Mamamontezz's Mental Rumpus Room

Sonnet.

On George Soros after November 3, 2005

He lurks about in tawdry lairs
And feeds his dreadful, painful hate
Of all things. So misunderstood,
He finds no answer to his prayers
For death to those in scarlet state
inflicted painfully. Such good
would light the burden so unfair
upon his shoulders. Yet his fate
would seem as dire as any could.
Democracy had failed, it seemed,
His causes, laughed at and demeaned
By voters in the middle lands
with normal jobs and caloused hands.
How dare they exercise their right
to vote, and plunge us into night
so black, so evil, ruled by gold,
those men from in the Christian fold.

-Mamamontezz, 1-31-2005

Iraqi Election Video

You want to know how the Iraqi Election went? You want to know how disorganized and poorly conducted it was? You want to know how the people had no interest in voting?

Then don't bother to go here. You'll be sorely disappointed.

Thank you, Lucianne, for the incredible link. You are so the best.

Thank you

This is really beautiful. If you have a few minutes, take the time to watch this and say a little Thank You for those who are in harm's way tonight.

Hat tip to Queenie for this beautiful piece.

Response to your email, Aza Zel

Well, on the "It's Monkeytime" post below, I received a comment from an individual. In this comment, he made wild accusations, published my IP, and threatened a restraining order.

I responded publicly in a following comment, and in an email. Thinking that perhaps my email had been hacked and used by some moron, I explained to this gentleman that it had happened before, and that I am using numerous anti-spyway and other odd programs to try to keep this from happening again.

I also informed this man that as he had chosen to make a public attack against me on my own blog, I had banned his IP. As I have said before, this is my blog, my space, and I'll conduct my blog the way I want. Period. Shit on the carpet in my livingroom, and I'll show you the door and lock it behind you.

Interestingly enough, today I get this email from the same individual. I want to share it with you to see if you can understand his obviously disturbed and seriously misinformed rambling:

Yeah, well guess what, you started the civil war. the Donavon and mama track same IP and that error crap was right off Donavon and u can find out anything you want about me, I think it's wanna be time. I think you are Beaucoup Dinky Dau.

I'm older than your father, that was our war and I'm sick of people who were in grade school when I was crying watching those beautiful birds getting pushed off the flight deck. Now they are wearing ragged surplus crap and everybody was a LRRP, or Ranger, or Seal.

I don't like coming on the D site, getting threatened and then punked out.

I don't have any pretty ribbons and crap. I got one scar on my left wrist where I slashed it, and the only reason I was crying when the wife called the cops was because I was in the basement with the lights out, and too drunk to find shotgun shells before two cops hog tied me for a free ride to the locked ward.

I don't need your smart mouth, your attention, or blog anything.

Maybe you are for real, if so, this ain't a good day. Support our men and women in the service, bring em home and draft congress.

Does anyone have any idea what this sad person is talking about? I explained in my email to him that I do not troll, nor have I have never trolled the sites of others, any more than I would enter someone's home uninvited and rearrange the furniture. It's not in my nature, nor has it ever been.

I will say this, however, to the person who authored this email: You presume a lot about me. You presume I am some child, some skull full of mush, with no idea about the world around me or the service of those who served in Viet Nam.

True, I cannot claim to have squatted in torrential rains, burdened with not only the equipment needed to survive, but also with the disgusting politics and policies within this country that cut you off at the knees and called you all murderers and baby killers.

I can make no claim to having to muck around in wet boots and socks for days at a time incountry, and watching the skin shred off my feet because there was no way to keep them dry until they healed.

I can make no claim that I have ever been fired at by women, or had grenades pitched at me by children in squatty little hovels in hot, steamy, dirty villages.

I can make no claim that I now carry any baggage, any psychological scars that pulse and scream in the night, taking my very sanity, because of the things I may have seen or was forced to do by circumstance or by following orders.

At the relatively young age of 47, I was too young to serve, turning 18 in 1975. And at the age of only 10 I walked through the wood frame wards of Ft. Ord, past men without faces, men witout arms or legs, men who's beds were shared with the angel of death and the ghosts of the dead they either knew, or were responsible for before being wounded and brought back home to die. My nostrils were filled with the stench of infection and death, and my very soul was imbued with that experience, reinforced each and every time I was taken there to visit the family member who was healing from his own wounds in that awful, dark and desparate place.

I remember being in my late 20's and being invited to participate in a benefit at an American Legion post on the east side of Indianapolis. I remember singing "God Bless America," and all of the big, burly, jean-clad Viet vets standing up and raising their hands, clasped between them, while they cried and sang along. My heart was full of pain for them and what they were enduring, and had endured from the moment they arrived back home. They wore their tattered fatigues, not with shame, but with pride in what they had survived, and what they had done to survive.

But this is not enough. I understand that this is not enough. Nothing I could ever do could ever repay the disemboweled man on the bloody sheets who lay there when I walked past at Ord. Nothing I could ever do will ever repay my cousin for his constant pain over the last almost 40 years because of bones that never fully set and wounds that never really healed. Nothing I could ever say will ever ease the trouble in the minds of those who cannot ever leave the mangrove swamps or rice paddies, or the men who didn't come back with them.

I can, however, protect the memories of those who served. I can say "Thank You" to a man I know for a fact was the 32nd man to graduate from Recondo School, and who served bravely until he was severely wounded. I can say "Thank You" to any man or woman in uniform that I see on the street, and to the little old men who still proudly display the small pins and ribbons on their lapels, symbols of the medals they won for the sacrifices they made.

In the meantime, if you feel the need to continue to harangue me through my email because it either makes you feel better, or gives you some purpose in an otherwise bitter and wasted existance, feel free. You keep right on emailing, and I'll read them. You keep right on talking, and hopefully someday you'll exorcise your demons. If that is the only thing I can do to say "Thank You" or repay what I owe you as an American, I am willing to do so for as long as you feel the need to vent your anger, your frustration, your pain, and your bitterness.

It's the least I could do.

It's Monkeytime!

Many thanks to the inimitable Darth Monkeybone for keeping things lit up here during my technologically induced hiatus over the last few days.

You are the Man! Thanks so much, Handsome.

Someone I wish I had known.

1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe, a man who believed in what he was doing, a man who served both as an enlisted man and most recently as an officer in the 25th Infantry, was killed by a single shot from a sniper in Mosul on Saturday, January 22, 2005.

What this article in the Honolulu Advertiser doesn't tell you is why he was where he was on that day. An item which Laura Ingraham read this evening on her show tells much more about this man and how much he believed in his troops, how he held up their morale, and how he worked toward the goal of a successful election on this coming Sunday.

There is a link on her site to an item in the Washington Post regarding this man and his sacrifice. You'll have to register to read it. Please do.

Lt. Hoe, our prayers are with you and your family. God Bless.

Holocaust Haberdashery

Some people should be castrated. What kind of Fu**nozzle worries about the attire of a person attending a Holocaust memorial?

OSWIECIM, Poland -- Vice President Dick Cheney's utilitarian hooded parka and boots stood out amid the solemn formality of a ceremony commemorating the liberation of Nazi death camps, raising eyebrows among the fashion-conscious.

Umm...You should have kept your f@#$ing eyebrows lowered in reverence of the MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO WERE MURDERED BY THE NAZIS...

Ahem...

Cheney replaced the zipped-to-the-neck green parka he sported in Thursday's blowing snow and freezing wind with a more traditional black coat - red tie and gray scarf showing underneath - for his tour of Auschwitz on Friday.

Yesssssss, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Vice-President looks just stunning in his parka and adorrrrrable scarf...

Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan described Cheney's look at the deeply moving 60th anniversary service as "the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower."

The man is paying his respects to Holocaust victims and all you can think of is snow frickin' blowers.

I got something you can blow...you effete F@#$ing snob.

"Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood," Givhan wrote in Friday's Post, also mocking Cheney's knit ski cap embroidered with the words "Staff 2001" and his brown, lace-up hiking boots. "The vice president looked like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults," she said.

No, you stupid bitch, He looked like a regular guy paying his respects to some poor souls who had the poor misfortune of being hated by leftist thugs. The only child I can see, is the one who pays attention to wardrobe choices, when they should be paying attention to why the memorial is being held in the first damn place.

Jeez, woman, get a clue...

Link via Drudge

“Only really the UN can do that job"

Not that it should surprise anyone, but ANOTHER UN official has been caught(registration may be required) with his hands in the till:

The head of an anti-corruption watchdog who last week accused Indonesian officials of inflating refugee numbers to boost aid payments has been arrested for allegedly diverting large quantities of aid.

In a furore that threatens to undermine faith in the $10 billion relief effort, Farid Faqih, chairman of Government Watch and a leading United Nations contractor in Aceh, was in police custody yesterday after being apprehended by Indonesian air force officers.

Why am I NOT surprised that a UN official is involved in this...?

Last night the United Nations said it was conducting its own investigation into the claims.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Wait...is this the same UN that stated some of us (i.e. the U.S.) were being stingy with aid? Or is this the same UN that claimed “Only really the UN can do that job?"

Or...maybe this is the same U.N. that effectively investigated the Food for Oil scam...or the same U.N. that investigated some of its members for sexually exploiting refugess in return for jars of jam?

