Don't know much about botany

I stole this short lesson in tree identification Small Dead Animals:

No one ever suspects the butterfly*

Of all the people in the world Barack Obama could (will?) be taking orders from, Nancy "the children are in charge" Pelosi?

In talks with Emanuel, Pelosi has “set parameters” for what she wants from Obama and his staff.

Obama rubber-stamping the House has the potential to be far worse than Obama fumbling around on his own, and yet, it's entertaining. Like a clown act (imagine all the Congressional Gorebots climbing out of a Prius). And O brings a water-squirting lapel flower to the seltzer bottle fight.

We're going to starve to death in the dark, but until then at least we won't be bored.

* Come For The Funerals, Stay For The Pie

Don't touch me until you've had a shower.

A fan of Jay Nordlinger suggests a bumpersticker :

Celebrate Diversity — Hug a Conservative

It would be wittier if it was "Embrace Diversity." And I'd prefer to opt out, because I find that whole "liking people because of the label they wear" thing creepy.

But it might be a good way to lure an emergency moonbat into my trunk...

Poor Socks.

He's not long for this world.

I envision him lurking by the Rainbow Bridge for a chance to chew the faces off the two-legged jerk-offs who used him as an image accessory and then threw him away when they didn't need him anymore. (He's a cat. He's planning it for the last eight years.)

That's one way the Obama presidency might differ from Clinton's--there's a good chance Malia and Sasha will love whatever poor beast gets stuck doing photo ops, and that might stop him from getting rid of it as soon as there's no free staff to take it on walkies.

There's a lot I don't like about GWB politically (I can't even follow this auto bailout stuff), but you can tell a lot about people by the way they treat animals. The President and Laura Bush are good people. I'll miss that.

Winter emergency advice

Mark Steyn had some weather in NH recently:

We huddled around one of my Democrat neighbors whose incandescent rage at Bush for not doing anything!!!!! kept us warm.

And then a light bulb went off in my head: Keep a spare moonbat in your trunk in case you get stranded in the single-digit weather. In a different box than the emergency M&Ms, of course.

Finally, they're good for something.

Heh.

Andrew Johnson

I was in a bar trivia contest this afternoon, and one of the questions was "Who was the only President to serve in the Senate after being POTUS?" And I immediately wrote down "Andrew Johnson" and handed it to the girl who was submitting the answers for our team.

And everyone kind of stared at me. To their credit, they knew there was a President with that name...

Last week, I read a blog post--I just can't remember where! and I can't find it!--about the possibility of Bill Clinton keeping Hillary's Senate seat warm while she globe-trots for four years. The blogger noted, for our amusement, that the only other President who went to the Senate after the White House was the only other impeached President.

And of course I was right, and we got six points.

So whoever you are, snarky blogger, thank you.

Overall, it was pretty bad. I was the oldest by several years, so we missed all the questions about 70s TV shows (they were on after my bedtime). I got all the answers about 80s songs, American History, and geography. We finished in the 3nd quartile, well out of the money, but not last. Heh.

Ugh, spam.

I got an e-mail today flogging "Christmas gift ideas from Mike Huckabee." Do you know what I want from Mike Huckabee? I want him to go away and take his mislabled nanny-statism with him. I certainly never signed up for e-mail from him, and if I ever find out who sold him my address....

Someone somewhere is buying a copy of his book "in a collectible leather gift box." *snort* Maybe they're thinking it was a novelization of Spike Lee's film by the same name.

It's going to be a long, cold winter.

OK, losing at the last second to Drake (...Cyclones have beat Drake once this century) I could let go with no comment, but this, this is just pathetic.

I blame Ashton Kutcher.

For those of you who follow Milwaukee natives in their college careers (or is that jus a small-town thing?), Diante Garrett had 16 points.

...and this is just weird. Why would an SEC school want a coach who can't win in the Big 12?

Alright. AD Jamie Pollack got to go. The new logo is stupid stupid stupid (What's that I? Indiana? Idaho? Ithaca?), keeping Chizek is stupid, and I'll give McDermott another season, but hiring a coach because he played high school ball in Iowa was stupid. That's too much stupid, even for a school with a long tradition of suck.

Yeah, me too.

In other news, my sisters found some babysitters and the three of us are going to Portland OR to see our little brother in January, over MLK weekend (I don't get a free day off, but he does). Totally slipped my mind what else is going on that week--today I get this e-mail: "20th is inauguration day, some of the bars and theater venues here will be open with drinking games, etc."

Well, it can't be any worse than being in Milwaukee that day, can it?

And he'll have a teleprompter, so I'm in no danger of alcohol poisoning if I drink everytime he says "um" or "uh", right?

Oh boy.

Party like it's 1994

Last night when I was driving home from work, I saw a guy waiting for a bus wearing a Buffalo Bills OJ Simpson jersey and no coat. (I did a triple take, just to make sure it was OJ and not some other Simpson who played for the Bills.) 28 degrees, wind, light snow--there's someone with a statement to make. I interpreted it as "I'm an idiot"--less for the OJ and more for the no coat.

Signed OJ jerseys are now on sale!

I was going to write a rant about cleaning the snow off your damn turn signals, but then I remembered no one uses them anyway. I'm starting to be impressed when people clean the snow off their windshield before they start down the street.

I'm partway through Season 2 of the X-Files (I've been re-watching the series in order) and there's a lot more Janet Reno and Bill Clinton than I remember. And there was footage of OJ's white Bronco in one of the episodes last night. Everything old is relevant this week. Except Scully's shoulder pads.

Happy International Anti-Corruption Day!

You can't make this stuff up.

Victor Davis Hanson makes you laugh, or cry:

But as illegal and as unethical as that is, what exactly is the difference between the Illinois example, and doing something like: since you gave my party, my legal defense fund, my furniture account, my library account, and my wife's senate campaign fund well over an aggregate of $1 million, so also I give your felon ex-husband a presidential pardon?

