkey beef, or turkey anything sucks.

I believe that it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes a parent with the balls to stand up to the kid and spank his butt and say "NO."

I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement.

I don’t think that being an actor or an actress makes you an expert on anything except maybe acting, and in some cases even then I'm not sure. It damn sure doesn’t make you an expert on politics, religion, or warfare, so just shut the hell up and act.


I didn't realize Dr. Seuss was a genius until I had a kid.

I will not be frowned upon or be looked down upon or be made to keep silent because I have these beliefs and opinions. I have a right to my beliefs and opinions, and the Constitution of this country protects that right.

I will not conform or compromise just to keep from hurting somebody's feelings.

I am sick to death of "Political Correctness." The mere mention of the term makes me want to puke.

I'm neither angry nor “bitter,” no matter how desperately the mainstream media or the political candidate it supports would like the world to believe otherwise.

So there.

IHC

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Best Times in a Young Boy's Life

Without a doubt, the best times in a young boy’s life – I’m talking pre-teens here, before the hormones kicked in and when girls were still ‘icky’ – were had during that magical time that only came once a year, took way too long to get here and was gone before you knew it, leaving behind wonderful memories and an anxiousness for it to get here again.

I’m talking about SUMMER VACATION, of course! (What, you thought I was talking about Christmas?)

Ah, summer vacation! A time of no school, sleeping late, lazy days with nothing special to do, pick-up baseball games, bike rides to nowhere in particular and everywhere in general, cook-outs, 4th of July parades, Boy Scout camping trips, and Summer Band. For those kids who were less fortunate – and less intelligent, in some cases – it meant summer school. I was no genius in school by any stretch of the imagination, but I managed to avoid that most dreaded of summer vacation killers, although a couple of my friends weren’t so lucky.

Most of my pre-teen summer vacations were spent in Highland Springs, Virginia. We lived on North New Avenue, and two streets over on Pine Street (the streets in Highland Springs were alphabetical, with most of them being named after plants or trees in the “new” section of town, and named after Confederate generals in the “old” part of town) there was a stretch of woods where the road dead-ended. This area was pretty big, about ten acres or so, I guess, and was the favorite hangout for just about every male child within a six street radius. The area was known, of course, as “The Woods on Pine Street.” If I was leaving the house to go outside, when my mom would ask where I was going I’d just say, “I’m going to the woods on Pine Street” and she’d know just where I was. (If you can know “just where someone is” in about ten acres of woods, of course. But at least she’d know where to send the search party if I didn’t show up for dinner at six.) And this being the mid- to late-sixties, she had no reason to worry about my safety. In those days you could leave the house at eight AM and stay gone all day long, not showing up until six for dinner and not have your mom worry about you.

And let me tell you, during summer vacation I stayed gone. I was never in the house, unless it was raining. If the weather was good, my happy little pre-pubescent ass was GONE!

The Woods on Pine Street was our own little world, the kid’s world, the place where we could go and have a good time just playing in the woods, knowing that the rest of the adult world was ‘out there’ and we were safe ‘in here.’ There was a stream running through the woods, which we always ended up falling into for one reason or another. And the woods were cool, temperature-wise, so if it was boiling hot out in the sun, you had a nice, cool place to go relax and have fun – that place being The Woods on Pine Street.

Of course, the woods had its disadvantages, and those disadvantages can best be summed up in one word: TICKS.

After a day of romping around in the woods in the summertime, your body getting damp with sweat from all of the romping around, once you went home it was time for the inevitable “critter check.” This meant checking every crevice, nook and cranny of your body for ticks, the little bloodsuckers that always seemed to attach themselves in the most hard to reach places, places that would require a mirror for you to even see, much less be able to reach to pull them off.

Which meant involving your mom in the “critter check.” Like I said, the Woods had its disadvantages.

I distinctly remember coming home with my sister Cindy after having been out romping in the Woods on Pine Street for most of the day, and when we got home we both did a “critter check.” Cindy found a HUGE tick embedded in her scalp, and it took my dad a good ten minutes to get the thing out.

She got off lucky. As for me, I managed to run into a nest of them, and my lower body and legs were covered with HUNDREDS of little baby wood ticks! They were ALL embedded, drinking away, and it took my dad nearly two hours with a pair of tweezers to get them all.

But most of the time you’d come away with one, maybe two of them, and you quickly learned the trick of lighting a wood match, blowing it out, and then touching the still-hot end to the butt of the critter to get it to back out so you could grab it with a pair of tweezers, put it in an ash tray, light another match and fry it. (They always popped when you did this!) And it sure as hell didn’t stop us from going back into the Woods again the next day!

