Red Sox Firing on All Cylinders

I like what I see: 1st in the AL east, a 13 game winning streak - longest in 11 years, 16 games without an error, by far the fewest errors in MLB, good hitting, good pitching, good bullpen, excellent defense and they're beating some good teams handily. John Lester is 3 -0, Curt Schilling is tied for the most wins in the AL, Josh Beckett also has 10 wins and is all we hoped he would be and Jonathan Papelbon has 23 saves and a .460 ERA. Oh yeah, Big Pappi has had two walk off hits and Coco Crisp makes plays that Damon could only dream of.

The SCOTUS Hamdan Decision

We deserve what we get at this point, since we insist on treating terrorist as soldiers and the "War on Terror" as a law enforcement problem. For the record I am all for treating every human being with compassion and dignity, but while American citizens are being killed our courts and our congress extend every legal courtesy to our adversaries. Wake the hell up. Mark Levin, is much more up on this stuff than I am and he has written a great critique, here's the gist, but do read the whole thing:

Let's look at the relevant Geneva Convention. First point - since when does a party that has NOT signed a treaty, and does not comply with a treaty, become a part of such a treaty? The Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of prisoners of war provides, at Article 4, that —
"A. Prisoners of war ... are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
"1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
"2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
"(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) That of carrying arms openly; (d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

Shame

23 year old Webster Smith, the first cadet to be court martialed in the history of The US Coast Guard Academy was sentenced to six months in the brig and expelled from the Coast Guard for sexually assaulting a female cadet last year and other violations of the UCMJ.
To get in the USCGA you have to be a pretty sharp kid, so I feel kind of bad to see this young man screw his life up so thoroughly, and then I read this quote:

"I am ashamed to have been the first cadet to be court martialed, but I am proud to have fought for my career and my future".

Webster you have nothing to be proud of, just shut up and go away and pray that somehow you can overcome this screw up before you die.

Gammons Stricken

Baseball analyst Peter Gammons suffered a brain aneurysm this morning. He's expected to be in intensive care for the 10 to 12 days after undergoing surgery. Gammon's seems to be a great guy and is one hell of a writer and Red Sox fan. Let's all hope that he recovers fully.

Eddie AKA Moose Has Died

Moose the lovable Jack Russell Terrier who played Eddie on Frasier has gone to the great suede sofa in the sky.

Keep A Stiff Upper Lip Rush

I am not a huge fan of a Rush Limbaugh. I think he's more of an entertainer than a serious conservative pundit and somewhat of a blowhard. Today he was busted at Palm Beach International Airport for having a bottle of Viagra without his name on it. As you may remember Rush has a problem with abusing prescription pain medicine, as a part of his plea bargain for shopping for prescription pain medicine, he was supposed to keep out of trouble for 18 months. This peccadillo may put the kibosh on that deal.
Far be it from me to defend the affluent and powerful, but please. Rush had boner pills prescribed to him by his doctor, but in his doctor's name for privacy sake. If this is a not an ideological prosecution, I don't know what is. Who is hurt by this? Other than the whole world imagining the Rush Man doing the wild thing, or in his case just "the thing".

"Goblin" Thwarted?