I do hope someone brings that up during Hillary's confirmation hearing. It won't sway anyone's vote, but it'll be entertaining.

(That's not his real hair, is it?)

Vote Cy!

AMES, Iowa – Cy is calling all Cyclone fans to help him defend his title as the nation’s best mascot. Cy was named the 2007 “Most Dominant Mascot on Earth” and now faces a championship matchup against Thundar of North Dakota State in the final vote to see which mascot will be named the 2008 Capital One National Mascot of the Year. Fans can vote once a day for Cy at www.capitalonebowl.com.

Who needs a stupid bowl game?

Bad day at work?

Could be worse (link probably not safe for work/children/public areas).

Nice logo.

(At the risk of boring peoples by posting about my life, I have to ask: should I be concerned that my boyfriend is looking at pictures of naked guys on the Internets and showing them to me?)

1 trap avoided, 2 to go

Nice to have Kelvin Hayden back.

I guess I should have started Matt Schaub this week.

Anh "Joseph" Cao

Republican, Louisiana--don't expect the media to celebrate the first Vietnamese-American in Congress the way they celebrated Keith Ellison*. Seems like a decent guy. I hope he works out.

There's been all this flutter over the future of the GOP, and not much talk about incorporating legal immigrants and second-generation Americans from cultures who value education, entrepreneurship, and limited government power. Louisiana has Jindal and now Cao, but what's going on elsewhere?

Hrm.

* Imagine the media orgy when we get the first illegal-alien (D-California) in Congress. Oh boy.

"I choose not to participate."

Heh.


Glad I waited to catch this online, instead of making an appointment with my television. Starts out berating the subject for his success? WTF?

(...and whoever was responsible for her outfit in the introduction need to be fired forwith.)

Looks familiar.

Happy Repeal Day!

It kind of snuck up on me. My belated thanks to Utah.

But there's one positive thing we can say alcohol prohibition: At least it was constitutional. The prohibitionists built support for their cause by demonizing alcohol from state to state, winning over local legislators one at a time. When they'd built a sufficient national movement, they started the momentum for a constitutional amendment. Congress didn't pass a blanket federal law, Constitution be damned. They understood that the federal government hasn't the authority to issue a national ban on booze, so they moved to enact the ban properly.

It really was a different era...

Meanwhile, I have a bit of a beer weirdness going on here...in Ohio I picked up a six-pack of "Moe's Backroom Amber Ale" with a "Celebrating the Repeal of Prohibition" label, labeled "Tap Room Brewing Company, Rochester NY" but a Google search reveals it's probably contract-brewed by City Brewery in LaCrosse and there is no "Tap Room Brewing Company." So much for seeking out novelty at the small-town Kroger when I stock up on Mike-Sells (those are the best potato chips on the planet--next time you're in Ohio or Indiana seek them out).

It's not awful, it's going down well with bratwurst and X-Files, but its sketchy provenance is disconcerting and I'm not appreciating the irony of bringing a Wisconsin beer back from Ohio.

So....

is it OK if I refer to whats-his-ears as a dildo? (Link not safe for work, public places, or small children in the room)

I need someone with a grievance studies degree to explain to me why using the image of The One on a sex toy is different than using the image of Jesus--the latter is meant to profane the sacred and offend believers, so why isn't the former?

...I'm also entertained by the big fake testicles on his butt. Disclaimer: I've spent most of my week in a windowless lab, pressing the same eight buttons over and over, with a cow-orker who laughs like DNA from Elmer Fudd was mixed with DNA from Yakov Smirnoff and gestated in a California sea lion finding himself perpetually funny in the background. Everything is entertaining after that.

Kathy Shaidle must be sniffing packets in my head.

As are the authors of long quotes in her post.

Tossing my cookies

Looking for something tasty to eat off your Obama collectible plate? How about Obama cookies, fresh from Des Moines?

"Oh, great cookie, great president - the world is a happy place. Barack's going to fix all the problems and if I have a bite of this cookie it's going to make me feel good..."

What about Teh Obesity Crisis!!1!!? Did it evaporate after the election along with the oceans?

Also note the owner of Baby Boomers jacked up the price of the Obama cookies 50% after word got out. Spread the wealth around...oh, wait, that's pie.

(We made pie last night. Still want a piece of it, Mrs. O?)

Heads up!

Glad I read this after I finished driving across Indiana...

MARKLE, Ind. -- Five deer that wandered onto a highway overpass jumped to their deaths onto Interstate 69, one of them crashing through a tractor-trailer's windshield, police said.

You have to get six paragraphs in to learn the human was uninjured. Way to report, AP.

Late fall is a stressful time of year for deer, DNR spokesman Phil Bloom said.

Farmers are removing the last of their crops from the fields, reducing the animals' food supply even as deer breeding season is in full swing.

Any of these factors could have pushed the deer onto the highway overpass, Bloom said.

You expect AP articles to be written with a "human activity makes Bambi sad" slant, but when the DNR guy subscribes human emotions and motivations to animals...

(When I lived in Indiana I bought a 1940s pinwheel quilt top in Markle. It's got some feedsack fabrics in it, but mostly dress prints. I never expected to reference Markle ever again.)

Easy road?

Commentators need to shut up right now about the Colts' alleged "easy road to the playoffs." That's not an easy road; that's three trap games and !)$*#! Tennessee.

Plus, Gary Brackett went down and no one knows when Bob Sanders will return.

OTOH, I was saying something last week about Robert Mathis...



(The Colts are 5-1 since losing to the Packers.)

Mumbai, etc.

I was off the grid for a few days in western Ohio. It was kind of nice--between the Dayton Daily News and the local NBC news, I was kept completely ignorant of anything going on in the world except retail shopping and Bishop Alter HS winning the Div IV football championship. That was fine while I was there, as it freed me up for more important things, but now I'm going to have to spend my day (minus the Colts game) trawling the internet for actual information. (The Daily News did find a local immigrant from Mumbai who denounced the attacks and expressed sympathy for the victims and their families, and a local rabbi who knew Rabbi Holtzberg; I guess that's all local papers can do about international news in the internet age).

