I still don’t know what the hell latte is.
But I am so ready for a home Keurig machine… It is one of those single shot coffee makers. We have the commercial version at work, and its one of the best benefits about working there. The home version works the same but instead of a constant water feed you have a water tank.
Most importantly, it makes a damn good brew. I am extremely hesitant about the “pod” coffeemakers. I hear good and bad about them, and the worst thing is, none of the stores I have ever seen them in make samples for you to try. I am not going to buy a machine and then get coffee that fits it, you find good coffee, and then do what you need to do to keep it coming.

In the mid 1960’s thousands of young American men left their families, homes and jobs and went to fight for their country in Southeast Asia. These brave men went from their farms, factories and offices to the rice paddies of Vietnam to fight for freedom in what they believed was a patriotic and noble cause. Many of them never returned. Others were shot down and captured behind enemy lines. They were forced to suffer years of brutal treatment at the hands of the Communist captors.
Their horrifying days of darkness, starvation and torture were made worse by the actions of a young American Officer named John Kerry. As these American heroes suffered in inhuman conditions, John Kerry sat comfortably in the warm glow of television lights to tell a Senate Committee that these same men were “Ëœwar criminals’.

Stolen Honor is going to be a documentary about Vietnam POWs and the effect John Kerry had on them.
I feel that this documentary may have even more effect on the debate than the Swift Boat veterans. That may always be a debate on exactly what happened in combat, while this is the what happened after, documented in the public record.

Via Blogs for Bush:

Well, if unnamed foreign leaders weren’t good enough, John Kerry has a new “endorsement” he can add to his list: convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Just in case anyone was wondering what one glorified cop killer thinks about the presidential campaign, Mumia Abu-Jamal has weighed in with his advice to Democrats.
“For millions of people, there exists in their minds, in their hearts a hunger for change,” Abu-Jamal writes in the latest issue of Workers World. “That hunger is becoming a driving force in the upcoming elections, and is being expressed in a way that can best be summed up: ‘Anybody But Bush.’ ”
Abu-Jamal’s death sentence for gunning down Philadelphia Police Officer Danny Faulkner in 1981 has made him an idol to many extreme leftists. The convicted murderer regularly contributes columns to Workers World, the weekly journal of a Marxist revolutionary party that is the main sponsor of International ANSWER, which in turn is a major sponsor of protests at next week’s Republican convention in New York.
It’s nice to know where Kerry’s support is coming from.

So the French and cop killers are all for Kerry. Ummm… yeah. What about the old saying about judging people by their friends? In this case, judge by the groups of people for Kerry:

Dodgeblogium reports:Brady slams Keyes standing up for the Constitution

“Disabled gun control activist Jim Brady weighed in Wednesday on Republican U.S. Senate nominee Alan Keyes’ declaration that the U.S. Constitution grants private citizens the right to own and carry machine guns, calling the remarks an “Ëœinsane’ call for a return to “Ëœthe Al Capone days.’ “¦ Keyes, a former presidential candidate from Maryland, said Tuesday he supports a system in which people undergo different levels of training before they would be allowed to own and carry various sorts of weapons. Keyes said the Second Amendment grants properly trained Americans the right to “Ëœthe kind of weapons our ordinary infantry people have access to,’ including machine guns.” (08/26/04)

You have to feel bad for Jim Brady getting shot. Everyone should. However, that doesn’t mean he is right. It just means he has an opinion. And it is a wrong opinion! Wrong wrong wrong!
I would much rather be up at the range firing away then taking a 20 minute break from coding bugfixes. I know the mrs’s would rather be there than whatever she is doing now.

Captain’s Quarters keeps us again up to date on the Swiftboat contraversies. I still would like to know what records are available via FOIA and which are only available after the 180 request is processed.

Thomas Lipscomb breaks another major development in the Chicago Sun-Times this morning, and the Kerry campaign may need to do more backpedaling as a result. Former Secretary of the Navy and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman denies ever signing the modified citation Kerry’s site has prominently displayed for months, and states categorically that he didn’t write the additional language describing the engagement:
Former Navy Secretary John Lehman has no idea where a Silver Star citation displayed on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign Web site came from, he said Friday. The citation appears over Lehman's signature.
"It is a total mystery to me. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me," he said.
The additional language varied from the two previous citations, signed first by Adm. Elmo Zumwalt and then Adm. John Hyland, which themselves differ. The new material added in the Lehman citation reads in part: "By his brave actions, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty, Lieutenant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself...."
Asked how the citation could have been executed over his signature without his knowledge, Lehman said: "I have no idea. I can only imagine they were signed by an autopen." The autopen is a device often used in the routine execution of executive documents in government.
Kerry senior adviser Michael Meehan could not be reached for comment on Kerry's records.