Remember folks...ONLY the U.N. has the Moral Authority to do anything in this world...

Hat tip to Frontpagemag.com for the info and link.

Slipped the Surly Bonds of Earth

Michele points out that today is the 19th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. I remember the event fairly well...and honestly, it's one of those things I've tried hard to put out of my mind.

I was 16 years old, living at a boys home in Texas. I took a library elective my sophomore year and that spring semester was able to volunteer as a teacher's aide at the elementary school.

Back then, it was somewhat of a big deal to see the space shuttle launches on T.V. The technology wasn't exactly new, but the idea of routine shuttle missions was interesting to my generation. This particular launch was special because a civilian was among the flight crew.

Her name was Christa McAuliffe. She was a school teacher, chosen to represent the average American. It was exciting because her endeavor meant a connection between us and space. It meant that maybe, just maybe, we'd no longer have to live vicariously through a few elite to discover the wonders of what was out there...

That day, I was working with the second graders, and I had talked the teacher into letting us watch the shuttle launch. There was much excitement among the children as the countdown began...then the launch...then the explosion.

I vividly remember the looks of dismay and confusion on the faces of those little boys as the disaster unfolded. They thought that the explosion was PART OF the launch. Some of them even assumed it was fireworks.

The teacher and I knew better...

There were so many questions that the teacher had to leave the room to compose herself. That left me to explain the facts of life to seven/eight year-old children. I deserved it...after all, it'd been my idea to watch the launch in the first place.

So I told them that there had been an accident and the shuttle didn't make it into space. They were still confused. I couldn't quite get them to grasp that the spacecraft had exploded and that the flight crew might not have survived.

One boy asked why the astronauts' parachutes didn't open.

Another asked if the Russians blew up the shuttle.

I became so frustrated and angry I had to leave the room as well. The principal had heard the news and was walking up as I was leaving. He saw the look on my face and let me leave without saying anything. I don't know if he was able to explain to the boys what had happened. They would come up to me for days afterward and ask more questions.

I also remember that it didn't take long for the shuttle jokes to start. I feel shitty that I had laughed at some of those jokes. I feel shitty that a classroom of boys had to learn about death because of me. But most of all, I feel shitty that our current shuttle program is a joke and personal privilege of endeavor for elite scientists.

A Coldfury Spelling Bee

What can I say, Mike pretty much spells it out:

Condi didn’t lie to anybody, and neither did Dubya. Lying implies both knowledge and intent, and neither has been remotely established, nor will they be, because they do not exist. We know that Saddam at one time had WMD’s; there is simply no argument possible on this. The fact of their existence was unquestioned by anybody, including the UN, after the first Gulf War, and we know he actually used them on more than one occasion. What we don’t know is where they all went, and if you on the Left were truly concerned about American security in the age of global terrorism you’d be a lot more worried about that than you are. You are not serious about defending this country. You are dead wrong, and you do not deserve to be taken seriously.

There's OH so much more to read...go there, NOW!!

Why are you still here? Click on the link or poo will fly!

Don't You, Forget About Me...

For those of you who have been following the Baby Jordan situation, Michelle Malkin has announced that a donor heart has been received:

Statement from Jeff and Sadaf Trimarchi

We are so happy to announce that a donor heart became available for our baby Jordan on Wednesday, January 26, 2005. Jordan underwent cardiac transplant surgery yesterday evening, beginning at approximately 7:00 p.m. and lasting roughly four and a half hours. Dr. Quaegebeur, who performed the transplant, appeared at 11:30 p.m. and stated that "the [new] heart is working well." He also cautioned that "we are not out of the woods yet," because transplant surgery is very complicated, requiring extensive recovery and constant monitoring. However, he assured us that we're off to a good start!

We cannot begin to thank the Doctors, Nurses and the rest of the wonderful people at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian. They do their miracle work with compassion and understanding in the best facility we have ever seen. We are so grateful that Jordan was, and continues to be, in their incredible care...We would love to talk to all of you who gave us so much support and love during these difficult times. In time, we will contact all of you and communicate our gratitude. We hope you are all able to see our beautiful little boy grow up into an amazing man.

Finally, we will not stop our mission of spreading the word about organ donation. We urge you to continue to help us communicate this message so that other families may feel the joy of hearing that a donor organ is available … and cry tears of happiness, as their loved one gets a second chance at life.

Love, Jeff, Sadaf and Baby Jordan

Let me say that I am extremely happy that Baby Jordan has a stronger chance at life. I am forever amazed at how doctors pull us from the clutches of death, when all else looks hopeless.

But let's remember that in order for Baby Jordan to have received the heart, another life had to end.

Please, I'm not admonishing ANYONE, and I don't mean to be trite or disengenous...hell, even sarcastic. It's just that sometimes most of us forget the donor family's suffering. Not on purpous of course, sudden joy and elation tends to make us forget about the realities of certain situations.

At this point, we don't know the circumstances surrounding the heart becoming available, but I'm certain either way that someone out there is grieving.

So, while we praise the Good Lord and all the doctors for extending a second chance to Baby Jordan, let's also remember to say a small prayer for the donor's family. Keep them in your thoughts. I'm sure they could use some support too...

All Work and No Play Revisited

Fox News reports that Peer Larson's lawsuit against his school has been dropped.

Here's the best part:

The attorney general considers the complaint "unmeritorious," and wants a court to order the student and his dad to cough up lawyers' fees. (emphasis mine)

Not only should they pay the lawyer fees, but the court fees, and ANY OTHER costs the school district, state, and the teacher in question had to incur fighting this ridiculous suit. That and the little punk should be forced to write: I will not be an assnugget a thousand times on the chalkboard...

meh.

Silk Purses and Sow's Ears

A-Men

Shamelessly yoinked from The Corner

When Sithmonkeys Debate

A debate on global warming overheard at a Sithmonkey Coffee House:

Padawan #1:

Screech! Screech! Howl!

Padawan #2:

ROAR! GROWL! *beats chest angrily*

Padawan #1:

SCREEEEEEEECH! HOWWWWWWWWL! *scampers around wildly, flinging poo in random directions*

Padawan #2:

ROOOOAAARRR!! *picks up the jawbone of a long dead animal and begins beating the ground insanely* *Flings poo at an innocent bystander*

Padawan #1:

"I stand corrected..."

All Work and No Play...

An assnugget named Peer Larson has decided that doing homework cramps his lifestyle...

From Foxnews.com:

Peer Larson, 17, had lined up a dream camp counselor job last June, but honors pre-calculus homework turned his summer into a headache.

"It didn't completely ruin my summer, but it did give me a lot of undue stress both at home and at work," the high school junior said Thursday. "I just didn't have the energy or the time for it."

Oh Boo Frickety Hoo!

You take an honors class...then bytch and moan because it causes you some stress at your summer camp excursion...Get over it you fu**ing self-indulged, baby-boomer spawn. College will be no walk in the park. Honors classes, more times than not, are designed to separate the wheat from the husks.

If you want to spend your summers feeling up 13 year olds at summer camp, then don't waste the school's time and money by signing up for honors courses.

I predict this asshat will sue his future college for forcing him to come home early, after a spring break session full of binge drinking and co-ed raping, to finish his essay in remedial logic.

Wonkette Donkette

Was this post supposed to be funny?

Wonkette is proof that recurring yeast infections rot the brain...if she had a brain to begin with...

Oh wait, I apologize...Jews aren't one of the Liberals "protected" groups, so it was perfectly ok for her to make an insanely tasteless joke.

Link via Jonah at The Corner

ChickenSh*ts

You liberals really are something else...You want your freedoms--speech, association, sexual, religious, etc.--but when the military comes around asking for volunteers, most of you either scamper away, or pull despicable crap like this...

They must have felt real tough shouting down the soldier...being that there are around 20-30 of them and only ONE of him.

I wonder if the assholes in that picture have an inkling of who, what, where, when, why, and how their precious freedoms are/were secured.

They probably do, but being liberals, they only care about dead soldiers when:

1. The soldier's family speaks out against the President;
2. The soldier is a liberal;
3. The soldier dies in a war they deem illegitimate or unpopular.

Since you have no problem throwing the "Chickenhawk" label around, I'll return the favor...if you criticize or harass the military, but aren't willing to join up yourselves, you are ChickenShits...plain and simple.

At least the Chickenhawks have the good sense to know who's defending their freedoms.

Meh.

Thanks to Jonah at The Corner for the heads up...

Who was responsible?

Everyone's favorite ascerbic has posted his list of the ten people he holds most responsible for screwing up this country in his lifetime. It got me thinking, and I was a little surprised that our lists didn't match up better.

1. Madelyn Murray O'Hair-She was so completely consumed by her quest to promote her athiesm as not just an alternative to a belief in a higher power, that she set the stage for the bullshit twerps like Michael Newdow (sp) and his insanity even now, decades later.

2. Gloria Steinhem-Little girls are no longer allowed to be little girls, and little boys have been stigmatized and damaged by this woman and her brand of feminism. Sorry, bitch. We're different, and we should be celebrating our differences, not crying foul everytime we get offended by some poor man's innocent advances. We used to call it "Courtship" and because of you it's all sexual harassment.

