Why Isn't This on Our Ballots?

AP:

[...]The Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put it on the March ballot.

It reads: “Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?”[...]

The Brattleboro Police vs. The Secret Service. It's a civil war. We must get out of Vermont now! No Blood for Maple Syrup!

Where Have You Gone, Duke?

Australian Brendan O'Neill claims in 'Aussie Blokes Make Much Better American Symbols':

[...]Never mind the trade deficit, or even Barack Obama's "moral deficit"; Hollywood is suffering from a macho deficit, and it's having to turn to what many still perceive as a land of beer-swilling, sheep-shearing men in denim to find its cowboys and cads.

When Hollywood first flirted with all things Aussie in the 1980s, it was a bit of a po-mo joke. "Look at Crocodile Dundee with his big shiny knife and taste for lager, how quaint!" laughed cinema audiences. It's no joke today. At a time when American stars have been feminised, preened and plucked, it's Australia that is providing the muscle for the grittier acting jobs.

In recent years, the impressively brooding Ledger had joined Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Eric Bana as a real bloke who could play gruff cowboys, lascivious bastards or any other role that required the leading man to have hair on his chest.[...]

It seems even women from Australia are better than American men at playing American heroes.[...]

OTOH, our men are in the military or working in productive jobs. And our President doesn't mine and dine on earwax for YouTube videos!

Would you like boogers with that? Super-sized?

(H.T. Wicked Thoughts.)

Sarkozy

Peter Hannaford writes in The American Spectator:

He's dashing, he's determined and he's moving like a dervish to get France off its duff and become the leading country in Europe. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who charmed the socks off a joint session of the U.S. Congress not so long ago, recognizes that France must be more than wine, food and fashion. So, he has become the world's foremost salesman of nuclear energy.[...]

Nuclear power generation was decided on some years ago by the French as the cleanest, most efficient way to provide electricity. Today, some 80 percent of the country's electric power comes from a sophisticated network of nuclear power plants.

France has become a world leader in nuclear reactors, the design, construction and operation of power plants, and the treatment of waste. In France, all the suppliers in this chain of activities are owned by the state. France's Atomic Energy Commission can help a client country set up the necessary regulatory framework. Areva constructs reactors and transmission networks. Alstom, the French engineering company, is a supplier of nuclear steam turbine generators. Electricite de France, which operates 58 nuclear power stations in France, can train the client country personnel in operations.

Progressive response: Dependence on foreign oil-bad. Drilling in ANWAR or off our own coasts-bad. Nuclear power-bad. Using agricultural land to raise food for burning-good.

We need to encourage Congress to enact laws and fund research to develop genetically superior hamsters trained to turn wheels that power generators for electricity to enlighten our nation with CFL's and power sub-Yugo cardboard automobiles.

And sick, lame, lazy, and aged hamsters make a great stew.

Descriptive Language

Love it! Dennis Campbell:

I would rather sandpaper a bobcat’s butt in a phone booth than...

I could be wrong, but I think he is describing something he doesn't like.

A Mature Viewpoint

Mrs. Hughes:

Gift Idea for Grandpa John's
Next Christmas...
Er... Holidays

This here thingamajig:




Before I give it to him, I will cover it in tin foil.

The Mother of All Nightmares

Last night I had a nightmare. A really bad one. It was a terrible nightmare, the most horrible one I could imagine. In the nightmare I found myself nude in bed, and I was looking at a mirror on the ceiling and discovered that I am a Negro, and I'm circumcised. Quickly I jumped up, found my pants and looked in the pockets to find my driver license photo and it was that same color. Black. No, no, God no, it can't be. I felt myself being very depressed, downcast, sitting in a chair. But it was a wheelchair.

That means, of course, besides being black and Jewish, I'm also disabled. I said aloud to myself "This is impossible. It's impossible that I should be black, Jewish and disabled." "It's the pure and holy truth" whispers someone from behind me. I turn around, and it's my boyfriend. Just what I needed. I am a homosexual and on top of that with a Mexican boyfriend.
Oh, my God. Black, Jewish, disabled, gay, with a Mexican boyfriend, drug addict and HIV positive.

Desperate, I begin to shout, cry, pull my hair, and oh, noooooo. I'm bald. The telephone rings. It's my brother. He is saying "Since mom and dad died the only thing you do is hang out, take drugs and laze around all day doing nothing. Get a job you worthless piece of garbage. Any job." Mom? Dad? Nooooooooo. Now I'm also an unemployed orphan.

