~THE STATE OF THE UNION DRINKING GAME~

Ok Ok... here's the idea -- a State of the Union Drinking game. Sort of like Passout but more timely. Check this out.

Bob

~TRUTH IN PACKAGING~

It's wise to pay attention to the fine print. Take for example... this. Yum yum, eh?

Bob

~WOW~

Only yesterday I was whining about how current American students were a bunch of retards. Not so! At least not in some schools. Look at this!

Is this great, or what?

Bob

~oh my!~

Look at the size of this guy! That's the Russian contender for the heaveyweight championship, Nikolay Valuev, 7 feet tall, 323 lb. And I don't see an ounce of fat. I really don't see how this guy can be beat. Look at the size of this guy!

Bob

~HAPPY BIRTHDAY~

To the man who made the music. What a guy!

Bob

~OK... THINK IT OVER~

Since the beginning I've been a Bush guy. I've liked him for a long time because I liked his dad and I especially like his mom. That is a lady in the old tradition of Yesm and No-um. I guess that what I mean is that I have always liked that Reagan to the Rescue kind of JohnWayneism kind of cheerfulness. But we are looking at something of a delimma these days: What now Red Rider? When we look out over the fruited plain we can't see much to be hopeful about... there isn't much to contemplate after our president finishes his second term of office. What I mean is... what now? What?

I was listening to Newt Gingrich on some talk show on BBC yesterday and he laid out all the stuff that we have to deal with in our futures and I started thinking... what exactly are we looking at in the next couple of decades? We need to be making a list NOW... before it sneaks up and bites us in the butt. Well...

FIRST, we need to find a way to confront and conquer Islamic Terrorism. Let's face it, this is gonna be the biggest headache in history that we have ever had to take care of. If we ignore Islamic Fascism or Theocracy or whatever we want to call it then we are really gonna regret it. We cannot negotiate our way around people who want to kill us all. We are at the tail end of a war that started during the Crusades. And those characters are perfectly willing to kill not only their own children but all the children of all the people in the world who may disagree with them, all in the name of the Holy Koran. Suck it up children. It's us or them and there isn't much the whiners at the liberal left side of the New York Times building can say or do that will change that. There is no tidy solution. We have to kill them all. Bang.

SECOND, we have to bite the bullet and balance all the scales. We are going to have to change the way we finance our civilization. The economics of my grandfather will not cut it for the coming century. Come on guys, Roosevelt is dead and so is my grandfather. The demographics of the coming century changes everything that our parents understood about work and money and retirement and social stability. We can't continue to subsidise the future with last year's ideas and cheat the future with yesterday's promises when the money ain't in the kitty. General Motors can't finance my retirement with my grandson's labor. When social security was instituted the ratio was around 40 workers to each retiree. Today the ratio is 3 to 1. By the time I finally retire the ratio will be close to 2 to 1. The only way they can finance this is by just printing the money... debasing the currency so that we can continue to postpone the "great crash" that we are all holding our breath over. I don't have any easy answers, but I know that it is coming and it is coming with a vengance folks.

THIRD, we absolutely have to do something about closing the borders. Being a citizen HAS to mean something. If it doesn't then we might as well quit now and move to the interior of Brazil somewhere and stake out a place where we can seal our own borders against the world. Already the interior of most major cities is a free fire zone out of some really bad Mad Max movie. If we can't control our own borders then we can't control our own ground. The truth is, all power is based on controlling the ground. All power is vested in the infantry. Take the high ground and hold it. If you can't then you will die. The image of the hordes at the gates is as real as the Mongols surging towards Vienna. Except that now the hordes seem to all speak Spanglish.

FOURTH, we have to take back our schools. Our culture is based almost exclusively on technological superiority, but our schools do not teach math or science, but seem to spend all of their time on trying to make our kids feel good about their mediocrity. This has got to change, or we will no longer have a place at a table with the Chinese or the Japanese. We will be their servants... and I doubt if they will look on us with kind eyes.

I'm sure that there's more. That was just a smattering of what Gingrich talked about to the supercilious moron who was interviewing him for the BBC. Ah, liberalism.