3. Televangelists-Yeah, sure, it's more than one person. It's an entity. But I'm going to include it anyway. They bilked pensioners out of their life savings with the promise of eternity, and sent them nothing but tap water in plastic vials, "Holy Handkerchiefs" and pebbles from the Temple Mount. They did more during the 80's to hurt genuine Christians and bring ridicule to faith than anyone else did, short of Lucifer himself sitting in a gilt chair on a poorly lit set in a bumped up wig and polyester suit.

4. Richard Daley-who bought and paid for the 1960 election with his crooked political machine in Chicago and it's spillover into northern Indiana.

5. Abbie Hoffman-Well, him and his ilk, who ripped this country apart and aided such humanitarian world leaders as Ho Chi Min.

6. Jesse Jackson-He took a decent, much needed and productive movement and turned it into his own private piggybank.

7. George Soros-At least he learned that throwing money at something isn't always successful, or we'd have seen a completely different inauguration on Thursday. He destabilized the economies of nations all over the world, and I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't up to his ass in the current weakening of the dollar overseas.

8. Ross Perot-Just look at the 1990's and you'll see the effect he had on this country with his "homespun populist" bullshit.

9. Walter Cronkite-He built our trust in his objectivism, then betrayed it by using it to forward his own agenda. And he didn't have the courage of his own convicitions to state his agenda until after he had retired and his lunacy was exposed.

10. Richard Nixon-And it wasn't just the damage he did to the nation as a whole, but to the political environment of the country for the last three decades. Because of him, good men are tarred with the same brush he was for no other reason than their political affiliation. Because of him, a lot of qualified people who could do great things for this country either cannot or will not sacrifice themselves or their families in the pursuit of public office.

There are more, but this was what came out of sleep deprivation at almost 5am.

Mama Explains it all to You.

Oh, Mama gets lots of questions these days. Lots and lots of them are questions about things most people with at least three firing neurons have already figured out on their own or with the assistance of one of the many educational men and women at such sites as Gutrumbles, Inblognito, the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Conservative Insurgent or Blackfive.

Yes, sometimes things are very very hard to figure out on your own, so I will try to make it very very easy for you. Let's put on our Magic Tinfoil Thinking Caps and get started! Wheeee!

Our first question is from Beulah Thatch-Knockerman from Lovell, Mass. She asks:
"If this war isn't evil, then why are the noble Iraqi Rebels fighting us so hard and killing our innocent children? Is it the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton Ogliarchy?"

Actually, Beulah, the only noble Iraqi Rebels are the ones fighting against the hundreds and hundreds of Illegal Immigrants who are trying to take over their country to deny them the right to govern themselves.

Yes, it's true! Sneaky old Jordanians and Syrians and Egyptians and Chechens and Iranians and Saudis keep crossing the border and causing problems for the people who live there, just like here, only different.

And Beulah, they are not killing our innocent children. All of our innocent children are right here in this country. All of the people in Iraq who are wearing our uniforms are Brave Men and Women who have chosen a life in uniform and who have trained hard and are doing exactly what they volunteered to do. When you call them children, you are insulting them and belittling them and their sacrifices. They are not whining crybaby pussies, so you need to quit being one and grow a brain.

Now, Thornton Greentree in East Treestump, Oregon asks:
"Why does the world hate us so much?"

Well, Thornton, to begin with, the world doesn't hate us at all. It is just a big sphere of rock and water and molten magma surrounded by an atmosphere, incapable of feeling in spite of the quaint way in which some mentally ill persons insist that it is a sentient entity. It is incapable of hatred, and therefore does not hate us.

Now, some socialogical groupings hate us, and this is usually because they are like the spoiled little kids on the playground who wear black t-shirts and mope about with dirty hair and hate all the kids who are smart or popular or participate in sports. They don't hate those other kids for any other reason than that they wish they were the smart, popular, or athletic kids and project their own emotional, physical and intellectual inadequacies onto others.

It is pretty much the same flawed mental processes that cause college professors to hate their conservative students, or Michael Newdow to hate having to hear the word God.

Okay, let's have another question. Hmmm... Butterfly Moonbeam Sweeny from Venus Beach, California wants to know:
"How come those Jews are committing acts of terror against those poor Palestinian people?"

Oh, Butterfly, this is a very good question. Let me adjust your Magic Tinfoil Thinking Cap with my handmade cherry Cluebat for this one.

Okay, when she comes around I'll tell little Butterfly that the Jews who live in Israel don't commit acts of terror. By definition, an Act of Terror is a covert act directed against civilians by non-military persons to frighten or terrorize them. The only people in Israel who target civilians (babies, mommies, grandmothers and schoolchildren) are men and women who call themselves Palestinian Freedom Fighters.

Even when the Israeli Defense Force goes into an area full of these bad terrorist men and women, they try very very hard not to hurt anyone who is standing around or just trying to live their lives. But it is very hard to hit these bad people without hitting the innocent people, because the bad people like to use little babies and women as Human Shields.

Do you know what a Human Shield is? It is like when a bad bank robber grabs a hostage to keep the police from shooting. It is like when evil people take over a school and sit in a classroom full of children so the police won't shoot. The Israelis don't use human shields, because it is a Bad Thing. Palestinian Terrorist do use Human Shields becaue they are cowards.

Okay, when Butterfly comes around, someone share your notes with her.

Whew, this wore poor Mama out. It is very hard to state the obvious sometimes, and to do it in a simple way that is easy for some people to understand. Mama needs a tylenol now. So everyone can take off their Magic Tinfoil Thinking Caps now and put them back into the gloveboxes of their Yugos or ancient, rusting Pintos until the next time Mama Explains it all to You.

It's 2:40 AM.

I am still laughing.

And I'm happy too. Butch is back. I've missed him.

Rice v. Boxer

This is just too good not to post. It is another glaring example of how an elected official, a public servant, can become so full of their own importance and yet so completely unaware of their own foolishness as to become a liability, not only for the constituents in the state she supposedly represents, but to an entire nation.

Senator Dick Lugar, a man who has overstayed his welcome in DC because the state he and I share as home refuse to pitch his increasingly out of touch and self-promoting ass out, has shown remarkable lack of control over his own committee. Does he believe that perhaps someday some large lobbying group may offer him a lucrative position because he was so easy to walk all over by a ranting lunatic? Does he think that his lack of control will give him some edge for some future consulting opportunity? Or had he simply dozed off and lost track of Ms. Boxer's rambling rant?

Just click below and read a transcript of the exchange. Then ask yourself why Boxer is even on this committee in the first place.

SEN. BOXER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Rice, for agreeing to stay as long as it takes, because some of us do have a lot of questions.

And, Senator Lugar, you are a very fair chairman, and I wanted to say to the new members also welcome -- and you'll enjoy this committee, because we have such a great chairman and such a terrific ranking member, and we really do a lot of things in a bipartisan way, unlike other committees. And I think you're going to enjoy your time here.

Dr. Rice, before I get to my formal remarks, you no doubt will be confirmed -- that's at least what we think. And if you're going to become the voice of diplomacy -- this is just a helpful point -- when Senator Voinovich mentioned the issue of tsunami relief, you said -- your first words were, "The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us." Now, the tsunami was one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime -- one of the worst -- and it's going to have a 10-year impact on rebuilding that area. I was very disappointed in your statement. I think you blew the opportunity. You mention it as part of one sentence. And I would hope to work with you on this, because children are suffering, we're worried they're going to get in the sex trade. This thing is a disaster, a true natural disaster and a human disaster of great proportions, and I hope that the State Department will take a huge lead under your leadership in helping those folks in the long range.

Well, Mr. Chairman, again I thank you. I am -- Dr. Rice, I was glad you mentioned Martin Luther King -- it was very appropriate, given everything. And he also said, Martin Luther King, quote, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." And one of the things that matters most to my people in California and the people in America is this war in Iraq.

Now, it took you to page three of your testimony to mention the word "Iraq." You said very little really about it, and only in the questioning have we been able to get into some areas. Perhaps you agree with President Bush, who said all that's been resolved. I'm quoting today's Post: "Bush said in an interview last week with the Washington Post that the '04 election was a moment of accountability for the decisions he made in Iraq." But today's Washington Post/ABC poll found that 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the situation, to 40 percent who approve -- and only 44 percent said the war was worth fighting.

So in your statement it takes you to page three to mention the word "Iraq." Then you mention it in the context of elections -- which is fine -- but you never even mention indirectly the 1,366 American troops that have died, or the 10,372 who have been wounded -- many mentally, as a report that I read over the weekend that maybe a third will come home and need help because of what they saw -- it's been so traumatic to them. And 25 percent of those dead are from my home state. And this from a war that was based on what everyone now says, including your own administration, were falsehoods about WMDs, weapons of mass destruction. And I've had tens of thousands of people from all over the country say that they disagree -- although they respect the president -- they disagree that this administration and the people in it shouldn't be held accountable. I don't know if you saw the movie, "The Fog of War" -- war is a nightmare, you know that. Colin Powell I think was the most eloquent I've heard on it, because he's seen it himself -- he's been there and done it. And I don't want to have you in a circumstance where you're writing something years later about the fog of war. And I'm fearful if we don't see some changes here we're going to have trouble.