If the Kerry campaign backpedals any more, the website will look like this:

Under Construction

The site you are trying to view does not currently have a default page. It may be in the process of being upgraded and configured.

Please try this site again later. If you still experience the problem, try contacting the Web site administrator.

I need to wonder, how will this go down in the history books? Already some Democrats are starting to question how wise it was to run on a pro-defense platform. What are the masters of the democratic machine thinking now? Do they ever fact check their candidates for how the spin will play out? This time around, did it simply go as “Kerry’s a war hero, that’ll trump Bush?” Or did they actually look into his background, found out the fluff, and then just decide to see how it plays out.
And check out the photo caption contest.

MBNA, please stop sending me checks to go against my credit card!!! In three days I got 3 separate envelopes with checks in ‘em. I am getting carpal tunnel from shredding them into bits!

Someone hit this site because they searched for Sell Your Wife to Pirates.
Ummmm… yeah.
Fortunately, I’m no longer in the market.

I have seen this referred in other editorials (I won’t call them “articles”) in other papers.

The Washington Post and others tried to get 1969-era evidence to bolster or destroy the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s ads. In a story Thursday, the Post reported that the military records of one of the Swift boat skippers (and a vehement critic of Kerry) supports Kerry’s recollection.

So let me get this straight. A simple FOIA request can get Larry Thurlow’s records, but you can’t request Kerry’s records the same way? Or are they different sets or records?

Alice Cooper, my hero…

WINNIPEG — In the eyes of Alice Cooper, all the rock stars campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry are guilty of one thing: treason. The shock-rock legend, a staunch Republican who attends NBA games in Phoenix with Arizona Senator John McCain, was disgusted when he learned of plans by Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, R.E.M. and other bands to hold a series of concerts aimed at unseating U.S. President George W. Bush.
“To me, that’s treason. I call it treason against rock ‘n’ roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics,” says the 56-year-old Cooper, who begins a 15-city Canadian tour on Aug. 20 in Thunder Bay, Ont.
“When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I’d run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick.
“If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.”
Despite his strong insistence that rock has no place in politics, Cooper is one of just a handful of high-profile musicians who’ve proclaimed support for Bush.
The list of pop-culture Republicans includes Britney Spears, Toby Keith and Ted Nugent. the latter being one of Cooper’s old buddies from his early days in Detroit.

Repeat after me: “If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. ”
One more time!
“If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. “

My back hurts.
I have one of those menthol pain sticky pads on it. It helps…
Got rear ended the other day by a drunk woman. At 3 in the afternoon. She was on her way to work.
A guy behind her had been on the phone with 911 already because she was weaving all over the road. I was stopped at the light, and she was initially stopped too. In fact, there were about 2o cars in line so I was at that point you stop looking behind you. She was playing with something on the passenger seat and she didn’t keep the brake pushed in all the way.
No damage to my car, so I tried to stall for a while until the cops showed up, but couldn’t really do anything to keep her there.
Two days later all the muscles in my back finally seized up. Damn this sucks…

I’ll admit it, I have lost a lot of my writing skills I learned way back. I have always been a much better reader than a writer. I write on this site as a way to regain what was lost. To make up for it, I always try to link to greater missives than anything I could create. In this case, over at Dodgeblogium, there is a string of posts that are must reads for those who believe in politics.
Number 1,
Number 2, and
Number 3.
10 essays in total about the functions and responsibilities of government, what they should do, what they get wrong. In this political season, politicians can promise anything. We promise free healthcare to all, and yet have a magic policy that will prevent the abuses of socialized health care. Drug companies won’t make obscene profits, but will still be responsible to both R&D and the shareholders! Voila! And so on. But what *should* a government of a free people actually do? One of the issues I have with both parties is that they both promise to respect the freedoms of everyone. But the Democrats have exceptions, such as gun control, favoring thought police and PC values, are for high taxes and income redistribution, while the Republicans really need to drop the war on drugs and pro-censorship platforms.
Both parties need to overcome their automatic “we are for whatever they are against” views and just work together for real. No more laws can be passed except by undoing existing laws. There should be a limit on how long any law can remain on the books. The best part is, endlessly having to reapprove old laws will gunk up the system so much that new laws can only make it into the system only if they are so extremely important that it cannot be ignored.