I try to explain to my brother how hard it is to find a job when you are black, Jewish, disabled, gay with a Mexican boyfriend, are a drug addict, HIV positive, bald and an orphan. But he doesn't get it. Frustrated, I hang up. It's then I realize I only have one hand. With tears in my eyes I go to the window to look out. I see I live in a shanty town full of cardboard and tin houses. There is trash everywhere.

Suddenly I feel a sharp pain near my pacemaker. Pacemaker? Besides being black, Jewish, disabled, a fairy with a Mexican boyfriend, a drug addict, HIV positive, bald, orphaned, unemployed, an invalid and having a bad heart, I live in a junky neighborhood.

At that very moment my boyfriend approaches and says "Sweetiepie, my love, my little black heartthrob, have you decided who are you going to vote for next November? Hillary or Obama?"

Oh, no! Say it isn't so. I can handle being a black disabled one armed drug addicted Jewish queer on a Pacemaker who is HIV positive, bald, orphaned, unemployed, lives in a slum and has a Mexican boyfriend, but please don't tell me I'm a Democrat!!!

(Stolen verbatim from Wicked Thoughts.)

Confession is Good for the Soul

Now that the MSM buzz over Michael Vick has taken to the back burner and that the statute of limitations has finally expired, I would like to take this time to confess some transgressions of my former life.

Many years ago while living down south, I made a living by training a pride of cats for catfighting and gambling on the matches. It was a big draw in that neck of the swampy woods. It was a cultural thing.

The following pictures show the training of two of my biggest moneymakers:

Killer Kittyanna learns to take pouncing instruction from her corner man:


Ferocious Furball pounces at his opponent's weakness:


Ranked numbers one and two on the World Professional Catfighting Circuit, Ferocious Furball and Killer Kittyanna are matched to the death:


The match ends in a draw. Even the Sunday crossword tie-breaker couldn't break the deadlock.

Frank Sinatra: The First Hippie

In his book, Thing Worth Fighting For, the late Michael Kelly makes some interesting observations:

... No, if you want to finger any one person, place, or thing for what went wrong with America, you need look no further than that accidental one man validation of the great-man theory of history, Francis Albert Sinatra, 1915-98. Yes-The Voice, the Chairman of the Board, Old Blue Eyes, the leader of the (rat) pack, the swinger in chief-he's the culprit. It's all Frankie's fault.

American popular culture-which is more and more the only culture America has, which is more and more the only culture everyone else in the world has (we live, as the gormless Al Gore keeps chirpily and horrifyingly reminding us, in a global village)-may be divided into two absolutely distinct ages: Before Frank and After Frank...

And what Frank Sinatra projected was: cool. And here is where the damage was done. Frank invented cool, and everyone followed Frank, and everything has been going to hell ever since.

In America, B.F., there was no cool. There was smart (as in the smart set), and urbane, and sophisticated, and fast and hip; but these things were not the same as cool. The pre-Frank hip guy, the model of aesthetic and moral superiority to which men aspired, is the American male of the 1930s and 1940s. He is Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep or Casablanca or Archie Goodwin in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels. He possesses an outward cynicism, but this is understood to be merely clothing; at his core, he is a square. He fights a lot, generally on the side of the underdog. He is willing to die for his beliefs, and his beliefs are, although he takes pains to hide it, old-fashioned. He believes in truth, justice, the American way, and love. He is on the side of the law, except when the law is crooked. He is not taken in by jingoism but he is himself a patriot; when there is a war, he goes to it. He is, after his fashion, a gentleman and, in a quite modern manner, a sexual egalitarian. He is forthright, contemptuous of dishonesty in all its forms, from posing to lying. He confronts his enemies openly and fairly, even if he might lose. He is honorable and virtuous, although he is properly suspicious of men who talk about honor and virtue. He may be world-weary, but he is not ironic.

The new cool man that Sinatra defined was a very different creature. Cool said the old values were for suckers. Cool was looking out for number one always. Cool didn't get mad; it got even. Cool didn't go to war: Saps went to war, and anyway, cool had no beliefs it was willing to die for. Cool never, ever, got in a fight it might lose; cool had friends who could take care of that sort of thing. Cool was a cad and boastful about it; in cool's philosophy, the lady was always a tramp, and to be treated accordingly. Cool was not on the side of the law; cool made its own laws. Cool was not knowing but still essentially idealistic; cool was nihilistic. Cool was not virtuous; it reveled in vice. Before cool, being good was still hip; after cool, only being bad was.