And I think the way we should start is by trying to set the record straight on some of the things you said going into this war. Now, since 9/11 we've been engaged in a just fight against terror. And I, like Senator Feingold and everyone here who was in the Senate at the time, voted to go after Osama bin Laden and to go after the Taliban, and to defeat al Qaeda. And you say they have left territory -- that's not true. Your own documents show that al Qaeda has expanded from 45 countries in '01 to more than 60 countries today.

Well, with you in the lead role, Dr. Rice, we went into Iraq. I want to read you a paragraph that best expresses my views, and ask my staff if they would hold this up -- and I believe the views of millions of Californians and Americans. It was written by one of the world's experts on terrorism, Peter Bergen, five months ago. He wrote: "What we have done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams: We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure bin Laden has long predicted was the U.S.'s long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shi'a fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a defensive jihad that has galvanized jihad- minded Muslims around the world. It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terror." This conclusion was reiterated last Thursday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank, which released a report saying that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of professionalized terrorists.

That's your own administration's CIA. NIC chairman Robert Hutchings said Iraq is, quote, "a magnet for international terrorist activity."

And this was not the case in '01. And I have great proof of it, including a State Department document that lists every country -- could you hold that up? -- in which al Qaeda operated prior to 9/11. And you can see the countries; no mention of Iraq. And this booklet was signed off on by the president of the United States, George W. Bush. It was put out by George Bush's State Department, and he signed it. There was no al Qaeda activity there -- no cells.

Now, the war was sold to the American people, as Chief of Staff to President Bush Andy Card said, like a "new product." Those were his words. Remember, he said, "You don't roll out a new product in the summer." Now, you rolled out the idea and then you had to convince the people, as you made your case with the president.

And I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. And I don't say it lightly, and I'm going to go into the documents that show your statements and the facts at the time.

Now, I don't want the families of those 1,366 troops that were killed or the 10,372 that were wounded to believe for a minute that their lives and their bodies were given in vain, because when your commander-in-chief asks you to sacrifice yourself for your country, it is the most noble thing you can do to answer that call.

I am giving their families, as we all are here, all the support they want and need. But I also will not shrink from questioning a war that was not built on the truth.

Now, perhaps the most well-known statement you've made was the one about Saddam Hussein launching a nuclear weapon on America with the image of, quote, quoting you, "a mushroom cloud." That image had to frighten every American into believing that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of annihilating them if he was not stopped. And I will be placing into the record a number of such statements you made which have not been consistent with the facts.

As the nominee for secretary of State, you must answer to the American people, and you are doing that now through this confirmation process. And I continue to stand in awe of our founders, who understood that ultimately those of us in the highest positions of our government must be held accountable to the people we serve.

So I want to show you some statements that you made regarding the nuclear threat and the ability of Saddam to attack us. Now, September 5th -- let me get to the right package here. On July 30th, 2003, you were asked by PBS NewsHour's Gwen Ifill if you continued to stand by the claims you made about Saddam's nuclear program in the days and months leading up to the war.

In what appears to be an effort to downplay the nuclear-weapons scare tactics you used before the war, your answer was, and I quote, "It was a case that said he was trying to reconstitute. He's trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year." So that's what you said to the American people on television -- "Nobody ever said it was going to be the next year."

Well, that wasn't true, because nine months before you said this to the American people, what had George Bush said, President Bush, at his speech at the Cincinnati Museum Center? "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly-enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."

So the president tells the people there could be a weapon. Nine months later you said no one ever said he could have a weapon in a year, when in fact the president said it.

And here's the real kicker. On October 10th, '04, on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, three months ago, you were asked about CIA Director Tenet's remark that prior to the war he had, quote, "made it clear to the White House that he thought the nuclear-weapons program was much weaker than the program to develop other WMDs. Your response was this: "The intelligence assessment was that he was reconstituting his nuclear program; that, left unchecked, he would have a nuclear weapon by the end of the year."

So here you are, first contradicting the president and then contradicting yourself. So it's hard to even ask you a question about this, because you are on the record basically taking two sides of an issue. And this does not serve the American people.

If it served your purpose to downplay the threat of nuclear weapons, you said, "No one said he's going to have it in a year." But then later, when you thought that perhaps you were on more solid ground with the American people because at the time the war was probably popular, or more popular, you'd say, "We thought he was going to have a weapon within a year."

And this is -- the question is, this is a pattern here of what I see from you on this issue, on the issue of the aluminum tubes, on the issue of whether al Qaeda was actually involved in Iraq, which you've said many times. And in my rounds -- I don't have any questions on this round, because I'm just laying this out; I do have questions on further rounds about similar contradictions. It's very troubling.

You know, if you were rolling out a new product like a can opener, who would care about what we said? But this product is a war, and people are dead and dying, and people are now saying they're not going to go back because of what they experienced there. And it's very serious.

And as much as I want to look ahead -- and we will work together on a myriad of issues -- it's hard for me to let go of this war, because people are still dying. And you have not laid out an exit strategy. You've not set up a timetable.

And you don't seem to be willing to, A, admit a mistake, or give any indication of what you're going to do to forcefully involve others. As a matter of fact, you've said more misstatements; that the territory of the terrorists has been shrinking when your own administration says it's now expanded to 60 countries. So I am deeply troubled.

MS. RICE: Senator, may I respond?

SEN. LUGAR: Yes, let me just say that I appreciate the importance of Senator Boxer's statement. That's why we allowed the statement to continue for several more minutes of time.

SEN. BOXER: I'm sorry, I lost track of time.

SEN. LUGAR: But clearly you ought to have the right to respond. Then, at that point, we're going to have a recess. But will you please give your response?

MS. RICE: Yes. Senator, I am more than aware of the stakes that we face in Iraq, and I was more than aware of the stakes of going to war in Iraq. I mourn and honor -- I mourn the dead and honor their service, because we have asked American men and women in uniform to do the hardest thing, which is to go and defend freedom and give others an opportunity to build a free society, which will make us safer.

Senator, I have to say that I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what went on before and what I said without impugning my credibility or my integrity.

The fact is that we did face a very difficult intelligence challenge in trying to understand what Saddam Hussein had in terms of weapons of mass destruction. We knew something about him. We knew that he had -- we had gone to war with him twice in the past, in 1991 and in 1998.

We knew that he continued to shoot at American aircraft in the no-fly zone as we tried to enforce the resolutions of U.N. Security -- that the U.N. Security Council had passed. We knew that he continued to threaten his neighbors. We knew that he was an implacable enemy of the United States who did cavort with terrorists.

We knew that he was the world's most dangerous man in the world's most dangerous region. And we knew that in terms of weapons of mass destruction, he had sought them before, tried to build them before, that he had an undetected biological weapons program that we didn't learn of until 1995, that he was closer to a nuclear weapon in 1991 than anybody thought. And we knew, most importantly, that he had used weapons of mass destruction.

That was the context that frankly made us awfully suspicious when he refused to account for his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs despite repeated Security Council resolutions and despite the fact that he was given one last chance to comply with Resolution 1441.

Now, there were lots of data points about his weapons-of-mass- destruction progra MS. Some were right and some were not. But what was right was that there was an unbreakable link between Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. That is something that Charlie Duelfer, in his report of the Iraq survey group, has made very clear, that Saddam Hussein intended to continue his weapons-of-mass- destruction activities, that he had laboratories that were run by his security services. I could go on and on.

But Senator Boxer, we went to war not because of aluminum tubes. We went to war because this was the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a man against whom we had gone to war before, who threatened his neighbors, who threatened our interests, who was one of the world's most brutal dictators. And it was high time to get rid of him, and I'm glad that we're rid of him.

Now, as to the statement about territory and the terrorist groups, I was referring to the fact that the al Qaeda organization of Osama bin Laden, which once trained openly in Afghanistan, which once ran with impunity in places like Pakistan, can no longer count on hospitable territory from which to carry out their activities.

In the places where they are, they're being sought and run down and arrested and pursued in ways that they never were before. So we can have a semantic discussion about what it means to take or lose territory, but I don't think it's a matter of misstatement to say that the loss of Afghanistan, the loss of the northwest frontier of Pakistan, the loss of running with impunity in places like Saudi Arabia, the fact that now intelligence networks and law enforcement networks pursue them worldwide, means that they have lost territory where they can operate with impunity.

SEN. BOXER: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to take 30 seconds, with your permission. First of all, Charles Duelfer said, and I quote -- here it is; I ask unanimous consent to place in the record Charlie Duelfer's report --

SEN. LUGAR: It will be placed in the record.

SEN. BOXER: -- in which he says, "Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up to '91, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years."

Here's the point. You and I could sit here and go back and forth and present our arguments, and maybe somebody watching a debate would pick one or the other, depending on their own views. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in the facts. So when I ask you these questions, I'm going to show you your words, not my words.

And, if I might say, again you said you're aware of the stakes in Iraq; we sent our beautiful people -- and thank you, thank you so much for your comments about them -- to defend freedom. You sent them in there because of weapons of mass destruction. Later, the mission changed when there were none. I have your quotes on it. I have the president's quotes on it.

And everybody admits it but you that that was the reason for the war. And then, once we're in there, now it moves to a different mission, which is great. We all want to give democracy and freedom everywhere we can possibly do it. But let's not rewrite history. It's too soon to do that.