A Tim Hortons just opened up in Richmond, Indiana--I spent a half an hour looking for it yesterday so I could read Mark Steyn while munching on Timbits (I should learn to read his writing in the original Canadian...):

So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists don’t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we haven’t yet held talks without preconditions with. This isn’t about repudiating the Bush years, or withdrawing from Iraq, or even liquidating Israel. It’s bigger than that.

I've been wondering what Obama thinks (my money is on "Oh, shit."). So, George Bush really wasn't making up scary stories. Didn't see that coming...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Huh.

I noticed this new media hypocrisy in passing yesterday, but NewsBusters did the actual work of looking up examples:

Obamas Are 'Fabulously Fit' Follow-up: Press Treated Bush Fitness As 'Creepy' and an 'Obsession'

Note to re-education camp facilitators: I refuse to fall in for calisthenics before breakfast, forced marches between March and October, and aerobic dance at any time. Celebrate diversity!

Hrm.

As some of you may know, we currently are undertaking an extensive visioning process on campus.

...they're asking for money, but I can't figure out exactly what they want to do with it. I'm a pretty easy mark for things like "upgrade the ECE lab" or even "renovate the pipe organ" but WTF is a "visioning process"?

Thoreau said one should avoid any endeavor that requires new clothes; I'm finding it's also good to avoid any committee or individual that verbs nouns, much less adjectives the result.

Well, that didn't take long.

South African Obama fabric. I expect to see his face on printed cotton in U.S. quilt shops within six months.

Goes with your commemorative plate (Made in China!) and defaced dollar coin.

Interesting tangent from the second link:

...the Democratic Party placed an order with the Winston Elizabeth & Windsor mint in England for about £100,000 ($156,000) worth of silver Obama coins to be used as gifts for Party supporters. (Why the Democratic Party is buying from companies in England, rather than the USA is an issue beyond the scope of this article.)

All those retired/student/low-income "small donors" are surely pleased to know their masters are putting their faith offering to Obama to good use.

Much better than last year.

It's too bad the Pro-Bowl has turned into a mechanism for determining only which team has the most unemployed losers clicking on ballots all day--Robert Mathis (#98) is having an outstanding year.



It's a pleasure to watch that man work.

Note to self:

Stay the hell out of Lutheran churches in Madison.

Still manly...

Following a link from Reasonable Progressive, I 'analyzed' the text of last Saturday's rant about enslaving school children (not a particularly stereotypical topic like quilting or football, not a lot of long quoted passages) and came up with:

Female Score: 668
Male Score: 1149

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

I'm amused.

Memo missed, Milwaukee edition

I was told the election of Barack Obama would bring HOPE to millions in the inner cities, that life wouldn't go on as usual, blah blah change blah $1000 check blah etc.

And yet, this week another employee at work got mugged--the annual November mugging, apparently. People have been diligent about taking the parking shuttle after dark, so the perp did it at lunch time.

So much for change--contra Michelle, life is going on as usual.

OTOH, being in prison will get you out of "Barack Obama will require you to work." Hrm...

All this aggravation ain't satisfactionin' me

A little less Radish, a little more action please.

Which song was this lyric from?

Get your own lyrics:

2012 watch

Bobby Jindal was in Iowa yesterday and didn't say anything too objectionable...

The governor said technology such as television and the Internet are conduits for corrupting children, which he also believes is an issue agreed upon across party lines.

"As governor, I can't censor anything or take away anyone's freedom of speech - nor do I want to if I could," he said, "but I can still control what my kids watch, what they hear and what they read."

ZOMG, parenting his own kids! No wonder Democrats hate him.

A nice change from the Tipper Gore/Hillary Clinton "censorship for the children!" meme.

Heh heh.

In my e-mail today:

Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams, and a US Marine Sergeant were captured by terrorists in Iraq. The leader of the terrorists asked if they had any last requests before they were beheaded and dragged naked through the streets.

Katie Couric said, 'Well, I'm a Southerner, so I'd like one last plate of fried chicken.' The leader laughed, and said, 'Shut up, infidel whore.'

Charlie Gibson said, 'I'm living in New York, so I'd like to hear the song 'The Moon and Me' one last time.' The terrorist leader laughed, and said, 'Shut up, infidel son of dogs and pigs.'

Brian Williams said, 'I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe, someday, someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end.' The leader laughed, and said, 'Stupid infidel, we’re videotaping the whole thing so your children can watch you scream like the pig you are.'

Finally, the leader turned and said, 'And now, Mr. US Marine, what is your final wish?'

'Kick me in the butt,' said the Marine.

'What?' asked the leader, 'Will you mock us in your last hour?'

'No, I'm NOT kidding. I want you to kick me in the butt,' insisted the Marine. So the leader shoved him into the yard and kicked him. The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from inside his cammies and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he emptied his sidearm on six terrorists, and with his knife, he slashed the throat of one carrying an AK-47, which he took, and sprayed the rest of the terrorists - killing another 11!

In a flash, all of them were either dead or fleeing for their lives. As the Marine was untying Couric, Gibson, and Williams, they asked him, 'Why didn't you just shoot them all in the first place? Why did you ask him to kick you?'

'What!?!' replied the Marine, 'and have you three assholes report that I started an attack on innocent civilians??'

The world loves us again!

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.
. . .
Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house negroes."

If it's wrong to be entertained by thousands of hearts breaking because they hate us no matter who's in charge, contra John F'n Kerry, I don't want to be right.

Heh.

I'm disappointed they don't say WHY:

We think http://hasenpfeffer-incorporated.blogspot.com/ is written by a man (85%).

I get that a lot when I don't use my slave name. But it's on the bottom of every post...

Or Donna Summer, she'd be OK...

I was reading something or other today and misread "Incoming White House spokesman Robert Gibbs" as "Incoming White House spokesman Robin Gibb."