I have a friend, who shall remain anonymous, who had an interesting altercation with some big homeless guy on the street and a firearm.
It happened around 11:30 p.m. when he went to his local car wash to wash his car. The neighborhood is urban but far from decrepit, although it’s not very far from some pretty tough parts of town. As he was pouring quarters into the car wash with his back to the street, he sees out of the corner of his eye this homeless looking guy coming toward him. The guy is pretty big well over 6 feet and he’s trying to get his homeless looking girlfriend’s attention without making his presence know to my friend. The big homeless guy was signaling to this girl by jerking his head towards my friend and his unlocked, running car. My friend goes to the front of the car, and makes eye contact with man, just to see what his intentions might be. The big homeless dude keeps walking toward him and is about 30 feet away at this point. My friend asks if he can help the guy by saying, " Can I help you?" The guy doesn’t answer and keeps on the beeline towards him. The guy is wearing a baggy coat as people who live outdoors are want to do, even though it is very warm and very humid, and has his hands in his coat pockets. My friend is concerned at this point for three reasons: first the guy tried to approach him on the stealth, second he has not responded to my friend’s question and finally he has his hands in his pockets. My friend is wearing sneakers with no socks, swim trunks, T-shirt and a Sig Sauer P220 in a FOBUS tactical holster tucked into his shorts. Again he challenges the guy by saying "Don’t come any closer, keep your hands where I can see them." At this point the guy is less than 17 feet away and still coming, my friend lifts his shirt and puts his right hand on the handle of his .45 and holds his left hand up, palm out in case the guy is deaf. The homeless guy stops. He takes his hands out of his pockets and stammers to my friend " Could you tell me how to get to______." Basically, he asks using the local terminology how to get to the next street over. My friend says, "Sure walk to the end of the block take a right and it’s the next street over, you can’t miss it." The homeless looking guy says "Thank you officer, sorry I bothered you" and quickly takes off. Curious to see if the guy really needed directions, my friend waited a couple of minutes and then followed the route he gave the man. The man and his girlfriend were no where to be seen.
My friend is not a cop, but he is licensed to carry firearms, although he rarely does so. He’s never pulled his pistol on anyone before nor does he ever hope to. I asked him if he has any doubts about his actions and he said no. About three months later he saw on the local TV station a story about a man who looked a lot like his interloper arrested for car jacking people in three different towns, including his.
My friend is a law abiding, boring, do your taxes early type. Did he defend his property and perhaps his life with the threat of deadly force or did he needlessly scare off a lost homeless man? What would you have done in the same situation?

Dumbass

Don Goldwater, nephew of conservative icon Senator Barry Goldwater has called for the creation of forced labor camps to inter illegal aliens, I guess under that old rubric that "Arbeit Macht Frei". Newsflash Goldy, if the idea of "concentrating" illegals or creating forced labor camps comes easily to mind, you are not fit to hold any sort of office. In fact you should be banned from polite society by being forced to wear plastic jackass ears on your pointy, malicious head for the rest of your miserable life.

Harriet Dies

Sad news, Harriet perhaps the worlds oldest living animal, has died. The story is that she was one of three tortoises brought back from the Galapagos by Charles Darwin on the Beagle, although this story appears unlikely. Can you imagine all the changes this creature has lived through in the past 176 years? I wonder what she would say? Probably something about the quality of the tortoise chow over the years

The U.N. Wants Your Guns

I have mocked many a fevered left wing nut job for believing anything as long as it conforms to their world view. Now comes this story that the U.N. plans to take our guns on July 4th. This explains to a large degree why I no longer belong to the NRA. It's bad enough that the MSM is incapable of reporting accurately when it comes to guns, now we have Wayne LaPierre the president of the NRA stirring up this nonsense. I need no excuse to loathe the U.N., as far as I'm concerned they're a bunch of namby pamby kleptocrats who can't find their ass with two hands, a road map and $500 million grant from the U.S. taxpayer. A modicum of common sense would tell you that even if they decided that America needs to be disarmed, how the hell would they accomplish this task? Bangladeshi disarmers? Please, those poor s.o.b.s wouldn't last an hour before getting shot or finding much better jobs driving a cab or owning a convenience store, where, in either profession they would suddenly become ardent supporters of gun rights.

Speaking of Garrison Keillor

There is an intersting article in Slate about him. (Yes, Dexter I know it was linked to by A&L Daily)
Which reminds me of my best and only Lutheran joke:
Q. How any Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Just one.

