Gobbaworms

(H.T. Fake photo from Tigerhawk.)

Conservatives Deny Using Steroids

Godwin again:

"Thus, we should not be surprised when liberals take things out out context and distort reality to fit their peceptions. For them to say “the war on terror causes terrorists” is simply a cherished assumption dressed up as a conclusion. If you give it a moment’s thought, their whole world view is just so stupid. Would they ever report that terrorists are the cause of the American military that liberals so despise, and that if terrorists would only appease us, our military would stop trying to harm them? Or that Islamo-nazis have to stop their unwinnable war on the west, because it will only create more George Bushes and Tony Blairs and John Howards?"

"Or that they themselves must stop mindlessly attacking conservatives, because it will just make us stronger?"

Gagdad has a point- I've found that the more I pick on Grandpa John, the more Grandpa Johnier he gets!

Dhimmitude

Steve, didn't you use that word once? As in "you can tell from the sun's early dhimmitude that Fall is on the way?"

Dhimmitude for Dummies by Victor Sharpe:

"But what of the peoples and nations that fell under Islamic occupation? For them the story was one of forced conversions to Islam, slavery, death and the Islamic institution of dhimmitude.

This is the word that describes the parlous state of those who refused to convert to Islam and became the subjugated, non-Muslims who were forced to accept a restrictive and humiliating subordination to a superior Islamic power and live as second class citizens in order to avoid enslavement or death. These peoples and populations were known as dhimmis, and if such a status was not humiliating enough, a special tax or tribute, called the jizya, was imposed upon them and upon all dhimmis."

But, Did He Call the Shot?

AP sportswriter, David Ginsburg relates this baseball oddity from a recent Twins/Orioles game:

"BALTIMORE (AP) -- The odds of such an occurrence seem insurmountable, yet Jay Gibbons pulled off the unimaginable feat: He hit a foul ball that injured his wife."

"The scene occurred in the ninth inning of the Baltimore Orioles' game against Minnesota on Saturday. Gibbons fouled a ball straight back over the screen and into the rib cage of his wife, Laura."

""She's just a little bruised up. She's going to be OK," Gibbons said Sunday."

There are some witnesses that claim that just before Gibbons stepped into the batter's box, he pointed his bat directly at his wife.

Seeking Man Law Clarification

During Mike Wallace's interview with former President William Jefferson Clinton, did President Clinton display the symptoms of menopause or those of PMS?

Since Rosie O'Donnell equates radical Islam with radical Christianity, would she prefer an unanesthetized clitorectomy over listening to one of my sermons?

Is Rosie O'Donnell Ronald McDonald in drag or the Taco Bell Chihuahua bitch? She is definitely on the extra value menu 'cause 'She's full!'

Is protruding nose hair classified as part of one's mustache and ear hair as part of one's sideburns?

The developing Packers won their first game of the season on Sunday. Their two losses were to teams that remain undefeated. Will Favre pass Marino in career touchdown passes by the end of this season? Do I smell playoffs... & Super Bowl?

Inquiring minds gots to know!

Style and Substance

Gagdad Bob sure has a way of expressing his opinion without ambiguity or wasting words:

"One is struck (ouch!) at how absent this gladitude is in the two grim angriologies of our day, Islamism and leftism. Strangely, Ahmadinejad is always smiling, and yet his only humor is quite tensional and headache inducing. And the Tourette’s left of dailykuss and huffingandpissed is an unrelieved stream of anger and unfactive."

"Here again, this is another reason why gliberal talk radio will always suckceedngly, because the left can never make fun of so much that is eminently jokeworthy--for excremplement, Ahamdinejad and Chavez, Howard Dean and Jesse Jackson, the hordes of feminist shemales and their feminized femaniacal consorts such as Johns Kerry and Edwards. The left’s laughty loondry list of sacred cowpies is so long and malodorous, that any humor that doesn’t involve hating President Bush is bound to offend one of their conflatulencies, so in a mallard of time it gets terdious very quackily, not to mention blasfumy."

Heh! To that I have nothing to odd.

Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

Jeepers!

KENOSHA, Wis. - A 10-year-old boy lit a powerful firecracker in his bedroom Thursday and was trying to extinguish it in a bathroom sink when it went off, severely injuring one of his hands, authorities said.

Kenny Rua was reported in fair condition Thursday night at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, said spokeswoman Melissa Douglas.

According to police and fire reports, the boy lost most of the fingers on his left hand in the blast that destroyed the porcelain sink and much of the rest of the bathroom.

Guy Santelli, an investigator for the Fire Department's Fire Prevention Bureau, said damage had been estimated at about $5,000.