MS. RICE: Senator Boxer, I would refer you to the president's speech before the American Enterprise Institute in February, prior to the war, in which he talked about the fact that, yes, there was the threat of weapons of mass destruction, but he also talked to the strategic threat that Saddam Hussein was to the region.

Saddam Hussein was a threat, yes, because he was trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And, yes, we thought that he had stockpiles which he did not have. We had problems with the intelligence. We are all, as a collective polity of the United States, trying to deal with ways to get better intelligence.

But it wasn't just weapons of mass destruction. He was also a place -- his territory was a place where terrorists were welcomed, where he paid suicide bombers to bomb Israel, where he had used Scuds against Israel in the past.

And so we knew what his intentions were in the region; where he had attacked his neighbors before and, in fact, tried to annex Kuwait; where we had gone to war against him twice in the past. It was the total picture, Senator, not just weapons of mass destruction, that caused us to decide that, post-September 11th, it was finally time to deal with Saddam Hussein.

SEN. BOXER: Well, you should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was WMD, period. That was the reason and the causation for that, you know, particular vote.

But, again, I just feel you quote President Bush when it suits you but you contradicted him when he said, "Yes, Saddam could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." You go on television nine months later and said, "Nobody ever said it was" --

MS. RICE: Senator, that was just a question of pointing out to people that there was an uncertainty. No one was saying that he would have to have a weapon within a year for it to be worth it to go to war.

SEN. BOXER: Well, if you can't admit to this mistake, I hope that you'll --

MS. RICE: Senator, we can have this discussion in any way that you would like. But I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity. Thank you very much.

SEN. BOXER: I'm not. I'm just quoting what you said. You contradicted the president and you contradicted yourself.

MS. RICE: Senator, I'm happy to continue the discussion, but I really hope that you will not imply that I take the truth lightly.

SEN. LUGAR: Let me intervene at this point. Now we've had four hours of good hearing, and we thank all members for their constancy. We're going to recess, and I'm going to suggest we come back at 2:30. Is that convenient for you, Dr. Rice?

MS. RICE: Perfect.

SEN. LUGAR: Very well. We recess until 2:30.

It's Finally Dead

This is one death for which I will not mourn.

From a Boot on the Ground

Well, one of the blog-children has a piece that needs to be read. Not only one piece, but two from persons who know intimately the situation not just in Iraq proper, but specifically in Fallujah.

You read pieces like this every day, as I do, on many of the mil-blogs, particularly Blackfive, and even on some of the more mainstream sites. Yet for reasons one can only attribute to blind hatred of our Commander in Chief, the powers that be, whether it is at Network News, the rapidly more obsolete big city dailys, or mass publication magazines either refuses to acknowledge the information in them, or decide to deride it as propaganda from the CIA, as happened within the last few days to Iraq the Model. The item referred to in the BBC piece is in the NYTimes, and if you feel like looking for it, feel free. I, for one, refuse for the most part to register my personal information to read a news item, particularly from a bastion of anti-middle class, anti-military rhetoric such as the likes of the Old Grey Zombie.

What this all amounts to is this: we, as citizens of this country, regardless of our political beliefs or even our stand on matters of state, policy, or military issues, has got to do our homework. We owe it to ourselves as citizens, and particularly to those who sucked it up, took the oath, and stand ready to not only defend our nation from immediate threat, but also from the threat which oozes unchecked from other nations in the form of terrorism, misinformation, or political pressure. We cannot accept as gospel truth anything we read without checking it and often times even double or triple checking what is presented to us as fact.

Dan Rather was not the problem with the media. He was and remains merely a symptom.

Okay, I've had it.

I'm sick to death of hearing the moaning and bellyaching about the inauguration and all the extravagence and pomp and conspicuous pagentry when there are soooo many people suffering in *fill in third wold country of choice* from the disasterous *fill in catastrophy of choice* and we should be spending the government's money theeeeeere instead of on King George.

Bullshit.

Since when did Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand become territories of the United States, entitled to protection and guarantees of assistance from the taxpayers of this country and this country damned near alone? Japan is the only other nation pledging an equivalent sum. The rest of the world with relatively few exceptions are like a booth full of mooching relatives who insist on doing their own math when splitting up a large check and conveniently "forget" to include their share of the appetizers or to leave a tip, sticking someone else with making up the difference.

And since when was it required that the United States give up so that the citizens of the EU would not have to make any sort of sacrifice? Do you believe for one sane second that a European head of state would postpone or curtail his or her inaugural plans for anything that occured outside of the borders of their own little fiefdom? Think again.

Also, since when did the taxpayers take over paying for the many inaugural events? Like, never? The various balls and events are being thrown by private citizens and corporations, funding them with their own money or by selling tickets to persons wealthy enough to be able to afford the glitzy formalwear and the multi-thousand dollar check for rubber chicken and frozen cheesecake. If these are the parties that are being thrown by cheating the taxpayers, it must be because according to some malcontents' logic these dollars from the evil rich who should have been paid as taxes so these same eeevil rich wouldn't have the resources to attend an inaugural party, much less throw one in the first place. Give that designer gown to Steam-grate Betty down on E Street so she'll be the bell of the bus stop when she hangs out in there to pick up dropped change or intimidate teenagers out of their lunches.

All of the thuggery and name calling has no more to do with the Tsunami than Colonel Sanders had with Sputnik. It has nothing to do with conscience and everything to do with Sour Grapes.

Sorry, Folks

I apologise for the slim postings. The DSL is still down, and I'm not terribly happy about it.

I spoke to the tech people at SBC on the 14th, the day I had been told by the billing person that DSL would be reactivated. This person shook their head (as evidenced by the rattle I heard through the phone line) and stated that the billing person had no clue about the situation and that because it had been turned off and deleted from their databanks, it would be the 27th if we're lucky.

No one could give me any sort of reason that I could accept as adequate. "It's the way the system is set up," "It has to be completely purged from our computers before we can reestablish the line," "There is nothing we can do until your account is completely out." You know, I just don't buy it.

But until then, I am still on the boat anchor, still on dialup, and still bitching.

Also, and this is on me, I have been spending a lot of time on the novel. I will post a chapter here, just so that you know what I have been up to. Hopefully, after you read it you will understand.

Thanks for continuing to read, though. There's a lot of stuff in the archives that you may have missed, so pick around and see.

Chapter 10

Well, here's the chapter I promised you. The novel is set in the future, 2015, at a fictional national bloggers convention, Confab '15, in Dallas, TX. Many of the characters are based on bloggers I know, most of them Texas bloggers, with a few purely fictional charcters thrown in for good measure. Be kind, folks. I've never done this kind of thing before. And remember, this is a very rough draft.

And no, there is no smut. This is as explicit as it gets, at least as it stands now. I didn't see any reason to make it any more explicit than this. The story isn't about sex, it's about terrorism, betrayal, loyalty, and the fight against evil. But even in such circumstances, sometimes there is a little romance.

The small piano bar at the top of the convention center complex proved a poor place for finding receptive women, young or old. After making the rounds of the unattached and uninterested women at every other bar in the complex, not to mention at the Loyal Citizens gathering in the lobby earlier, Ralph decided to simply find a table where he could sit off to himself and enjoy the music and a well earned Scotch.

The man at the piano was particularly good, better than the honky-tonk guys he was used to hearing around Amarillo or Ft. Benning. He settled into some old Alyssa Keys and a little Dr. John for the older couples sitting together across the circular room.

Ralph sipped his Scotch and looked out over the Dallas nightscape, vast dark expanses with streams of moving light that crossed them. It looked nothing like it had when he was a child, and he found himself missing the close little houses in their snug yards. Even intermingled in the bad memories were brief flashes of things that made him nostalgic.

The music and the Scotch finally combined to relax the day’s events from his mind. He had been on guard since long before Bill had picked him up after his shift this afternoon. Good thing, too, he thought. I have no intention of dying on the streets of Dallas at the hands of some amateur terrorist after surviving BAC at Benning and deployments into North Korea and Dubai and places he wasn’t even allowed to acknowledge, against enemies no one knew existed.

Wouldn’t that be ironic, he mused. At least if I died in my hometown, my death would be acknowledged, folks I care about would know what happened, and I’d get a funeral my friends could attend.

Ralph sat there, leaned comfortably back into the leather wing-back chair and half closed his eyes as he faced the night sky. The reflections of the room, dreamy dark in the lounge half-light, played out on the ebony pane of glass. The waitresses sashayed and dipped, the women preened and cooed, the men leaned in to their baited hooks, and the bartender acted like air traffic control from behind the backlit plexiglass bar.

He sat there, watching life’s most primal dance play out on the darkened glass, sipping his drink, and enjoying the solitude in spite of himself. Then the old brass elevator doors opened and in the amber lighting stood a beautiful young lady. She was looking around the room, looking for someone. Ralph watched as she stepped into the bar and slowly walked the circular aisle that ran between the patrons seated on stools along the bar, and those seated along the curved glass in leather chairs or the tucked and rolled, half-circle booths, searching for someone.

He had a definite appreciation for the female form, and this particular example certainly deserved it. His half-closed eyes afforded him the opportunity of doing exactly that without outwardly appearing leering, boorish, or just more interested than was polite in public. He slowly raised his glass and took a slow, deep drink as she made her way closer to his table.

