Curmudgeon Call

Test Post

2006-05-13T21:04:00.001-07:00

GuyK, over at Charming, Just Charming blog, allows as how he has been restricted by this blogging outfit that we both use.

This is a test post to see if they do the same thing to me. If so, they can have their blog back.

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UPDATE: No restrictions here.
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Test Post

2006-05-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

My Flag 2

2006-05-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

OK, time to wave My Flag. This is about Me! This is what I think and I say, on other people's blogs, because I don't post every idea I come up with on mine. In the process, some of these other folk get exposure. I will link the posts of the other bloggers, and you can then read down through the comments to get to mine, if you are still interested in that thread.

There you have it, a Baker's Dozen of good blog-posts, and at least one good comment to each one. Think of it as your weekly briefing on important stuff.

No more "carnivals"

2006-04-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

I have a mission now. Probably won't be able to hang the "Mission Accomplished" sign anytime soon, since I let the world of corporate blogging steal too long a march on me, but this mission has one goal:

Promote individualism in blogging.

Concomitantly, I will also work the reverse:

Fight corporate blogging.

Bear with me here.

The "blogosphere" works as the world's best information source because it is made up of millions of individuals, blogging individually. When bloggers assemble their work onto corporate blogging sites, for whatever reason, blogging suffers as the last resort of individual expression (and it really is, admit it).

I watched as individuals invited and searched out contributors to their blogs, and made up collective posts from these other bloggers, and gave those posts a generic nickname. Those posts became known as "carnivals". I don't object to them. I began to write one myself, right here, and cross-posted it on my main blog. "Carnivals" are a good way to get a lot of information in one place.

Then, along comes a blogger, naming himself Conservative Cat, who wants all the "carnivals" to be linked through his site. Offers "convenience", says the dude. It does, really. If you like the "carnival" format, he links to many of them, so all you have to have is his one URL, and you can find most of the "carnivals".

Most of them, not all of them. You won't find Carnival of The Curmudgeons there, because I refused to post it there. My "Carnival" was a vehicle for accumulating fine writing written by, or in the style of, Curmudgeons. It took me about 3-4 hours a week to compile, but I probably won't compile another, because the very idea of "carnivals" has been hijacked by Conservative Cat, who has a big enough ego to want the entire genre of writing to go through his site.

I was wrong to put the title of "Carnival" on my posts, because I didn't invent the term, and failed to research who did and then give proper due. I apologize for that.

Conservative Cat owes us an apology, too, unless HE INVENTED the term "Carnival" (a claim he has never made).

He has no moral claim for what he wants to do, and lacking such a claim, is just another corporate collectivist, improving his own fortunes by dint of the creative work of others, without offering adequate recompense.

If any of you "carnival" writers or even "carnival" readers come across this post, you might be as surprised at it as are the two good bloggers commenting in the last post.

If those two guys knew me AND my philosophy, they wouldn't be surprised.

There are two forces at work to obliterate individualism, which is the source of creativity. Those forces are the forces of collectivist government and collectivist corporate greed. Most consider corporate greed to be a necessary evil of capitalism, but that is the one point I disagree with Ayn Rand on. She writes of individualist giants in the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but she fails to condemn the force that works hardest against individual creativity, corporate collectivism.

Many corporate leaders have tried to harness individual creativity to pull corporate wagons, and some have done better than others, but none have succeeded. None of the creative individuals in those corporations will tell you that they are as satisfied working for the corporation as they are when they are working for themselves.

Support of collectivism is why we are taxed. Support of collectivism should NEVER be the reason why we write creatively.

"Carnival" renamed

2006-04-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

Since a wannabe corporate meglo has successfully seized most of the "Carnivals" (I didn't think that they were his to seize, so he's a pirate), I will be renaming "Carnival of the Curnudgeons" to something else.

There will be rant up shortly about these meglos and their insatiable urges to control everything.

Hoseheads.

Never surrender!

By now, you've guessed...

2006-04-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

...that I'm not going to write a Carnival this week.

Apologies to the three people out there who actually read it. You now have an extra 15 or 20 minutes added to your week, so do something with the time.

Come back next week, when maybe the raging gout has subsided and I feel more in the mood to do something but lay in bed with my foot in the air on 3 pillows, and there might be a Carnival here.

Bleeeaaah!

Relative Attitude Check

2006-04-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sir, my MOTHER reports that my attitude sucks...

(and she's been dead for 16 years).

Attitude Re-check

2006-04-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

Checking, checking....

Sir, I found an attitude, but the report is still negative...

MY ATTITUDE SUCKS

Attitude check

2006-04-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Checking, checking, check negative, no attitude found.

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Perfect Harmony

2006-04-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Perfect harmony.

Yep, I feel perfectly in tune with the curmudgeon world. I got in some good pistol practice this week, and some coaching for an old, dear friend who was starting to lose her pistol skills (in her yute, she was a steely-eyed killa). Then I picked up my B.A.G. Day purchase, a North American Arms Guardian in the wildcat-pistol caliber .32NAA. Then all my new killa carry ammo arrived, and after cleaning said carry guns, I am now ready for mortal combat with the BEST in high-velocity pistol ammo, Cor-Bon JHPs in 4 different calibers.

There's nothing like being well-armed to give a curmudgeon the desire to tell EVERYONE to Piss Up a Rope.

So yesterday I open my mailbox, and there's an envelope in there that has the "smell" of a solicitation, but it is marked official government business. Doesn't add up, since it has a commercial postage frank on it:

So, before opening the letter, I scan both sides, then open it and scan the contents. It is a solicitation, obviously designed to make a dumber version of retired military personnel think that the Federal Government now has low-cost nursing-home insurance. The solicitation refers to "The Federal Insurance" several times.

Down at the bottom is the logo of the company that is really behind the solicitation, MetLife.

I have a curmudgeonly question here: how the hell does the Feddle Gummint think it can hold our respect if it allows some sleazy (yep, SLEAZY, even if they bought rights to the image of Snoopy) insurance scammers to impersonate the gummint? Does anyone in the government care that the entire operation has been sold to fraud artists and scammers?

I think I am going to call up the Attorney General for this Judicial District and see if she wants to prosecute Met Life. I'll promise to be a star witness, having lots of experience testifying in Federal Court, and all the time in the world to get on the train and go downtown each morning of the trial. I may also try to get one of the local TV stations involved. One of them, KATU-TV2, the local ABC affilliate, prides itself on having a scammer-killer reporter, Ed Teachout, who makes a very good living exposing scams to the viewers (just stopped blogging and sent him an email).

As we get into old age, we curmudgeons have a lot more on our plate. Some of us lose mobility due to various diseases (gout, arthritis). Some of us lose cognitive ability due to losing too many brain cells (to Scotch?). ALL OF US develop a healthy skepticism of the younger world around us, their fads and their wastes of their precious time, which we can all see is going to be a problem for them, but they can't see it.

Why do individuals and corporate scammers take us for fools? Most of us have been through at least one war, either in combat or waiting for someone near and dear who was. Most of us have had children, and the children have given us grandchildren. We've been there, done that, seen it all. Why do these scammers take us all for fools?

A.A.R.P. is really the worst offender. A corporation set up for the sole purpose to sell older folk insurance of dubious value, it had to adopt a "political wing" when it got a little too obvious that it really wasn't the "Grey Panther" it made itself out to be. Of course, it adopted a strong liberal slant in it's political machine, dispite the fact that most of it's members are conservative. That came to a head last Presidential election when AARP claimed to be able to deliver beaucoup votes for John Kerry, and certain conservative dissidents within the membership pointed out that Kerry was unlikely to get 40% of the AARP membership. The dissidents were correct, and the geezers voted for Bush by a large margin.

Then there are the phone solicitations, but I have a handle on them now with the "gizmo". The Federal (and State) "Do not Call" lists have proven to be a failure, as there is no penalty consistently applied for violations. My gizmo never fails, and I bet some boiler rooms have spent repair money on their phone equipment because of it. You see, I have programmed it to have the "unknown caller from unknown number" calls dropped. It just drops the calls. The phone doesn't even ring, and to the boiler-room scammer, it seems as if his phone has gone dead. Other scammers calling from identifiable numbers get dropped into my "dumpster" list, and when they call back, they get the same blanking treatment. Since only solicitors use outward-WATS, I have also programmed all incoming WATS (800 #s) calls into the dumpster. Best $100 I ever spent.

If only I could get the trash company to agree to pick up recycling from the community mail boxes across the street, I wouldn't even have to bring the junk mail in anymore. Why doesn't the Post Office have some sort of an "opt-out" of solicitation mail like you (supposedly) can get for phone solicitations? They could even charge for it. I would pay the Post Office a monthly fee to ditch all solicitation mail, in fact, all mail that is not sent first class. The USPS is working on computer sorting of mail, and when they get it up and running, it should be programmable to do this. I'll even let the USPS keep the bux for the recycled paper.

Old age and scam attempts. They go together. They wouldn't if we each picked out a scammer and made a project out of dogging his scumbag ass severely. Curmudgeon Power! Yeah!

On to the fine selection of curmudgeonly goodness this week.

Let's start with Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta, one of the "regulars" (actually, he's quite irregular, that Denny). Here's his take on Tax Time. Last couple of weeks, I pretty much beat the Immigration issue down, but Denny never took a break. Here's his take this week.

Then, the Acidman points out the folly of Democrats trying to upbraid the GOP for party corruption. Something about if you live in a glass house, you shouldn't throw stones. A-man also does a book report on State of Fear by Michael Crichton, a new book that bemoans the loss of scientific integrity to political expediency.

PawPaw had a look at a passle of reports on WMDs found in Iraq, and concludes that there is no basis for saying we haven't found any, since the reports all detail such weapons. PawPaw also has a delightful story of bamboozling a crook into ratting out a burglary ring.

Oops, I found another Immigration post I just HAVE to link, from none other than the Chief Curmudgeon of Plano, TX, Kim DuToit. Kim also senses the "great disturbance in the force" that conservative are expressing over this vital issue. Listen up, POTUS Bush: your Immigration stance is about to lose the next two elections for your party, and history WILL stick that LOSER label on you because of it. Be my guest, have a flip-flop, we'll forgive you, just as all those (D)onks forgave John Kerry all HIS flip-flops.

Mr. Completely knows that curmudgeonly trait of taking a saber to a hot-air balloon party. Here he tells of a fancy-schmancy IT "focus group" and how he participated in it.

For those who think I don't put enough in from curmudgeonettes, here's Hostagirl, with an intriguing story of "invasion" (has nothing to do with Immigration however).

Also on the distaff side, here's Mel, Anarchangel's better half with another of her takes on fashion faux-pas.

And fellow NorthWest grump Analog Kid, a curmudgeon in training, has a take on public reaction to the Immigration protests.

Last but not least, your grumpy Rivrdog has had a few rants this week. Here's a selection:

On the "random", but strangely concerted call by various retired (Clintonian) Generals for Donald Rumsfeld's scalp.
On the hammer-murders in Pennsylvania.
How to end the Invasion from Mexico by having the invaders VOLUNTARILY return.

No joke this week. Nothing funny happened.

Enjoy your Easter weekend. Wait, one final rant: How about the nerve of the print media, newspaper division: for one week, prior to Easter, they give some ink to various things Christian. for 51 weeks, they indulge in the most anti-Christian tripe imaginable, but they trumpet Christianity for one week, so they want us to think they are Christian. What a hoot! for that, they are my Peeve Of The Week.

Grumble on!

Newspapers, here's a dead fish. You know what to do with it. Get busy.

Curmudgeon's Syndrome

2006-04-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

You KNOW you are a curmudgeon if you have this syndrome:

A.A.A.D. DISORDER

I'm sure some of you can relate, and those that can't, well, this might
explain why we are the way we are. Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D.
- Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to wash my car.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on
the hall table.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the
trash can under the table, and notice that the trash can is
full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out
the trash first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I
take out the trash anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only
one check left

My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go to my desk
where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the
Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over

I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put
it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the coke a vase of flowers on
the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered.

I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading
glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going
to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container
with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote.

Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be
looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on
the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where
it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills on
the floor.

So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels
and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was
planning to do.

At the end of the day: the car isn't washed, the bills aren't
paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the
flowers aren't watered, there is still only one check in my
checkbook, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses,
and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm
really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm
really tired.

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Thirteen

2006-04-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Thirteen, supposed to be an unlucky number. Maybe that's why I'm a couple of days late posting it.

