How can I blog and stay alive?

How can I blog and stay alive? The news is so awful that to read it upsets my battle-scarred liver. No kidding. The news can cause me to swell up like a toad. As if Red China buying up America wasn't bad enough, the Supreme Court says we individuals never really owned any of it in the first place. We are about to lose the war. Cultists, perverts, and dope fiends conspire with lunatic utopian schemers to re-shape what used to pass for The American Way.

My girlfriend says, "The world is going to hell in a hand-basket." I think we might just see that handbasket arrive in hell during our lifetime.

A whole generation has been sold a cheesy motivational slogan: MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Make a difference, any difference, or your short, wretched life will be wasted. What about preserving Culture, Heritage and Manners? OTFW! I wanna make a difference.

Rub it in

Aaah! Ya smell too old, ya cow!

Grapefruit smell makes women seem younger, says the Smell and Taste Institute in Chicago. So Jimmy Cagney's public enemy was just trying to help Mae Clarke keep her youthful appearance through aromatherapy.

NEW YORK -- A study of smells shows that the scent of grapefruit on women make them seem about six years younger to men. However, grapefruit fragrance on men does nothing for them.

The study by the Smell and Taste Institute in Chicago was conducted by Institute director Alan Hirsch. Hirsch smeared several middle-aged woman with broccoli, banana, spearmint leaves, and lavender but none of those scents made a difference to the men.

But the scent of grapefruit changed men's perceptions. Hirsch said that when male volunteers were asked to write down how old the woman with grapefruit odor was, the age was considerably less than reality.

Life's a laff a minute when your computer works!

No enthusiasm

What an ugly ordeal. I dutifully downloaded and applied Microsoft's newest "Critical Updates", aka patches, to my XP Pro machine. After that, the system began to reboot spontaneously about every five minutes. No blue screen of death, no warning, not even an undecipherable error message. I have been troubleshooting this mess ever since. Problem: the new 'patches' would not work with my video card. I had to get "unsigned" video drivers from the motherboard maker in Taiwan to make the canuck video card work with a hyper-threaded Intel processor running XP. Right now, my desire to play computer is at a very low ebb. If Jesus was to make his second coming today, I wouldn't lift a keyboard to blog the event. Call me disgusted.

Beauty Treatment

Let's say you're a young blood in northwest Louisiana and you want to get ahead in this dog eat dog world. You've decided that armed robbery is a career choice that appeals to you. Not only do you get to choose your own hours and location of employment, you don't have to spend years taking orders from people you don't like and perform stupid tasks on a daily basis for the ones who are paying your salary. With this particular profession you're the one giving orders from the very first day.

Still, you're smart enough to realize that - like most occupations - a certain amount of seasoning is required to perfect your skills. With that in mind you walk in the door of the Blalock Beauty College and get right to work taking charge and scaring the hell (and money) out of every woman there. It would have been pretty easy money except for 'big momma' and her damned old foot.

Gotta get those Democrat votes any way you can

Besides the fact that my computer has started to spontaneously reboot every 5 minutes since I installed Mr. Gate's latest patches, this story bugs me the most. Newsday.com: Iowa Gov. to Restore Felons' Voting Rights: "DES MOINES, Iowa -- Gov. Tom Vilsack said Friday he will soon sign an order restoring the voting rights of convicted felons who have served their sentences.
---
Vilsack, a Democrat, said the current system is too time-consuming and unfairly affects minorities. His executive order would automatically restore felons' voting rights upon completion of their sentences."

'unfairly affects minorities' ?? Bullshit.

Flesh-Eating Disease: yet another worry

Always looking for a laugh from the AP wire service at Newsday.com, I stumbled upon this unpleasant headline: Deal Reached in Flesh-Eating Disease Case. As a subscriber to the CDC's MMWR for over 20 years, I have a demonstrated interest in disease current events. I figured this would be a story about an American who contracted an exotic flesh-eating disease in some jungle and, as is the way with Americans, decided to sue everyone in sight. But no, this cat caught a fatal dose of flesh eating disease in North Carolina! Well, maybe he got it from some strange animal at a zoo, or from eating something imported at a local ethnic restaurant, I thought. Nope again. He got it from bird poop on electrical wires, at the scene of an accident where he was just trying to help out.

"WILMINGTON, N.C. -- The widow of a man who died two years after contracting a rare flesh-eating disease while helping at the scene of a car crash has settled with a tractor-trailer driver and his employer for $2.3 million.

Ronald Dyson, 56, pulled over to help after a car ran into a utility pole, causing metal cable wires to fall. A tractor-trailer then drove into the low-hanging cables and Dyson was lashed and tossed in the air, according to court papers.