Instead of walking past, she laid her hand on his arm and leaned around the back of the chair.

"I hoped I’d find you here."

Recognizing the voice, he opened his eyes and turned away from her reflection to look at her. "Oh, damn, it’s you. What, did you forget a dig? Was there one more thing you wanted to say about my intelligence or background or perhaps you’d like to move on to my parentage or social status now." Ralph colored again as he said this, the sting of earlier this evening revisiting itself on him as she stood there.

"No, Ralph, that is your name, isn’t it? That’s not my intention at all. I had hoped you found my message in your confab program and would show up at the hospitality suite in the note."

Ralph looked confused for a second, then reached over to the empty chair across the table to retrieve the program.

"May I?" she asked, gesturing toward the now empty chair.

"Sure, please. Sit down," he mumbled as he opened the booklet and leafed through it. He paused at a page and read it silently for a moment.

"I’m really sorry about this afternoon. If you had any idea how often I get hit on in a day, you’d be shocked. But I did intend to make it up to you this evening. I’m just glad that when you didn’t show up where I hoped you would, that I’d be able to find you. And here you are. So… apology accepted?"

Ralph looked at her for a moment, then back down at the note she had written in his program.

"Sorry I had to act that way. I’d enjoy really meeting you like a normal human being after I finish my shift with registration. I’ll be in suite 2411 after 9pm. It’s one of the hospitality suites, but it’s not listed in the program because of a printing error. I hope to meet you there. We’ll start all over from the beginning, okay?

Cecily ‘Frannie’"

"Um, so, well…"

She looked at him with just a little bit of concern, hoping he wouldn’t send her away. The look was not lost on Ralph, who looked at her reflection in the black glass and took another sip of his drink.

"My name is Ralph Maravilla. Nice to meet you. And your name?"

She looked visibly relieved. She let out a sigh, extended her hand and said "Cecily. Cecily Wright. I’m very pleased to meet you, Ralph."

She blushed sweetly when he took her hand and held it for a moment. How exactly does one shake hands with a lady anyway, he pondered. After a moment, he rubbed his thumb up the back of her hand and released it. She looked down at the table for a second and smiled as she placed her hands into her lap under the table.

"So, Cecily, when you’re not sitting at a folding table surrounded by overeager men in a convention center, what do you do?" Ralph motioned to the waitress and finished the last few drops of his Scotch.

"Well, I work at a family business, just a little place out on the east side of Dallas. It’s really small, nothing impressive or anything. But I like it and it pays okay. I’m only working there until I get my degree. Then I hope to go to Virginia and get a job."

"What sort of degree are you working toward? I have friends in Virginia, and, well, you never know, maybe they’ll have a position you might be interested in. When the time comes, you know."

"Oh, it’s nothing you’d be interested in. Really. It’s kind of a new degree, something they don’t offer too many places. But it interested me so I thought I’d try it."

The waitress walked up and Ralph pointed at his glass. She nodded and looked at Ceciliy. "Oh, uh, double Stoli vanilla, chilled no ice. Rocks glass, please." As the waitress walked away she continued, "I ended up really taking to the course work and just loving it." Ralph looked at her quizzically. "I’m studying Forensic Counter Terrorism down in Austin. Yes, I know, it‘s a new field, and it‘s so reactionary. Believe me, I hear it all the time down at UT, but screw the airheads down there. They have absolutely no clue when it comes to what‘s going on now."

Ralph just smiled at her. "Oh, so you think it’s funny for a woman with no background in criminal justice to go into something like that? Or maybe it’s because I’ve never been military? Or is it because ‘this is man’s work, little missy, leave it to the men’? Believe me, I get enough of that at home, I don’t need it from you," and she started to get up from her chair.

"No, no, please, sit down. That’s not what I was thinking at all. Please. Tell me more." Ralph gave her his best look of contrition, which was difficult to do with a grin.

"Well, really, that’s about all. I mean, I don’t live an extraordinarily exciting life. I study all week and work all weekend with the family. Other than my silly little blog, I don’t do much else. If I didn’t know Beth through her blog, and DokRussia through his, I wouldn’t really know anyone here. But Beth asked me to help out, and she’s been so kind to me, so I couldn’t say no." She paused momentarily as the waitress set their drinks down and walked away. "How about you, Ralph Maravilla? Who are you, and don’t try that line again or I’ll kick you under the table."

"Well, I know Beth, too. I used to chat with her almost every evening in the old Loyal Citizens chat room while I was in high school . I met a lot of good people in that room, including my friend Bill, who you met earlier. He and I made a pact that when we graduated from high school we’d go off and join the army together and go to airborne school, which we did. We were Airborne for eight years, served overseas for a lot of it. The war on terror was slowing down overseas, and they didn’t need as many of us nuts with crappy knees as they did before, so when our enlistments were up last year, we were allowed out."

"Airborne? I’m impressed. Halo jumping and the whole thing?"

"Halo jumping and the whole thing. I loved it. I kinda hated leaving it, but I found something I like just as much, and I keep my skills up on my own. Found a nice little jump school where I can go and jump when I feel the need to freefall. Now I just do what I feel like doing, when I feel like doing it." He stopped to take a sip of his drink, and watched as she drank her vodka. She really is pretty, he thought. I’d do her.

"Anyway, I do a little security work and live here in Dallas. I get to travel a little, meet interesting people. It’s a good life for a single guy with no attachments." He watched her finish her vodka and wondered where she learned to drink like that. Or maybe, he thought, she doesn’t drink like that and isn’t used to it. One can only hope. He finished his drink too, and asked if she would like another.

"No, not now. The drinks here are much too expensive. Why don’t you come with me to the hospitality suite and we can see what we find in there. Some of them have bars in them. Well, informal bars anyway. Depends on who set up the suite."

"Oh, I see. And who set up this suite, the one that isn’t in the program?"

Cecily stood and smiled at him. "Well, I suppose you could say I did."

Ralph stood and pulled a twenty from his wallet to lay on the table. He reached down beside his chair to pick up his bags and turned to follow her into the elevator. She looked down at his bags and smiled. "Good. We won’t have to stop off and pick them up."

She pushed the button to the 24th floor, and as the doors closed, stepped in front of him and back to lean against him. When she turned her head and looked up at him, he bent down and very lightly, very gently kissed her lips. He felt her hand reach up and touch the side of his neck, soft and tentative, and he lowered his face back to hers and kissed him again, just so slightly more insistent than the first kiss. Her response, too, was measured and her fingertips brushed gently through the hair on the back of his head.

They felt the elevator begin to slow, so Cecily slid across him to stand beside him before the door opened. As it opened, she slipped her arm around his and they stepped out into the hall. At the end of the hall, she retrieved her electronic key from the tiny leather bag she carried, and ran it through the reader. As the mechanism clicked and the door opened, she took his arm again and led him into the room.

Ralph stopped andset his bags into the closet area next to her bag. When he stepped out into the main room, she had lit a few small candles arranged on the standard issue hotel table, and was sitting in one of the chairs. She looked even more enticing in the warm glow, and he stopped for a moment just to look at her. She smiled but said nothing as he crossed past the bed to the table. He noticed it had been turned down invitingly, and the candlelight flickered across the smooth white sheets.

I can do this slow. I can do ’romantic,’ he thought. I can take all night. He sat down in the empty chair and accepted the drink she poured for him. She picked up her glass and raised it toward him.

"To Beth, for befriending us both. Without her, neither of us would be here."

"To Beth," he repeated. "And to second chances." They each quickly and wordlessly finished the vodka in their glasses then stood to reach for each other in the candlelight.

Colts vs. Patriots

4:30 EST and the game begins. With it is the opportunity for St. Peyton and his band in blue to overcome a record in Massechusets that is currently 0-6.

Do I think they can win? Absolutely. They have been playing well, they are well and fit, and they certainly have earned the right to be where they are. But will they? Only time will tell.

Personally, I'd love to see them pull a win out of this, not just to advance in the playoffs, but to rid themselves of the reasons, psychological or whatever, that have prevented them from winning against the Patriots in their stadium.

I don't know who is favored or what the spread is. I only know that if visualization were a factor, they would have no problem. Indianapolis is fired up, but in an interestingly intense and somewhat quiet way.

It will all be decided soon. I will be at the Parental Estate to watch. If not for the oxygen system my dad uses, I would have candles lit and probably even carry my mojo bag. As it is, I'll have to be satisfied with chips and diet Coke. No chicken bones and talisman. It weirds them out just a bit, and I can imagine the letter I'd get back from the Progeny's teacher when she hears about that on Tuesday.

Visualize Colts Victory. And if that doesn't appear to be making a difference, just yell like hell.

Dumpling and Cecily

Well, we have had our little furballs for almost a week, and we have all learned a valuable lesson about our rats: They do not like to be picked up inside the cage. They prefer to be allowed out onto the table through the open door of the cage, where you can pick them up with ease.

This lesson was hard earned by us all, and we are all sporting Bandaids on at least one knuckle. Even the Spousal Unit, who insists on calling them vermin and had proclaimed that he will never warm up to them, was given his lesson this evening when he attempted to retrieve one from inside the cage. He'll never admit he wanted to hold her, but hey, he reached in there didn't he?