Pour youself another mug of what you need to read serious stuff, and come on back.

This is about immigration, again. Topic de jour.

Might as well get the pet peeves out of the way first. Why is Ted (the Swimmer) Kennedy getting all these props for being such a statesman? He was in the lead of things to keep the poison pill in the immigration bill.

Long story, but 10 days ago, the GOP tripped on their dick, and proposed an amendment making remaining in the country after illegal entry a second felony. They talked among themselves, and decided that the bill to be debated could do without this provision, which would seem harsh, so they decided to let the (D)onks excise it when the amendments got voted on.

Surprise! The (D)onks left it in, in fact refused, en bloc, to have the GOP remove it. Sort of a "gotcha", but the GOP did propose it, so they were stuck with it. This caused a split in the GOP ranks, with the RINOs considering the bill now too harsh, and the conservatives not having enough votes to do anything, so the (D)onks had a field day with a fillibuster for a couple of days.

Did I mention that I hate the very idea of fillibustering? Later on that.

The end result was that the bill, purposely harshed up by the (D)onks, failed. The MSM spins the whole message by saying that the Swimmer tried oh-so-hard to bring a good bill through, but couldn't because the bill just had too many flaws.

Fuck him. It was probably his idea to hoist the GOP on their own petard. That is a good political maneuver, but it certainly doesn't alter the fact that the (D)onks killed the bill.

Let's get serious about Immigration. Getting serious doesn't involve any kind of new law, it only involves enforcing the laws already on the books. That might require some healthy doses of enforcement money, but no new regulations or Federal Laws. Well, maybe one: any state or local jurisdiction that does not wholeheartedly assist the Feds when they begin their roundup of illegals (it's coming, folks) gets their Federal pork-money cut off immediately. All of it. Forever. Those that do assist will be paid generously for their assistance. OK, one more law: give all local and state law enforcement limited Federal Commissions to arrest under the immigration laws and place Federal holds on the arrestees.

As a retired LEO, I don't think we need huge new numbers of Federal ICE agents and Border Patrol. We have plenty of LEOs on duty now. If they added enforcement of Immigration laws to their duties, it probably wouldn't overstress many departments, and help could be given to the ones that WERE overstressed. What might get overstressed is holding facilities, so a VERY FAST system of deporting illegals will have to be developed, one that acts in days, not months as is the case now.

What is the downside? The Pew Hispanic Center, which has a dog in the fight and might have inflated these stats, says that 4.9% of the workforce is illegals. Let's take them at their word for now. OK, we are going to lose one out of twenty workers in this country. Does anyone think for a moment that our economy is going to collapse because of one in twenty workers leaving the workforce? The performance of certain businesses that use a large percentage of illegals will be impacted, but some lettuce rotting in the fields isn't going to crash the Market, it will just raise lettuce prices. If you can't grow your own lettuce, you're a dummy. Buy a 20# bag of potting soil, lay it on it's flat side in the sun, cut two rows of "X" slits in the top side of it, each 6" from the next, and push in seeds from your favorite kind of lettuce. Water moderately. In about 4 weeks you will have plenty of lettuce. Repeat as long as the growing season holds out.

No, the economy isn't going to collapse. In fact, your State welfare agencies wil suddenly find themselves not having spend all their budgeted funds, and will have a surplus. Many folks who would normally have to work for minimum wage, or not at all, now will have a chance to work for more than the minimum wage, sometimes quite a bit more.

There might be some inflation from rising wages, but there will also be a boosting of the economy from the spending of all those wages HERE IN THIS COUNTRY. Of course, you knew that most of the illegals send most of their money back home, didn't you? The largest single source of positive foreign exchange in Mexico is the dollars that the illegals here send back there.

Now imagine that two hundred billion a year, multiplied by a factor of rising wages, being spent here at home instead of going south. Imagine the lower welfare budgets, and increased tax receipts, which in turn might result in lower taxes, which results in more consumer spending, etc.

I find it hard to see a downside to deporting 12-20 million illegals. It doesn't have to be done at once, we just need to get a start on it. Getting local law enforcement involved, and ending the opposition of the La Raza pimps will open the door. Indicting a few business owners for employing illegals will keep the process going.

Mexico will be unhappy, but they will deal with it, and with us, when those dollars are at stake.

The monkey-wrench in these gears is the ACLU specifically and the American attitude about identification papers in general.

How do you tell a legal Hispanic worker from an illegal one? Right now, you can't. You can't because we have no form of proper identity cards, either for the workers or for anyone else.

If real US citizens and bona-fide LEGAL aliens don't have proper identification, how are we to tell ourselves from non-citizens and illegal aliens?

We brought this entire mess of 12-20 million illegals on oursleves, by our pig-headed attitude on properly-recorded identity. I'm going to hear from some conservative brother curmudgeons on this one, because many equate lack of identity documents to freedom, but they are wrong. It's not the existance of an identity card that subtracts from your freedom, it's what the government does or forces you to do to either obtain it or maintain it that subtracts from your freedom.

It's just like guns. They have a great potential to be used for either evil or good, but intrinsically, they are neither good nor evil. They are just a machine. An identity card has a great potential to save us from evil (identity theft comes to mind), but it could also be used for great evil (requiring them for everything and jailing upon lack of papers). It's just a paper. Actually it will be a high-tech device with a biometrics chip in it, so it's also a machine. There will be a need to closely monitor the government's issue and use of the identity card, but I'm here to tell you that without standardized proof of national status, we will not solve this issue, ever. We just won't be able to tell who's legal and who's not.

Enough on that.

Time for the Peeve of The Week (POTW).

The candidates are: my gimpy feet. Arthur-Write-us has been visiting me too regularily, both in the osteo form and the gouty form, and I'm getting more and more limited as to what I can do. Severe pain in the patoot. Speaking of pains in the patoot, my patoot came back in fine shape, according to the rubber-hose doctor. No cancer.

Candidate Two: Political Correctness: PeeCee is ALWAYS a candidate, but this permanent peeve actually had to swim in a shark-pool of it's own making this week. The PeeCee Police Chief of Portland, Derrick Foxworth, a man of color, ran into a little trouble. His troubles were BADLY compounded yesterday by the black community from whence he came. On the 5 o'clock news, there were a bunch of black residents of NorthEast gathered, and they had invited the press. They were there to lend support to the embattled Chief. They hung themselves out to dry. This gal speaks, in a very level, non-Eubonic voice, and calmly explains that the black community doesn't hold the dalliance of the Chief with a white female employee against him, because in their eyes, THAT'S NOT A SIN! I'm going to be presumptious here and refer to that concept as the Pimp/Ho relationship. Actually, I'm not all that presumptious. As a prison bus driver/guard for 7 years, I heard countless hours of that talk from the bus riders.

Candidate Three is the auto industry. If you've been following my comment threads in Random Nuclear Strikes and Dad's Garage, you will know that I'm NOT a fan of the high-tech, gizmo dependent engines the industry powers consumer vehicles with these days. I maintain that a low tech vehicle could be built that will have the emissions signature required, and would not be dependent on computer chips and twenty different sensors to balance the output of. Actually, the industry could resolve this matter with present technology. Put a reliable thumper V-8, updated only with non-variable fuel injection instead of a carburettor, into a half-ton pickup. Make the pickup light and rigid with carbon-fiber composite technology. Take the outrageous emissions from the thumper engine and run them through SEVERAL sets of catalytic converters, MADE TO BE CONSUMER-REPLACEABLE. Make it run on E85 alcohol fuel. The result is a vehicle with a low-revving engine, not particularily good with fuel, but on alcohol, who cares? The low-speed engine means that the vehicle will go where you want it to and you can control your traction without resort to anything more than a GEARED 4WD unit (as opposed to the electronic traction control units on high-end 4WD vehicles of today). In other words, a 1965 Chevvy, with it's act cleaned up a bit with just a bit of technology.

And the Peeve of the Week is....My @#$%^(*&^%$ feet! It's hell to have a young mind and an old body.

Curmudgeon Ranting: yes, there has been some, although this has been a quiet week amongst the ranters for the most part.

PawPaw has been working extra hours on a manhunt for an escaped murderer in his neck of the woods. The whole area is a little uptight, and this is what it looks like.

The new curmudgeon this week is NHS Blog Doctor, a curmudgeonly general practitioner in England whose blog rails at the ineffectiveness and general inadequacies of the National Health Service, Great Britain's version of socialized medicine that Hellary Clinton wants to bring Over Here. He gets medical-technical in most of his posts, but he also gets quite political. He doesn't support socialized medicine. 'Nuff said.

Retired Geezer at Blog Idaho links to the moonbat decision of Yale to allow a high-ranking member of the former Taliban ruling party of Afganistan (which the Tenth Mountain Division, together with a few B-52s, dispatched fairly easily) to matriculate at Yale. I think Ivy League schools may have invented Moonbattism.

GuyK at Charming, Just Charming has a proposal for elections: add a voting quorum. If not enough voters turned out, the election would be invalid. Actually, Guy, this was seriously proposed in Oregon a few years back, for Initiatives. There would be Yes, No, and None of the Above. If None of the Above won, the initiative would be withdrawn, and couldn't be refiled for two years. That would cure the problem with Initiatives. We see the same crap year after year, as there is no limit on how many times a thing may be voted on. For example, there have been three votes on Death With Dignity, the physician-assisted euthanasia law that conservatives love to hate (but would always reconsider if THEY were dying a painful, slow death). All of them were resounding wins for the law, but that didn't stop first the Catholic Church and then the US Attorney General from trying to end the law.

Curmudgeon Kim DuToit, owner of The Other Side of Kim blog, offers us this excellent post on what should be in your gun collection if you have one or contemplate one. Very comprehensive, as is everything Kim does.

The final curmudgeon ranter is a Dead President, Ronald Reagan, thanx to Mr. Completely.

Now we get to the Post Funny. This is double-cute, because it is both a Chamber of Commerce joke (you could tell it at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast) and a YouPee joke (about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where I once lived):

Subject: Holy bear

A priest, a Pentecostal preacher and a Rabbi all served as
chaplains to the students of Northern Michigan University in
Marquette.

They would get together two or three times a week for coffee and
to talk shop. One day, someone made the comment that preaching to
people isn't really all that hard. A real challenge would be to preach
to a bear.

One thing led to another and they decided to do an experiment.
They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and
attempt to convert it.

Seven days later, they're all together to discuss their
experiences. Father Flannery, who has his arm in a sling, is on
crutches, and has various bandages, goes first.

"Well," he says, "I went into the woods to find me a bear. And
when I found him I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well,
that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around.
So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary
Mother of God, he became as gentle a lamb. The bishop is coming out
next week to give him first communion and confirmation."

Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, with an
arm and both legs in casts, and an IV drip. In his best fire and
brimstone oratory he claimed, "WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don't
sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read
to my bear from God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do
with me. So I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled
down one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek.
So I quick DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you
said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the week in
Fellowship, feasting on God's Holy Word, and praising Jesus."

They both looked down at the rabbi, who was lying in a hospital
bed. He was in a body cast and traction with IV's and monitors
running in and out of him. He was in bad shape. The rabbi looks up and
says, "Looking back on it, circumcision may not have been the best way
to start..."

That's all folks...

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Twelve

2006-03-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

Twelve Marks, something veddy British about that...oh, now I remember, in the old days before the Brits went Metric, their money was NOT based upon the decimal system. There were TWELVE pence to the Shilling, and TWENTY Shillings to the Pound (21 Shillings to the Guinea). I lived there in those days, in the '50's. The penny (pence) was sub-divided into ha'pennies (half-pennies) and even Farthings (a quarter-penny).

There were, in order of value, the following coins: Farthing (1/4p), Ha'penny (1/2p), Penny, Tuppence (two-penny), Thruppence (the three-penny coin had been retired, but you occasionly got one in change), Sixpence (six-penny, silver, about the size of a dime) and Shilling, a silver (and later nickel) coin about the size of a quarter. There were also Gold Guineas, but you never saw one in circulation. They were small gold coins, about between the size of (our) penny and nickel. I have a couple dozen of them in the vault. Dono about their value, but they are worth at least $500/ounce, like the rest of my gold.

The Brits were short on bills. They had only two then, the one-pound-note (the "quid"), slightly larger than US currency, and the five-Pound note ("fiver"), which was about 7 X 9 inches, and had to be folded several times to fit in the wallet. It was hard to carry a lot of cash, but then, no one had a lot. The Pound Sterling was worth about $2.80US, and the average Brit bloke maintained his family on 7 to 12 pounds a week wages. My father, a USN Captain then, on both Flight Pay and Doctor's (incentive) Pay, with hi-cost Foreign housing allowance, made in the upper ONE PERCENT of all wages and salaries in Great Britain then (Just over $20,000/year, which was HUGE money then).