Well hell, as long as we're reliving the painful suckitude of the Carter years, why not?

Lot of this going 'round

Cyclone Nation?

Iowa State has a student-recruitment billboard up at the corner of Capitol Drive and Green Bay/MLK.

I guess that's not as weird as it seemed at first--Messmer High School is on the other side of the overpass, and Rufus King HS is in the area. Lots of potential customers students to enroll for a year to get those diversity numbers up. But it was odd as hell to see any mention of ISU so far east of the Mississippi.

(In ten years, I've met three people in Milwaukee who even knew there was an Iowa State before they met me and my cardinal-and-gold wardrobe--and that was back in 2001 when there was that horrible basketball tragedy.)

Huh.

Interesting link from Treacher--Shepard Fairey, the guy responsible for the ubitiquous but delightfully parodyable Obama-head poster, seems to have plagiarized most of his work. There's some Soviet Revolution imagery, some Maoist/Cultural Revolution imagery, the SS Totenkopf, Black Panthers, and the WPA (heh!), as well as some stylistic but not explicitly fascist/Marxist sources.

The expropriation and reuse of images in art has today reached soaring heights, but that relentless mining and distortion of history will turn out to be detrimental for art, leaving it hollowed-out and meaningless in the process. When I refer to "mining" in this case I mean the hasty examination and extraction of information from our collective past as performed by individuals who do not fully comprehend it. That is precisely what Fairey is guilty of, utilizing historic images simply because he "likes" them, and not because he has any grasp of their significance as objects of art or history.

(bold mine)

Metaphor for the Obama campaign and his plans for the future? For example the "civilian security force." Is he completely ignorant of how quasi-military police have been used in the past and just thinks it sounds cool? Or is that how he wants to appear?

Either way, it's interesting that the Obama poster creator is a hack profiting from his frauds. Metaphor again.

Melvin!

This is the second week in a row Melvin Bullitt has saved the Colts' bacon.

Since October 19, the Packers are 1-2. The Colts are 3-1. I find this interesting.

White middle class hegemony now OK!

Two things strike me about the vociferous defenders of Obama's plan to force teenagers to "volunteer" (you're not a volunteer if you're being forced). First is their obvious disregard for anachronisms like the 13th Amendment, which forbids forced unpaid labor except as a punishment. Everyone in the dextrosphere has discussed this one at length.

But second--the loudest supporters are middle-class educated white people who have chosen to do volunteer work on their own, or been required to do it by their wealthy suburban high school. Comments like "it's good because it gets your selfish lazy spoiled teen's ass off the couch" are endless (projecting, I assume; the only time I ever got to sit on a couch as a teen was when I was sick or babysitting past bedtime).

Now, I'm only doing cursory research, and anyone who is an expert in these things can update/correct me in the comments please, but what I'm finding online is that in the past ten years, nationally only about 50% of black males who enroll in high school graduate. The reported dropout rate in Milwaukee public schools ranges from 45-55%; I found one source who puts it at 51% for black students and 54% for Hispanic students (the data is six years old, but I don't think rates have improved enough to invalidate my conclusions).

Put yourself in the position of a black teenager who already thinks school is a bullshit waste of time when you can make decent money dealing drugs. Or a teenage mother fitting in school around work and childcare, or an immigrant teen expected to work at the family business, or for wages to help with family expenses.

How on earth does forcing these teenagers into unpaid labor, even an hour or two a week, help these kids choose to stay in school? We can argue about the value of an MPSD diploma, but nationwide the unemployment rate for blacks without a HS diploma seems to be double the rate for those with. Studies are showing that blacks with a HS diploma are incarcerated at a lower rate than those without. Why on earth would anyone want to make it even more attractive for at-risk students to drop out?? Much less the people who claim to care about these students' futures??*

And why am I the only person thinking about it from this angle?

I'll grant that the few students who get into a "volunteer" program where they can be successful at something that isn't menial (Is anyone uplifted by being good at picking up garbage? Can students who don't read well be happy being forced to read to old people?) can get a self-esteem boost or a career goal out of it, but a) they could get that from paid work, plus a paycheck helps other areas of their lives and b) I suspect the students who will be successful at their forced labor will be the ones who are successful at school anyway. I'm extrapolating from my rural cracker experience--the stoners didn't pick up trash on the highway, the National Honor Society did.

All my adult life I've been told it's racist and morally wrong to expect blacks, especially poor blacks in big cities, to adopt white middle-class social values that might improve their lives. Teh hegemony!!11! Teh cultural insensitivity!!11! But suddenly, it's acceptable to force a white middle-class "value" that could have a detrimental effect on their lives.

Not a change we need.

* My objection to making dropping out more attractive to at-risk students by increasing non-academic requirements doesn't negate my loathing of "No Child Left Behind" and the dumbing down of curricula, which shafts capable students. Some people just aren't equipped to be scholars; they should be offered vocational training. Everyone's competent at something.

Iowa Civil War Battle Flags

Restored U.S. flag from the 15th Iowa Infantry is back on display at the Iowa Capitol.

The whole Iowa Capitol building is a monument dedicated to Iowa Civil War veterans; the battle flags were displayed hanging from poles in display cases on the ground floor for over a century. On the field trip when I was in fifth grade, the docent told us the reason was at the time, the prevailing sentiment was for the flags to decay over the years--the war was so terrible they didn't think future generations needed reminders of the horrors. About eight years ago they started taking them all down for conservation and restoration to preserve them for future future generations.

The flags were mostly made by the women in the communities where the volunteers were organized. I understand the need for standardization in the modern battlefield, but wouldn't the community involvement of the 19th century be good in our current wars?

My favorite flag design is the 30th Iowa, out of Keokuk:


...and back when I was in fifth grade, you could go up to the very top of the Capitol rotunda dome and even outside to see the view. Now it's authorized personnel only, so your survivors can't sue if you jump. The 21st century is not always an improvement.