Awwww… lefties whining that I don’t toe their line: http://piratesagainstb.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&num=1093140485
First off, piratesagainstb.proboards34.com? You expect to be taking seriously without a real domain name? Calling yourselves pirates against Bush? Damn, another group that isn’t FOR anything, just stuck in teenage rebellion against authority. Sheesh…
Second. The name of this site came from the Pirates of Penzance. “Pirates, Man your Women,” was said by the Pirate King to his crew when picking up the sisters. I know these people are too damn busy protesting anything, but the movie had Linda Rondstat for Christ’s sake.

Pirates Man Your Woman”!? Are they serious (the sad thing is I think they are)? Don’t even get me started on how disgusted the simple title of their webpage was. I try to be open minded and leave those whom I am blatantly opposed to to their own beliefs and not waste too much air ranting about them when they are so closeminded, but that is just immature and blatantly oppresive. Yes, at times Pirates have stereotypically not been to great towards women but history reminds us there have been many great female pirate captains! Even ignoring the “What are Pirates really?” issue, as a female (and a rather rampant feminist) if anyone even hinted that I needed to be “manned” they might wake up missing some body parts. I don’t know why I even bother…The Bush-loving-female-oppressing types are always around. I’ll just do my best to avoid them and keep my rage to a low boil when I can’t.

I just had to quote this. Hi, I’m open minded, except to anything that I don’t believe in. Anyone else is wrong. Throw in ad-hominem attacks, and once again you see the kind of mindless sheepism that the left wing is afflicted with today.
And great female pirate captains? Wow.. There is this list for a start. And I will tell you what… they probably did their own raping and pillaging. And enjoyed every second of it.
So get past your damn hate, because that is all I see. Give me a true alternative vision that both will work, and respect my freedoms, and we can have a meaningful dialog.
Reading through their site more, it seems that the entire membership of the board is from Bahston, Mass. And most of them are either socialists or anarchists by their own admissions. Socialists are one thing, anarchists are another. United together in their hate somehow. I can see them now fighting over who gets to be vice president of the anarchy club. But I do love how none of them really want Kerry for president, they are all part of the anyone but Bush theme. Very few of them know anything about Kerry. They’d vote for the devil himself rather than a *gasp* conservative. Give me a break, very few conservatives hated Clinton. I admit that very few liked him, and most wanted someone else to be president, but I can’t think of any that wished him harm. But I have to keep a towel with me whenever I walk by Democrats talking, just to wipe the froth from their mouths.
You know what, the protest vote works. Voting for Perot way back definitely made the difference in the 92 election. Same thing with Nader. All these guys need to vote for Nader. They will be better off in the long run by making it clear to both parties that they have to run good valid candidates rather than just whoever. I know better Republican candidates than Bush is, I’ll admit that no problem. But Lieberman was a better Democratic candidate than the rest of the pack. He was middle of the road, but he couldn’t make it in the hate party conventions.

Ok I have never liked tampon commercials, can they get any worse? (more…)

NYTimes has a wonderful quote I wanted to share.

“I do think that Senator Kerry losing his cool should not be an excuse for him to lash out at the president with false and baseless attacks,” Mr. McClellan said at Mr. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Tex.

Via Cybercast News Service

The Bush campaign has suggested that Sen. John Kerry join President Bush in calling off the dogs — those “shadowy” 527 groups that run ads for and against Bush and Kerry.
The liberal group MoveOn.org and the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are both 527s, named after a section of the tax code.
But on Friday, a spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign backed away from the suggestion. She said what MoveOn.org is doing is perfectly fine, while what the Swift Boat Veterans are doing is “dishonest” and “dishonorable.”

I love reading DGCI.net. Its always good stuff, direct and to the point of the matter. Here is the commentary:

Meanwhile, MoveOn ads backed by billionaire Soros calling President Bush “AWOL” or “Hitler” are “honest” and “honorable”?
What sheer, unmitigated hypocrisy.

That is the problem. I wonder at times if I may not be naturally a conservative. There is a lot about the Republican party I don’t quite agree with. Maybe I am so thoroughly repulsed by the people in the left wing. The sheer lack of logic, of true values, the moral equivalence, the socialist tendencies, and all the other traits that are shared.
Nah, its both. I’m conservative and repulsed.

Comcast Cable Commercials have always been rather sad, playing on the stupidity of their potential customers by condemning satellite TV stating satellite has poor reception and does not work during “weather”.