Looking for another candidate to put up for the highest office in the land? Some folks say that the presidency is the election of the emperor or the west. Want to keep it that way? Well, do you honestly think that the Democrats have anyone other than Hillary to put up? Who?

Lacking anything else, I think that at this time Gingrich would be a good man to pick up the Regan manifesto from the Bush family and move forward with it. Hell, at least he seems to have a plan.

Bob

~GRAND HOTEL~

Of Lake Wales. Another little clump of history.

Bob

~LOSERS~

Apparently it's not such good business to be blind losers at the New York Times. Latest is that they are taking a beating in the wallet. Oh, too bad.

I've always wondered how it's possible to finance all this liberal agenda bullshit when absolute nobody seems to buying their twisted world view. For that matter, it still amazes me that CBS managed to continue that lame program "The West Wing" for the last two seasons. What the fuck. Is anyone out there watching? Finally, the network cut the cord last week. Damn.

Bob

~BLINDED BY SCIENCE~

Look at this. Duh.

Bob

~UH... HONEY~

And on a lighter note... there's this.

Bob

~SOME TOY~

Here's the "toy" that that kid was carrying at Milwee Middle last week that got him shot. Uh... I own a real Beretta stainless Model 92, the actual real gun... I know the feel of it and the weight. Just looking at this "toy" the only thing that distinguishes it from the real mccoy is that orange dingus on the front. I doubt if most people would say "That's not a real gun. It must be a toy". I suppose the weight would give it away. The real thing is a heavy beast... the very best handgun made by the company. Mine is one of the last made in Italy. They've since moved to the US because it was adopted by the American military as the issue carry. One things for sure: The kid is dead. Believe this -- guns are serious tools and not something to play with. I'm sure that there are some among us who will be determined to demonize them. But.. it wasn't the gun itself that made the mistake and took a life. It was a very human act of stupidity. Some adult is out there wishing he had not allowed his child to have such a plaything. The cop couldn't know it wasn't real. Damn.

What I'm thinking is that maybe these "toys" should not be commonly available for idiot children like he obvious was. That police officer no doubt feels the same way the kid's parents must feel. One adult who regrets the shooting, and another set of adults who regret buying the damned thing in the first place.

Bob

~ANGEL TRUMPETS~

One of the most interesting things about living in Florida is that every year a whole new crop of pinheads from up north move down here and learn the hard way about our local flora and fauna. Like this pinhead --- These guys come down here from the frozen north and all they want to do is wander around the pastures experimenting with shrooms and gobbling Angel's
Trumpets. Duh! This thing is part of the NIGHTSHADE family! That should give you some clue that maybe... just maybe... the shit is dangerous. Duh!There should be some way to point out to them that this is not a good thing. Neither is putting a pistol in your mouth and pulling the trigger to see if it's loaded. What a maroon!

Bob

~a what?~

Yeah, that's a kitten named Cyclops. Cute, eh?

Bob

~BRRRRR!~

Think about this. Global warming my ass!

Bob

~BRUTAL BUT SIMPLE~

Well, the kid starts waving a handgun around and the Seminole County deputy is faced with a brutal fact: there are a whole school full of kids suddenly at risk. What to do?

Drop the hammer.

There really isn't any other choice.

My friend Lois Chavis, the Principal of Milwee Middle, is one of the best teachers that I've ever met. Good manager, good boss, good all round peson... and one of those school administrators who was a pleasure to work with. This gal really cares! But... here comes the immutable fact that there was no other alternative. Drop the hammer.

Now this nightmare. I'm just about as sorry for Lois as I am for the kid that got popped. But know this: he did it to himself. It was a shame, but there was no other action possible.

Damn... I'm sorry... but it's a fact.

Bob

~MORE NEWS~

Here's a cheerful thought... today's the 100th birthday of the guy who created LSD. Yup, Dr. Albert Hofman turns into a centinarian today. Wow!

Bob

~IMPORTANT NEWS~

I'm not sure that we can believe this, but some say that the
French have a lock on the science of measurement.

Bob

~HMMM~

Mark Steyn of the Wall Streat Journal just put out one of the most provocative, and perhaps disturbing, lessons in demographics... and doomday certainty... that you're likely to read in your lifetime. Don't read this unless you have a heart of brass and a stomach to match.