(I tried to volunteer to help with the flag restoration project when I lived in Des Moines, but they only worked during business hours when I was out pressing buttons to keep a roof over my head. When I get laid off from the Obama business tax increase and go on the public dole like everyone else, I'd like to try something like this to fill my days--not necessarily battle flags but any pre-1960s historical textiles; no commercial value, but important so future generations might get a glimpse of what America used to be.)

How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you.

Handy guide with illustrations.

I've found it simpler to check if he's still breathing. Yes? Then he's planning to kill me...after his nap.

Michael Ramirez!

Hee hee.

Good news, everyone!*

The coming Ice Age could be permanent! YESSS!

humans...would be likely to avert such a slide into a long big chill by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

But that's no excuse not to destroy our post-industrial society to fight Global Warming, just in case anyone was thinking of going against the settled moonbattery.



*

Wasted in Austin...and elsewhere.

I've been ignoring the J-S series bashing Wisconsin for not inculcating a (hypocritical) teetotaling Southern Baptist culture like the South (someone should have stopped the Germans from settling here 150 years ago...), but after reading this very good article from American Thinker I'm pretty pissed off they haven't mentioned a single Wisconsinite killed killed by an illegal alien drunk driver (OK, the illegal alien who offed himself in Wausau didn't take anyone with him, but you can't count on that, can you?).

You want to bash cultures that "encourage" drunk-driving (maybe I'm not drinking in the right places, but I've never seen it encouraged here...)? That's your right, but have the guts to also condemn cultures that encourage not only drunk driving but racial bigotry and refusal to cooperate with authorities.

Sullivan Brothers

The Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum is opening this weekend. Looks good--artifacts and exhibits from every war fought by Iowans. Video at the link. I'll have to stop by over the holidays, weather permitting.

The museum is named for the Sullivan Brothers, killed in action on the USS Juneau in November 1942. They joined the Navy together after a friend was killed at Pearl Harbor and the five of them insisted on serving together. The mental image of George spending three days searching for his brothers is haunting.

The Grout Museum had a permanent exhibit on the Sullivans when I lived in the area, complete with their parents' flag with five gold stars and letters that arrived after the Juneau was sunk. The docent reassured me I was not the first visitor to cry.

Within a year, a destroyer was renamed the USS The Sullivans; it was retired in 1965. A second destroyer with the name was launched in 1995 and still serves with the brothers' motto "We stick together."

(And yet, the Sullivan Brothers never came up in my Iowa history class in fifth grade, which disturbs me now.)

The first destroyer is parked in Buffalo. I took these photos in 2003, sadly out of season for the tour.

Veteran's Day 2008

Thank you for your service. I appreciate all that you have done and sacrificed so I can hang out being cranky and watching in safety and freedom from foreign enemies.

Call for Obama quilts

There's a movement to blanket (heh, see what I did there) D.C. with Obama quilts for the Coronation.

If you're working on a quilty homage to The One, let me know and I'll forward you the info.

No, really.

Hey, a girl can dream.

Dear Obama Claus,

I've been very sincere this year. Gimme!

Radish

Time for basketball yet?

Alexander Robinson sums up my whole fall.

Sage Rosenfels and Seneca Wallace are both starting today, so I've got that.

I do not think they know what that word means

From today's J-S Online:

If there's one thing both sides can agree on about this election, it's that the president-elect ran a remarkably skillful campaign.

If by "skillful" you mean opportunistic, sexist, dirty, vapid, corrupt, creepy, or immature, then we can probably agree.

So does that tell us anything about how he'll run the country?

Yeah, it tells us he's going to be a sleazy, corrupt, sexist asshole.

Peter Hitchens writing for London's Daily Mail, has more:

From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

Extra style points for "stained and crumpled." Hitchens hits the O-bots pretty hard, too--do read the whole thing.

Hope! Change! Party like it's 1993!

52%

Commenter Stuffed reminded me that Prop 8 in California only passed by 52%, which is a "narrow defeat" and not the "overwhelming mandate" Obamatrons are claiming with their 52%.

It gets better.

Nancy Pelosi is claiming that those black and Hispanic voters who voted for Prop 8 are just too stupid to realize they voted incorrectly.

I look forward to learning how a) that's not a racist statement, and b) this is George Bush's fault.

Oh, and any amiable goodwill or urge to get along with Obamatrons that I may have mustered up earlier in the week was completely erased by this condescending garbage. You're on your own.

The gruel in re-education camp had better be vegan, organic, and shade-grown, you hypocrites.

Holy Soviet Union, Batman.

Have you ordered your free sticker yet? It looks like something from The People's Cube, but these morons are serious.

This is the scariest image yet, minus the ones that advocated violence against Sarah Palin.

(Apparently it's still too early to read quilt blogs. They're celebrating O's "overwhelming mandate." Uh, no, try again: 52% is neither.)

Buzzed surfing is drunk surfing

Oh boy.

The RCA Dome is being demolished to make room for more Convention Center stuff now that The Luke is completed. Pieces of the Dome were sold off to raise money for Colts Charities (and I never did find out what happened with the lawsuit...).

I remember buying a plaque with a piece of the roof.

I don't remember buying this:


That's a 2' x 3' piece of the 20-yard line.

I don't know what the heck I thought I was going to do with it. I have to find a plastic container to store it in, because it's shedding sand all over my living room and the cat can't leave it alone.

I'm just glad I didn't buy the urinal.

I found that Hillary quote...

"I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration."
-- Hillary Clinton

Married to the government II

Unmarried women voted 70-30 for Obama. John Miller at NRO wonders if they'll be given a media label, "bitter unmarried women."

As a card-carrying bitter unmarried woman (I gots Moral Authority, yo), I approve. Label 'em. Make them own it.

I've ranted about this at length before, and now my perspective has changed--I really do believe women want the government to be some combination of husband and daddy (how icky is that *shudder*). Government will put a roof over their head, pay their doctor bill, fund their retirement--but better than a real husband, government won't leave the toilet seat up or get angry when you start sleeping around.

