Oh Yea; Happy Haloween

If you're into that sort of thing.

The Tummy Troubles of the Angry Austrain

WHEW . . . who cut the Käse?

It may sound like a Woody Allen scenario, but medical historians are unanimous that Adolf was the victim of uncontrollable flatulence. Spasmodic stomach cramps, constipation and diarrhea, possibly the result of nervous tension, had been Hitler’s curse since childhood and only grew more severe as he aged. As a stressed-out dictator, the agonizing digestive attacks would occur after most meals: Albert Speer recalled that the Führer, ashen-faced, would leap up from the dinner table and disappear to his room.

This was an embarrassing problem for a ruthless leader of the Third Reich.

Ya think?

Let Freedom Ring

And that extends to economic freedom, too.

Can an entrenched cartel of Minneapolis taxi drivers violate the civil rights of entrepreneurs and consumers? No, according to U.S. Magistrate Judge Franklin L. Noel.

In his opinion, Judge Noel determined: “The [established] taxi vehicle license holders do not have a constitutionally protected freedom from competition.”

Chip Mellor, president and general counsel of the Institute for Justice, concluded, “We will not rest until the fundamental right of economic liberty is vindicated for all Americans.”

Wow, good news from the legal horizon here on the Tundra.

Nashville Gets Smaller Every Day

When life has ended and my time has run out,

My friends and my loved ones I'll leave them, no doubt.

But there's one thing for certain when it comes my time,

I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind.

Porter Wagoner 1927-2007

When You Look Out the Window

You will see the lives that pass us by everyday.

He tells me he never gets used to this, that this is the fourth dog he's buried since his days growing up on the farm in Morrison County, and no death has taught him how to better handle the next one.

Then he says, and this will stick in my head for a while, "There's no wisdom I've come across, or read about, that helps me see the nobility in loss. Loss is just pain, and you tire of it."

He had lost four dogs, but what was in that mournful questioning was also the death of his wife two years earlier.

Perhaps he thought the years would make the questions go away, or make them less vexing. He wanted the beginnings of a serenity that he assumed old age would bring, and he was frustrated, because what came was little more than compounded loss and its accompanying fatigue.

Macalester College Hit by Vandals

The very spendy boutique college up the street is building a monolith athletic facility and it's going up pretty fast. Right after one layer of the roof was up, hoodlums with spray paint struck.

(Click for a better view)

Oh, I know; you say it was just some union ironworker who's proud of a job (I presume) well done. Then tell me what the difference is from the picture above to the picture below:

Or this one:

I'm tempted to call Macalester College and ask if the plans for the building include the pink lettering or if they, institutionally, approve of the pro-union message. I also wonder what response I'd get if I called the city of Saint Paul's graffiti hotline.

All graffiti is unchecked hubris. Noting more. It is the human manifestation of territorial pissing, and has more more merit. If you want to call it art, then go paint it on your own stuff.

New Tool in the Shed

The sheer volume of canine waste matter has warranted a new yard tool, shown above, being tested by the primary reason it was purchased. His willingness to haul it around should not be mistaken for his ablity to clean up after himself.

California Wildfires Explained

What a dummy I was. I thought that the fires in California were from a combination or naturally-occurring conditions and debatable development. Turns out Air America Radio has gotten to the real reason behind the burn. Don't miss the audio!

And you know, every time I look for it what comes up, believe it or not, is that Blackwater wants to move to San Diego and build this giant complex in San Diego right where most of the evacuations are taking place and you know. You just know wherever there is fire, this administration will be out there doing what it does best and that is fanning the flames, you know. It just spooks me, I can’t explain to you how creepy this whole thing is that you know, you’ve got these fires. Some of them are thought to be the work of arsonists and in the same breath you’ve got a community that’s on fire that just recently protested Blackwater West. Just recently said no to Blackwater and apparently you don’t do that.

I have been mocking Air America for so long. Looks like they've become the go-to authority in the world of blame-assignment.

Steve Jobs will iOwn You.

And it's likely he'll use a credit card.