We lived like Dukes and Duchesses (in fact, had more income than most of the nobility) while my Dad was stationed in England, running the US Navy Office of Naval Research (he worked directly for the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM. Hyman Rickover). We lived in a fine 250-year old house (Pelham Cottage) that King Charles II had built for a mistress (out in the boondocks when it was built, today it sits in the middle of South Kensington). It was a country cottage in the French style, with both a formal garden (necessitated hiring a twice-a-week gardner, Mr. Tilly, who liked to play the horses with the generous wage my dad paid him) and a Vegetable Garden, with espaliered fruit trees and berry vines and a large vegetable patch. We also had a daily maid/nanny, Mrs. Purtell, who was a decent cook as well.

London, as most major cities of the civilized world in those days, was perfectly safe for a teenage girl (my sister) and two pre-teen boys (my brother and I) to wander in. The subway or bus fare was seldom over thruppence for trips around the area (it was graduated on how far you went then, with a conductor on every bus and a manned ticket booth at every Underground station). I grew up in my three years in London, attaining the ripe old age of 12 before I came back to the US, and learning how to be a gentleman (they still taught the subject there, and even then, the US schools were starting to ignore manners).

I LOVED my three years in London, and so did my brother, but my Sis hated it. Something about rebelling against tradition. She was one of the first WOMYN, and after high school, was in the Beat Generation and became one of the first Hippies as well. Of course, I hold all that culture-busting against her, but at least she's genuine about it, unlike 99.9 of the other wimmen who profess these views.

Ah, nostalgia. As we curmudgeons get older, it has a bigger place in our lives.

Now to the Peeve of the Week.

Here are the candidates.

First is the MSM (almost a perennial candidate) with their full-court press on Global Warming - "We're all gonna Die!" screech. If we are warming up globally (and I don't believe the MSM's stats, because they pick and choose their temperature-measuring places), two things stand out like sore thumbs, and the MSM/greenies will never admit them: first, the warming could be (and probably is) an irreversable solar-cycle phenomenon and we will have to ride it out and second, anything we can and will do in the way of trying to alter the composition of gasses in the atmosphere (lower car emissions, shut down some industries, etc) will have such a negligible effect on the warming cycle that it is laughable to even attempt it. Increased insolation (warming of the atmosphere by the sun) is of such an order of magnitude that nothing we can do will alter or stop it. The best guess (and ALL of the atmospheric predictions are guesses) is that it is a short, 30-year cycle which will result in a two-degree global warmup, which will result in a one-meter rise in the ocean level. Civilizations 4,000 years ago built seawalls, and so can we.

Second POTW candidate is medical providers, generally. During my colonoscopy this week, done in a clinic that does nothing but stomach and butt scoping, I was swamped with inflexible rules and uncaring providers, UNTIL I GOT TO THE ACTUAL DOC, WHO WAS VERY GOOD. This is getting to be more and more the case in US medicine. I've had several colonoscopies before, and while they are uncomfortable procedures to undergo, there is no lasting pain involved. In fact, the pain is so fleeting that three short panting breaths will get you by any of it. Why in the hell does the clinic damn near INSIST on knocking me almost out with a heavy sedative then? I almost had to yell to make the point that I wasn't going to have a sedative or IV. I did have to make them sign a paper that said that they wouldn't try. This is lawyer-driven practice of medicine, and it sucks. If we don't get the lawyers out of the ordinary, everyday practice of medicine soon, our whole medical establishment will degrade to second-class status.

The third candidate is the immigration nazis. Yep, nazis. This subject has been hijacked by more factions than I can name. They are all hoping to have the catbird seat when this becomes THE hotbutton issue for the next election. The Hard Boyz of the immigration question are the "wall" advocates. Then there are the give-in types, mostly those of the (D)onk persuasion, who see any forced return of 12-20 million of potential (and some actual) voters amongst the illegals as being dangerous to their job prospects as hogs at the public trough. They are all nazis. Victor Davis Hanson said it brilliantly yesterday when he reminded us of our history: "where's the desire of assimilation?". All of our glory years came from the assimilation of immigrants. By and large, the Mexicans who want to work here have good values. There are exceptions, but a few bad apples don't spoil the whole bushel, baby. Why do we want to refuse this infusion of the good values of hard work and family into our culture, which seems to have lost a lot of those two values lately? Is it because the Mexicans have demonstrated that they would rather work for dollars in a capitalist system than suck dollars from a socialist one? The Mexicans would still be here, working hard, if we never gave them a dollar of welfare or educated one of their kids. The good ones would anyway, and the losers would go back. If we're to have a guest-worker program, make it so we actually have slots for WORKERS, and keep the welfare-sucking drones OUT. We don't need a wall for that, just a little help from the employers and the Feds, who should REQUIRE the cooperation of the state and local governments.

The envelopes, please.

The winner is:

The Medical profession. Clean up your act, Doctors. I come from a medical family, and I KNOW how it should be run. When I get the feeling that I'm walking into a welfare office instead of a DOCTOR'S office, something is badly wrong. Doctors, kick the lawyers out of your lives and clinics. The people will soon learn one of the great truths in life: anyone can do without a lawyer, but try going without a doctor when you're sick. Maybe the medical profession should refuse to treat ANY lawyer until medical tort reform is the law of the land.

This week's links:

The Analog Kid has a minor difference of opinion with the Analog Wife over the Gunny Perfume, Hoppe's #9. Hillarious. Read the comments also.

Acidman at Gut Rumbles passes on a good idea about illegal aliens. Then he turns around and brings us news of his good buddy, Dax Montana, who lost HIS tolerance for the corporate weasel he worked for and so ended his employment. OK, Dax, you did remember to reformat the hard drive on your corporate computer before leaving your office, didn't you?

Bitter Bitch, who doesn't have half the years on to be a curmudgeonette yet, still has a curmudgeonly revelation here.

Mr. Completely has valuable curmudgeonly advice on recognizing a Brain Attack, or stroke.

Finally, another youth, far too young to be a curmudgeon but with all his curmudgeon ducks lined up already, Aaron Neal, of Dad's Garage blog. He needs help, in making a life decision on whether or not to enlist in the National guard. I'll advise him privately, but readers may do so either privately or in the comments on his post.

Finally for this Mark, the humor section:

A traveler flies into Houston Airport from offshore and enters the Immigration check-in line…

"May I see your identification, please?", asks
the ICE agent.

"I'm sorry, but I lost my wallet," replies
the guy.

"Sure, buddy, I hear that every day. No ID,
no crossing the border”, says the agent.

"But I can prove that I'm an American", he
exclaims. "I have a picture of Ronald Reagan tattooed on one butt cheek and
a picture of George Bush on the other."

"This I gotta see”, replies the agent.

With that, the guy drops his pants and bends
over in front of the agent.

"By golly, you're right!" exclaims the agent.
"Go on home to Boston."

"Thanks!" he says. "But how did you know I
was from Boston?"

The agent replies, "I recognized the picture
of Ted Kennedy in the middle."

Hat tip to Mike, a curmudgeon and great friend.

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Eleven

2006-03-23T19:30:00.000-08:00

I'm full of piss & vinegar tonite, as well as a horn or two of the Water of Life (Scots version). Loosens up the muse, don'tcha know. Fairly full day for this curmudgeon. Had to chase down an R/X for the upcoming Reality TV show, "Rivrdog's Ass", coming soon to a gastroenterology clinic near me. Live and in color, viewers will take a reality tour of my colon, and as an added attraction, watch the GI doc snip little parts of it off for lab analysis. Yours truly will be watching, live, and without the sedative they normally give (I want to be able to properly curse the doc if he does something stupid with the cutter head on that endoscope). Added bonus of being wide awake: if the doc re-opens the hole that bled badly in PHX a few weeks ago, I will get to aim the stream of ass-blood with malice aforethought! Anyway, the R/X is a substitute pain reliever for my back, as the docs suspended the one I've been using as it stops the blood from clotting. I guess I'm a hemophiliac by pharmaceuticals.

THAT means back to the range. Gotta be able to draw and hit the bad guy before he can shoot me, since I might not survive even a flesh wound, according to the docs. Speaking of range, isn't Buy A Gun Day about on us? Co-incides with Tax Day. I figgered it was, so I dropped by my local gun emporium to shop. Found one of these. They are in very short supply, and I got this one on layaway at 12% under MSRP. Nastiest little mouse gun around. Check out these ballistic specs on the .32NAA, a .380ACP necked down to .32 (7.65mm). Yes, the ammo is as rare as hound's teeth, and only Cor-Bon sells it, but yes, it's a mouse gun, not a battle rifle, so it's main advantage is to be surprise (that I pulled it out of my ass or wherever else I had it secreted) and IT STINGS! At 1200fps + and 200 ft/lbs energy, this ain't your mama's double-derringer in .41RF! 7 rounds as fast as I can cycle the trigger in DAO. Should make a mess out of the unfortunate goblin, and give him pause to reflect whilst I stuff in another six to finish his wretched ass off (he was still moving, Detective, and I KNEW he was going for his weapon).

Now, I'm wondering about the .32NAA. If I have a barrel built for my .380 Walther PP to shoot this little devil, I will have a 4" barrel to accelerate the little 60gr happy pills, and they will leave said barrel at ABOVE 1400ft/sec! The barrel will cost more than the PP is worth, but just think of the end result! Might be able to load something heavier than the 60gr JHP, maybe a 72gr JHP that would trot outa there at 1200fps, giving a muzzle energy in range of 9mm +P hot stuff! If I can find a BJHP, that round has the potential to be as damaging, IN A POCKET PISTOL, as any .40S&W. One might also carry a hot FMJ load that could give penetration THROUGH A CAR BODY!

The possibilities look endless. This is one where I have to save every spent hull, though, since I don't know when ammo production might cease. The wonders of wildcats.

On to the POTW (Peeve Of The Week).

The envelopes, please.

The first candidate is MY LAWN! The frogs are croaking, the temp is up to 60+ (heat wave), and the grass is growing even after dark (I can hear it scream from growing pains!). That means I will inaugurate the 20th SEASON on my Honda HR-214 lawnmower! It was 4 seasons old when I bought it, so it has been faithfully cutting my large lawns (the old house was 3500sq/ft of lawn and current house has 6,000sq/ft of grass) for DAMN NEAR A QUARTER-CENTURY ON IT'S ORIGINAL ENGINE! Had it in the shop for a new drive clutch once, new control cables once, and I PM the hell out of it several times a year. The OHV engine is tired of it's valve guides, and so I lay down a HUGE smokescreen when I crank her up (just to piss of the enviro neighbors), but she settles down after the cloud drifts off, and lays into the tough bluegrass with a will. I keep her loins lubed only with the best 30W HD oil I can buy, usually Delo, and she cuts 6,000sq/ft of lawn on less than a pint of fuel. Anyone else got such a machine in their shed?

The next envelope brings my doctor's office staff to the POTW competition dais. The staff has processed three R/Xs since I got back from my sun chasing, and they have gotten every one wrong! Two were never sent, dispite assurances that they were, and the third just went to the wrong pharmacy. That's a strikeout any any ballgame.

The last envelope bears the name of "W.H. Tyrone Terrill". Google his sorry ass. Yes, he is, in fact, the "Human Rights Director" of the City of St. Paul, MN. Tyrone's claim to fame is that he just banned the Easter Bunny from City properties. The Easter Bunny, a complete fabrication of commercial enterprises, not religious scholars, is supposed to offend "non-christians" in the St. Paul community (read, Muslims). If you want more dirt on Tyrone, who is a genuine Race Pimp on the City payroll in St. Paul (don't take it from me, read his resume, which I posted on Rivrdog Blog here).

Quiet! Da Judge is Judging!

The winner of this week's Peeve of the Week is:

W.H. Tyrone Terrill! For conduct above and beyond even the most outrageous of Race Pimps, full in the style of Jesse Jackson, we find that Tyrone, slayer of the Easter Bunny, and Chief Desecrator of Cellophane Easter Grass, is our finalist for Peeve of the Week! Please accept this Internet Posting as official Notice, Tyrone. A full Certificate, suitable for framing, will be sent out shortly. It will include a suggested paragraph on how you might modify your resume to highlight this sterling accomplishment. Best of luck to you!