I'm digusted. Please don't judge me by the actions and attitudes of my insecure lazy sisters.

The sun came up this morning...

At work yesterday, one of my co-workers--not a hopey-dopey-change O-bot, more of a "because he's black" and "doesn't mind paying taxes to improve other people's lives"* voter--remarked that I was "taking the election really well."

I thought, "Heh, you don't know I have a blog."

I did have to turn the radio and computer off for two days. I played my favorite X-Files drinking game: every time you see a portrait of Bill Clinton or Janet Reno in the FBI offices, drink! I also played some Civilization--I was Stalin of Arabia, a madrassah in every city and anyone who didn't convert to Communism was destroyed. Catharsis.

I'm not going to be a total vulgar violent asshole like the moonbats have been for the past eight years, but I'm going to enjoy throwing spitballs. Anyone on the street asking me for a dollar will be told to go ask Barack Obama, because he's got all my dollars. Anyone complaining about their electric bill tripling will be told it's their own damn fault, or did they think O was lying when he said he was going to close coal-fired plants? Etc, etc.

Plus, Joe Biden. I laugh everytime I hear his name.

* I can't see how the extra thousands of dollars I'll be out when the Bush tax cuts expire make anyone's life better. Those checks the government sent out last spring? They just buy earrings, they don't "pay down every bill every month."

The world loves us again already!

Around the same time that it became clear Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced plans for Russian deployment of a new missile system on the EU border.

I thought we'd at least get to January...

Steyn

Heh.

I extend my congratulations mainly in the same sense that elderly British veterans of my acquaintance like to express their admiration of the marvelously innovative ways their Japanese captors found to torture them.

Comments I want to make on blogs but don't because it's not worth the blizzard of insults I'll get IV

I'm not really surprised at the ecstatic glee people are feeling at their success in turning the entire country into the south side of Chicago. It's more deep disgust.

I'd like to have one of those Scarlett O'Hara puking up radishes in the slave garden "tomorrow is another day" cello-swelling moments, but Scarlett wasn't puking in Venezuela.

So here's the comment I'd like to make on my friends' journals, but I don't think I care enough.

If you think there's some sort of exemption for "progressives" from runaway inflation, $10 gas and shortages, rolling blackouts, nuclear winter, the crime that comes from 15% employment, or the repeal of the First Amendment, you're a bigger fucking idiot than Oprah. And don't forget for a minute that it's your own fucking fault.

When I get laid off in the face of Obama's business-crushing tax hikes, your smug self-satisfaction at "voting for the black guy" isn't going to feed my cat, you assholes.

...anyway, after 8 years of being told that criticizing the President is patriotic, I'm sure you'll give my 1-20-2013 bumpersticker the same respect you demanded when you told me ChimpyMcHitler was a facist[sic].

And if I ever hear the phrase "white privilege" used in an un-ironic fashion, I'm going to punch you in the teeth.

So, anyway, I should go to work while I still can. Seriously, I don't know if they'll lay me off now or wait until January, but as a contractor I'll be one of the first to go.

Where's that clip of Hillary Clinton screeching about criticism of the president being patriotic?

(And where's my unicorn? I was told we were going to get a unicorn in every pot!)

And what's going to happen to my brother when he goes to Iraq next summer? Al Qaeda and Iran and Syria and Russia have all been put on notice that they can do anything they want and they won't even get their invitation to tea revoked.

Election Night

Working on my "novel." I'm up to 532 words.

My "ranting screed about today's vote fraud" is about ten times that, but a significant percentage of those words are permutations of the F-word.

My downstairs neighbors (big O signs in the windows) are having a victory party. I haven't met them, so I don't know if they'll call me a racist if I ask them to stop screaming so I can sleep. I'm not about to go find out.

Thank God it's almost over.

Michelle Malkin adds another data point to my running observations that most people in the "fiber arts" world are catshit-crazy leftists.

Most of my friends' personal journals (bless you, Chele, for being an exception) are full of Palin-bashing videos and screeds this evening. I hope they're nervous.

I'm nervous as hell.

I'm surprised this got published.

And I had forgotten this post from April about John McCain purchasing quilts from poor black women in Alabama, whilst the guy they're voting for couldn't be bothered to give them any of his own money in exchange for something they produced.

Indicators

Jim Geraghty reports:

when the Jets won five or more games before Election Day; the Republicans won the White House every single time.

OTOH, the Colts lost to the F-Pats in 2004 ("The Colts tried a 48-yard field goal try with kicker Mike Vanderjagt taunting the Patriots sideline by rubbing his fingers together in a "money" motion; he'd connected on 42 straight field goals but this time shanked it, ending the game in a 27-24 Patriots win.") and their victory over the F-Pats in 2006 ushered in the Nancy Pelosi Congress.

Tom Brady had 4 interceptions, though. Heh!

(I'd like to be happy this morning, but the Colts' D looks like the Maginot Line, even with Bob Sanders. Sigh.)

NaNoWriMo

Every year, like a wannabe-hipster, I sign up to write a novel in a month, or at least 50k words, and then by the second week I give up because I still don't know where to start. But I'm driving out to Iowa today, so I've got some time to think. I'm feeling vicious satire, but I could probably sell formula supermarket erotica (I haven't read any in twenty years, but how much could the formula have changed?). But would anyone pay to publish vicious satire of supermarket erotica? Tough call.

(I will be back to vote--sorry, just once--on Tuesday, although I'm wondering if I should have taken the whole week off, since blood doesn't run in Podunk like it does in the streets.)

"Ego and Mouth"

It's too bad Thomas Sowell lives in California, because it would be an honor to be in the same re-education camp as he.

Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else.
...
For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of “spreading the wealth,” is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

I can't even imagine the hate mail Sowell must get.