He said later that after his bite, Anna the Progeny opened the door, let one out, and happily played with her on the couch for almost an hour and a half. Picked her right up off the table unscathed and remained so during the entire playtime.

Ah, the learning curve. It's a wonderful thing.

Indianapolis Downtown Family Friendly?

By now, half the world has heard about the Colts' big deal with the city of Indianapolis, a package of incentives including a brand spanking new stadium with a retractable roof, most of which the mayor wants to pay for with an increased tax for restaurant patrons and those who rent hotel rooms in the county, paired up with the revenues the city would gain from putting a casino in the downtown area.

That last bit will involve some law changes on the state level to allow casinos on land, since they now must be on riverboats, or what passes for riverboats, on a body of water. They don't have to be free-floating any longer, and most of them are permanently affixed to huge landbased hotel and shopping mall complexes. But an actual building that contains a casino? Not in this state, not so far.

There was a bid to bring a casino into French Lick (you gotta love that name) at a wonderful old resort that was built for that purpose early in the 20th century. But even that hasn't happened yet. Can you say "Trump"?

But a casino in the downtown Indianapolis area?

Actually, I think it's a wonderful idea. We have a great historic building downtown, in close proximity to the old dome and the proposed new dome site, that really is being wasted by its current uses. The Union Station building, restored at great expense and owned by the city, is housing nothing but a small school and a few businesses, none of them taking the entire building. Union Station is a perfect site for a casino/shopping/hotel complex. Hell, the hotel is already there and does a huge business.

So what's the hold up? You're going to love this. There is a contingent in this city that doesn't want it there because it will change downtown and make it into something other than the "family friendly" place it is now.

Family friendly? Who are they kidding? Downtown Indianapolis is nothing if it is not an Adults Only Mecca for youngish drinkers. The bars line up, one after the other, interupted only by a few entrances into the Circle Center Mall, and one of them has a brew-pub/bar as well. Even the establishments with outdoor dining during the warmer months are prohibited from allowing children into the patio/sidewalk areas because they are bars, not restaurants.

The Slippery Noodle, the oldest bar in Indianapolis and a great place to hear live blues from local and national acts, has al fresco dining at patio tables on their sidewalk. But in order for my 10 yr old to hear the music, we have to sit in the car, parked by the curb across the street. She can go into a restaurant that serves beer, wine, and mixed drinks, but she cannot sit outside at a table with her parents to hear the Uppity Blues Women or Gene Deer.

If we want to take her out to a downtown restaurant, we have very few choices, among them Bucca de Bepo and Spaghetti Factory. Anything else is off limits because they are adult only.

If I want to take her for a walk downtown, I have to make sure I keep her off of the main drag, Meridian Street, as soon as the sun goes down because of the drunken party-types both inside the fenced-off patio areas and on the sidewalk. If I drive her downtown to see the Christmas display on Monument Circle, I have to consider what she might see around the bars.

But to hear these people talk, it's the proposed casino that will ruin the downtown area for families. Sorry, folks, that happened a long time ago and it wasn't a casino that did it. Downtown is no more family friendly than that infamous bar district masquarading as an artsy district, Broad Ripple, or the renovated stretch of Mass. Avenue.

So forget that arguement. It doesn't wash. Downtown hasn't been a "Family Friendly" place for years. Put the casino in and keep some of those millions of dollars now going to the riverboats on the Ohio River and up on Lake Michgan here in the county. It's past due, and your arguements against it are falacious.

Such cute little vermin

Ah, into each life the unexpected must fall, and when you have a 10 yr old who loves animals, those falling things tend to be warm-blooded and furry with cute little faces.

Case in point: Progeny has been asking for a ferret for months. The Grandparents take her with them for their daily mall walk, and when they go to Castleton Square mall across town, they always take Progeny into the petshop to see the puppies. Sadly and frustratingly, puppies are not the only beasties they sell in this place. They also have what are typically called by the trade "small mammals" or "small critters" and this catagory includes ferrets.

I am not a ferret fan. Sure, they have cute little faces if you like that beady-eyed weasel kind of thing. Yes, they are frisky, as they move with a gate something akin to "Anaconda Meets Kangaroo Jack." Of course, they can be litterbox trained, as long as you provide a litterbox in each and every corner of your house. Certainly, they groom themselves and they are clean, and as long as you have the musk glands ripped from their bodies surgically they don't smell much. But I'm still not a ferret fan.

But Progeny just would not take no for an answer. She sent various letters to Santa over the course of the Christmas season asking for a ferret, but specifying that it needed to be deposited at Gramma's house instead of at our house. She went into the petstore at every opportunity in an attempt to cajole the underpaid teenagers at the cash register to just let her buy one for a riduculously low price and throw in the cage and other ferret essentials just because she was such a cute and sweet young child pre-teen. She offered me, of all people, her entire savings as a bribe to let Santa drop one off at our house, and given the financial situation at the Manse Montezz, that was a difficult one to pass up. But I did. I'm her mom. I had to be strong. But it still hurt to turn down that bribe.

Needless to say, Santa did not stop at Ferret Island to pick up the sweetest and most loving ferret in the world for Progeny. For this alone, I owe Santa some rather kinky favors over the next year.

Progeny took it in stride. She understood that she wasn't going to get a ferret any time soon, but she still wanted something sweet and cute and cuddly to pet and carry around and burden with a crazed, juvenile name. The cats and the dogs just were not enough.

Enter Dumpling and Cecily.

While we were in the Petsmart getting grub for the Wonder Dogs, Progeny went looking vainly for ferrets. None could be found, but there, in the bottom tank of the Small Critters section were a pair of young female "small domestic rats" with black heads and shoulders, white from there back, and a stripe of black down the centers of their backs. I looked at them, they looked at me, and something terrible happened, something that Spousal Unit to this day does not believe happened, something completely against my rodent-o-phobic tendencies: I asked to hold one.

The Critter keeper reached into the tank and selected the rat that walked over to her. She picked it up, carried it out of the small, shack-like thing within the Critter area, and handed me this rat. It looked at me (it had blue eyes, by the way), I looked at it, it wiggled its whiskers at me (to which I could not respond in kind because I had tweezed that afternoon), and then crawled up and sniffed my chin.

We had a moment, this rat and I, a moment from which I have yet to recover. My mind raced, my heart pounded, and the little rat literally snuggled itself between my hound-dog-ear breasts and curled up in my hand...

The cage sits on my kitchen table. The cats are obsessed with Dumpling (Progeny's rat) and Cecily (my rat), and Spousal Unit is having a really rough time dealing with the idea of "vermin" inhabiting our house as guests and not as prey for the felines.

*sigh* Yes, I have a bandaid on my knuckle now from a fear-bite, but they're just babies (8-10 weeks) and they haven't been handled enough, to that's the price I have to pay until they are socialized better and understand that I'm not the boogie-mama.

Any rat tips? I could use them. I'll post pix when I get around to it.

Go, Colts.

Tomorrow is the day the Indianapolis Colts face Denver for the second week in a row, this time to decide who goes home for the rest of the season and who moves along to the next round of playoff madness.

St. Peyton, the patron saint of Hoosier Land, will be leading the celestial forces of blue and white against the evil Jake Plummer and the infidel, horsey hordes of the Rocky Mountains at 1pm EST.

Well, sure, they beat us last weekend. It was a throw-away game from the word jump, and both teams knew it. The Colts cleared the pine that day, allowing a lot of ass-cramps to be worked out by folks that some of us thought had been superglued to the bench all season. By doing so, we kept a lot of our power players out of the game and off of the injury list. After watching that one incident during the game which resulted in a sizable fine to the Denver safety, it seems the Colts' coaching staff acted pretty damned prudently.

Glenn Beck, the talk-show host out of Philly, believes Denver will win in an upset. I could be reading this wrong, but as of 9:30pm tonight, the Colts are favored by 9.5 points. We will see what we will see. In the meantime, I need to make sure my blue fleece top is ready to wear tomorrow.

Update: 49-24, Colts over Denver. It was a lovely thing to hear as it unfolded over the radio on my way in to work. We shall not have so easy a time of it in Foxborough, or whatever the name of that city is where the Patriots play. 4:30EST next Sunday. I will be off that day, and I plan on enjoying an adult beverage while watching.

Go Horse!

Some Good News

Well, the phone bill was paid on Friday, and today it appears that I have phone service but not really. Kinda. I can dial the house from work and get a dial tone, but there is no dial tone when you pick up the phone at home, only an electronic buzzing. I know it's not the filters on the phone jacks, because they didn't interfere with the phones when we initially put them on before turning on DSL in August. It's a puzzlement.

As soon as I get it figured out, though, posting will commence via dialup. I and the spousal unit appreciate your loyalty during this brief and frustrating interlude. I hope we are able to make it up to you soon. You have all been very kind and extremely understanding.

Thanks to Darth Monkeybone and Slaglerock for keeping posts up in the interim.

They're Called Bouncing Babies for a Reason...

I predict nothing but a series of playground ass-whoopin's for any child forced to wear the contraptions shown on this site...

via Michelle Malkin

Around The Sphere

Take a jog around the Blogoshpere and you will find some interesting things.