Apple has decided that it will "no longer accept cash for iPhone purchases," and moreover, each individual will only be allowed to buy two (on plastic, of course) in an effort to "stop people from reselling them." More specifically, spokeswoman Natalie Kerris stated that the company is "requiring a credit or debit card for payment to discourage unauthorized resellers," so don't even bother bringing the greenbacks if you're lookin' to grab an iPhone from Apple.

Remember the good old days' when everyone thought that Bill Gates and Microsoft would become the dark overlords of technology? Ha! iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iEconomic bully . . . when will it end with the Cupertino Cult?

Do Not Go Gentle

Into that unforgettable night(?)

It was a long night, Mr. Speaker, when we heard back the reports as the news reports said that a plane has gone down in Ely, Minnesota, and it was thought to be containing Paul Wellstone and his partner, Sheila Wellstone, and their daughter and several other campaigners. We hoped all night that what we thought might have happened didn't happen, but at the end of the evening, we learned that that tragedy, in fact, did occur. Our worst fears were confirmed when we learned that we lost him, but it was a long several hours before we realized that that tragedy had actually occurred, and we had hoped against hope. I will never forget that night.

Welstone's death must've really hit Keith hard, considering what it did to his memory.

Wellstone's plane took off at around 8 in the morning, it crashed about an hour later, and Jeff Blodgett announced his death a few hours after that. Night? A long night?

And the plane went down in Ely, Minnesota, which will come as a big surprise to the folks in Eveleth-Virginia.

If you're going to make a heartfelt tribute, you've got to get the basic facts right.

Not too surprising. "Progressive" government's hallmanrk is policy making that comes wholly from subjective feelings.

Wow - Thanks, Giant Government!

Don't tell the people the informantion they paid $8.5 million for and, by all means, make sure you destroy the data.

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government
previously recognized.

NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly. Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.

A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits.

I can't wain until this kind of government mass incompetence gets applied to universal mandatory HillaryCare.

Welcome to Our Country

Could you please try to set less shit on fire?

She had helped several people that day when a 22-year old Moroccan Dutch, Bilal B., entered the office. He walked towards her, jumped over the counter, pulled a knife and stabbed her in her neck. When she fled, he stabbed her twice more in her back. A male colleague tried to help her, but to no avail: he too was stabbed by Bilal, in the neck and chest. The heavily wounded female police officer felt that there was only one way to stop Bilal B. from killing both her and her colleague, pulled out her gun, and shot the attacker. Bilal B. died.

Instead of mourning the loss of Bilal B. – by all accounts a tragic figure – and celebrating the survival of the two police officers, Moroccan youth took to the streets, burned down cars and attacked the police station in their neighborhood, destroying windows and, generally terrorizing Slotervaart. It even got so bad that the president of the neighborhood Slotervaart, Marcouch (who is of Moroccan descent himself), called on the police to adopt a zero tolerance policy. Strangely, however, the police in Amsterdam refused, for a long time, to do so.

Read it all, as your culture is nibbled away just a little bit more today than yesterday.

Serious Clobberings in Order

Ford is trying to get me, a Ford owner, to come to their dealerships for basic services like oil changes and tire rotations. They are using this clod-head song in the radio commericals, as if that's supposed to seal the deal with me, the consumer. I hate this song with violent, white-hot hatred. I may never buy another Ford again.

I am also keeping a list of all food and beverage products that advertise in such a manner that I can hear people chewing and swallowing their products in the commercial. This makes me sick, and that's coming from someone who regularly cleans up the fecal output of an 200 pounds of domestic canines.

I also am getting mad at professional hockey organizations that employ such tactics as to allow a classy, veteran goaltender to twist in the wind without responsible sefensive support.

My Heart Swells with American Pirde

How can this be - wonderful news, that appeals to me, in the Mpls House Organ?

By 1870, Brooklyn was one of the great brewing capitals of the world, with 48 breweries. People bought meat from the butcher, bread from the baker, coffee from the roaster and beer from the local brewer. But by 1970, almost everyone shopped at the supermarket, frozen food and "TV dinners" were godsends, and we had about 40 breweries left in the entire country, all making the same bland beer.

Now Americans are moving away from spongy industrial bread, watery coffee, plasticized "cheese" and other wonders of modern food science. The top maker of white supermarket bread went bankrupt a few years ago.