OH! And while blogs have been reporting for some time now that non-citizens (and dead people) are illegally contributing millions of dollars, including individuals giving well over the allowable $2300, to Obama's campaign through assorted frauds, the major media has deemed that unworthy of inquiry. But now the Times of London reports that a foreign national illegally residing in subsized housing in Boston--after a deportation order, even--made repeated campaign contributions accepted by Obama. I won't imply he knew about her specific donation, as clearly no one has ever looked at a list of donor names to see if there was anything interesting, but the Times put this information out on the AP wire where even the FEC might read it.

This just got interesting, and in time for the Sunday paper.

Happy Half-Price Candy Day Eve!

Oingo Boingo: "Dead Man's Party"
Mashed up with some Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.

So much for the Feline-American vote

My brother requested an absentee ballot and they sent him two. Instead of returning them both marked for The One as everyone in Portland is expected (required?) to do, he gave the extra ballot to his cat, Phydeaux.

















Now some poor slob from ACORN has to vote THREE times to deliver OR for The One. *shakes head*

(Phy, I think you left a hanging chad...)

Huh.

So apparently this whole "giving birth" thing isn't really the most amazing moment in a woman's life--or at least, it's not as memorable as watching Barry O give a speech.



If it's wrong to amuse myself by imagining her disappointment next February when Obama doesn't pump her gas for her for free, I don't wanna be right.

(On the plus side, if I "go John Galt", I get free health insurance from you suckers still working. HEH!)

Beer...

Something to do to stave off post-election...whatever: I will be seeing the local documentary "99 bottles" at the Rosebud/Times Cinema next weekend. (While the name of the blog is the "Madison Beer Review" they seem to travel around the state.)

And I am shocked I was previously unaware of the Beer Mapping Project. I'm firing that one up the next time I go to München.

It's all over now!!

WASHINGTON, DC - In a shocking reversal, the Alien has switched his endorsement from Barack Obama to John McCain.

With major implications for the U.S. presidential election, political kingmaker the Alien has changed his endorsement amid furor. Both political camps are buzzing about the implications, as the Alien has correctly predicted the winning president in every election for the past 28 years.

Ongoing investigation points to Cindy McCain as being the cause for this historic shift in allegiances.

Uncovered photos suggest that in a last ditch effort to help her husband’s failing campaign, Cindy McCain seduced and then blackmailed the Alien for his endorsement.

...and you thought all she brought to the party was beer. Heh heh heh!!

Thank you, Cindy, I will sleep easier tonight.

In related news, foreign celebrities threaten to leave if Obama loses. Well, that completely changes who I plan to vote for next week. Or something. (HT Treacher, who is in Feuer.)

Nothing new under the sun, really

Obama's holding a rally in Iowa tomorrow. Algore held a rally> in Iowa the Friday before Election Day 2000, too. The snipers on the campanile as he told us to vote for him because he's smarter than any of us and knows how to run our lives better than anyone else were a nice touch, I thought. College students cheered his megalomania--YES!! Save us from having to make our own choices! And give us free stuff!!

Later that day I graded a paper that referred to the "fashion conches consumer" throughout--written by a native English speaker in her second year of kollij--and I wasn't allowed to mark down for "grammar", much less sheer bloody ignorance.

That's the day I realized Western Civilization is doomed.

When I was 16, I mostly wanted to go to the prom.

Or even have a conversation that wasn't about the homework for Mr. Upah's class with a boy who wasn't my cousin. Gotta dream big.

I'm not sure what's more touching, the mother of the bride wearing her bra outside of her dress, or the father of the bride leaving the designer tag on the outside of his suit, but I don't like these reminders that I'm old enough to be a grandmother. My native culture does have that in common with the Roma...

Metaphors

I saw this at the gym tonight--where I watched footage of a spider eating a mouse on the History Channel because it was less disgusting the masturbatory Obama informercial playing on the machines to either side of me--and I had a good much-needed laugh. I think it's the giant McCain head. Giant fake heads are funny.

A McCain win is almost going to be almost as good as Super Bowl XLII:

stunned and beaten and humbled in a way that defied explanation, bathing in a shower of red, white and blue confetti that was not, for once, meant for them.

Less glee, more relief, but satisfying.

Michael Ramirez deserves his Pulitzer.

And he should get another one for this:


(Anyone else miss Cox and Forkham?)

How can anyone write this without laughing their ass off!?!

"the nonpartisan group Hip-Hop Caucus" Yeah, right.

Apparently in Georgia convicted felons can vote before they finish serving their sentence, if they vote before they start serving their sentence.

Semi-related, Bono needs to get over himself.

Huh.

Now an Obama ad runs asking Americans simply to take the day off to help get out the Obama vote: apparently American businesses, universities, and the government all are supposed to sacrifice hundreds of millions of dollars in lost collective work days to subsidize the Obama campaign in order "to change history"?

You can probably hit seven, eight precincts if you get lunch to-go.

Obama oppresses poor and "urban" people

Gotta have photo ID to get into his $5M "victory party" in Grant Park. Self-styled "champion" of the the poor and "urban" doesn't seem to want them around.

(Harsh? "Poor and urban" are his own words..)

Damn shame Adolfe Hitler, Daffy Duck, and Doodad Pro can't attend the party after they donated all that money to his campaign. Although I suppose if they slip a couple more Benjamins into the right hands...

Well, this explains Hawkeye fans.

And Kos Kidz, gangsta rappers, NOW, etc:

From screaming baseball fans to political rally-goers, groups that engage in boastful self-aggrandizing may be trying to mask insecurity and low social status.

I fully expect someone to denounce the study as racist.

(They don't say what it means when you cry yourself to sleep wearing your Brewers pyjamas.)

Random observations

• The Christmas lights are up in Cathedral Square.
• There was a line to vote at the Ziedler Building when I walked by at six. Vote early, vote often.
  
• Apparently penalties can only be called on the Colts, no matter how many cheap shots the Titans take. I suppose this makes the Titans this year's F-Pats.

Bah.

Huh.