Enough Pomp and Circumstances! Wife! My glass is dry! (Wife fails to respond, earns another demerit, she couldn't march them all off if she was the entire 10th Mountain). Take five whilst I refill my own glass....

Time for some curmudgeonly goodness from around the blogosphere.

We start with my partner in shooting and blogging to the North, up Puget Sound way, the doughty Analog Kid. He demonstrates his curmudgeonliness this week by posting some tunage. Not just any tunage, but perhaps the most misanthropic tunage I've ever read the lyrics for. This tunage might have been written by Jesperson, the "Happy Face Killer", or his Professor in crime, the Green River Killer, both of whom picked on ladies of the half-world. Picked on them as in killed them. In their dozens. The Green River Killer 'fessed to almost 50, and Happy Face is still fessing, may be over 10 by now. They make Son of Sam look like a choirboy.

Denny, the Grouchy Old Cripple (in Atlanta), has a fine post up about Jane (Traitor) Fonda. It seems the Georgia Legislature was heaping accolades on State heros and heroines, as they do once every legislative session. Some lefty fuckwit nominated Hanoi Jane. She went down in flames, just like many of my fellow warriors did over Hanoi, where she entertained the Commie ack-ack gunners during the end of the VietNam War. It's a great post, go here to read it, and don't be surprised if you linger for some of Denny's other great stuff. he IS Mr. Georgia Curmudgeon, but he gets competition from Acidman.

Acidman, of course, has had some fierce trials lately. Trials of Life itself. He had a major perforated ulcer, which all of the goody-twoshoes in his comment threads refer to as a result of alcoholism, but I'm not so sure. I've got a hole or two in my gut, a little lower down, and I don't drink enough to make said holes. He loves to go to Costa Rica, and lives off the local economy when there. I go to Mexico and do the same thing. We both came up with bleeding holes in the gut at the same point in our travels, just after returning. Mine closed up, after I took beaucoup antibiotics. Acidman's didn't, and he had to have surgery to resection his gut.

So, to honor my Acidman, my Blog-Granpa, I've gone back into his archives for this. But really, his whole blog is like this. He is a Curmudgeon, that's why.

GuyS, better know as the Sailor of Snugg Harbor, and as fine a writer as ever came from 'tween decks, writes a letter to the "Mythical" Moderate Muslim. then he follows it with a second Letter. Guy, you've nailed it. You should have stayed in, and became a Mustang Admiral. The Navy could have used you. I can see you now, ginning up Iraq's navy to their version of the BrownWater Fleet. The Somalian pirate fleet would be on the bottom by now....
GuyS IS a Man of Letters, what can I say?

The Retired Geezer is a South Idaho curmudgeon. As differentiated from Panhandle Curmudgeons, who tend to be a little less sociable, you know, the shoot first and ask questions later types? Retired Geezer notes that the combined arms op that released the "Peace Workers" who had been captured (the terrorists killed the lone American in the group) had been denigrated by some filk that said that the forces had "released" the trio. That's RELEASED as in WHEN THESE TROOPS ARRIVED, THE TERRORISTS "RELEASED" THE COMPOUND THAT THEY WERE HOLDING AND GOT OUTA DODGE. Retired Geezer takes exception to the pacifist wording of the communique. Right ON, Mr. Geezer!

OK, enough posts. The mind cannot comprehend what the ass cannot bear.

I'll end with this delightful Catholic joke:

It was time for Father John's Saturday evening bath
and young sister Magdalene Edwards had prepared the
bath water and towels just the way the old nun had instructed.
Sister Magdalene was also instructed not to look at
Father John's nakedness if she could help it, do whatever
he told her to, and pray.

The next morning the old nun asked Sister Magdalene
how the Saturday night bath had gone. "Oh, sister,"
said the young nun dreamily. "I've been saved."

"Saved? And how did that fine thing come about?" asked
the old nun.

"Well, when Father John was soaking in the tub, he asked
me to wash him, and while I was washing him he guided
my hand down between his legs where he said the Lord
keeps the Key to Heaven."

"Did he now," said the old nun, evenly.

Sister Magdalene continued, "And Father John said that
if the Key to Heaven fit my lock, the portals of Heaven
would be opened to me and I would be assured of salvation
and eternal peace and then Father John guided his Key
of Heaven into my lock."

"Is that a fact," said the old nun more evenly.

"That wicked old Devil," said the old nun. "He told
me it was Gabriel's Horn, and I've been blowing it for
40 years!"

If I thought all Catholics had this sense of humor, I could sign onto their program, but then I would Burn In Hell, because I told the Ex-Wife (a Catholic) I never would join the mackerel-snapper brigade.

See you next week!

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Ten

2006-03-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

All I can do is hope that Blogger holds up while I scribble this post...the service has been up and down all day, and seems to be running on one cylinder right now.

I'm starting a new part of the Carnival today...Peeve Of The Week (POTW), which is a close relative of PITA, of course.

This week's candidates are: Financial houses or merchants who abuse the Federal Fair Credit Collection Practices Act and get away with it; the doofus MSM (fill in the reason here_________); The Government of Mexico, which allows people to drive who don't have a clue about what that entails (then said Mexicans come up here and create FUBAR hell on OUR roads).

First, the banks. 15USC1692 is the set of laws that regulates how, when and why money may be collected from people. We're talking money for business that has already been transacted. By Collections, the Act is referring to late payments. So, naturally, definitions of what is late, later, and too late matter. Late is when you should have paid, but are less than 30 days late paying. "Past Due" is more than 30 days late, out to 60 days, where you may be reported to a credit reporting agency for being late (which then puts a black mark against your credit record). These are the legal definitions. Have you noticed lately that more and more businesses have started fudging the definition, calling you "past due" when you are less than a month late? My boat payment is due on the 1st of the month. I was just getting back from my road trip, and I was sick as a dog. I failed to make the transfer, although I have almost $8,000 in the account, so it wasn't that I was broke or anything, I just forgot. My health was more important to me than sitting down and running though my checklist of bills.

I get a "past due" notice that is sent out by the credit union on the 10th of the month. I sit right down to the computer and transfer the bucks to the loan account. So sorry, won't do it again. Then I got to thinking. These idiots actually sent me a dunning notice for a payment that was only 10 days late. That costs them (and me, since it's investor-owned), money. I fired off a Curmudgeon Gram at them. Haven't heard back yet, but they probably sent it to their lawyer, since I cited the section and sub-section of the Act that they violated.

Candidate: The doofus MSM. I'll make this brief, and YOU may pick the offense you want a reporter strung up from your local lamp-post for.

The "Iraq Civil War": according to the MSM, all our efforts in Iraq are wasted because a few bodies have been found indicating the existence of criminal gangs. Duh!

The "Saddam Tapes": every time more of these tapes are transcribed, it offers more evidence that Saddam DID have a WMD program, and was actively hiding it from inspectors. You won't hear this important news on the MSM, though.
FEMA mis-management. "Big Scoop": millions wasted by Federal Contractors. Gasp! Uh, boys, isn't the bill for Katrina $125 BILLION and rising? So we are talking about 3/125,000 as a fraction of mis-managed money? Put into simple decimals, that's .0024 of ONE PERCENT! Standby to ho-hum. Must be a slow news week.
MSNBC (MicroSoftkNowsBullCrap) trots out General Wesley Clark to comment on the Iraq Civil War. Lessee, Gen. Clark KNOWS civil wars, since, with all of NATO at his command, he failed to end one in Serbia and Kosovo. The same General Clark, who, when running as a candidate for POTUS, couldn't outpoll the Screamer, dispite the heavy backing of the Clintons, who wanted him as a seat-warmer for Hellary.
The Government of Mexico. Which will let any doofus get a driver's licence, and along with them, the State of Oregon, which will give any Mexican doofus a driver's license (which is why the Feds had to pass the Real ID Act, but don't get me started on THAT). If I go to Mexico, I can drive on my US driver's license if I show proof of a fully-paid Mexican insurance policy (a MX company has to issue it). If I don't get such a policy, and get in a wreck, I will be held in jail until I post a CASH BOND equal to all the potential damages. Many Mexicans can drive adequately, but a significant fraction of them can't. A much higher fraction of them than of any class of US citizen you could name. Mexicans also disdain getting insurance policies. Might have something to do with their illegal status in this country, as well as the fact that WE DON'T DO A BLOODY THING TO THEM WHEN WE CATCH THEM WITH NO LICENSE OR INSURANCE! All the cops can do is tow their car and give them a ticket which they don't show up for, and even that may soon be a thing of the past as a recent court decision seems to limit towing to when the "community safety" is of IMMEDIATE concern. The solution is the immediate issuance to officers of a penetrating round for their shotguns. Upon finding an unlicensed, uninsured driver, the cop would be authorized to fire a penetrating round through the motor block, rendering the motor inoperative WITH GREAT PREJUDICE! A consortium of civic-minded tow operators would then donate their services to tow and scrap these hulks. A benefit to all of us would be the removal of the lower end of junkers from the roads, making them safer to drive, and making all of our rides worth just a little bit more in resale value.

OK you make the pick for POTW.

On to this week's Guest Curmudgeons. Morning Glory (a curmudgeonette from somewhere down South) annoints Sanity's Bluff, a new blog for me. The Web Loafer there is very curmudgeonly.

Dissecting Leftism is a very high-order blog (the kind that goes BOOOOM! when it goes off, not just Bang! like most blogs). The language is very precise, and John Ray is an authentic genius AND curmudgeon. Anything there is worth reading, but you have to have a gift for staying with his incisive comments that MAKE YOU THINK!

Curmudgeons DO have to worry about how they dress. GuyK at Charming, Just Charming, has this best-dressed advice.

GuyK also rips the PaleoBoomers a new one with his pity-party for the sob sisters at the World Bank (remember them? That's where we recycled Robert McNamara before he became an out-and-out traitor). It's a good read, tells it like it is.

Mr. Completely, a sharpshooting curmudgeon from the Islands in WA, sends me to a blog in the Islands in FL, the 10,000 Islands to be exact, where we find the From the Swamp blog, very curmudgeonly. Mr. C seems to be toning down his curmudgeon-posts in favor of more posts on guns, not a bad thing. He must feel the pressure to up his gunblogging contributions, since he was recently crowned King Gunblogger or somesuch in a poll that he taught us how to rig. He was a King Curmudgeon also, and I miss his rants.

My final link of the day goes to Sailor GuyS at Snugg Harbor, which I've read as long as I've blogged. Guy has been up and down with his blog for personal reasons, but he is on an up-cycle now, so go there and enjoy his work while you can. As a bonus, he publishes Muir's Day by Day conservative 'toon-strip there also.

Enough of this curmudgeonly bile. Got to go wash my mouth out with Scotch ;)

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Nine

2006-03-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

Two bells of the afternoon watch...seems like the sun's well past the yardarm. I've been below decks for a turn of the glass and still haven't thawed out from 3 hours outside in the sloppy wet snow that we're having. Very uncharacteristic. A year ago it was 70 degrees on this date.

This nip of scotch should warm me up enough to feel like a curmudgeon again.

Redundancy Alert!!! Department of stupid liberal ideas department. California just passed a law that requires there to be translators in any of 8 foreign languages that might be spoken in an emergency room. Those 8 tongues are the ones spoken by the immigrant classes (Spanish, Hmong, Vietnamese, Tagalog, etc). OK, those foreign-tongue speakers are probably not going to pay for their services, but we have to speak to them in their own tongue so as to get the word from them that they don't have any insurance (nor probably any entry papers, but hospitals are forbidden to ask that). It seems to me that if I read my history book, California was host to many foreign speakers and workers years ago. In fact, they built California. When they came here, they had to learn English then.
So, it seems that the FIRST order of business in straightening out our immigration mess would be a requirement to do ANY business relating to any of these workers getting legal entry papers in ENGLISH! Yep, no translators allowed, no bilingual paperwork. You fill out the paperwork correctly in ENGLISH, and you have your interview conducted in ENGLISH, during which you give answers to any questions in ENGLISH. Failure to do so is prima facie evidence that you do not intend to properly integrate into the ENGLISH-SPEAKING society here, and therefore are a poor risk for a residence visa.
Perhaps there will be a requirement for a Constitutional Amendment to encode the above, and also the basic fact that this is an ENGLISH-SPEAKING nation, the sole official language of which is ENGLISH.
I travel quite a bit in Mexico. When I go there, I am prepared to speak Spanish to get my needs taken care of. If the tourist facilities I pay for require their employees to speak english, that's a bonus, but one I've paid for, quite dearly, actually. It costs much more to patronize such facilities, and I pay the cost, because I can.
I can also speak French, in fact I speak it better than Spanish. About 38 years ago, I was stationed by the USAF in MA, at Westover AFB. When I wanted to get all citified for a change, I didn't go down to New Yawk, or even to Bahstahn, I went to Montreal, which was a little farther, but the food was 10 times better and the hotels cheaper. In Montreal, you had to speak French to get by. Those were the days of the separatists, and the Partie Quebecois ran the place, and refused to make anyone speak English. They eventually dragooned the rest of Canada into becoming bi-lingual, but that was the price that had to be paid to keep France from accepting the French part of Canada as it separated. I doubt if the Canadians had the stomach for a Civil War to preserve their Union, like we fought.