Quite a legacy. On the other hand, he sure could sing.1

And all along I had thought that it was the deep thinking hippies of the 60's that introduced the scorn for all things bourgeois. Far out, Maaan!

(H.T. Ed Driscoll.)

Unfortunate Mix Up

My wife, Linda, who does home visits as a registered nurse, went shopping yesterday after a long, hard day of tending to patients in the county. As she reached into her purse to get a pen to sign the credit card receipt, she pulled out a rectal thermometer instead. She looked up at the flabbergasted clerk and said, "Dang, some a**hole has my pen!"

Proud to Be a Cheesehead

On this day in Wisconsin history:

On This Day: January 19

1939 - Chicken Plucking World Record
On January 19, 1939 Ernest Hausen (1877 - 1955) of Ft. Atkinson set the world's record for chicken plucking. [Source: Guiness Book of World's Records, 1992]1

Four point four seconds... chicken in the buff!2

Paris Hilton can't even undress that fast.

Colonel Sanders, eat your heart out!

Must have been an otherwise slow day.

This bodes well for the Packers on Sunday.

Jib, I hope you live blogged the Ernest Hausen Day Festival in Fort Atkinson.

Stumper Bicker

(H.T. Dissecting Leftism.)

Sweet Home Obama

It would appear that Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama not only has the Nevada Culinary Workers Union in his pocket, but also has the Department of Transportation workers on his side as well:




(H.T. Don Surber via J.D. Pendry.)

Polite Conversation Increases List
of Taboo Subjects

Cinnamon Stillwell:

Weather used to be the only safe subject for those trying artfully to avoid the twin topics of discord: religion and politics. But, these days, merely remarking that "it's a nice day" or "stormy weather we've been having lately, eh?" is enough to elicit a tidal wave of doom and gloom. And it matters not whether it's hot or cold outside. All variations in temperature, I'm told by these self-described experts, stem from "global warming."

Another good line:

It tends to be assumed that all health food store shoppers are lefty wingnuts, but a few of us are ex-lefty wingnuts turned conservatives who simply like a little wheatgrass juice with our warmongering.

I assume that Stillwell had hippie parents that named her Cinnamon. So I wonder what her middle name might be... Moonbeam? Cinnamon Moonbeam has an awfully nice ring to it.

I hope Dr. Doom isn't reading this.

Top Ten Ways to Destroy the Earth

Well that was lucky

Scientists: Earth Barely Supports Life

AUSTIN, Texas—If Earth had been slightly smaller and less massive, life might never have gained a foothold.

They key to life on Earth as we know it, scientists figure, is plate tectonics — the forces that move continents and build mountains. And the more massive a world is, the thinner its plates are...

"Plate tectonics are essential to life as we know it," said Diana Valencia of Harvard University... "Our calculations show that bigger is better when it comes to the habitability of rocky planets."

The study reveals Earth has been on the edge of habitability from the beginning, and just eked by to allow life-friendly conditions.

They say "super-Earths" up to ten times Earth's mass could be life-supporting. Bigger than that, and they become gas giants.

Man sends bloody cow's head to wife's lover

How can this story get published with no pictures?

A Westmoreland County man who mailed a bloody cow's head to his wife's lover has been admitted to probation and community service.

Jason Michael Fife..."did step over the line here, but one can certainly understand his frustration, given that the victim was carrying on an affair with my client's wife," Mr. Hilles said.

...The victim received a package containing a cow's head with a puncture wound in its skull on June 1, 2006.

Police said Mr. Fife obtained the cow's head from a butcher's shop, claiming he wanted the dried skull for decoration. Instead, he mailed the head frozen, so as not to alert parcel carriers to the contents, police said. The box became bloody after sitting on the victim's doorstep on a warm day.

Here's the best part:

Mr. Fife and his wife, who have a young child, later reconciled, Mr. Hilles said.

She just didn't realize he cared that much.

Democrat Candidates Promise Change

Change... Now there's a campaign promise that you can sink your teeth into. Hillary has been fighting for change for 35 years. God only knows what hell fire and brimstone we would be experiencing without her altruism. Obama has proven his drive for change. His seat in the Senate isn't even warm yet and he is prepared to change to another seat. John Edwards' self-sacrificial nature would cause him to switch barbers. Dennis Kucinch has changed home planets. Mike Gravel is expected to finally change BVD's.

It is very difficult to decide among all these varied, but effective agents of change. There is one element of change that they all have in common, however. Each of these Democrats promise to take each of your hard-earned dollars and give you 13 cents change.

