At last... God's Country!

The fam and I made our yearly week-long trek to the Tahoe area all the way back in late June-early July. Unfortunately, our hard drive was too full to unload the camera pictures, and at the same time, our disk drive went belly-up, so I couldn't transfer anything to CD so I could get it off the computer. These issues have now been fixed, so now it's time to show some drop-dead gorgeous images of one of the most beautiful places in existence. I have shown pictures of this area before: here, here, and here. No matter how many times I go however, I always seem to find something new to photograph. So without further ado:

The first morning there. The kids are thinking, "What should we do first?" They are also watching the squirrels eating the peanuts being tossed to them.

Echo Peak - A couple of days later, I would be standing at its summit; and what a climb that is!

Ah! Feel the morning sun; smell the fresh mountain air.

Every kid should have the opportunity to climb some nice big granite rocks!

Every kid should also have the opportunity to play on a beach like this!

Aaaaaaaaaah! The feet are propped up, the mountain breeze is softly blowing on me, I have my summer reading book with me. What a life! The book by the way is the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. What an amazing life, and what an amazing read.

Well, enough of this relaxing and reading on the beach stuff; it was time to climb to the summit of Echo Peak, which you saw earlier. This picture does a great job of conveying to you some idea of the steepness of the climb. The Team Guts shirt you see me wearing is from a Track/X-Country running camp at which I coach every year. I wore the shirt this day as sort of an inside joke, because due to my out-of-shapeness and the 8,000 foot altitude, I usually end up throwing up at some point during this hike. I was able to hold on to my cookies this year. It must have been the few workouts on the stairmaster that I fit into my schedule during the month of June.

I wish I could say that you are looking at the morning mist, but instead, that would be smoke from the thousands of fires that were burning in California at the time.

Only halfway to the summit, yet look at the view already.

Only a few yards to the summit of Echo Peak. You think the wind blows much during the winter?

I made it to the summit of Echo Peak - elevation 8,895 feet.

At the summit, you can hang your feet over a 200 foot cliff and look 2000 feet down to the lakes below.

A beautiful view of Fallen Leaf Lake and Lake Tahoe beyond that.

Alpine wildflowers at the summit of Echo Peak.

What goes up must come down, but it is always fun to look back up at where I was. Then I wonder how the hell I managed to get up there in the first place.

Time for a trek on the rowboat.

Until next summer, goodbye from Lake Tahoe!

Good Day to You, Sir

What's in it for T. Boone?

Judging by the saturation on television and radio, you all have presumably heard ads from Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens where he tells us that oil is dead, using that tired line, "We can't drill our way out of this", and we must switch to all natural gas. Hey, I'm all for using natural gas, but why the sudden switch T. Boone? After being pilloried by the Left for funding the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Pickens is now a darling of the left who believes that if Obama wins the presidency, he should make Al Gore our Energy Czar. Yikes!

Steven Milloy of JunkScience.com informs us in this column that T. Boone isn't pushing natural gas out of the goodness of his heart. As usual, it all comes down to money, and using the power of government to corner the market for yourself.

Good Day to You, Sir

The Obamessiah's Halo Effect

The deification of Barack Hussein Obama is becoming more and more evident. Wanna have some fun? Go to Google Images and type in the search parameters "Barack Obama" and "halo," then see some of the most absurdly sycophantic photography ever conceived by the twisted mind of man.

I know that some people are very excited about the candidacy of this man, but let's not make absolute fools of ourselves shall we? Here are some examples of which I speak, and I think you notice very quickly that this not just a few lucky shots... it's on purpose:

The standard bearer of the halo photos. This one is from al-Reuters.

Smaller image, but the same effect.

Nah! Time Magazine isn't in the tank for Obama.

Another inventive use of stage lights.

Rolling Stone gives Obama the full-body halo.

Hmmm, where have I seen imagery like this before?




I'm thinking...




I'm thinking...




I'm thinking...



GOT IT!!!


Why, it's Chairman Mao, of course; how appropriate! After all, didn't Michelle Obama tell us all that under her husband, "Barack Obama will require you to work!" Speaking of Barack's bitter half, Michelle Obama has also been spotted with the ethereal glow of a halo enveloping her:

Wow. Between the halo and the clasped hands, you would think she's a saint. Gag City! It is difficult for me to grasp all this in my mind, because unlike these Obamamaniacs, I don't have that much faith in any one person. Obama can stand at the mic all day long and talk about how he will heal the earth and stop the rise of the oceans, and heal my broken soul; but in the end, he is just a man. Someone better break that bit of news to these moronic photogs who are treating Obama's presidential campaign as the Second Coming.