If we truly want to restore the vibrant beer culture that flourished in this country before Prohibition, craft brewers need to retain the values and goals -- creating beers that are flavorful, interesting to drink and made from proper beer ingredients -- that put us on the map in the first place. Let's not undo American beer again.

One thing I love about Saturday, there's always time for an ESB.

Derby Day!

Take that ya thugs.

Everton never found the net at Goodison Park today. Their tally cam from a Sami Hyypia brain-fade own goal. Both Reds goals were scored by Dirk Kuyt from the spot; once after Tony Hibbard hauled down Steven Gerrard like an NFL cornerback, and again after Phil Neville played goalie and used both hands on a shot by Lucas.

Everton 1 - 2 Liverpool

Comeuppance

Mona style:

Shaw, 75, and her husband, Don, say they had an appointment in August for a Comcast technician to come to their Bristow home to install the company's heavily advertised Triple Play phone, Internet and cable service.

The Shaws say no one came all day, and the technician who showed up two days later left without finishing the setup. Two days after that, Comcast cut off all their service.

At the Comcast office in Manassas later that day, they waited for a manager for two hours before being told the manager had left for the day, the Shaws say.

Shaw, a churchgoing secretary of the local AARP branch, returned the next Monday - with a hammer.

One-Woman Foreign Policy

I'm quite surprised that Pelosi is going to back off the Turkey/Armenian/genocide resolution nonsene because, so far, she's gotten a complete pass from the usual media suspects on this one. Listen in the to most of the biggies, you'd think it was dumb dumb W screwing up the world again. They are often loathe to mention that Bush opposes the genocide declaration and fail to address the origin of the resolution.

Should this unimportant resolution pass, Pelosi herself will be responsible for the further alienation of Turkey, a stable ally on the edge of the Middle East, the enlarging of the battlefield in Iraq with regard to the Turks going after the PKK innorthern Iraq, and possibly cutting off logistical staging grounds for the coalition troops already there. Pelosi would brew this trifecta of Legislative-branch policymaking so she and Lantos and other Democrats cans suck up to a bloc of Armenian voters back in California.

Because the outside & visible pressure has really never mounted, my money is on an inside & unseen pressure from colleagues (DISSENT!) that has worked to change her priorities.

More here:

Is the Armenian resolution her way of unconsciously sabotaging the U.S. war effort, after she had failed to stop it by more direct means? I leave that question to psychiatry. Instead, I fall back on Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.

Blowin' in the Wind

How many hypocricies must a man put up, before you call him a hypocrite?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the Cape Cod wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind.

Congraulations to Ted and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to author David McCullough, and all the other enviro-phonies who lose sleep over global warming yet fight tooth and nail to preserve their sacred Nantucket Sound views from the evils of wind power. Now they can go back to their private jets and powerboats and focus on telling the rest of us how to live.

The Sun Always Shines on TV

and it will continue to shine, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

Like any other Wild fan, I was deflated when the playoof run ended after only 5 games back in April. I waited with great anticipation of the Wild's first meeting with the Orange County Fowl, reigning tainters of Lord Stanley's Cup and the team that sent us to the lake six months ago.

That first game was this past Sunday night. The Wild prevailed 2-0 on the half-assed slush they provide at the Ponda Center, and it was quite a grind.

This was a true character win with the tone being set on the very first shift when Wes Walz dumped Travis Moen by the Wild box. Minutes later, Nick Schultz, who would later fight Ryan Getzlaf, creamed Corey Perry.

"Everyone battled for the guy next to him," Parrish said.

While watching road games on TV, I sometimes geek out and post on the Wild's message boards. It's fun to get others' take on what just happened. It's also fun to see what's being posted on the opposing team's message boards. Since Sunday's challengers are based in La La Land, it was quite interesting to witensss the, uh, "local knowledge of the game."

Since most of what was being posted on the Ducks' boards about the game in progress was on intellectual par with star-struck twelve-year olds, I thought some good natured text-based tussling was in order. I registered as a user of the boards, recieved my confirmation link via e-mail and logged on. Trouble was, I couldn't post anything on the game day thread. I e-mailed the site administratror:

I registerd for a message boards account today, got the confimation e-mail, clicked on the link, am able to log in, but when I try to reply to posts (in a game-day thread) I get this:

Sorry, an error occurred . . . you do not have permission to reply to that topic.