That's about it for the theme of the week. SPEAK ENGLISH, DAMNIT!

I haven't been reading as many rants as usual, so this week's guest ranters will be a thin line. I'm making the last preparations for putting on a Bowling Pin pistol shoot at my gun club, and there aren't enuff hours in the day, lemme tell 'ya.

For me, WizBang says it all in the New York murder case. You have the right to be stupid, but if you do, your rights aren't going to save you. Thanx for the link, Bitter.

Grouchy Old Criple in Atlanta has a fine rant this week on the Oscars. You've already read and/or written one or two if you're a curmudgeon, but this one is tops.

PawPaw, a fine writer/curmudgeon from Louisiana, has a beautiful rant about Mayor Nagin laying the groundwork for massive voter fraud in Texas, by trying to convince Katrina refugees who legally are now Texas residents, that they can vote for him in the coming NOLA mayor's race. Lacking some sort of declaratory judgment on the status of these former residents of NOLA, there WILL be tens of thousands of challengeable votes in that election. Were I an opponent of Nagin's, I would plan to challenge every vote in the damaged wards by requiring proof of current residency in the Big Easy.

Mr. Completely, the Compleat Gun Blogger and Master Gizmo Gunnie or some such, has a fine rant on a more everyday topic, the abuse of the term FREE.

Always in the mood for public service, GuyK at Charming, Just Charming, has this warning about a scam that is being run at a local warehouse retailer near you....(NSFW).

In a useful post on an arcane subject, washing a car in VERY HARD WATER, the Anarchangel has done us all a favor. Since becoming unemployed, his writin' and rantin' has kicked up a quantum leap. While obscure, this article is extremely useful, since most folk do not have access to the mountain-soft water I have here.

Finally, Aaron at Dad's Garage rips the educational establishment a new one over the Bennish Affair. His alternative, home schooling, is probably the only thing left to keep our kids from becoming the zombie army that will finally do the socalists' bidding and chuck out our Constitution.

I'm finally warmed up (took two nips of the Water of Life), and I smell a done chicken in the galley. The Mrs is off at the gym, so I'm off to eat.

Remember the Curmudgeon's credo: A growl can be worth as much as a smile. Know when do do either.

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark 8

2006-03-02T07:35:00.000-08:00

Screw it. I give up trying to get the Carnival out on Weds. From now on, it will come out on Thursdays. Unless I'm doing something that makes it worthwhile to postpone it to Fridays.

Keeping up with the bird flu news? You should be. I've already spoken to the store manager at my local supermarket, and he says that if it gets here (and it's only a matter of time), chicken will hit $5/lb. That's disturbing enough, but if the rumor I heard last night (from some TV newshead via the gudwife) is true, they'll be weeping in southeast Asia too, as the H5N1 flu is reported to have crossed over into housecats. You didn't know they ate them over there? Did you spend ALL your down-time in the House of Boom-Boom and none actually studying the culture, Trooper? If you ate the usual unidentified BBQ meat on a stick, bro, you've probably eaten dog or cat.
The POTUS is backing slowly away from the UAE ports deal. First, he said he would veto any attempt to scuttle it, then he said he would be okay with a 45-day review, now he says he is okay with a full Congressional review. The deal is toast, as it should be. Look, I'm as conservative as the next curmudgeon, and you'll find me ranting at big government excess almost every day, but THIS IS A JOB OUR GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO DO, DAMN IT! The news of the Coast Guard Admiral expressing his opposition leaked out, and now we know the truth: there is now way this deal enhances security, and lots of ways it can degrade it. This brings up a point our "investigative reporters" have missed: just how many other deals are out there where we've sold our management responsibilities to the highest bidder?
How much of YOUR precious time does Bill Gates and his crappy operating system eat up on a daily basis? After doing dilligent research, I concluded that the Norton Antivirus pay-to-stay-safe program I've used for 5 years was an unnecessary expense, as GriSoft's free AVG is just as good. I download AVG and set about deleting Norton from my computer. THREE HOURS LATER, I'm still on the hunt for the remnants of NAV, which Windows XP has hidden in far corners of my registry. Even CrapCleaner and Registry Mechanic haven't gotten them all out. Yes, Norton wrote this software, but they wrote it to work on the convoluted XP OS, which is why there are pieces of it scattered thither and yon in the hard drive.
Speaking of computers (spit!), I haven't decided whether they are good for curmudgeons or not. They are supposed to make my life easier, but I spend more time keeping mine free of the wrong kinds of bits and bytes than I would keeping a Jaguar or MG running, and I can tell you that they require at least three hours of maintenance for every ten hours of driving, just so you can experience that English form of perversion. On the other hand, it is a constant mental exercise to keep them going and doing my bidding, so maybe I'm putting off the onset of senility that way. Maybe I'm senile for even trying. God only knows.
A decent storm blew through last night at oh-dark-thirty, and the 40-mph or so wind gusts woke me up. Then I heard the sound of an empty garbage cart being pounded into plastic bits in the street, so I had to fully wake up to engage the brain before I found that exact memory that assured me it wasn't mine, I had put it in the garage. I used to be able to handle this minor shit half-asleep.
Curmudgeon joke of the week, courtesy of the EllTee:

Every day, for a week, a female co-worker goes to the break-room to get coffee and every day, a male co-worker is there, stands next to her and remarks that her hair smells real nice. After a week of this, the gal gets peeved, and goes to a supervisor in Human Relations and tells him that she wants to file a sexual harrassment complaint against the male co-worker. The supervisor asks why. She tells him that she is annoyed by the unsolicited compliment. The supervisor says, "That's not much of a sexual harassment, is it?" The gal replies, "It is, considering it's coming from Frank, that midget you hired."

Well, I thought it was funny. You may have a different set of values.

On to the Curmudgeon links of the week.

From the Analog Kid comes this little bit of cheer from Mr. Justice Scalia of the SCOTUS. BTW, the AK is moving his household this week, and will be on hiatus, but has an able crew backing him up at Random Nuclear Strikes.

Kim DuToit, writing in the Other Side of Kim, prepares us for the hype and blather of the Academy Awards with this little set of observations. He's citing the blog of an English friend of his. Brit curmudgeons are a bit too intense for my taste, because their vocabulary hurts my sinuses, but this linked curmudgeon has hit the nail on the head when it comes to the vapid minds of Hollywood.

If you've been divorced, and paid child support, you may be forgiven for laughing at these, brought to you by GuyK at Charming, Just Charming. If you can't bring yourself to laugh, go to the range and practice. There will come a time when all your skills will be valuable.

PawPaw has the cure for Osama, as he watches the trial of Saddam turn into the circus we always knew it would be.

Not Fit for Humans has an interesting view when the traditional views of the Old Testament are explained by oh-so-sensitive teachers of the New School. Hint, it's a new take on Solomonic Justice.

In a Major Opus, Chris Byrne at AnarchAngel gets serious about arming up for home defense. This is a very long blog post, but if you need any information on selection of weapons for your primary duty (defending your home and family, duh!), you will find it all here. The only thing I, as a fellow gunblogger, find any fault with is Chris' (and many other's) love for the AR-15. I personally think it is the worst mistake of a battle rifle ever foisted off on any army in modern times. Your mileage may vary.

That's about it for this week. Thanks for your support.

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Seven

2006-02-23T15:51:00.000-08:00

This week's Carnival is a day late, again. No excuse, sir. Well, maybe. My month in the sun has turned into a physical breakdown nightmare for me. First, I threw my back out again, then my weak GI tract let go and I lost quite a bit of blood and spent day before yesterday in the ER. Now I can't drink, can't eat anything called food, can't sit in the sun, can't do squat.

Bummer, dude.

But, I have a bad feeling that my troubles pale into insignificance compared to the Nation's. I refer to the disastrous decision to outsource the management of 6 US ports to the United Arab Emirates.

You will notice I said UAE, not Dubai Ports, Ltd, the company whose name appears on the documents. I remind readers that the UAE is a monarchy, and Dubai Ports is a state-owned company owned by the Emirate, which is owned by the Emir.

If I felt generous towards the UAE, I would say that the security of our ports is a concern of Dubai Ports, but there's no proof of that. There IS proof of their previous lack of concern for security of transportation as regards air transport.

The 3,000 graves from 9-11 should serve nicely as an example.

I don't feel generous towards the UAE. Over there, family name trumps everything, not security concerns. Sure, we will write enough regulations into the deal to choke a horse, but as any good terrorist knows, regulations are for the weak, and serve mainly to blind the victims from their fate.

I could write a better deal.

First, I would charge Dubai Ports for a comprehensive new security set-up. With the Emir's rials, there would be efficient inspection of EVERY shipping container crossing our docks.

With the Emir's rials, a very large trust bond would be set up to compensate any and all victims of any future act of terror resulting from weapons crossing the docks.

With the Emir's rials, port security would be increased with new MIUW units (Mobile Inshore Underwater Warfare), Navy/Coast Guard units that monitor or engage surface traffic flow in the harbors, but are also set up to do underwater inspections of arriving vessels as well.

With the Emir's rials and influence, the world would subscribe to a tracking system that would track every single shipping container wherever it sits or sails.

Put the Emir's money to work to make us safer, and Bush's objectives will be met. I'm betting that no such agreement will ever be written, however.

But, I'm a curmudgeon, and I think that way.

Of course, GuyK thinks like a curmudgeon as well. Here's his take on the FEMA handouts.

Here's the retired geezer with his take on Ice Dancing in the lee-limpix.

Now that the furor over Veep Cheney's hunting accident has died down, I nominate the Anarchangel as having written the best post on it.

Back to the lee-limpix: PawPaw, always a curmudgeonly read, has a humorous take on it.

My take on the lee-limpix is ho-hum. Being laid up for the moment, I am watching more than my usual share of teevee, and last night I watched some women's speed skating. Let us say that the skin-tight costumes leave little to the imagination as to the form of the skater underneath, so I was reminded of this (NSFW) website. Yes, there were some cameltoe shots at the end of races.

Aaron Neal, not a curmudgeon in years, but one who could give lessons in the culture, writes about the "new police". I refused to become a New Policeman in my last few years in that career, and became very unpopular to the brass, but ever more popular to the citizenry I served.

Mr. Completely, an "A-list" curmudgeon, has this post on border security.

That's all folks. My B.R.A.T. dinner awaits (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Tea).

Blllarrrrrg.

!@#$%)%^&*(

2006-02-15T06:55:00.000-08:00

There! I'm feeling more in the mood this week, especially after having to endure the brainless flying public on my trip back from MX to the US of A.

Let me tell you about the trip.

First, we have to put up with the horribly overcrowded Aeropuerto Gustavo Ordaz at Puerto Vallarta. We get there from the hotel and find 400-500 people in a line waiting for baggage search. The Mexicans don't believe in X-Ray equipment, so they have a squadron of baggage inspectors with a flotilla of tables, upon which each piece of baggage must be hoisted and opened. Then they poke around while you stand idly by, then give you the OK, and you zip it back up and go to the next available ticket counter for your airline. The search was desultory, and probably would not have found an AK-47 in my biggest bag, a rolling duffel with numerous mesh-separated compartments in it.

OK, got checked in for the flight, with over an hour left until gate time. Go up to the departure concourse (security is the same as in the US, only faster). Get the last table at a sports bar and HAND OVER MY LAST 200 PESOS FOR 2 BEERS AND A HALF-LITER OF ICE-WATER! Christ on a Crutch! Of course there's soccer on (no, it's NOT "football", dammit!). Suck the beers and water slowly, do the wife and daughter and I, then we mosey off to the gate, to await loading on the busses which take us to the airplanes. They have jetways at this airport, but don't use them for some reason. I luck out, get on the back of the bus thru the back door, and am first off the bus and up the ramp with the wiff, so we get to our seats in the back of the plane with ease. Only two bawling babies with earshot, must be my lucky day. I plug in the headset on my PDA, fire up some bagpipers to drown out the infants and play solitare until the stewardess glares at me (1bn Scots Guards must have drowned out the "no more electronic devices" call).