They have reached a new low. Have you seen their new campaign? A mother talking about how she experiences interruptions each time she tries to watch a movie, she has now sat down to watch a movie, she has a young child running a blender in the kitchen behind her, she pauses the program.. Goes in to shoosh the child from the disaster. She returns to her movie as 2 young boys run through the living room, one with underwear over his pants… she pushes them out of her way, again returns to her movie.

So this says to me, they are encouraging parents to neglect their kids, and go and watch a movie. Let your kids run around with out any supervision, let them use a sharp dangerous kitchen appliance; let them run around with their underpants over their pants… ahh love it.

How about hey ma, get off your but and do something with your kids??

OK I know many moms’ work hard, I know it is a hard job to be a good mom… but this commercial is hardly promoting that kind of mom. A good mom would likely have made an agreement with her husband to whisk them away so she can enjoy some peace and quite… or she might have a friend scurry them off… so by no means am I saying a good mom does not deserve some peace and quiet.. By all means she does… but that is hardly what this commercial is saying! They want you to ignore your kids… and watch a movie! Bad Comcast, bad, bad, bad Comcast!

Hi, My name is Scott and I am a recovering Democrat. I last voted for a Democrat nearly 4 years ago, but as you might well imagine, the next few months are going to be tough for me.
Well, actually they aren’t. I’ve admitted that I had a problem with my inability to respect authority, my moral equivalence where I thought Good and Evil were outmoded concepts, and my yearning to be European.

Hi Scott! Welcome to the Great Right Wing Conspiracy! Happy to have you, here is your lapel pin.
Myself, I’ve always been a right winger since I was in 5th grade and realized that I would rather quit whining like a child, and use my time and effort to make myself a better person.
Of course, there are those people who feel so guilty about themselves that they feel using your natural talents to get ahead is immoral. They can smeg off, and go back to living in caves if it pleases them. We call them “Socialists.” And they are the driving force between the left wing of the Democratic party these days.

Story from way back…
So myself and Jason are discussing our plans to take over the world. It is 3am on a random morning, and we are sitting near a pond in an industrial park. Our friend and driver Lori is laying in the grass napping. It was a rather cool night, but we were still suprised when Lori asked us to close the window.
Now, we were outside, in the grass. Even the car was a couple hundred yards away.
Jason, not wasting any opportunity to mess with someone’s head, proceeds to do exactly that…
“Lori… where do you think you are,” in a low soothing voice.
“My bedroom.”
Just the answer he was looking for, and he proceeded to put her into a hypnosis trance.
Much merriment ensued.
We finally stopped, but not before he completed one final suggestion:
“When you wake up, you will be hungry. But only hungry for one thing: An apple!”
After a simple 1-2-3 you’re done, she woke up “naturally” about 10 minutes later.
Time to go, and we stopped off at the Pathmark. Trying not to laugh as she went up and down all the aisles, looking for something to eat. She suspected something but could have no idea what.
Lori found the apples, threw a few in the bag, and proceeded to the checkout. The poor girl behind the counter had no idea what was happening as Lori took out her money, was handing it over, and stopped.
The most evil look hit us. “What the hell did you guys do to me! I don’t even like apples!” She still had no choice but to pay anyways and munch away, while myself and Jason continued laughing, but hoping we wouldn’t have to walk home that rather chilly morning…

Last post was about New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey coming out as gay and resigning.
Acutally, thats not the case at all.
He is resigning because of corruption. He hired the gay man he had relations with for the post of Homeland Security advisor as a way to hush up allegations of the affair.
Newspaper spin is already in full blast. They interview several people on the street, all of whom say its OK to be gay. But that isn’t what it is about at all. Reading these articles you get the feeling he quit because he is gay. Thus, the spin of the media. Pay attention and see how much you see about the corruption, and how much you see about McGreevey “just being gay” as the reason for the resignation.

So at the stores in the mall, they have a new fragrance.
Vera Wang for Men.
I’m very sorry, but no real men I know want to put something called Wang on their faces. New Jersey governors are the exception…
Actually, I am suprised he is resigning for two reasons. One, he could have rode it out probably, unless the allegations are worse then they appear now. He has done a halfway decent job as top guy (hehheh) and did manage to make some positive changes.
And two, the way Democrats rewrite election laws to their advantage whenever they want to, well, they could have just made him head poobah for life and made any dissent illegal, since he would be a protected class of person. But then they will blame the Republicans for crushing freedom of speech with hundreds of news interviews, concerts, and newspaper articles.