The cables were coated with bird droppings that brought on the flesh-eating infection, said Thomas Goolsby, who represented Dyson's widow. He died in September 2003"

Should I be worrying about this, given that where I live legions of tweeties crap on everything they can? My vehicle, the stuff in the shed, fence wires, you name it, it all gets bird droppings on it. I have to come into contact with the vaguely offensive guano almost every day. Is it just luck that makes the difference? Was the late Mr. Ronald Dyson incredibly unlucky? Or are we all at risk?

Chuck Hagel: give us a footbridge and retire out east

I don't know about the rest of my fellow Nebraskan's, but I am really growing weary of our Senator Chuck Hagel biting President Bush's back while he is trying to fight a war. I'm tired of reading about Hagel saying we are losing. I especially don't like reading about it in Al-Jazeera, where the enemy goes for news.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said on Sunday that Guantanamo was one reason the U.S. is 'losing the image war around the world."

I suggest you let your Senator know what you think of his unseemly newsmaking by e-mail at:
chuck_hagel@hagel.senate.gov

Here's a modest proposal for those who think the poor bearded fanatics languishing in the horrors of Camp Delta are suffering unduly. Allow these non-military combatants to be released on recognizance into the custody of these same twits. If they want the detainment facility closed because it anoys the fanatic islamic fundamentalists back home in the desert, they can take these miserable wretches into their homes until they can get fair trials in ordinary criminal coddling courts here in the US.

Make them comfortable. The bleeding heart terrorist sympathizers can let the detainees eat on their floor, leer at the daughters (and nobody can leer like an arab!), have sex with their pets and their sons, steal what isn't nailed down and maybe even slit a few throats; it would make them feel at home. The libs could supply the poor sods with Bibles to use for butt-wipe, and take them on photo tours of local airports, schools, military installations and nuclear plants.

If the anti-war crowd wants to help the enemy, then they should help them in ways that really count.

No More Poverty!

Developed Nations (whatever that means) at the current G8 meeting agreed Saturday to write off $40 billion in debts owed by countries that were never going to pay anyhow. The article states the fabulous deal "was made possible by a significant concession by the White House when it agreed the debt write off would not jeopardize future aid funding." In other words, the US just gave up the pretense that our generous gifts of aid were really loans. A pretense that was originally instated as much as a face saving gesture to these poor nations as it was a way to trick the taxpayers of 'World's Richest Nations' into forking over. 'Loaning' to nations that were poor not because they only lacked a little seed money to develop wealth, but because they are, in many cases actually poor countries: sans resources, no potential, devoid of latent goodness. The rest of the bum-pay countries are poor from foolishly adopting Marxist-Leninist thought, or from being robbed by their own corrupt leaders. Such folly.

The Feed Trough story is from China Daily because I liked the pictures. This one of French Finance Minister Thierry Breton captures the essence of the Euro-Wuss look.

Another picture accompanying the G8 Story in China Daily shows US Treasury Secretary John Snow with his finger alongside his nose, in a fitting gesture.

A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat! At least these poor kids can quit worrying about how they are going to pay back the money they borrowed to finance their happy lives.

Karl Popper and a popgun point to prove

This story is funny on top, but illustrates the sad state of science teaching in our public schools. From Newsday.com: Anti-BB Gun Project Deemed Too Dangerous:

"AMHERST, Mass. -- Two eighth-graders who spent months working on a science project to prove how dangerous BB guns can be were disqualified from the state middle school science fair. The reason for the dismissal: BB guns are too dangerous."
---
"The scientific review committee does not consider science projects involving firearms to be safe for middle school students," Degon said.

The boys were invited to present their findings to some judges and receive a certificate of accomplishment, but they rejected the offer because they were not allowed to compete.

"I was really disappointed," Woodard said. "We had a good point to prove."

Of course, the obvious humor lies in a sort of ironic conflict between what the kids are trying to study and the medieval "zero tolerance" thinking of the school bosses. But the underlying tragedy is that the kids have learned that scientific research is undertaken to "prove a point". This is how we get such junk science as drives the global warming Chicken Littles, and 'scientific proof' one week that eating eggs will kill you and another proof next week that they are good for you. And it is the same philosophy that allows drug companies to hire phalanxes of 'scientists' to prove their new compound is safe and effective. The philosophy of scientific enquiry is every bit as important as method.

I have been playing this same harp ever since a professor who had studied under Dr. Karl Popper at the London School of Economics pounded the theme of falsifiability into a brain gone crumbly from too much Wittgenstein. Sadly, George Soros, the capitalist-commie enigma, claims to owe his great wealth to investing in accordance with Dr. Popper's thinking.

Bad Acid in Jamaica

The bucket in which the acid-thrower carried the corrosive substance which he used to douse a female employee of the Constant Spring tax office.

Just when you start thinking people are all dumber than stumps, you run across an inspiring story like this one from the Jamaica Observer, ACID ATTACK .