Good Day to You, Sir

Taxes are voluntary!

Just ask Harry Reid. This looks like an older video, but fear not: Senator Harry Reid (Demogogue-Nevada)is just as stupid today as he was when he did this interview.

Watch the good Senator bob and weave as he is pressed on a single question: Is our tax system voluntary or forced?

By the way, according to the good Senator, no one goes to jail if they don't pay their taxes... seriously. Check it out:



Big hat tip to Colossus of Rhodey (see blogroll) for making me aware of this astonishing interview.

Good Day to You, Sir

Unfamiliar angle of a familiar tragedy

Anyone born in the 1970s or before is old enough to remember when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just after takeoff on January 28, 1986. When footage is shown of the disaster, it is the familiar closeup shot that probably enters your head.

There were however other cameras on the scene, and this one got a shot that was from much further away, and gives a better idea of what someone on the ground would have seen with their own eyes, rather than what a camera with extreme zoom would see instead:



Watch the whole video, and maybe you can answer everyones question: what exactly is that white thing floating down from the explosion?

Good Day to You, Sir

It's time for some campaignin'

The geniuses at JibJab have done it again! They bring the skewer to Bush, McCain, the Clintons, and especially Obama. There's nothing like watching Barack Obama sing about "Change" while riding a unicorn.

Check out the hilarity!

For more JibJab fun, click the links for their take on Cable News and the 2004 election between Bush and Kerry.

Good Day to You, Sir

A harrowing tale of combat

I highly suggest you read this Stars and Stripes article about a recent firefight in Afghanistan that killed 9 American soldiers, but also showed their mettle, as a platoon of American infantrymen held off a group of 200 Taliban in a two-hour battle.

Good Day to You, Sir

So, how is that budget coming along?

Once again, year after year, the California legislooters have failed to submit a budget on time for the governor's signature. One of the reasons might be because they are wasting their time on crap like this:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made it official: California will be the first trans-fat free state in the nation.

All-natural palm, rice and soybean oils will soon be king, and life in the Golden State will be forever altered.

The California legislature pushed the bill through last week, and Schwarzenegger signed it into law Friday, July 25.

The ban will require food providers to begin phasing out trans fat oils by July 1, 2009. Thereafter, noncompliance with the ban will result in fines of up to $1,000....

Just today, the front-page headline in the Sacramento Bee talked about Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal to pay state workers the minimum wage until a budget is passed. In addition to getting the budget passed, perhaps the state legislooters could spend more time on trimming some fat from that budget instead of the fat from my food. Just a thought.

Aside from the budget issue, what business is it of the legislature to tell me I can't eat trans-fat; maybe I like trans-fat in my food. I actually don't, and my wife and I have made an effort for the last four or five years to not buy food with trans-fat in it - and that's the point. My wife and I are not the only ones; so many people have been skipping the trans-fat and demanding that food makers provide trans-fat-free options that these food makers were getting with the program long before the lethargic California state legislature got on board and tried to make themselves look like our saviors. The free market has been responding to consumer demand for no trans-fat for at least four or five years now. Way to get with the times you stupid, meddling legislooters.

Good Day to You, Sir

I... don't think this article is satire

The other day, NPR (yes, your taxes pay for crap like the following) actually had the stones to run this truly amazing article on their website.

In the article, NPR regaled us with the trials and tribulations of this mother/daughter team of poor, underfed welfare cases who - give me a sec'... I'm choking up a little bit - must cut back on the amount of groceries they buy due to higher food prices; food purchased with taxpayer-funded food stamps mind you. But wait, it gets worse. If you read further into the article, you will find that these two pitiful ladies have had to cut back on "extras" such as... wait for it... ICE CREAM! OH! THE HUMANITY!

AAAARGH! Is NPR serious? Are the loony lefty fuzzy-headed reporters at that (taxpayer-funded) organization so afraid to make a value judgement that they cannot find it within themselves to point out the absurdity of this situation: a couple of grossly and morbidly obese women complaining about the price of food that they buy on the taxpayers' dime? Oh, and they also live in government-subsidized housing. Instead, the tone of the article makes it perfectly clear that NPR is actually and honestly trying to make the reader feel sorry for these two ladies.

When exactly did this country lose its frickin' mind?