So when someone wishes to voice his opinion using the phrase 'I'll put my 2 cents in,' you can be sure, with Democrats in office, that that is all he'll be getting back. That's the change they're talking about, they will reform your dollars into nickels.

I usually like George Will...

...even though he seems to work his thesaurus a little too hard, usually. But this lead was completely unsatisfying:

Like Job after losing his camels and acquiring boils, the conservative movement is in distress.

Pretentious in at least two ways, and inaccurate, too.

Gingerism

Lance, do not... I repeat... do NOT read this.

New Poll Numbers

After the recent candidate debates in New Hampshire, there was a surprising new movement in the Democrat poll numbers. One candidate that was not even allowed to participate in the debate rose up the ladder to become a possible frontrunner among the Progressives. It would seem that Liberal voters are more interested in action than mere words after all.

Wisn.com:

WILSON, Wis. -- A Sheboygan County man has been charged with stealing from a 2-year-old.

Investigators said he broke into the girl's town of Wilson home.

"When I came into my daughter's bedroom, there was a man standing by her dresser shaking money out of a piggy bank," Julie Herschleb said.

Ryan Mueller of Sheboygan County, whose actual political party is undisclosed, has astronomically risen in popularity in Democrat polling numbers.

"Mr. Mueller is the epitome of Progressive principles for this election. He represents the courageous individual that will stand up to the rich and their oppressive corporations and will act, not just talk, to defend the poor, downtrodden American," beamed one supporter.

So we're watching Spiderman 3...

...and I'm a little concerned that it's giving kids an unrealistic expectation of what will happen if they're ever caught in a nuclear particle physics experiment.

On This Day in Wisconsin History

On This Day: January 3

1918 - Jeane Dixon Born
On this date renowned astrologer and psychic Jeane Dixon was born in Medford. Dixon gave advice to President Reagan and his wife Nancy as well as predicted the death of John Kennedy in office. She wrote several books and authored a daily horoscope column. [Source: Oddball Wisconsin by Jerome Pohlen, p. 17]

She predicted her own birth, too. She also claimed that Tombstone Pizza would put Medford on the map.

1942 - Parker Pen Participates in War Effort
On this date Parker Pen in Janesville was awarded a contract for 35 million parts for anti-aircraft shell fuses. The contract was a subcontract from Borg Corporation in Delavan. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

The pen is mightier than the sword.

1950 - Conversion to Natural Gas Stinks
On this date Wisconsin Power & Light customers in Edgerton, Milton and Milton Junction were converted from manufactured gas to natural gas for heating and cooking. The conversion coincided with an ongoing change in Janesville and Beloit. The conversions were not without temporary drawbacks. The stench of skunk oil was added to the otherwise odorless natural gas so utility workers could more easily detect leaks. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

And today, back in the Milton Holler, they gots a big ol' still and are cookin' moonshined corn squeezins.

1956 - Jail Break in Racine
On this date the Racine County Jail experienced its first jail break. The jail, located on the ninth floor of the County Courthouse, was considered inescapable up until this point. [Source: Racine History Timeline]

I used to work in that building in the juvenile pokey on the 10th floor. On a clear day we could sneak up on the roof and see the Sears tower. One of our inmates was in holding for suspicion of murder. His boot print was found on the victims face in blood. He later fled and was believed to be hiding in Mexico.

A football tidbit...

...from TMQ:

the NFL's passing yardage leader has never gone on to win the Super Bowl in the same season. For XLII consecutive years, the passing yardage leader has not been the quarterback to hoist the trophy as the Super Bowl concludes. Never.

This year's passing yardage leader is...as if you haven't guessed. It's New England's Tom Brady, who finished with 4,806 passing yards.

So, sorry all you Patsy fans. I know you were looking forward to 19-0.

Of course, that sounds like one of those streaks that means something until it doesn't, like the incumbent party always winning the White House if the Redskins win their last home game before the election. That one went down in 2004.

But, well, some of us are grasping at straws out here.

So I went for a walk at lunchtime today...

It was about 14 degrees outside. Something like that. By the time I got back, my face felt like rubber. My skin was so cold I could barely form words.

Moreso than usual, even. Beat you to it, Steve.

That got me to thinking: when it's really cold out for a football game, that must happen to the coach and quarterback, too. Do they take that into account when choosing terminology?

I mean, when they call plays, especially at the pro level, it takes a few seconds. It's like a dozen-word process. "Seventy-two split draw fake left fourteen option spaceship Marsha claw." Stuff like that.

I just wonder: do they choose words that will be easy to pronounce - and understand - after you've spent three hours out in single-digit temperatures?