"A man who poured a pail full of acid on a female employee of the tax collectorate at Constant Spring Road in Kingston was beaten to death by an angry mob"

You really need to read the story, as it is written in the vernacular, as it were.

Nebraska Democrat Party's Howard Dean

Barry Rubin, Nebraska Democrat Party executive director must have gotten caught up in Howard Dean's recent trash talk marathon when he called Douglas County election commissioner, latino Republican Carlos Castillo, a Tio Tomás on the Party web site. Uncle Tom is a nasty racist slur any way you look at it.

At least the Nebraska Democrat had the good sense to apologize for letting the racism that underlies American liberalism show. Read more at TheOmahaChannel.com: "Democratic Director Offers Apology For 'Tio Tomas' Comment".

Don't Let Me Stop You links to Peggy Noonan 's column using Dean's tirades to peg the Democrats as The Mean Party.

keep searching

parrish baker's "sparrow's fall" notes that someone is reaching that blog with an unlikely search term: ". . . to the person googling why is gay marriage allowed in kansas (and ending up here)--boy, have you got the wrong state in mind, buddy."

This got me interested to see what search terms get cats to the Plains Feeder. First one I came across was barnyard follies sex from search.yahoo.com. Perhaps the Feeder should pander to the public and offer more than just a a tasteful smattering of bucolic smut.

Who wouldn't want to be a part of all this?

TheOmahaChannel.com - Entertainment - Choose Your Fun:

"OMAHA, Neb. -- If the weather holds, this weekend is full of events designed to fit every taste."

Ah, the Riverfront! I'm ready to pay more taxes for culture like this. I'm going to move to Omaha; get a condo on the river. Why wait to be annexed? But hey, wasn't this stuff conceived to draw people in from outside the Omaha tax base, get them to spend money, and ultimately ease the civic burden of the local populace?

OPS's Mackiel to face Steve Brown

Steve's tough questions foil another guest's
efforts at dissembling and obfuscation

Steve Brown,the "Dean" of area talk show hosts, will have OPS Superintendent John Mackiel as his guest on his weekend talk show. Tune in to 1290 AM, KKAR, or listen in on the web at 1:00 PM Saturday and Sunday. I know Steve used to think Mackiel was cool, but now that he is revealed as Der Fahey's own Goebbels, who knows what will transpire.

In further developments, Channel 6, WOWT says the "Omaha Public School District has kicked a hornets' nest" and "opponents have opened fire." Will Mackiel be able to keep his head under Steve Brown's relentless interviewing style? Tune in this Saturday!

Omaha Putsch planned in secret

Informal Discussions at Hofbrau Haus

This is really starting to stink. WOWT news reveals that these skulking central planners cooked up this scheme under the table. No sense letting the Public know what the Public Schools are doing, I guess.

"While the public first heard about the proposed takeover Monday night, Omaha Public Schools had held 'informal discussions' about annexing 21 Millard schools and four Ralston schools for months."

Channel 7's poll at about 7:30 pm today indicated a bit of a trend:

And the story that goes with it indicates some "Officials" are beginning to see the light. I wonder if they held their 'informal discussions' in a beer hall?

Who is watching the Reichstag?

Kerry's ugly mug

Abe at Don't Let Me Stop You posted this grotesque photo of John Kerry, the intellectual snob, as a maggot at Yale. Abe asks "What Was Kerry Hiding?" Always missing the point, I assumed he meant to ask what the jerk was hiding in the picture. What could it be? His great intellect? A zit on his forehead? Actually he looked like the college cats I used to see in the in Georgetown bars in the 60's: same do, same attempted sneer.

Omaha Tax Grab, Part 2: the schools

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fahey

Someone once complained about how the British (and the heirs of brit English) have always butchered place names to suit their difficulties with pronunciation. For example, we say Spain instead of España, Switzerland instead of Schweiz, and so forth. The response was that the English weren't the only ones guilty of renaming other countries; the Germans have been renaming places as well. But the Germans make it simpler. They just rename other countries "Germany".

Mike Fahey started it with the ill-conceived, precipitous plan to annex Elkhorn and other areas before the last mayoral election. Now he is ready to drop another shoe. (Who knows how many feet he has.) His pals on the Omaha Public School Board now want to draw all neighboring schools into the Omaha Reich. This has to be the most blatant tax grab yet. I'm so disgusted, I don't care to analyze it. Everyone I have spoken to is against this blitzkrieg attack, but then I don't talk to teacher union commies or Old Market one-worlders.

I don't live in Omaha or any of the places Omaha has threatened to invade to date, so nobody ought to care what I think about the matter anyhow. You can read all about this latest travesty yourself : WOWT has the facts and reactions, the Lincoln Journal has a good analysis, and I don't read the Omaha World Herald if I can help it, but I'm sure you can get the Fahey gang's view of the matter there.