I went back to Highland Springs in 2005 for my 30th High School Reunion – the one I was invited to, remember – and during the day before the reunion, I took a drive back into Highland Springs into the old neighborhood. The house we lived in is still there, the yard still enclosed with the chain-link fence; it seems smaller now, and old. The parts of New Avenue north of us towards Washington Street that were undeveloped lots are now filled with houses, and the old Crews house that was to the right of our house is gone. It was an old house when we moved into our newly-built house in 1964, and has now been replaced with two newer ones.

Of course I drove two streets over to my old stomping grounds, The Woods on Pine Street, and I'm very happy to report that the Woods are still there. The march of time and progress seem to have missed my "private Utopia," leaving it untouched while other parts of the old neighborhood have changed. For the better, I'm sure, but still, it's just not quite the same.

But the woods are. They are the same now as they were then, during the best times of this young boy's life.

That time of summer vacations, lazy days with no schedule, bike rides to nowhere in particular and everywhere in general, cook outs and parades, and best of all, The Woods on Pine Street.

IHC

Friday, October 16, 2009

Of Kites, Balsa Wood Gliders, and Simpler Times

I live close enough to my parent’s house in North Carolina that I can jump in the truck or on the bike and be there in a little less than four hours, which is a really good deal after spending 8 years in New Jersey where a trip home meant an eleven hour drive one-way. (My wife is now going through that, and I pity her.) All of the time alone in the truck and especially on the bike – no radio on either bike – gives me ample time to lose myself in thought, which is where I sometimes come up with ideas for my blog.

Kinda like this one.

So last week on my way back from my parent’s house, I’m cruising along in the truck with the cruise control set to a comfortable 75 MPH in a 70 zone, listening to Jimmy Buffett and letting my mind wander. (And before you ask, my wife wasn’t with me because we have two dogs, one of which is on eye medication so he won’t go blind in his remaining good eye. My parents have cats – LOTS of ‘em – so taking the dogs with us isn’t the smartest thing we could ever do, so we don’t. Hence, one of us stays home when the other travels to see family.) On this occasion, my mind wanders back to my childhood and some of the more pleasant things I remember from growing up in an age where things were simpler, life was easier (for me, anyway), and the world wasn’t quite such a dangerous place. These memories parading through my mind made me feel good, so I thought I’d share them here instead of posting something in which I’m complaining about something else. (Besides, there’s always tomorrow for that, and NObama isn’t going anywhere for the next three and a half years.)

So let’s step into Mr. Peabody’s “Wayback Machine” and travel way back to 1963 and work our way up from there, shall we?

What, you never watched “Rocky and Bullwinkle” as a kid?

Oh. Anyhow….

First stop is 1963 in a Richmond, Virginia suburb called Central Gardens. The big thing that I remember about living in the Gardens was flying kites. These were the paper, wood and string kind that I don’t think you can find anymore, and they came in two colors – red with white letters or blue with white letters. My personal favorite was red. I remember getting them from the drug store on the Mechanicsville Turnpike where my father would take me for haircuts at Woody’s Barber Shop – when you got them the paper kite was wrapped around the wooden sticks, and one of the tricks was getting it unwound and laid out without ripping the paper. After getting the paper on the wooden frame – slipping that string around the edge of the kite into the slots on the ends of the wooden sticks could be tricky - you had to tie a piece of string on the back side of the cross member and draw it tight to create a “bow,” because the kite wouldn’t fly if you didn’t. Then you found an old t-shirt or a rag and ripped it up into strips to make a tail. Finally, you tied one end of a 100 foot roll of string onto it, took it outside, and went flying!

I remember at one time there were about six kids in our front yard, all flying kites. To this day I can remember the feeling of the string tugging in my fingers as the wind kicked against the kite, the string played all the way out to the stop so that all 100 feet of it was out, the kite so far up in the sky that it was nothing but a little dot.

I also remember the feeling of utter helplessness when the string would break and the kite would go flying off on its own, landing God knows where. How far away it landed depended on how high it was when the string broke, and if all of your string was played out the kite would come down somewhere in Maryland for all you knew.

In 1965 my family was living in Highland Springs, a small town 9 miles southeast of Richmond. At the intersection of Nine Mile Road and Holly Street was The Center Drug Store. This drug store had one of the few remaining honest-to-goodness soda fountains in it, and I remember going into the cool of the store during a hot July day during summer vacation and ordering a real Cherry Coke – the kind where the old guy behind the counter mixed carbonated water, Coke syrup, and cherry syrup into a glass and gave it to you. If it wasn’t cherry Cokes it was lemonade – hand squeezed, honest to goodness lemonade made right there in front of you.

In the back of the room was a circular, white wire display rack that spun around, and on this rack was the store’s selection of balsa wood gliders. There were basically three kinds – a single wing hand-tossed glider, a biplane hand-tossed glider, and a rubber band powered one with actual wheels. The single wing was 15 cents, the biplane was 20 cents, and you’d pay a whopping $1.25 for the rubber band one.