North Korea

It seems inevitable that these yahoos will try to launch an ICBM in the very near future. I think it's just as likely that the U.S. will respond forcefully, either by shooting the thing out of the sky or some other direct military response that will leave little doubt of our resolve. Japan is a interesting player in this whole affair. Just because they haven't invaded another country in 60 years doesn't mean they have forgotten how to do so and I'm quite confident the nation that has embraced Bushido for a thousand years still has the military to defend their interests. We live in interesting times.

Lou Gehrig

Was born today, June 19, 1903 in New York. Without a doubt one of the top five players of all time, right up there with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Ted Williams.
I know he's a Yankee, but people who knew him said he was a great guy and everyone could see that he was a tremendous ball player. It seems odd today considering his accomplishments that he isn't more famous, but then again he played in Ruth's shadow.

"Lets face it. I'm not a headline guy. I always knew that as long as I was following Babe to the plate I could have gone up there and stood on my head. No one would have noticed the difference. When the Babe was through swinging, whether he hit one or fanned, nobody paid any attention to the next hitter. They all were talking about what the Babe had done."
"You have to get knocked down to realize how people really feel about you. I've realized that more than ever lately. The other day, I was on my way to the car. It was hailing, the streets were slippery and I was having a tough time of it. I came to a corner and started to slip. But before I could fall, four people jumped out of nowhere
to help me. When I thanked them, they all said they knew about my illness and had been keeping an eye on me."
“There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all.”

I Suppose She'll Want A Pony Soon

I Found This Funny

Anthony Sacramone writes in FIRST THINGS:

Although Mr. Keillor describes himself as a bleeding-heart liberal, and this alone is enough to make some wish he’d bleed liberally, his program is a throwback to a more innocent time in popular culture, which is all to the good.

You Know Your Screwed When

John Kerry lectures you on being decisive:

Kerry, who was widely criticized as the party's standard-bearer in 2004 for being too cautious in his criticism of the war, said Tuesday that politicians "cannot have it both ways."

Then he reverts to form, saying he was wrong to vote for the war to begin with:

In remarks that could have been aimed at Clinton, Kerry said: "It's not enough to argue with the logistics or to argue about the details. ... It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake. ... It was wrong, and I was wrong to vote for that Iraqi war resolution."

As Homer Stokes says, "The choice, she's a clear one", vote for the tax and spend party that can't decide who's the bad guy is in this forty year conflict or vote for the tax and spend party that has pretty much decided that we are the good guys.
For once I agree with Kerry, the Dems and the GOP need to shit or get off the pot - take a stand on the war and defend it, preferably without ad hominem attacks about medals thrown over fences or clearly spurious ANG memos. If good men and women are killing and dying in this conflict, we owe it to them to approach the political decision making seriously.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

This is why I am a fiscal conservative:

The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer, congressional investigators have found.

Federal investigators even informed Congress that one man apparently used FEMA assistance money for a sex change operation.

Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm Newbury, Ma

The kids enjoyed themselves playing with the ice cold water that came out of this pump, not that any extra water was needed over the weekend.

Disrespectful Cartoon

This is a cartoon from the Hamas weekly Al Risala depicting a Palestinian child micturating upon a book that reads "liberty". So far the Palestinians have done an excellent job avoiding all forms of liberty. Congratulations. Since this cartoon is so offensive to you and your values, please feel free to burn embassies and call for the beheading of anyone who disagrees with you.

Useful Idiot

As I watched the scratchy video of Nick Berg's beheading I thought how can his family deal with this horror? Well now I know. Michael Berg, Nick's father had this to say about the death of the man who sawed his son's head off:

"Zarqawi felt my son's breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it," Berg added, pausing to collect himself. "George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist."

Well that's one way to look at it, but apparently Berg thinks that killing Zarqawi will make al-Qaida mad at us:

Michael Berg, a pacifist who is running for Delaware's lone House seat on the Green Party ticket, said al-Zarqawi's death is likely to foster anti-American resentment among al-Qaida members who feel they have nothing left to lose.