The airplane, a brand-new Boeing 737-900, screams off the runway in 5000 feet dispite the heat and the load. Very good engines these GE & P/W people build.

We climb to altitude. We start getting beat to shit in clear air turbulence. After the cruise-climb, the pilot levels off, makes some remark about bumps, AND STAYS AT THE SAME ALTITUDE FOR 3 GOT-DAMN HOURS! Now to be fair, I didn't know whether this meant that the pilot was a sadist, or whether the Mexican controllers wouldn't give him a smoother altitude. It happens, however, on about 2/3 of the flights I take down to or back from PVR. Saint Christopher on a Stick! Why the !!@#$%^%$#@! can't the airlines and the airspace controllers cooperate on fixing this little problem?

My bladder won't hold the beer, so dispite the seat-belt sign being illuminated, I get up and go a few feet back to the rear of the cabin to take a whiz. On the way, I notice that in the very back row, two rows behind our seats, is a couple with a toddler AND THEY ARE DOING MAJOR MANUAL SUCTION WITH A SUCTION DEVICE IN THE KID'S NOSE AND MOUTH! The kid is not blue, nor is it crying. I put this down to mama-nerves and finish my business and return to my seat.

We finally cross the border and begin enroute descent to LAX. The very second we leave our bumpy altitude, it gets smooth as glass, of course. Now I KNOW that the fault for the bumpy ride was the pilot's. I hate his guts. I resolve to glare at him as he gives me the buh-bye at the terminal.

It's not going to be that easy. As we fly over my old home-drome at March AFB in Riverside County, the pilot announces that we have a dangerously ill passenger on board who will be removed by the paramedics upon landing. The passenger is in the back of the airplane, so we won't be able to deplane in the usual mad rush.

It's the couple with the toddler.

Now I'm pissed. Really pissed.

This couple brought a very sick kid with who-knows-what severe upper respiratory distress on a public flight, possibly risking all our lives from infection and definitely risking the kid's ears and sinuses from bursting, just so they didn't interrupt their precious schedule. There's a perfectly satisfactory air ambulance service in PVR, or, in the alternative, the parents could have waited until the kid was more stable before flying. The airlines will change tickets with no charge for this type of reason.

We land, they OK cell phones, and I call my Phoenix host to tell him that we're on the ground in CA. I relate the situation with the kid, but I'm not worried about my connection, because I have over 3 hours between getting to LAX and flying out for PHX.

The guy behind me listens to me talking and gets in my face, remarking that I'm cruel and insensitive to put MY inconvenience ahead of the kid's welfare. I decide to reply. I inform him that I'm a trained EMT, and briefly detail the risk to the kid and the passenger complement involved. Then I ask HIM if HE had his Whooping Cough and Pertussis booster shot lately. He shuts up.

We wait and wait, hooked up to the jetway. The paramedics come aboard, assess the toddler, and carry him off the airplane. We finally get to deplane, and we whiz through Immigration and Customs, and then get our exercise.

LAX lands all it's International flights at the International Terminal #4. Most domestic flights leave from Terminal #1.

They are not close together.

Die Frau and I schlep our baggage (America West is in the process of being taken over by US Airways and had no baggage agent at Customs like the entire rest of the frigging air industry did) almost a MILE (the friendly airport cop said a "two to three minute walk") down to Terminal One, go in at ground level, finally find an operating elevator and go get checked in to US-AW.

Baggage inspection is a whiz, they have a real X-ray machine with competent operator, but why in God's Name, when I present him with four bags to inspect, all matched luggage, all with my personal red duct tape on the handles, all with identical airline destination tags, DOES HE HAVE TO ASK ME FOUR TIMES IF THERE ARE ANY FIREARMS IN THEM!!!?

We're starving, and we find a mini-pizza express place handy, so I go in, order two mini-pizzas, one Snapple for die frau, a large orange juice for me. TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS AND EIGHTY-EIGHT CENTS! AND IT WAS THE SECOND WORST PIZZA I EVER ATE! The worst was made by a food-hootch operator during the war in SEA, a guy who'd never done anything more advanced than serving burned water-buffalo on a stick and boiling veggies in thin fish stock. That was BAD (made with GI surplus cheese), but this was AWFUL, considering they had all the good ingredients at hand. I've crapped better pizza sauce than was on that pizza.

We fly to PHX on a Frog Airbus A320, which, dispite being only a quarter full, having little fuel aboard, still took 7000 feet to get off the runway. I suspect the pilot did not use full available thrust, as the SNECMA engines are powerful, and should have gotten that bird off in 3000 feet. The idiot departure pattern adds at least 15 minutes to the flight. You climb almost all the way to altitude over the damn Pacific, coasting back in at 25,000 feet and flying a few minutes at that altitude, then letting down in enroute descent for KPHX.

Baggage retrieval at PHX was routine, then the Congenial Host's Lexus hove into view at the curb, and we were here. Scotch and confabulation until 0200, and a good bed until noon the next day.

I'm re-relaxing, have a date with AnarchAngel to shoot next week.

Life is good, except for the travel.

Had enough of my screed? Prolly have, by now. I'm not the only curmudgeon on the block, and fortunately for you the bean juice has kicked in, so here are some links:

Go to Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta's place and check out his Brokeback Mountain cartoon series. They're a riot, and they'll make up for the fact that Willy Nelson decided to legitimize this travesty upon an American icon.

GuyK at Charming, Just Charming keeps up an effective harassing fire on the HildeBeast.

Chris Byrne, the AnarchAngel, relives his last year and First Post, detailing his immediate qualification as a Curmudgeon.

PawPaw holds the (D)onks' noses to the grindstone with this report about Katrina Aid abuse, which, if I remember, he predicted just after he, himself survived the storm.

Well, ibeddy, ibeddy, ibeddy, that's all folks. More goodness next week. Maybe a range report.

Carnival postponed this week

2006-02-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

...until I get to feeling more curmudgeonly. I have "manana fever", have totally chilled out, and couldn't rant now if my life depended on it. I have been skipping over the rants I have read, but there seems to be a ranting hiatus throughout the right half of the blogosphere now. Of course, I don't read much in the left half, and their rants aren't of the curmudgeonly sort anyway, but the simple barking of moonbats during a full moon, or what they think is a full moon (probably reflections of a lit fart as seen through a tinfoil hat).

I was going to do some re-ranting, i.e., reposting old rants, but that ain't fair to my readers. I DID find a tequila that has an effective anti-curmudgeon potion in it. I'll share the name later in my Tequila Report, which I will post when I get around to it, maybe manana...

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Six

2006-02-02T03:13:00.000-08:00

This Mark is from Mexico, where this curmudgeon is decompressing in luxury in Puerto Vallarta, at Paradise Village Resort.

There are a lot of curmudgeons here, of both sexes. All pretty mellow. Tequila does that to you. Hard to get the Curmudgeon Edge, but we always try, don't we?

First, a joke, from a female curmudgeon point of view:

A woman and a baby were in the doctor's examining room,
waiting for the doctor to come in for the baby's first exam.

The doctor arrived, examined the baby checked his weight,
and being a little concerned, asked if the baby was breast-fed
or bottle-fed.

"Breast-fed" she replied.

"Well, strip down to your waist," the doctor ordered.
She did. He pinched her nipples, then pressed, kneaded,
and rubbed both breasts for a while in a detailed examination.

Motioning to her to get dressed, he said, "No wonder this baby
is underweight. You don't have any milk."

"I know," she said, "I'm his Grandma, but I'm glad I came."

I can hear the silence from here.

I'll try again later, but you readers had better meet me half-way on this, or I might rant.

On to some selections of this week's curmudgeonly goodness: Rob over at Gut Rumbles has an explanation of why he's becoming a coffee snob. Of course he should, curmudgeons are NOT tea-sippers. Then, Denny, the Original Grouchy Old Cripple, has his take and some punditry on the recent Palestinian "election". Curmudgeons call 'em as they see 'em. Jimmah Carter, you are NOT a curmudgeon, you are an idiot. There IS a difference. Finally, Mr. Helpful has his take (and a curmudgeonly view it is, too) on the recent "Oprah" book-club flap. So, my take is that all this goes to prove is that the more of an Emperor or Empress someone thinks they are, the less likely it is that they will believe that they are wearing no clothes when they are actually naked.

Curmudgeons march on. Your Carnival impressario is currently on hiatus in Mexico, where I'm just trying to indulge my touristy jones. I found a den of ex-pat curmudgeons and joined their company. It is the Vallarta Yacht Club, a delightful place where the cervesa flows without too much prompting with pesos ($MX12), Chivas is $MX45, and the "hamburguesa" is acceptable. Add in the benefits of a private club-within-a-club, a VOIP telephone to the States and the general ambiance of the hub of the large and showy marina, and you will see why I love it. Commodore Douglas accepted my membership with a minimum of fuss, and I presented my new club with a burgee from my Oregon one, and reciprocity arrangements are in progress between the two clubs. You may call me "Ambassador-Curmudgeon", thank you.

It's about the end of night watch here at the resort, and the day watch employees are starting to move back in for their huge job of entertaining hundreds of tourists. This coffee snob will retreat back to his suite and fire up a pot of Seattle's Best, since the lobby coffee bar won't open for another couple of hours. Then it's off to the booking agent to book an upcountry trip for this weekend, a breakfast meeting and update on new marketing strategies for club memberships (i.e. they will try to sell me a bigger timeshare, but they are polite when I say no), then off to the Aeropuerto to pick up my youngest daughter, an anti-curmudgeon, who is joining us for a week. If I have time before her plane gets in, there's a little restaurant nearby that serves the employees of the aeropuerto, and they have the best Carnitas for a few pesos. Chicharones, too.

OK, I promised I'd try again at this humor business:

DOWN AT THE RETIREMENT CENTER

80-year old Bessie bursts into the rec room at the retirement home. She holds her clenched fist in the air and announces, "Anyone who can guess what's in my hand can have sex with me tonight!!" An elderly gentleman in the rear shouts out, "An elephant?" Bessie thinks a minute and says, "Close enough."

Humor Hat Tips to MadErnie and the EllTee, both of which ex-gyrenes have warped senses of humor.

Carnival of The Curmudgeons - Mark Five

2006-01-26T09:10:00.000-08:00

A work in progress....I'll have to add to this Mark as the day goes along. I'm in the final stages of packing for a month of chasing the sun, so my mind really isn't into curmudgeonly stuff, but more practical stuff, like "do I REALLY need to take that bulky SOB this time?" I'm up to two check-in rollers and my roller laptop bag, and three of those babies are hard to maneuver in a crowded air terminal. I'm at that point where I still have extra room, but not enough extra to leave one bag home, and besides, I have to have room for the inevitable loot we accumulate while traveling.

UPDATE: Here's an added Curmudgeon link, to a post that I just wrote. I am so steamed that I'm pissing melted lard! It's about a new low in Sleaziness that the GOP just pulled off.

And is it just me, or do I detect that the curmudgeons are quiet this week? I haven't read much curmudgeonly stuff this week, certainly nothing that jumped off the screen at me and said "I'm headed straight for Curmudgeon Call".

One curmudgeonly trait is loyalty. I have to write SOMETHING, so here is a curmudgeon-factor example, that is also funny. Let's look at funny today, what is and what isn't:

If you remember the Original Hollywood Squares and its comics, this may bring a tear to your eye. These great questions and answers are from the days when "Hollywood Squares" game show responses were spontaneous and clever, not scripted and (often) dull, as they are now. Peter Marshall was the host asking the questions, of course.

Q. Do female frogs croak?
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.

Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be?
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes

Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A. Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.

Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?
A. Rose Marie: No; wait until morning.

Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.

Q. What are "Do It," "I can help," and "I can't get enough"?
A. George Gobel: I don't know, but it's coming from the next apartment.

Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?
A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question, Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget.

Q. Peter, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A. Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Q. Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?
A. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I'm too busy growing strawberries.