But, hey, let's show some compassion for a second and see if we can ascertain the reason for these two being down on their luck. Could the relative poverty of the Ms. Hernandez and Ms. Nunez possibly have anything to do with choices they have made in their life? Once again, in a predictably non-judgmental fashion, NPR gives us a couple of clues:

"Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree."

"Hernandez received her high school diploma and has had several jobs in recent years." (It's going to take more than a high school diploma to make more than the minimum wage sweetie)

Don't forget to throw in the fact that mother and daughter have different last names, which would indicate that Ms. Nunez was most likely a single mother, which is another common tick mark on the poverty indicator list. How is it that succeeding in life is such a relatively simple, if arduous, task, yet these people seem incapable of grasping the concept of what it takes to make success a reality?

Perhaps the draw of government assistance, food stamps, social security checks, and subsidized housing is too much for some people to resist.

Good Day to You, Sir

The "eloquent" Barack Obama

One thing about Obama that is repeated ad nauseam (even by his opponents) is how well-spoken he is. Sure he is... with a teleprompter. Even an inarticulate oaf like George W. Bush doesn't give a half-bad speech when he is reading it.

Off the cuff however - without any script or teleprompter - Barack Obama is a train wreck. Here is but one example:



Good Day to You, Sir

The Madness of King Barack

The more I read the columns of Charles Krauthammer, the more he cements his place on my must-read list. This week, he writes of the fact that Barack Obama's arrogance is beginning to show. You should do yourself a favor and click here to read the entire column, but here is an excerpt to wet your whistle:

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.

Good Day to You, Sir

F*** 'em, straight up... Know what ahm sayin'?

Here is a rather enlightening video of the jailhouse confession of a murderer.

He and his buddy went to Garland, Texas because "That's where the rich white folks at" and decided to steal a car. He ended up executing two men who were out in front of a Christian music broadcast studio.

In this video, you can sense the nihilistic anger of this animal, but the anger is also accompanied by a non-chalant and total disregard for human life - whether for someone else's, or his own. At the end of the interview, he is asked if there is anything he wants to say to the families of his two murder victims. I refer you to the title of this post.

Unless you see evil up close and personal like this, it is admittedly difficult to comprehend that it actually exists.

Good Day to You, Sir

Don't Mess With Texas!

In 1993, Jose Medellin, a Mexican national living in our country illegally, raped and murdered two teenage girls in Texas. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for his crimes. Medellin's execution is set for August 5th of this year, but there are people in high places who are trying to stop the execution from taking place.

How high? Try the U.N.'s World Court. Since Medellin is a Mexican national, the World Court has instructed the state of Texas to stay the execution of Medellin and some other Mexicans on Texas' Death Row, until their cases are further reviewed. Texas has essentially told the World Court to go piss up a rope. I think the father of one of the murder victims said it best:

"The world court don't mean diddly," he said. "This business belongs in the state of Texas. The people of the state of Texas support the execution. We thank them. The rest of them can go to hell."

Of course, there are always the party poopers. "International Law expert" Sarah Cleveland thinks that Texas should abide by the World Court's edict, and is quoted by the Houston Chronicle as saying,

"This can only come back to hurt U.S. citizens when they are detained abroad," she wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper. " ... When a global leader like the U.S. refuses to comply with its clear international legal obligations (and everyone agrees that this is a clear legal obligation), it undermines the willingness of other states to comply with their own obligations and it inspires them not to trust us to obey ours."

There is a movie that Ms. Cleveland should watch. Yes, I know it is but a movie, but it is based on a real incident that took place during the Theodore Roosevelt administration in 1904. That movie is The Wind and the Lion. This outstanding film showed the proper posture of our government if a U.S. citizen is unfairly "detained abroad." T.R. made his position clear with the simple statement: "Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead." You don't need a toothless world court when your own edict is as simple as that.

As for you Mr. Medellin - may God have mercy on you, because the state of Texas will not.

Good Day to You, Sir

Confused by the Fannie/Freddie mess?

Then read this highly digestible article that describes what happens when the federal government gets involved in the home mortgage business.

Good Day to You, Sir

The Left is choosy about military service

If you read my blog with any regularity, you will know that I am not a fan of John McCain. That said, I do have to come to the defense of the Son of Cain on a matter about which I am hearing more and more: his military service. Incredibly enough, the Democrats and Obamamaniacs are actually attempting to minimize and downplay McCain's military service; service that spanned 22 years of flying military aircraft, 23 combat missions in Vietnam, and 5 years of captivity in a North Vietnamese hellhole. Yes, I have previously heard all about the controversies concerning the number of aircraft he crashed in his career, his reported propensity to give information to his captors in return for lenient treatment, and his favorable connections by way of his admiral father. Even taking that into consideration, you cannot deny his military accomplishments that I just mentioned.