"The bathroom was blown apart pretty well," Santelli said.

According to police and fire officials, a relative gave the boy three M-100 firecrackers several months ago, and he took one of them from a dresser drawer and lit it about 7 a.m. Thursday.

Uhh... Lance, M.J., uhhh... would you please ask Mitchell to give me that little bag back that I gave him last 4th of July at Uncle Jerry's?

I'm Offended!

How on earth can we allow some small-minded knucklehead be invited here and preach religion in this secular planet? Doesn't the U.N. separate church and one-world state?

I'm working with my E.C.L.U. lawyers to litigate against Chavez. I am hoping to get control of Venezuela's oil fields as compensation for the emotional distress that Hugo's comments have inflicted upon me.

My detractors have already leveled the charge of 'suit for oil' against me. But, in truth, the damage to my psyche may be irreparable and Chavez must be punished. Hey, if I own the oilfields, I, will give cut-rate cooking fuel prices for the poor majority in Venezuela and make sure that every Venezuelan has a wok.

Surely, you can now see that I act only for social justice for all of mankind and not out of selfish ambition.

We haven't been doing much blogging lately...

...but as luck would have it, it usually takes at least three readings to understand anything Grandpa Steve writes. So nobody's bored.

Nucular...I mean, nuculer...I mean...ah, to heck with it.

Found this amusing anecdote in today's Best of the Web - columnist Michael Medved met with President Bush, and wrote of the meeting:

And one more thing: twice during his meandering conversation, the President deployed the word 'nuclear.' Both times, he pronounced it flawlessly --- as 'new- clee-ar,' not 'nuke-cule-ar.' Considering the huge press attention on the mis-pronounciation of this single word, nothing shocked me more about meeting the president than hearing him, in private conservation, avoid a mistake for which he's become celebrated in public.

I think I'd have been quite disappointed by that. I'd also want to steer the conversation around to the word "strategic," to see if he'd say "strategery."

Come on, Mr. President, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease say strategery?

Todd: His Day of Infamy

Todd, our fellow Grandpa John contributor who posts about as often as Herb Kohl does anything of significance, has recently struck blogger's gold in them thar hills!

Todd said...

Wow, did somebody pee in Ann's cheerios today?
I think you're overthinking this. Still, chuckleworthy.
1:00 PM, September 15, 2006

Ann Althouse said...

Todd's making a play for a line in my banner.
1:02 PM, September 15, 2006

Interestingly, 'them thar hills' just happen to be the accentuated Grand Tetons featured in a photograph with Bill Clinton.

Todd is showing signs and symptoms of some 'perv' tendencies. Grandpa John and Lance will need to prepare for an intervention pretty soon.

Mueller Time

Yahoo News:

BMW to roll out hydrogen-powered 7 Series

Tue Sep 12, 6:33 AM ET

BMW will roll out the world's first hydrogen-burning car in serial production early next year, the German premium automaker said on Tuesday, eager to put its stamp on cars with green credentials.

The specially equipped 7-Series executive cars emit only water vapor when running on hydrogen.

The car hits the market next April and will be shown at the Los Angeles car show in November, the company said. It had said in March the hydrogen cars would arrive within two years.

A spokesman said the car would be leased to selected customers rather than sold because of its high price. Leasing rates would be similar to those for a top-end BMW 760LI with a full-service package.

The BMW 7 Series Hydrogen 7 Saloon is powered by a 260 hp twelve-cylinder engine and accelerates from 0-100 km/h (62 mph) in 9.5 seconds. Top speed is limited electronically to 230 km/h.

BMW has said it intends to build a few hundred such cars at first. They will be able to switch between burning standard petrol and hydrogen so that drivers will not be left stranded while the infrastructure to deliver hydrogen is built up.

"The integration of hydrogen drive in an existing vehicle concept which has already proven its merits in the market paves the way for an alternative to conventional drive concepts fully accepted in the market and with all the assets the customer is looking for in practice," BMW said.

The space that two fuel tanks take up means only the 7-Series will offer the hydrogen package at first. BMW's long-term goal is to offer hydrogen motors in all its cars.

BMW unveiled the world's fastest hydrogen-powered car at the 2004 Paris auto show. Dubbed the H2R, it can exceed 300 kilometers (185 miles) per hour and reaches 100 km per hour from a standing start in around six seconds.

While BMW is developing fuel-cell driven cars as well, it says it is concentrating on the combustion engine because the sum total of its features and characteristics offers the largest number of advantages and benefits all in one.

I am not entirely confident in the Germans' skill with hydrogen.

Miller Time

(H.T. Wicked Thoughts.)

Who's the biggest nerd in the Cheddarsphere?