Bob

~from The New York Post: CINDY ADAMS~


January 8, 2006 -- CINDY LIEVE, editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, asked me how is a dog like a man.

I told her, they're both household pets. Whether he's Fido from the kennel or Franco from The Bronx, you have to feed him, pet him, give him attention, cootchy-coo him, tell him over and over what a good boy he is and you have to supervise his cleanliness. And throw him a bone periodically. And watch that this household pet does not become a potbellied pig. No vacuuming up everything on the table. No seconds on cheesecake. No chocolate. No booze.
No matter which sly dog we're talking about, you definitely...

~KIM!~

Ad astra per aspera... aide-toi, le ciel t'ai dera.

Bob

~SAIL~

One of the more interesting projects that NASA has on the drawing board is using solar wind as a source of motive power. I know that this sounds like Flash Gordon stuff, but with the right materials, we should be able to build a "sailboat" that uses light and magnetism as a "wind" to fly with.

I came across a report of some of the test materials that NASA has been playing with. That pic on the left is a possible suit of sails on a future sailing vessel. Four triangular collectors that could be configured like a stellar parachute of sorts made from a cross between microscopic thin aluminum foil and saran wrap, dragging a pod behind itself with some human cargo aboard, also of super light materials such as the carbon matrix stuff that NASA is playing with here in the above picture. The whole deployed "sail" could be constructed off-Earth in zero grav conditions and made...oooh, say... a hundred miles square. Why not? And think about capturing the thrust of the solar wind of the sun. And as that fades, capture the variations of the magnetic field presented by Sol... then Jupiter.... then any other damned source of electric or magnetic energy available from here to Alpha Cintauri. Just think...

Think about it: final manufacture outside of Earth's gravitational field, capturing photons from good ole Sol, moving exactly as a sailing vessal would on the wind in the ocean here on earth, gradually increasing speed in the frictionless world of space... I figure we'd lose the push from Sol about where Jupiter is now, but we would have sufficient speed accumulated so that we could just slingshot out of this solar system entirely.

Isn't that an interesting idea... Lacking friction I'll bet we could get that sailboat to move pretty close to the speed of light before we got over it. Damn! What a ride!

Bob

~MORE! MORE!~

You think that's wierd? Try this one. No shit!

Bob

~SAY WHAT?~

A automated system linking movies with movies at Wal Mart has hit a snag. What a hoot!

Bob

~OLD STORY~

Eric got me thinking about old girlfriends. One of them figured in a story that I put into print a few years ago. Crazy women... this was one of those gals that will make you wake up with stitches in your face and make your feet tingle with the flight reflex. Last time I heard from her was when she wrote me from prison asking about another old junkie buddy of ours. Long dead, I'm sad to say. I think she's somewhere up in Marion County now. I never did take you anywhere on my boat... that was reserved for someone else. I could only put up with so much of that bullshit per lifetime.

Bob

~STEALING CHRISTMAS~

Cormac McCarthy has a new book out for Xmas: No Country for Old Men. There's a definite irony in the notion of marketing one of his dangerous books as a holiday present. The author of Sutree and Blood Meridian as a harbinger of the season of giving. Yikes! Anyhow, my friend Tom Leete has an evil child who gave him a copy of the new novel and I borrowed it from him Christmas Day so it has doubled as a multiple present. I'll get my own copy of the thing when it comes out six months from now in paperback. Cheap-o, I know... but I make the excuse of being a pore broke down state employee. The book is a caricature of all of our ancient fears. A page turner for the masochist set. If you liked his other work you'll love this. A desert chase full of blood and anger and unbending homage to male honor. Damn, I just love this stuff.

Bob

~ONE MOMENT OF BLISS~

This is the time of year for looking back, right? Well, that icon of sorts Thelma White died this year. White was the star of the famous movie Reefer Madness in 1936. She had been living in quiet obscurity at the Motion Picture & TV Hospital in Woodland Hills, California for a number of years. That was her in that famous poster that most of us had on our dorm walls back in the 60s... you remember... One momemt of bliss, a lifetime of regret. She was 94 years old. I wonder if she had many regrets. I doubt it.

Bob