The attacks by the Democrats of McCain's military record is quite laughable after the spectacle they made of themselves just four short years ago. Does the salute and saluation, "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty!", come to mind? In the election of 2004, we heard over and over from the Left how John Kerry was a war hero and a Vietnam veteran, while George W. Bush hid from Vietnam service (although he was somehow intelligent enough to figure out how to fly fighter jets in the Air National Guard). This year, the roles are reversed. I have already laid out McCain's military credentials. After all the weight given to John Kerry by the Democrats because of his short few months of service in Vietnam, they won't give John McCain the time of day for his 6+ years of service during that conflict. As for Barack Obama? .............Hear that? Those are crickets chirping. He never even served in the military, and now the same people who so lauded Kerry, don't think it matters that Obama has no military record, and in fact appears to despise the military. The same thing happened during the Clinton era. In both the 1992 and 1996 elections, you had a Democrat who never even served, running against two decorated World War II combat veterans - George H.W. Bush and Robert Dole - but to the Clinton-loving Left, the military records of Bush and Dole meant squat.

If military service means so much to the Democrats - as evidenced by their adulation of John Kerry four years ago - when exactly is the lamestream media going to take Barack Obama to task for not even serving, rather than continue to minimize the 22 years that John McCain gave to this country?

For more on this hypocrisy, read this fine column by Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby.

Good Day to You, Sir

You must be niggardly with the words you choose

Have you ever heard of the infamous incident that occurred during a Washington D.C. city council meeting where a white aide to the mayor used the term "niggardly" to describe how the city needed to be toward its budget? Niggardly comes from a Scandinavian word for stingy and has nothing to do with the word "nigger", any more than Shiitake mushrooms have to do with excrement. Nevertheless, you can imagine the knee-jerk reaction of the ignorant saps in the meeting - including the Mayor, who fired the aide - after hearing him use the word "niggardly."

A similar incident has happened in a city council meeting; this time in Dallas. A white council member referred to a part of the city's budget as a "black hole" because of the waste of money going on. Two other members - both black - took offense at the use of this word. You can read about the specifics of the incident at the linked article.

One of the commentors at the end of the article perfectly pointed out the absurdity of the black members' reactions by asking if he should be offended if someone refers to a blizzard as a "whiteout."

As long as these racial chips are carried around on so many shoulders, race relations will continue to suck in these united States.

Good Day to You, Sir

Michelle Obama wasn't kidding!

I have posted this quote a couple times before, but it bears repeating. Here are the words of Michelle Obama from a speech she made earlier this year:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Barack Obama is living up to his wife's rhetoric with his plans for what he will require our nation's young people to do if they want to graduate from high school. On his campaign website, Obama has posted this info:

Obama will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. He will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience....

What is glossed over in this rosy-sounding tidbit is that as President, Obama would tie the receiving of federal education funds to the successful completion of this requirement by our nation's school districts. While I don't agree that the federal government should be directly funding our educational system in any way, shape, or form; if this is the system within which we must work, then Obama's idea stinks. Does not the term "involuntary servitude" mean something to him? As Jonah Goldberg so eloquently puts it:

There's a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to run afoul of the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery....

Try as he might, Barack Obama just cannot hide his enthusiasm for the totalitarian do-gooderism for which the socialist left is famous. What was that quote that I recently posted?

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of
authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution
was made to guard the people against the dangers of good
intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well,
but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but
they mean to be masters." ---Daniel Webster

Obama is the poster boy for examples of people this quote describes.

Good Day to You, Sir

My kids are racist! Who knew?

I am back from God's Country, and pictures will be forthcoming, but first we have a more serious matter about which to discuss. Tonight, I flew solo with the kids as my wife went out to dinner with a couple of her good friends. In her absence, I served my kids burritos. For whatever reason, the burritos didn't go over well. My 4 year-old son told me that the meat and salsa were too spicy, and my 2 year-old daughter left the majority of her burrito picked over and spread all over her plate.

After reading this article, I have discovered the true reason my kids turned down the burritos tonight: They hate Mexicans!

Good Day to You, Sir