I hate to criticise the father of a murdered man, but what will it take to wake this man up? This enemy hates us and wants us dead. There is no understanding to be had, there is no common ground to be found. Men like Zarqawi hear the bleatings of men like Berg and are encouraged by it. Berg has every right to turn the other cheek, I commend him for it, but the rest of the us who would prefer not to have our sons and daughters beheaded have an obligation to oppose murderous men like Zarqawi with everything at our disposal. If that means a couple of well aimed 500 pound bombs so be it.

Zarqawi Dead

Good. Maybe he can get the firearm training he so desperately needs in the afterlife.

"Treat Me Like I'm Black"

Rep. Patrick Kennedy says he wants to be treated like a black person from Anacostia in terms of his car crash that preceded his latest trip to rehab. Brave words, considering there is zero chance of him being pulled from his car and beaten senseless at this point. But still it's a nice sentiment if a little impractical.

"The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want"

Where to begin:

I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time
and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.

Karl Rove forced them to listen to a Barry White CD and they became so funked up they lost control.

The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy -- but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. As we're both in
our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren't planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I
wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn't result in a pregnancy.

Apparently some rules are meant to be broken.

The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend -- and the end of the 72-hour window -- was approaching.

A good question might be why two doctors don't prescribed a given medication. Is it all politics or are there valid concerns about the safety and efficacy of the drug in question?

But I needed to meet my kids' school bus and, as I was pretty much out of options -- short of soliciting random Virginia doctors out of the phone book -- I figured I'd take my chances and hope for the best. After all, I'm 42. Isn't it likely my eggs are overripe, anyway? I thought so, especially since my best friend from college has been experiencing agonizing infertility problems at this age.

If there were just after school programs she could have shopped for Plan B some more, blame the GOP controlled Virginia Legislature. Her best friend is agonizing over infertility and this poor woman suffers from an excess, oh the irony. If there were only a way where unwanted children could go to homes that desperately needed them

Weeks later, the two drugstore pregnancy tests I took told a different story.
Positive. I couldn't believe it.

So there are drugstores in her area. Her inability to believe it must come from a lack of proper sex education in junior high, those prudish republicans again.

I'm still in good health, but unlike the last time I was pregnant, nearly a decade ago, I'm now taking three medications. One of them, for high cholesterol, is in the Food and Drug Administration's Pregnancy Category X -- meaning it's a drug you shouldn't take if you're expecting or even planning to get pregnant. I worried because the odds of having a high-risk pregnancy or a baby born with serious health issues rise significantly after age 40. And I thought of the emotional upheavals that an unplanned pregnancy would cause our family. My husband and I are involved in all aspects of our children's lives, but even so, we feel we don't get enough time to spend with them as it is.

Have you ever gone 24 hours without a rationalization, or four?

I felt sick. Although I've always been in favor of abortion rights, this was a choice I had hoped never to have to make myself. When I realized the seriousness of my predicament, I became angry. I knew that Plan B, which could have prevented it, was supposed to have been available over the counter by now. But I also remembered hearing that conservative politics have held up its approval.

O.K. this is how the conservatives made it inconvenient for her to terminate her pregnancy conveniently. Read the whole thing, I have never seen so much phony moralizing and irresponsibility written in one place.

X Men: The Last Stand

Like almost everybody else in the country I saw X Men: The Last Stand. Long story short, I think it's the best of the series so far. I can live without the pro gay political subtext, but their point is well made in a heartbreaking scene where a mutant kid mutilates himself to hide his progressing mutation from his parents. Kelsey Grammer as mutant Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast is kind of disconcerting, you keep expecting him to say something Frasieresque, but he never does. I think all the lukewarm reviews you see are from hard core fans of the comic books, sorry graphic novels, who are disappointed in the liberties the filmmakers have taken. You still have time to see it before Nacho Libre comes out, which looks so hilarious it has to be disappointing.