James Wigderson makes his case for the title, with a post you absolutely must read.

Listen to the Poet

We have been exhorted by some wise man to 'listen to the poet'. I expect that his intent was to encourage people to leap onto a higher plane of existence and meaning. Man as simply a complex bag of atoms and their inter-reactions surely loses inspiration after a time.

I flashed back to my formative teenage years and realized that I daily 'listened to the poet'. However, I really didn't pay too much attention to what the poets of my generation were saying. I preferred groovin' to the percussion and heady bass lines while tokin' on a fat doobie.

Recently, I have been tuning to an area radio station that plays many of the poetic songs that kept me so hip back in the day. I have taken the time and effort to listen to the specific poetic lyrics that plumbed the depths of humanity. And... Holy caa-rapppp! No wonder our parents thought we were idiots... we were! What the hell were we thinking?

However, I did recall some poetry put to music upon which to hang my hat of humanity and not be embarrassed:

"Koomalotta, koomalotta beefsteak!"

"No, no, no, no not the beefsteak!"

"Hexameenie, Zolomeenie, ooo-walla-wallameenie,"

"Hexameenie, Zolomeenie, ooo-walla-wall."

"Bee-billie oten-doten, beau-beau bedeeten-dotten, beau-beau bedeeten-dotten..."

"Schwattish!"

Heavy!! And therein lies the reason to hope... the key to life.

Such poetic inspiration is not limited to my generation. I can even remember poetry that gave Mom a reason to live. (The Lord knows that none of us kids did!)

"Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."

"A kid'll eat ivy, too, wouldn't you?"

Gentle readers, I just can't wait for that 5:00 AM alarm to ring!

Grandbaby Pic

Here's a picture of Morgan shortly after her first birthday:



Morgan doesn't have a job or education. She is of very expensive upkeep, and virtually useless around the home. She is incontinent of bowel and bladder and unable to care for herself. For the next 17 or so years she will be a tremendous drain on family and societal economics. Still, somehow, I hope she is past the limitations of abortion's reach. If so, I wonder at what point after conception this became the case and who was wise enough to determine and to assign that point.

What a great line!

Instapundit, in a post about that pre-9/11 docudrama that the cooler kids didn't see because there was football on:

"Yes, the Democrats have shown their usual instinct for the capillary."

Heh. I say again: heh.

A Flurry of Activity

Whew! Things are slowing down abit here.

I had just been seated for lunch one day awaiting the results of a potential indictment by the Grand Jury. As I was sipping my coffee and drooling over my sandwich, my lawyer entered and proclaimed that the indictment failed. Immediately afterward, however, two police officers barged in, handcuffed my ham sandwich, and frog-marched it down to the city lockup.

Two days later, Fernando, my lawyer in Texas called and stated that the Texas effort to extradite me for offenses long ago and far away also failed. Fernando's English isn't too good and neither is my Spanish, but he did say that it failed because of 'The Statue of Libertations', or some such technicality. I also heard that Fernando was being deported-- to California.

As of late, I have become very familiar with Janesville's city dump. (There were rumors that I had been hiding out there, but that is only partly true.) Since I hadn't been there this week, the dump manager called to see if I was alright.

Sometime back in the '50's, Linda's parents bought a used freezer and had it situated in our basement. It was a monster. Linda's mom said that it took nine men to get it down there. Armed only with a Saws-All, a sledge hammer, and a little dynamite, I finally completed the extraction in two short days. The other upright freezer and the dying dryer were breezy by comparison. These were just the larger items in a purge of 50 years of accumulation.

In order to complete my assigned mission, it was necessary to buy a truck and this is what I ended up with:



I never expected to buy something new, but the dealer incentives to clear out the 2006 models were very good.

The Burri Philosophy of Food

Click the picture for a bigger version.

Did we spend tax money on this?

Please tell me we didn't.

Study: Kids Don't Want Veggies, Fruits At School

Students Less Likely To Eat Veggies When They're Free

ATLANTA -- A new government study about young children and vegetables backs up previous research and what most parents know: Vegetables can't compete with other snacks.

The study, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed fifth-graders became less willing to try vegetables and fruits when more were offered as free school snacks. Older kids in the same study upped the amount of fruit they ate, but there was no change in their vegetable consumption.

The study results are somewhat disappointing for champions of getting more fresh produce into school lunchrooms.

The study is one of the first to measure the success of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, a federal initiative providing grants to schools to help them buy more produce and improve the eating habits of U.S. children.

Okay, I guess they're testing the efficacy of a government program. That's good. Still. Next time, just ask me. I could have told you what you'd find, and I'd have done it for...oh, let's say half the cost.