Q. In bowling, what's a perfect score?
A. Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.

Q. It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics, what is the other?
A. Paul Lynde: Tape measures.

Q. Can boys join the Camp Fire Girls?
A. Marty Allen: Only after lights out.

Q. When you pat a dog on its head, he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?

Q. If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
A. Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.

Q. It is the most abused and neglected part of your body, what is it?
A. Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused, but it certainly isn't neglected.

Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.

Q. When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A. Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car, the rest is up to him.

Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.

Q. According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do in bed?
A. Paul Lynde: Point and laugh.

The jokes are almost ALL Politically-Incorrect. That gives them a boost in my eyes, but they are also FUNNY, and a joke is supposed to be FUNNY. Do you want to get an idea of how bad comedy has become? Find a fellow curmudgeon with Cable or Satellite TV, invite yourself over (it helps to take a bottle) and watch some E! channel or Comedy Channel. If you time it right, there'll be some Chris Rock. The man can be funny, but how do you make a joke out of sixteen "Fucks!" and twelve "motherfuckers" in one sentence? There are lot of "edge" comedians who not only push the bounds of anyone's good taste, but seem to have it as their stock-in-trade, or schtick. It isn't funny, it's not comedy, it's just trash.

When I was a youth, I also watched edgy comedians. Dick Gregory, George Carlin come to mind. As far as black humor went, we could have stopped with Dick Gregory. He said all the funny things about his race that are there to be said, poked a good deal of fun at himself and his race, but had one standard: it had to be funny. Carlin was a "druggie" jokester. He could pantomime the condition of being high and the intellect-warping that occurs in that state better than anyone, and he had a lot of company (Cheech and Chong).

The subject of comedy can't be discussed without looking at TV, which, as a medium, is tailor-made for comedy, because the small screen is perfect for focussing on the comedican's face as he or she delivers the jokes. When is anything ever going to come up to the standards of Rowan and Martin's "Laugh-In"? Dean Martin, the perfect drunk comedian (who could do sober schtick better than most even while drunk, which he always was), and Dan Rowan, the perfect Second Banana. How many times did he hook YOU in by starting serious, then making a joke that made you laugh AT YOURSELF? Add to that the rapid-fire formats (the show had several, including the famous slamming-window closing), the cornball comedy of Grampaw Jones and HIS crew, who were good enough to have their own show (and I guess that they did, but it didn't play much where I lived).

Then we got into the Steve Martin era, which wasn't far removed from the Rowan and Martin era, but then comedy pretty much dies after that, in my book. Two reasons: First, there is NOTHING funny about political correctness, and when that lame restriction is applied to comedy it makes most of the human condition off-limits for comedic highlighting, and it kills comedy. Secondly, and I don't really know what this movement is called, maybe "Comedia del Arte" (the comedy of/in the art), it suddenly became cute for the boomers and younger to laugh at the little (but politically-correct) foibles of people that occur during real life. "Seinfeld" is a good example. It's funny occasionally, but it misses the funny bone more often than it scores hits. The problem with these shows is that they have to try too hard to make their comedic leads look normal so that they can then depart to the funny side (the humor is supposed to be in the departure). Their writers ignore this basic truth: normal is not funny. There are exceptions: "Larry, the Cable Guy" does regional Southern humor. Usually base humor, but he searches out little normal things that Southerners take for granted and finds that they tickle others' funny bones, and he works up jokes around those ideas. He's brilliant, both in his selection of foibles and his delivery. I love the guy.

Comedy is all about subject and delivery. Shakespeare knew that, and all the good comedians know that. Standup comedy hones the delivery to a razor's edge, which is why I like it, but so many young comedians work so hard on their delivery that they ignore subject.

If it's not funny, I don't care how well you deliver the punchline, it won't make me laugh.

Go to your room.

Curmudgeons and Sex

2006-01-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

Back to the original format.

On this subject, "Curmudgeons and Sex", the answer to your unasked question, Nosey, is "not much"

When a man get to the Curmudgeon stage of life, some things get harder, some don't.

A Curmudgeon's resolve to defend his culture and his Constitution gets hard. Flint-hard. Steel-hard. Smack from .50BMG API hard.

A Curmudgeon has a harder time hearing things. A harder time understanding "mis-undertood youth". A harder time putting up with people who can't read traffic signs or divine the color of traffic lights.

A Curmudgeon has Hard as a daily part of his life, except, usually, in bed.

Then he's just an old softie!

But there's Viagra for that!

Just to show you that Curmudgeons CAN be sensitive, here's a guide to dealing with PMS wimmen.

THE HORMONE WARNING:

The Hormone Hostage (aka "husband", "boyfriend", "her room-mate", "the First Mate") knows that there are days in the month when all a man has to do is open his mouth and he takes his life in his own hands!

This is a handy guide that should be as common as a driver's license in the wallet of every husband, boyfriend, or significant other!

DANGEROUS: What's for dinner?
SAFER: Can I help you with dinner?
SAFEST: Where would you like to go for dinner?
ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: Are you wearing that?
SAFER: Wow, you look good in brown.
SAFEST: WOW! Look at you!
ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: What are you so worked up about?
SAFER: Could we be overreacting?
SAFEST: Here's my paycheck.
ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: Should you be eating that?
SAFER: You know, there are a lot of apples left.
SAFEST: Can I get you a glass of wine with that?
ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: What did you do all day?
SAFER: I hope you didn't over-do it today
SAFEST: I've always loved you in that robe!
ULTRA SAFE: Have some more chocolate.

Yep, snip it, post it up, Curmudgeons. That's an order. I don't want to hear of any of MY troops getting the Bobbit Treatment.

I didn't dismiss you yet.

Here's a convenient list of acronyms, military-style:

13 Things PMS Stands For!

1. Pass My Shotgun
2. Psychotic Mood Shift
3. Perpetual Munching Spree
4. Puffy Mid-Section
5. People Make me Sick
6. Provide Me with Sweets
7. Pardon My Sobbing
8. Pimples May Surface
9. Pass My Sweat pants
10. Pissy Mood Syndrome
11. Plainly; Men Suck
12. Pack My Stuff
And my favorite one...
13. Potential Murder Suspect

Curmudgeons, DISMISSED!

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Four

2006-01-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

Enough of this "standby for orders" style. We're going to start this Carnival with a recipe. If you're a curmudgeon, you know that any food may be eaten at any meal. To do otherise would be, well, French.

CHICKEN SLUMGULLION:

Remarks: I eat a lot of chicken. My docs don't like it when I eat red meat more than a couple of times a week. Something about clogged arteries (which I don't have, I walked on the treadmill today and never got a pulse rate over 110 and got the treadmill up to 3.5 mph and kept it there).

About 5 days ago, I roasted a huge fryer, it was almost 6#. When the Mrs and I ate the first two meals off it, we ate the dark parts and very little of the breast, so I had this huge-breasted chicken left over in the fridge. Hmmmm. What to do. My eyes take in other things: some leftover green beans, some leftover asparagus, a half a tub of salsa casera, some chicken broth. Yep, time for a slumgullion. Defined as a "watery meat stew". Yep. You use your imagination here with the ingredients. Damn near anything you have around. I've known a few curmudgeons who keep a slumgullion pot going and just keep pitching leftovers into it, renewing the spices and herbs, and keep it going for weeks. It changes, so you don't get tired of it.

Preparation: Pull the chicken off the carcass. Cut into bite-sized pieces, set aside. Yield, 1 1/2-2#
Cut up the asparagus, the green beans and a zuchinni I found getting soft in the veggie drawer. Set aside. Break up 5 dried Shiitake Forest Mushrooms (or other flavorful type) and set aside.

To an 8-12 qt pot, add 40 oz of chicken broth (if you're using white meat, you don't get good broth from it). Heat to boiling. Add to the boiling broth 1 1/2 cups of small macaroni (don't get Italian on me and ask what size number). Start stirring so the macaroni doesn't stick. DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU HOW TO COOK MACARONI? I hope not. Chuck in the meat, the 'shrooms, the cut-up veggies, 12 ounces of salsa casera, 1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic and 1 1/2 tbsp of Season-All. Boil moderately on Med-Hi heat, but stir so it doesn't stick. Always stir the pot. Heh!

Where are the herbs, you ask. Good, you're paying attention. If you had a mom who taught you to cook, and she taught you to chuck the herbs in the stew along with every thing that needed cooking, she done you wrong, bub. You don't "pitch" the herbs until you have 5 minutes left in the cooking process, BECAUSE THAT'S ALL THE LONGER HERBS CAN TAKE BEING COOKED! They lose their flavor after that. So, when the macaroni is done, the veggies tender (the meat is already cooked), you throw in 1 1/2 tbsp of ground sage, 1 1/2 tbsp of flake Oregano and 3 tablespoons of ground Rosemary THAT YOU JUST MILLED FROM DRIED ROSEMARY NEEDLES. In your spice mill. If you don't have a spice mill, you'll have to hand rub the rosemary a pinch at a time. Finally, just before you turn off the fire, pitch in another 1 1/2 tbsp of minced garlic (the first garlic has just about cooked away, but you will have a garlic base AND a garlic presentation if you split the garlic into front and back doses.

Dip a bowl of it out, sit down to the table and spoon it into your maw. Goes down well with a Deschutes Brewery Mirror Pond Ale, but would be OK with a robust red wine. Nice with some fresh French Bread if you have it. The crusty kind. Dip it into the soup. Have a salad if you feel inclined, or some Kim Chee if you're partial to Asian food.

This classifies as a "light" meal, as it will have virtually no fat. It has veggies and garlic, both of which you can boast about next time your doc asks you what you've been eating lately. Eat as many bowls of it as you want. This batch would have served at least 8.

OK, we curmudgeons have eaten, and since it was light meal, we don't have to strap on a 1911, grap the pooch-pounding stick and take a walk around the neighborhood to work it off, so here's the rest of the Carnival.

Mr. Completely leads off with a post griping about the recent transplants to the Northwest who aren't handling the straight month of rain we've had up here well. He points out that if you're a NW curmudgeon, you're supposed to have Web Feet, and all this damp and gloom and mud doesn't faze you, it delights you.

On a controversial note, I postulate that we curmudgeons want to die when we want to die, and not have some maybe-well-meaning grandkids or the nanny state trying to prolong our miserable existence at the end. To that end, the Supreme Court did all of us a favor, and particularily those of us curmudgeons here in Oregon who can presently take advantage of the Death With Dignity Act. Your mileage may vary, especially if you are a Religious Curmudgeon.

The Golden Globe Awards were held this week. They are about as significant as a fart in a hurricane, but they tell us who are enemies are, so I wrote about it. Here's my link.

Then Curmudgeon Emeritus, GuyK of Charming, Just Charming, cuts loose on "poverty" a favorite subject this time of year because Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was big on it. He had it half right, the evil in our world is poverty AND ignorance. You can be poor and worth your salt, but if you're ignorant, money won't help.

Then the Perfesser warns us of an impending fuel price rise.

On a sad note, FN Herstal, the fine Belgian firearms conglomerate which owns the Winchester name and brand, announced that it will either immediately sell or close the last Winchester factory. You could say that Winchester is Winchester (the term is fighter pilot slang for out of gun ammo).

But, we'll end on a happy curmudgeon note, with this joke, sent to me by the EllTee, a SD curmudgeon:

A young boy went up to his grandfather, a curmudgeon who lived with the family, and asked him, "Granpa, what is the difference between potentially and realistically?"

The grandfather thought for a moment, then answered, "Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars. Then ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars, and then, ask your brother if he'd sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars. Come back and tell me what you learn from that."

So the boy went to his mother and asked, "Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?" The mother replied, "Of course I would! We could really use that money to fix up the house and send you kids to a great University!"

The boy then went to his sister and asked, "Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?" The girl replied, "Oh my God! I LOVE Brad Pitt I would sleep with him in a heartbeat, are you nuts?!?!?"

The boy then went to his older brother and asked, "Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?" "Of course," the brother replied. "Do you know how much a million bucks would buy?"

The boy pondered the answers for a few days, then went back to his granddad. His grandfather asked him, "Did you find out the difference between potentially and realistically?"

The boy replied, "Yes... Potentially, you and I are sitting on Three Million Dollars..............but Realistically,......... we're living with two Sluts and a Queer."

Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Three

2006-01-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

You know how this goes, if you're either a curmudgeon or have been to Basic Training (any service).

Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em
Tell 'em
Tell 'em what you just told 'em

Yep, that's the standard military way of teaching things, and it's good enough for this curmudgeon.