I didn’t care, I loved all three of ‘em! The single wing was great because depending upon how you set the wing in the slot and on how hard you threw it, that thing would either fly in loop after loop after loop, or it would go in a straight line from my yard clear across the street into Mark Wright’s front yard! The biplane glider called for a lot more finesse, because if you threw it too hard the upper wing would split, and any kid who was ever a balsa wood glider pilot knew that a split in the wing meant the trash can for the glider. You couldn’t tape it because the tape would throw the balance way off; glue would do the same thing, so once the wing split that was it for the glider.

The glider with the rubber band was simply amazing to me and every other kid who was 8 years old. I mean, this thing actually had wheels and would take off from the sidewalk! Sure, the wheels were nothing more than a piece of wire bent double with a red plastic wheel on each end, but the point was that you could wind the rubber band up, set the glider down on the sidewalk, and when you let it go the little craft would actually take off and fly!

Okay, so it only flew for about ten feet or so, having expending 90% of the rubber band’s energy in the takeoff run, but hey, it still flew! To an eight year old kid, this was great!

Oh, to be eight years old again…

These memories made me smile last weekend on the drive home, and they’re making me smile now as I transform thoughts into words for you to read. And hopefully, my words have brought back some pleasant childhood memories of your own, and have made you smile as well.

IHC

Sunday, October 11, 2009

This is the BIGGEST crock of SH*T I've ever heard!

Last Friday the 9th I jumped in my truck and drove up to visit my family in North Carolina, and right after I got to my parent’s house I heard something on the news that immediately stunned and flabberghasted me. I won’t say it ruined my whole day because it didn’t – didn’t even come close, really – but it still stunned me. I’ve had two and a half days to mull this little piece of news over and see if my opinions were going to change; they haven’t, so here they are.

And the news of which I’m speaking is, of course:

“OBAMA AWARDED NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!”

Say WHAT?!?

You’re kidding me, right? This is a big, cruel joke, right? I mean, would someone out there please enlighten me as to just exactly what Obama did to deserve this honor? What did he do in the twelve days between his inauguration and the deadline for submission for the prize to earn this most coveted award?

Well, according to the Nobel Committee – and this is a direct quote from them – Obama was honored “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.”

Oh, yeah, that’s right – he went to visit the King of Saudi Arabia and embarrassed the nation by bowing to the King like any good subject would.

But that didn’t happen in the first 12 days of his term!

Oh, yeah, that’s right – he gave a speech to the people of Iran in which he further embarrassed the people of the United States by “apologizing” to the Iranian people for all of the purported wrongs that had been done to them by previous Presidential administrations, kissing Ahmadinijhad’s ass in the process.

But that didn’t happen in the first 12 days of his term!

Oh, yeah, he made good on a campaign promise and started to withdraw troops from Iraq.

But that didn’t happen in the first 12 days of his term!

And we won’t even talk about the G8 Conference because – you guessed it! – it didn’t happen in the first 12 days of his term!

So someone please tell me – just exactly what did Obama do to deserve the Nobel Freakin’ Peace Prize?

And there is, by the way, one great big thing Obama HAS done that you simply can’t ignore that should absolutely assure that he would not get the prize – while withdrawing troops from Iraq, he is escalating the war in Afghanistan. So how in the world can a world leader who is escalating a war get the Nobel Peace Prize?

Is it me, or is that a direct contradiction?

Simply put, he doesn’t deserve it. No way, no shape, no form, no how. No matter how you try to spin it, Barack Obama did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the first 12 days of his administration to deserve being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At least Jimmy “I was a lousy President” Carter accomplished the Camp David Accord and got the Peace Prize for it, which – as much as I dislike him – he deserved.

But what has Obama done? Seriously, now – what did he do to deserve the award?

You have to wonder just what in the hell the Committee members were thinking when they unanimously voted to give Obama the award. Make one think that maybe someone has a “hidden agenda” in all this, doesn’t it? And I’m not talking about The Great Pretender, either.

Personally, I think this latest undeserved awarding of the coveted Nobel Peace Prize is the single most disgraceful, undeserving and unearned awarding of the prize in the history of the award program. I don’t care if Obama is going to donate the money or not – not that he’s a pauper, by any means anyway – the plain and simple truth of the matter is that he was given an award which he did not deserve. Even his staff and the audience at the announcement were flabberghasted when the announcement was made, for cryin’ out loud!

And ya know what? I don’t blame Obama for any of this. He literally didn’t have anything to do with it in any way, so my accusatory finger is pointed straight at the Nobel Prize Committee. In my eyes, the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize has forever been tainted and the award disgraced by the presentation of this award to Barack Obama.

The Nobel Peace Prize has now been transformed into the Nobel Do-Nothing Prize, because the Nobel Committee has set the standard that you don’t have to do anything to win it.

IHC