When I register and post to other teams' message boards, I never had trouble, so I figured I must have clicked something wrong this time. Not so; here's what I got from Ken, the site administrator:

(T)his the Anaheim Ducks Message Board . . . Since you did not fill in the blanks as to your location, and do not have any reference to the Ducks in your profile, or you are a fan of another team, I did not approve you for the entire message board. You are limited to the Visitors Bench and Playoffs Forums.

If you are a Ducks fan, or assure me that even though you are a fan of an opposing team and do not intend to start problems, let me know and I will remove the restrictions. If you are a fan of another team, and can keep your comments about our team to yourself, I will open the account up. If you cross that line, your account and ip address will be banned from our board.

Let me sup up Ken's warm welcome, as if it was delivered by Yosemite Sam: "You better get your head right, varmint. We don't cotton to no dissension 'round these parts. This here's where we love the Ducks, no matter what, and won't hear nothin' to the contrary!"

Maybe I'm too tough on ol' Ken. After all, he's working for a hockey franchise in citrus country, a one-time Disney property, and an outfit that only recently began to sell every seat in the building. It's possible that some abrasion via website is more that their precarious situation can handle.

I gotta tell ya, it's more fun to love to hate the Ducks all the time.

Listen to Me; I Am Smart

If you are going to Ikea, go Monday through Thursday between 5:00 and 6:00. Hardly anyone there. Hardly anyone working then, but crowds of insane suburban women.

If you cannot get to Ikea between 5:00 & 6:00 Monday through Thursday, do no, under any circumstances got to Ikea.

Not even to save your life.

You Will Comply With Academia

George Will:

In 1943, the Supreme Court, affirming the right of Jehovah's Witnesses children to refuse to pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag in schools, declared: "No official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." Today that principle is routinely traduced, coast to coast, by officials who are petty in several senses.

At Arizona State University, social work students must "demonstrate compliance with the NASW Code of Ethics." Berkeley requires compliance as proof of "suitability for the profession." Students at the University of Central Florida "must comply" with the NASW code. At the University of Houston, students must sign a pledge of adherence. At the University of Michigan, failure to comply with the code may be deemed "academic misconduct."

Schools' mission statements, student manuals and course descriptions are clotted with the vocabulary of "progressive" cant; "diversity," "inclusion," "classism," "ethnocentrism," "racism," "sexism," "heterosexism," "ageism," "white privilege," "ableism," "contextualizes subjects," "cultural imperialism," "social identities and positionalities," "biopsychosocial" problems, "a just share of society's resources," and on and on. What goes on under the cover of this miasma of jargon? Just what the American Association of University Professors warned against in its 1915 "Declaration of Principles" -- teachers "indoctrinating" students.

College - where ideas go to die.

Fowl Vanquished!

And it was done on their mushy slushpond.

Minnesota's 5-0 start leaves the Wild as the NHL's only team without a loss, and puts them one victory away from matching last season's squad for the franchise's best winning streak from the start of a season. Three of the wins have been shutouts.

Wild 2, Fowl zippo.

Overcast Backyard

Can you See the Capitol Building?

No, my face is on the sidewalk.

But a few years back, my best friend and his brother knew for sure that real guns were being trained on their heads as they were forced for several minutes to lie face-down, just blocks from the Capitol, on the red-brick sidewalk in front of their D.C. rowhouse. They both survived the robbery (two blocks from the local police precinct), but neither of them thought to ask the important questions: “Excuse me, were those guns legally registered before 1977? Are they grandfathered under the District of Columbia Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975?”

I hope that now you can understand where I am coming from when I read District of Columbia Attorney General Linda Singer’s hysterical court filing in the Heller case . . .

Read it all, it you can stomach the abuse of rights of Americans by their government.

Rico Recovering, City Still Ails

After a trip through the animal hospital, Rico is recovering after a tough night on the town:

A suspected drug dealer fleeing the long jaws of the law repeatedly shot a St. Paul police dog as it bit and dragged him to the ground, ending a high-speed car and foot chase that stretched from St. Paul into Minneapolis this evening.