SlagleRock has a wild story about Marine Cpl Wassef Ali Hassoun who was charged with desertion in Iraq deserting a second time!

Delftsman has a couple of great jokes and anecdotes if you need a laugh.

Over at the Rott, Sir George, smacks around the UN, yet again and BC gives us a further update on Marine Deserter Hassoun

Blackfive has an amazing story about a sniper credited with the longest confirmed kill in Iraq, more than 1,000 yards.

Need more? There are tons of great bloggers in the gutter on the right, take your pick!

SlagleRock Out!

Please be patient

Last night, when I arrived home, I found that the DSL line was now disconnected and as dead as my voice line. I had hoped it would be up until Friday, when I get paid and could then pay the bill. Sadly, that was not to be.

Please excuse the thin postings until I am able to get the line back up. The Spousal Unit, needless to say, will be in the same shape. I am hoping that my Blogson, Slaglerock, will help keep things up on Spousal Unit's site. If he has the time, I know he will.

Thank you for your patience. In the meantime, please travel around the blogroll on the right over there and spread some love around.

Cocktails, anyone?

Eric! Dearest, although I do enjoy the Boones Farm Blue Hawaiian, my drink of preference is Stoli Vanilla, kept in the freezer, in a cold rocks glass, no ice.

If I can't get that, Bacardi Gold, served the same way. But the Holy Grail of Beverages for Mama? Crown Royal, cold, no ice.

Sometimes...

...you just have to throw caution to the wind and step right off the precipice. Sometimes life is a huge gamble, with horrible risks. You find yourself at the table, with your cards in your hand, and the only way to see the other person's hand it to throw in your chips and call.

It's hard to call sometimes. You look at those chips, all hard won and more precious than gold, and wonder if you're doing the right thing. Call on the wrong hand, you've lost it all. Call on the right hand, and sometimes you still lose, just not at that moment.

My chips are on the table, the cards are in my hand. I call.

Prizes! Winners! Losers!

Jim, the intrepid Joisey Blogger who braved the wilds of Helen, GA for Blogtoberfest, has posted his picks for the best and worst of 2004. For the most part, I agree with him.

Red Hats?

If I ever go out and buy a purple dress and a red hat, someone please do an intervention. Be cruel to be kind. Take me into the back yard, pour gasoline on them, and make me strike the match.

This whole thing bunch of cackling hens is just one more reason why I prefer the company of men and independent women to most other women. Sure, you can accuse bloggers of "group think" but damn, what else can you call women who apparently are so unsure of their own fashion sense that they feel the need to dress in a freaking "Uniform" for crying out loud.

Give me my jeans and clogs any day. And if I feel the need to wear a hat, I'll wear a boonie.

Update: Seems we have located a photo of the Jacksonville, FL chapter in their Sunday Finest. Too many Mimosas or Bloody Marys at brunch, it looks to me. Who knew they wore purple undies with their purple dresses? Hope their elderly, pussy-whipped husbands have their clothes.

Decisions, decisions...

Do I go to Dallas in March to meet the Lone Star State's Texas Bloggers, or do I go to Jekyl Island in April for the Spring Jawja Blogfest? It's a difficult decision.

I can drive to either place in about 15 hours (including the obligatory coffee and coffee-release stops) so we're talking an overnight roadtrip either way. And I'd have help, because the Spousal Unit wants to come along and can split the driving.

I believe that I could find lodging in either place, but who sleeps at these things anyway? Hell, I can sleep in the car if I have to, in the small time between periods of drunken debauchery and periods of shit-shooting. Like I said, who sleeps at these things?

With an average range of about 300 miles per tank of gas, I can do either trip with 6 fill-ups, so the cost is a lot less than flying. Round trips to either place come out to just over $250 per person. I can buy enough gas for both of us for what one airline ticket costs.

The 1986 Toyota pick-up would make it easily, and all it needs is brakes and a new back tire. And the old 1984 Tempo would make it too, and all it needs is an exhaust pipe. Okay, it needs a whole new exhaust system. I believe the 1984 Grand Prix would make it, but Spousal Unit isn't so sure.

I can do one, I can't do both. It's a quandry. The devils bloggers I know, or the devils bloggers I don't know? I'll have to give this a lot of thought. Truth to the matter is, I won't be going to either one. There just isn't any way under the current circumstances, but it sure is nice to think about.

Resolutions?

Well, seems just about everyone is putting up resolutions. It is the day for it, afterall. I'm afraid some of my resolutions would anger some people and hurt others, so I'll refrain from posting them. This does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that I have not made the aforementioned resolutions, merely that they are not for public consumption...yet.

There are a few I will share with you, however. Pretty mundane stuff, mind you, but it is New Years Day, and it's kind of some unwritten rule in these parts.

1. I will work harder. If I need to get a second job, something part time in the mornings, I will do it. Even a half shift after I leave the Real Job™ at 10:30 would be do-able. Anything, at this point, is better than the way I am living now.

2. I will not be such a soft-hearted idiot. It's one thing to be kind and do for others, but not do instead of others... You know what I mean?

3. Anna will be the focus of my life, not me. She deserves what I can give her, not the other way around.

4. No more whining and bitching on my blog. I'm not a bitter person, and I'm not going to let the blog become a rage-ridden, egomaniacal cesspool of constant, self-pitying bullshit. You want a bitter, rage-ridden, egomaniacal cesspool, I can draw you a map, but it isn't here.

5. I'm going to love harder, sweeter, and more adventurously than at any time in the past. I will accept the pleasures offered to me and do so without guilt. Feel like tagging along, then don't miss the train.

6. I will whelp as many new blogs as possible. There are some amazing people lurking in the comments here and a lot of other places who have more to say than they bloggers they frequent. I believe it's time for the blogosphere verson of a Polar Shift, and I want to be right in the middle of it.

I think that's enough for now.

Porn Thoughts.

I was reading Lollygaggin and found something to share today. Not just her post, but my ideas on it as well.

Porn. Specifically the free stuff that pops up any time you do a google search with out their "Safe Search" option engaged. I truly believe you could google images for "Mother Teresa" and find free porn, as well as several pay sites.

Sure, it makes it hard when I have a 10yr old who likes to surf on her own, or shoulder surf while I'm online working on a banner or building a site for someone. I've had to chase her off more than once, and I always feel bad when I do that, because she's just trying to have some Mommy Time™ on my few days off from my Real Job™ in the evening. And it can be the most innocent of searches. Think it's safe to Google for pictures of Rottweilers? Think again.

Anyway, having it pop up unbidden can be more than an annoyance, but what about porn in the right context? I don't find a thing wrong with it. Skin is skin, nekkid is nekkid, and sex is sex. And actually, I tend to be more visually oriented than the Spousal Unit, so I tend to actually go look for it more often than he does. It's probably the same mental twist that I use when I draw or paint or sculpt.

I look at bodies, singularly or matched in couples or groups, and I see skintones, patterns, contrasts, textures and shadows. Sometimes these elements come together in a total image that is pleasing and inspiring. Well composed and well photgraphed subjecs, even grotesques, can be beautiful and compelling. Often times however, they are merely tittilating, and I see nothing wrong with that.

The Unablogger used to post some of the most beautiful photos I've ever seen. I enjoy looking at Mapplethorpe photos as much as Ansel Adams. I have found that a Georgia O'Keefe landscape or floral can be as erotic and stimulating any nude. Does that make me a pervert? Perhaps, to some people it does, but I don't see it like that. I see it more an appreciation of and a love of life, beauty, truth, and love. Yes, sure, I can be a Bohemian at heart. God forbid a conservative would look at things like that.

I have no complaint over porn, free or otherwise, except that there just isn't enough of it of any quality. The quirky, poorly lit but honest amateur pieces are often better than what we see coming out of the Smut Factories these days. Professionally produced film makers, trying to cash in on the popularity of amatuer videos, have lowered production values and forsaken scripts to emulate the personal intimate videos that couples make for themselves or to share. Sadly, these professionally produced films can't give us what the amateur films have: Honesty, emotion, real intimacy, spontaneity, and a genuine slice of life.

But what of Real Time porn? What of porn generated in the moment for only one person, the person with whom you find yourself talking intimately in an instant message? The Webcam allows anyone to generate personal, private, intimate porn instantly. It lets you do and say things for a lover, a friend, even a stranger a world away. You can explore your own sexual psyche in absolute privacy and still share both your search and your discoveries with that other person.

I have found, through my webcam, that I am not much of an exhibitionist, but that I am a much more voyeuristic woman than I originally had given myself credit. And the game of suggesting activities via the keyboard, or providing written stimulation to the visible partner is almost as erotic and fulfilling as seeing the culmination, the grand vista of fruition framed briefly on the monitor. And, as in Real Life™ there is no replay button for what you have seen or done. When it's gone, it is gone.

There is no reliving the moment except in memory. There are no polaroids hidden in a drawer or video tape in the nightstand. There is only your memory until the next time you find yourself, late at night or mid-afternoon, touching each other by touching yourself at a desk with a small, unobtrusive camera. It is at once forbidden, delicious, and exhilerating. It is fantasy and reality in a strange dance. What you see is real, actual, without pretense, but you can take those images and weave them into anything you want or need at that moment. It is a gift that by it's nature can never be given again, making it precious in it's transcience.