I read this whole article about middle-aged "feminists" (the original title, they took the f-word out) pining for their daddy's money, and not once do they note that the federal government will take 55% of it, unless Daddy dies in 2010. Huh.

This need for an inheritance to fund retirement could have been avoided, at least until last week. Huh.

This creeps me out.

American companies can't legally make candy or cereal commercials targeting kids, but Barack Obama's website not only targets 'em, they offer tips on how to brainwash other peoples' kids into manipulating their parents to vote for O (the link is to Dr. Slogan, who provides the links to the official website).

(I will say this for the Obama campaign: they got their money's worth on the logo design. The United States of Obama concept disgusts me, but it's easy to reproduce in just about any media--like children's clothes--and it's instantly recognizable. The star and "Country First" is classier but too subtle.)

Anyone crochet?

Candidate finger puppets.

I'm waiting for someone to point out that making an Obama finger puppet is somehow racist, but if you only make McCain, that's racist, too...

Meanwhile, dressing as Obama for Halloween is racist, as is not dressing up as Obama for Halloween.

Steyny stuff.

McCain vs Obama is not the choice many of us would have liked in an ideal world. But then it’s not an “ideal world”, and the belief that it can be made so is one of the things that separates those who think Obama will “heal the planet” and those of us who support McCain faute de mieux.

I'm not sure you can close that gap, actually.

"Scared for America"

Me too.

Some good news out of Ohio. Now, pull the rest of the obvious frauds...

What recession?

It was raining when I woke up, so I spent a boring day making various purchases I've been delaying because I hate shopping. I hate Brookfield, but the fabric store there has the biggest selection in the area...so off I went.

Did anyone out there NOT go shopping?? Rush-hour style traffic. Cars lined up to get in the mall, which was packed. Ugh. The parking lot of every restaurant was full. I stopped in the Linens-n-Things to see if I could score a good deal on sheets (the answer was no, only 10% off) and it was packed full of people with carts full of crap*. Then, I had to wait 45 minutes in the line at the cutting table--and they had five women cutting. Mostly Halloween costumes (good luck, ladies!) but a lot of $20/yd stuff for home dec projects...

(I am making a Spider-Man cape for my nephew's birthday. Yes, I know Spider-Man doesn't wear a cape. YOU tell a four-year-old he shouldn't want a Spider-Man cape...)

Oh yeah, the economy's shot and everyone's scared.

I need to replace my 19" tube TV or get a converter box, and I dread even going out looking. Maybe I can put it off until football next year...

(Then I read stuff like this, and...bah. I feel sorry for the 3-year-old, because her parents are jerks, but that's it. I'll give you $100 for the HDTV...)

* I'm not sure what's sadder, that someone manufactures a special bowl to put your garbage in, or that people buy them. How am I supposed to believe the government needs to pay for everybody's HIV tests and abortions and toenail fungus cream when they can afford to buy that sort of crap??

Cathouse

Er, Cat House.

They have a website.

I'm thinking of a career change.

Did someone say "voting irregularities"?

Democrats have already started throwing out the ballots of active-duty servicemen.

Can't imagine why.

Normally you don't want people with big guns to "get angry" or "feel disenfranchised because of voting irregularities", but they're thousands and thousands of miles away from the $2M "victory party" at Grant Park, what are they going to do about it?

Clothes.

I opined freely at Badger Blogger today about Sarah Palin's new clothes. Lisa Schiffren explains it more clearly than I can. That first weekend after her selection was announced the "women's media" and MSM plastic-faced women were making fun of her shoes and her earrings; it wasn't going to get any better if she didn't start dressing like the rich women who've spent their whole careers in Washington.

The RNC probably could have skipped the retail and went straight to designers and asked for freebies a la Clinton. But this is uncharted territory--no one has ever put a non-rich, non-career-Washington woman without an influential husband or father on the ticket before. They'll know better for 2012...

Meanwhile, no one will look in Michelle's closet to check the origin of any unreported gifts within. While we hiss at "crazy old cat lady" stereotypes here at Radishhof, we also enjoy the PUMA blogs' sense of humor:

...angry, America-hating sleeper sofa from your shutin[sic] Aunt Tilly’s house, the one with all the cats. The cat pee sofa.

That’s our Michelle!

Heh.

How stupid do they think we are??

Oh, come ON:

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations.

There's already suspicion of foul play! And no one with an IQ above room temperature believes those stupid college kids and others bussed into Ohio to vote illegally are casting a ballot for John McCain.

And this just pisses me off:

Shelton, of the NAACP, said he understands the need for police to maintain order. But he is also concerned that some political partisans may point their finger at black voters as potential troublemakers because the Democratic nominee is black.

Shelton said any racial or ethnic group would get angry if they felt disenfranchised because of voting irregularities.

Fair enough. Can non-blacks now be allowed to get angry about real documented "voting irregularities" without being accused of racism and hatred and suppression??

Oh, and in addition to the vote fraud, Barry's taking illegal money. If that bothers you, you're a racist. *insert Dr. Pepper jingle*

Washington Irving, call your office

Nothing in this photo shocks, offends, or surprises me; perhpas I've lived in Wisconsin too long.

Grazing toward the bright future of the motherland

Socialist realism is hot in art these days...

This is Antoinette, in Plymouth, just off SR 67.

It's all clear now...

Jim Treacher says Obama's "story hasn't changed; we're just too dumb to get it straight":

"Did Bill Ayers and I work in the same office for three years? Of course we did. I've never denied that. And yes, it was a very small office, which [grins] was not illegal the last time I checked. But his desk was facing in a completely different direction than mine, and I wasn't even born yet when that building was constructed. Also, there are lots of buildings in Chicago. Look, this is boring. Can I be president now?"

Oh. Totally understandable. Carry on. *snort*

Even Joe Biden knows we're doomed

by an O regime.

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

One key difference between JFK and BHO? JFK actually liked America. Incompetence is not the same as indifference.

...and only a moron would have admitted this before January.