Update: Charles at Job 21:3 has this fine analysis. Seems we all see the National Socialism in this.

Ich bin Polander!

Sam Wymore Days

You can tell it is summer. The crops are planted and the natives are restless. What else is there to do but start in on the grand Plains tradition of celebrating Fill-In-the-Blank Days !

Here is one that looks like it must have been a real rocker, in spite of the weather. From The Beatrice Daily Sun comes "Sam Wymore Days" held recently to honor the cat that donated the land for the town of Wymore, Nebraska. Sounds like something out of The Simpson's, and I wish I hadn't missed it. Wymore's city web page is sort of somber, but these denizens of what was once the egg capital of the world seem to be squeezing a bit of joy from the Good Life.

Floats reflect this year's Hawaiian theme

The parade was part of the festivities of the 18th annual Sam Wymore Days community celebration held in Wymore over the weekend. Approximately 2,000 people attended the parade on Saturday, which had 85 entries. Jessica Carillo was chosen as Miss Sam Wymore Days Princess on Friday night. Several events were canceled or moved due to rain. Baseball games were canceled while the adult dance was moved to the Wymore Community Center and the youth dance was canceled.

If you know of a coming event that qualifies as a Fill-In-the-Blank Days type celebration, let me know. I'd like to find out about some of the more obscure Days before the fact. Not just to report on them, but perhaps to attend. A really cheap outing offering even a modest chance of being worth the gas and effort is getting harder to find.

Capitalism taught in Nebraska Public School

Fourth-grade capitalists Nicole and Megan hold their checks

"I might reinvest my profits in Starbucks or Cabelas," Nicole said. "If I reinvest this money I can make more money."

This great story from the Gering Courier actually made the old feeder smile. Capitalism being taught to youngsters in a public school. Who would have thought. It is kiddie capitalism, since the shares that go unsold are distributed in some unexplained lottery, but at least the smart kids that bought and accumulated shares came out ahead.

I have to wonder if the State Education Commisars are slipping to allow such doctrinal error. Maybe Gering is just too far away for them. It is too good to last.

The trend toward consolidating small schools out of existence will help centralized planners crack down on this kind of capitalist indoctrination in the public schools.

Come On Baby, Light My Flag

Asia Times Online:

"The Osama bin Laden cigarette lighter is adorned with his raised, chrome portrait, an embossed '9-11', sketches of the New York World Trade Center, an approaching airplane, and a big red splotch. When you flick the sleek, metal lighter open, a light-emitting diode illuminates the splotch so it glows bright red on one of the buildings, emphasizing the site of the first crash. Loud, computerized music beeps out a loop of Mozart. "

These are made in China, so I naturally looked for one at the nearest Wal-Martyr, but no luck. Those crafty Chinese! I don't understand the Mozart selection; maybe they had to work with stock clips.

Perhaps these and similar terror trinkets would be worth buying on the chance that they might appreciate in value. Maybe the grandkids can take them to the Antiques Road Show. That is, if the mullahs allow us to watch the Antiques Roadshow.

Gratuitous Graphic

Intended to be inflammatory.

Gail Kopplin is a communist dupe!

Query: How can George Bush ever hope to sell America on the "Ownership Society" when most people seem to think they own everything already?

These insufferable collectivists are everywhere. Even Nebraska, where State Senator Gail Kopplin tried to get a 'tax incentive bill' (LB500) passed so he could lure Cabela's to build in his district. The bill would have had the force of eminent domain, allowing fat cat developers to grab private property to use to enrich themselves without getting the owner's permission.

This links to a cache of a discussion of how such a travesty came to pass just down the river from here, and I quote:

"'Eminent domain was a very bitter pill to swallow for everybody, including us,' said Don Denny, a Wyandotte County spokesman. 'But it was a necessity to get this project moving forward that has transformed the community.'

County officials say the speedway and 'Village West' -- the adjoining 400-acre development that includes Cabela's and Nebraska Furniture Mart -- have reinvigorated the local economy, created thousands of new jobs and poured millions of new tax dollars into local coffers.

They say that never could have happened if Wyandotte County hadn't had the power to seize private properties to make way for projects that produce more tax revenue.

Officials in Kansas point to the speedway and a new Target Distribution Center in Topeka as successful examples of the use of eminent domain for economic development.

'They bring large numbers of jobs and tax dollars to the state,' said Kim Gulley, a spokeswoman for the League of Kansas Municipalities. League members are expected to approve their support for eminent domain at a statewide meeting Tuesday. "

Eminent domain is a term from the day when Americans were subjects of a king. With no king, its meaning has been corrupted to imply collective property rights, an idea abhorrent to free people. The chowderheads that think the end justifies the means are either communists or fools. Or both.

Brutus1 at Omaha Oracle has the equally satisfying Corporate Welfare take on the same scenario here.