The dog, Rico - a multi-year veteran of the force - was taken to the University of Minnesota's veterinary hospital after being shot two times. The suspect was also taken to HCMC to be treated for gunshot wounds to his hand and buttocks, as well as various other injuries from the crash and Rico's assault.

"(Rico) kept on biting .... The dog simply didn't let go," (police spokesman Tom) Walsh said.

Good dog, Rico.

I heard some audio from the tee vee coverage of this event. It included a very predictable sound bite from a resident of the neighborhood where the scumbag suspect was nabbed. He was wailing about the dangers of police chases and how kids lived in the neighborhood, blah, blah, blah. Let's review - drug dealer with $100K worth of outstanding warrants flees from an arrest, races up and down streets, crashes into innocent motorists, shoots at uniformed police officers, and this bedwetter doesn't like police chases.

Watch soon for a new law in the city of Minneapolis: Once a felon exceeds the posted speed limit by 5 mph, police are forbidden from following. Can there be any wonder why Minneapoilis has such imept leadership, and therefore the crime problem, it has?

Quick Hitters

Lefties know everything. We should be ever-grateful they care for us so much:

The unvieled threat of your government censoring the media - how could that be since Alberto Gonzales is out?

Others on the Democrat side are pushing ahead with other plans. Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."

Those red light camera you're so in love with - governement money grab and nothing more.

According to an internal audit of the red light camera program from July of 2005 until July of 2007, the program generated more than $10 million, the city paid about $4.8 million in expenses leaving the city $5.8 million in excess funds.

Counting to nine with Al "long-haul flight" Gore.

A High Court judge who ruled on whether climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, could be shown in schools said it contains "nine scientific errors".

Sunday in the Woods

Never really rained, was never sunny. It was just up north in October.

(Click for big)

Saturday in the Woods

Up early. Proper nourishment. Hard work. But then, rest & relaxation.

Friday in the Woods

Evac the office at 1:00. On the Big-Kids Road at 3:30. Stop for dinner at 6:00.

The K&B is on the south side of Eveleth right on 53. It had all the elements you look for in road food - sole-proprietorship, lack of corporate-dictated business model, local folks eating there and the owner wearing an apron. They even have car shows in the parking lot, which, given the cost of a tuck & roll interior, can make the enjoying the broasted chicken a bit challenging. I had the chicken with potatoes, slaw and toast. Could not be beat. This trip was already worth it.

By 8:00 we were on the island.

When the Man Comes Around

I always want to be on the side of law and order, but sometimes they really know how to try a guy's patience.

A Michigan man has been fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service for accessing an open wireless Internet connection outside a coffee shop. Under a little known state law against computer hackers, Sam Peterson II, of Cedar Springs, Mich., faced a felony charge after cops found him on March 27 sitting in front of the Re-Union Street Café in Sparta, Mich., surfing the Web from his brand-new laptop.

He got on the Internet by tapping into the local coffee shop's wireless network, but instead of going inside the shop to use the free Wi-Fi offered to paying customers, he chose to remain in his car and piggyback off the network, which he said didn't require a password.

I'm so close to dusting off the old "don't you cops have anything else to do?"

"It wasn't anything we were looking for, and it wasn't anything that we frankly particularly wanted to get involved in, but it basically fell in our lap and it was a little hard to just look the other way when somebody handed it to us," said Lynn Hopkins, assistant prosecuting attorney for Kent County.

What a tool. Just as the cops has discretion in making arrests, the prosecuting attorney has discretion on how to prosecute. This is why you're likely to get a warning for driving a few mph over the posted speed limit and not be arrested.

The case has surprised locals, including . . . Donna May, owner of the coffee shop. "He could have just come in the cafe, even if he didn't have any money, I would let him get on it," May said. May said that the wireless connection is free for customers to her cafe.

In this instance, the "injured" party has no loss nor seeks prosecution. My cynical side is that this all comes from a small-town chip on the shoulder of law enforcement - something like "I had to get out my chair and look into this, and I'm going to find something wrong."

Me Too

From PostSecret