Today, we'll look at several very curmudgeonly posts, share a curmudgeon joke, and then we'll do something new:

No female has yet volunteered what a female (rhymes with tamale) curmudgeon is, but I'm going to post something from their point of view anyway, and we'll say it's from the curmudgeon-splits, hereafter referred to as "curmu/\dgeon". If you're over 55, you'll remember the reference.

The Attention Step is this joke:

A little old lady was running up and down the halls in a nursing home. As she walked, she would flip up the hem of her nightgown and say, "Supersex." She walked up to an elderly man in a wheelchair. Flipping her gown at him, she said, "Supersex." He sat silently for a moment or two and finally answered, "I'll take the soup."

OK, what is it that Leno does when a joke bombs? Oh, yeah, he makes fun of his bandleader. I'm too cheap to have a band, so I guess I'll just have to grab the firex and put out these flames......

Finally, to show you that beneath all that crust, curmudgeons MAY have a heart, a poem.

First post: frequent curmudgeon (almost to the ex-salted status of CONSTANT CURMUDGEON) GuyK. I say that this is a perfect post, in that it adds to the curmudgeon storehouse of Things That Piss You Off.

Then we get to Chris, the Anarchangel. Don't get that FUBAR, it's NOT Christ the Anti-angel. Where was I? Oh yes, Things That Piss You Off. Chris has come up with the little matter of your sweetie's LACK of simple knowledge of things mechanical, such as TIRES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ROUND, AND SINCE THEY ARE PNEUMATIC, THAT MEANS THAT THEY NEED AIR! Chris, of course, does a better job of it than I, so go here to read his byplay.

Then we drop by PawPaw's House to get a little refreshment on the way to the range. Uh, oh. PawPaw is having a fine shitfit. It seems that THE RANGE IS CLOSED, and on a day it is supposed to be open, because the Department of Natural Resources doesn't have enough resources to open it (this after the Governess Blanco just bought herself over a half-million in luxury items for the Governor's Mansion presumably from FEMA funds or $$$ sprung loose by the infusion of Federal Cash). PawPaw jumps into the DNR's face BIG-TIME.

Up in Seattle, hard by Puget Sound, The Analog Kid, a Curmudgeon-in-Waiting, has found us the perfect Retro-Mobile. I love MoPar, and this might be my next (and last) new car.

Then, the "Compleat Gun Blogger", Mr. Completely, is trying on the Impressario's Suit, and is starting to put together the First Annual National Gunblogger's Rendezvous this coming November. In Reno, NV. Go here to read the exciting details.

OK, I may not do this every week, but bear with me here (or just stop reading if you don't need an eyewasher).

Daddy's Poem

Her hair was up in a pony tail,
her favorite dress tied with a bow.
Today was Daddy's Day at school,
and she couldn't wait to go.

But her mommy tried to tell her,
that she probably should stay home.
Why the kids might not understand,
if she went to school alone.

But she was not afraid;
she knew just what to say.
What to tell her classmates
of why he wasn't there today.

But still her mother worried,
for her to face this day alone.
And that was why once again,
she tried to keep her daughter home.

But the little girl went to school
eager to tell them all.
About a dad she never sees
a dad who never calls.

There were daddies along the wall in back,
for everyone to meet.
Children squirming impatiently,
anxious in their seats

One by one the teacher called
a student from the class.
To introduce their daddy,
as seconds slowly passed.

At last the teacher called her name,
every child turned to stare.
Each of them was searching,
a man who wasn't there.

"Where's her daddy at?"
she heard a boy call out.
"She probably doesn't have one,"
another student dared to shout.

And from somewhere near the back,
she heard a daddy say,
"Looks like another deadbeat dad,
too busy to waste his day."

The words did not offend her,
as she smiled up at her Mom.
And looked back at her teacher,
who told her to go on.

And with hands behind her back,
slowly she began to speak.
And out from the mouth of a child,
came words incredibly unique.

"My Daddy couldn't be here,
because he lives so far away.
But I know he wishes he could be,
since this is such a special day.

And though you cannot meet him,
I wanted you to know.
All about my daddy,
and how much he loves me so.

He loved to tell me stories
he taught me to ride my bike.
He surprised me with pink roses,
and taught me to fly a kite.

We used to share fudge sundaes,
and ice cream in a cone.
And though you cannot see him.
I'm not standing here alone.

"Cause my daddy's always with me,
even though we are apart
I know because he told me,
he'll forever be in my heart"

With that, her little hand reached up,
and lay across her chest.
Feeling her own heartbeat,
beneath her favorite dress.

And from somewhere here in the crowd of dads,
her mother stood in tears.
Proudly watching her daughter,
who was wise beyond her years.

For she stood up for the love
of a man not in her life.
Doing what was best for her,
doing what was right.

And when she dropped her hand back down,
staring straight into the crowd.
She finished with a voice so soft,
but its message clear and loud.

"I love my daddy very much,
he's my shining star.
And if he could, he'd be here,
but heaven's just too far

You see he was a policeman
and died just this past year
When airplanes hit the towers
and taught Americans to fear.

But sometimes when I close my eyes,
it's like he never went away."
And then she closed her eyes,
and saw him there that day.

And to her mothers amazement,
she witnessed with surprise.
A room full of daddies and children,
all starting to close their eyes.

Who knows what they saw before them,
who knows what they felt inside.
Perhaps for merely a second,
they saw him at her side.

"I know you're with me Daddy,"
to the silence she called out.
And what happened next made believers,
of those once filled with doubt.

Not one in that room could explain it,
for each of their eyes had been closed.
But there on the desk beside her,
was a fragrant long-stemmed pink rose.

And a child was blessed, if only for a moment,
by the love of her shining star.
And given the gift of believing,
that heaven is never too far.

Tissue break. If ya got 'em, wipe 'em.

OK, here's the Curmu/\dgeon POV: (did you forget that means split-tail curmudgeon?)

WINTER CLASSES FOR MEN AT THE LEARNING CENTER FOR ADULTS
REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED BY Monday, Jan 19,2006
NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL
OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO 8 PARTICIPANTS MAXIMUM.

Class 1
How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays --- Step by Step, with Slide Presentation.
Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

Class 2
The Toilet Paper Roll --- Does It Change Itself?
Round Table Discussion.
Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.

Class 3
Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and
Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub? --- Group Practice.
Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 4
Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper and The Floor ---
Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.
Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.

Class 5
After Dinner Dishes --- Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink?
Examples on Video.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning
at 7:00 PM

Class 6
Loss Of Identity --- Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other.
Help Line Support and Support Groups.
Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM

Class 7
Learning How To Find Things --- Starting With Looking In The Right Places
And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming.
Open Forum .
Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.

Class 8
Health Watch --- Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health.
Graphics and Audio Tapes.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 9
Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost --- Real Life Testimonials.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined.

Class 10
Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks?
Driving Simulations.
4 weeks, Saturday's n oon, 2 hours.

Class 11
Learning to Live --- Basic Differences Between Mother and Wife.
Online Classes and role-playing .
Tuesdays at 7:00 PM, location to be determined

Class 12
How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion
Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

Class 13
How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy --- Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Important Dates and Calling When You're Going To Be Late.
Cerebral Shock Therapy Sessions and Full Lobotomies Offered.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 14
The Stove/Oven --- What It Is and How It Is Used.
Live Demonstration.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined.

Upon completion of any of the above courses,
diplomas will be issued to the survivors.

Finally, close your eyes and make this image: It's blazing summer heat in Ar Ramadi, and the Marines have just finished an important anti-insurgent operation. A CNN reporter is "embedded", and has been covering the action, and his cameraman has just gotten a video of a Marine sniper making a kill with his M-24 sniper rifle. The CNN reporter waits until the Marine and his spotter have stood down, and he goes up to the sniper and sticks the microphone in the sniper's grimy face. "What do you feel when you kill an enemy freedom fighter like that?" the reporter asks the Marine. The Marine squints some dust from his eyes, looks the reporter up and down, and says, "Recoil, sir."

Goodnight, Curmudgeons!

OK, OK, I give up

2006-01-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

Here's a goddam meme for you. Follow THIS if you dare. The idea is shamelessly stolen from a Larry the Cable Guy special I saw last year.

I give you the "Kiss My Ass Meme"

If you want to rant and rave about how you think all public employees are worthless, and doubly so if they belong to a union, you may KISS MY ASS. Some of us earned our retirements. I earned TWO of them, and am well off, so you may KISS MY ASS AGAIN. If you feel like getting right into my face about it, I am a nasty old ARMED retired public employee, and in the end, you may think that KISSING MY ASS is the lesser of two evils.

If you wear a "Peace Symbol", better known as "The Great American Chicken Track", and think it is as acceptable as a Cross, or Star of David, or even the Two Goats Fucking of some far-off religion, you may KISS MY ASS. Your stupid trinket simply tells me that you worship at the Temple of Moonbatism, where the high priests, also known as Democrats, serve Kool-Aid to the penitents. Drink some, but you'd better hurry to KISS MY ASS, because that strychnine kicks in pretty fast...

I am an Air Force veteran, specifically a retired B-52 Navigator/Bombardier. I flew though flack traps in the Vietnam war and tempted a few SAM missileers as well. I didn't get down and dirty in the mud and blood and tears with the grunts, but I probably saved a few of their asses, and they are generally grateful for my service. Any of you armchair Generals who still think that flyboys can't and don't fight may KISS MY ASS. By the way, I AM fairly handy with a rifle, a skill I learned well before my Air Force days.

I am a computer geek-in-training by choice. When I want to play on my computer, I'll do that. I am slowly becoming more the master of it than it is of me, but if any of you is tempted to tell me I spend too much time at my computer and DON'T HAVE A LIFE, you may KISS MY ASS. In my 62 years I've probably lived a helluva lot more life than you, and if you read my blogs, you would know that.

I don't give a damn if you are some kind of opera diva, or pop-singing icon, or major actress, if you sing MY National Anthem at a major event, you'd better sing it with the music that was put to it shortly after Francis Scott Key wrote it. If you think you want to do a vibratto High-F, the goddam music doesn't call for that, and I don't give a flying fark if you ARE a diva, if you ruin the presentation of MY National Anthem that way, you may KISS MY ASS, and be quick about it, or I might kick yours, if we meet later, and I don't care if your gorilla bodyguard will then kick my ass severely, the pleasure I will get from kicking yours first will see me through the pain.

OK, you've been instructed. I expect to see some meme-following in the comments here, but don't get smartass on me, because YOU may then KISS MY ASS. That's BESAME MI CULO if you are from somewhere south of here.

Ego strokes

2006-01-09T00:14:00.000-08:00

Rivrdog to Blogosphere, come in please.

Message follows in one part.

Lay off of the "memes", "best blog contests", pseudo-psych personality inventories and other ego strokes. If you feel your ego needs stroking, my dear bloggers, write a post and invite comments AND trackbacks. If the commenters are all trolls because you wrote some worthless crap, at least you can have fun with the troll droppings in your next post.

Contest-mongers: piss up a rope.

End of message.

Here's a hint for those bloggers with temporary writer's block: go read a lefty news service, such as Reuters or AssPress, or even IndyMedia. I'm sure you will find SOMETHING there that needs reacting to.

Curmudgeon, out.

Dealing with lawbreaking protesters of the moonbat sort

2006-01-05T17:06:00.000-08:00

This example of warm, cuddly curmudgeon prose couldn't wait for next week's Carnival, so go and read it. That's an order (curmudgeons love to issue orders, don't you know).

Make sure you read the comment(s) to the post, in which your blogger-curmudgeon posts advice on how the citizen should deal with the lawbreaking that's advised by the editor of the island fishwrap on Whidbey Island.

This post has it all: how-to-be-a-curmudgeon advice, how to handle those who would disrespect and interfere with your hunting rights, and advice on how to make AND DEFEND a citizen's arrest of a lawbreaker, together with caveats on following the necessary legal niceties involved.

2006-01-03T23:39:00.000-08:00

The Carnival of the Curmudgeons, Mark Two, is out on the Rivrdog Blog, linked here.

Curmudgeon Joke

2006-01-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

THE WORLD'S SHORTEST & HAPPIEST FAIRY TALE

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl "Will you marry me?"
The girl said, "NO!"

And the guy lived happily ever after, evolved into a curmudgeon, went fishing, hunting, played golf a lot, drank beer, had shitloads of money and farted whenever he wanted.

THE END

HT: The EllTee, who is a serious curmudgeon, but refuses to blog.

Watch this space

2006-01-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

...for the opening of Curmudgeon Call, a blog dedicated to the principle that all men are NOT created equal, and the better of them have a duty to improve the lesser.