April Geese

I played in a golf tournament outside of Green Bay this past weekend, and this is what I saw on the 9th tee.  It is hard to tell, but this goose pair had 10 newly hatched little ones.

Usually one can see something like this in late May or early June.  I've never seen waterfowl babies this early.

Looks like us humans weren't the only ones enjoying this Global Warming up here in the Midwest

St. John's University's Famous Johnnie Bread

One of the most endearing things about St. John's University is the story of their famous bread. 

Originally baked by the monks, it is now cranked out and sold by the students.  It is a grainy, heavy, heavenly loaf.  It toasts better than anything, and is only seconded by the grilled cheese sandwich it makes.

When we were on campus last week, we picked up a loaf.  It didn't last long.

Be sure to pick one up if you visit.

Latest Green Bay Stereotype

Since my arrival, I've reported on the stereotypes of my new home.  This image, taken at Curley's Pub in Lambeau Field for the 2012 NFL Draft is just one more example.

On multiple levels.

You can't make this stuff up. 

Our President, the Clown

Is it too much to ask that we have a President that doesn't care about being an entertainer?  We have a lot of these folks.  What would be nice would be to have a President that cares about leading, and cares about fixing the broken economy.

We have scant few of those.

Vegas Trip Recap

This past weekend my wife and I joined two other couples in Vegas to help a buddy celebrate his 50th birthday.  I've likely been to Vegas about a dozen times in my life - most via conferences - and that left little time to really hit the casino and gamble.  However, on this trip, it was all about the dice, and I got a really good look at a side of Vegas that I typically didn't get a chance to see. 

Some random notes on the experience:

• I'd like to think I'm not cheap, but damn, I refuse to play anything higher than a $5 table.  And good luck finding one of those.  I work too hard for my money to drop $100 in a fifteen minute run of bad rolls or on a bad blackjack shoe.  
• That being said, I was amazed at the people around me spending massively more money than I was.  I was in the very clear minority.  Where did people get money like that to spend?
• Based on behaviors witnessed, if we were having a recession, that was news to me.  I've never seen so much money flying around, both in the casino and on the streets.
• Vegas used to be a cheap trip, as the casinos just wanted you out there.  They could offer up cheap rooms and meals because they knew they'd get your money anyway.  Those days are gone.  It is not cheap.  Not at all.  As stated earlier, table minimums are inflated.  Rooms are expensive.  Want that bottle of water in the room?  $7.  How about the coffee that goes with the coffee maker in the room? $10.  Want to work out?  $20 fee for a crappy fitness area with dated equipment.  Want to use the web?  That's only $16 per day.  Incredible.  Even the costs at the hotel Starbucks were excessive.
• Note that the costs above represented costs downtown.  We never even made it to the strip, where the enticement of faux-luxury commands even bigger dollars. 
• Speaking of faux-luxury, it was everywhere.  $250 bottles of vodka at the bar.  Cabanas for rental at the pool.  Snooty maitre d at the restaurant.  Just an overall air that if you weren't operating on the top shelf, you were just so common.  Our society has become Kardashian-ized. 
• There was a whole lot of drunk going on.  New Orleans doesn't have much on Vegas anymore.
• The key to winning in craps is surviving the losing beating until "the run" happens.  Because happen it will, and you have to be there when it does.  But getting there can be a bloody mess.
• Down 9-0 to the Red Sox, I was kicking myself for putting down $30 on the Yankees to win.  I hate the Yankees.  I loathe the Yankees.  But when they scored 7 in the 7th and 8 in the 8th my losing ticket turned into a miracle win.  Still, I bet on the Yankees!  I feel dirty.

Overall, we had a great time.  It was great to see our friends again, and we walked away with great memories and great stories.  Can't wait to do it again in 10 years on my buddy's 60th.

New York Times Liberal Parasites Killing Off Host

The New York Times, facing an unsustainable fiscal future, is messing with folks' pensions,  so the folks are taking things to the public in hopes of ginning up some sympathy.  Except the public, with nearly all not having such a thing as a pension, yawns at the whining white people. 

The world has changed.  It is not 1939 anymore. 

The Old Gray Lady is dying and is rife with cancer.  It is the cancer of her own liberal worldview. 

And that cancer will ultimately kill her. 

 

If I Wanted America to Fail

The best line (other than the closer)?  It has become more fashionable to resent success than to seek it.  How true is that, and where will that lead us?

A Dog Named Blitz - Chapter Seven, "Third Year: Part 6"

For background on this serial, please click here. You can also start at the previous section

Blitz, having spent the lunch hour being rested and watered flew from her crate in her usual fourth gear, so I knew I should be expecting more of the same performance from her, and that's exactly what we experienced.  Field after field, Blitz was a machine, and we slowly got within a couple of birds or our limit.  Our Texas friends were happy, our guides a little sheepish, and Blitz and I were simply enjoying our South Dakota dream-come-true. 

Needing one last bird for our five person limit, we approached a field that had not been hunted that season.  We expected to see a lot of birds and be done in short order.  However, as we started through the brushy cover, Blitz's body language was telling me the field was a bust. 

We pushed through a large semi-circle of brush about a mile in total length, with only a couple of flushed wild hens to our credit.  We soon found ourselves a couple of hundred yards from the end of the cover, and in looking at the setting sun, I wondered if we'd have time enough to get to another field to try and complete our limit.  However, about that time Blitz shifted into a mode that told me she was clearly on a bird.  I warned the group that she was "birdy" and that we needed to be ready. 

About the time I got the warning out, as if on queue, a rooster pheasant burst from the cover well ahead of the dog, and about 40 yards in front of me.  I snapped a shot on the long bird, and clearly broke a wing, but figured he'd be hitting the ground running.  Fortunately Blitz had marked the bird down and was already in fetch mode.  Judging by her movements, the bird was clearly on the move, but after about 5 minutes of chase through the cover, Blitz ultimately appeared carrying our final bird of the day.  I took it from her and gathered with the others for the mile-long walk back to our vehicles.  We cheerfully congratulated ourselves on our South Dakota pheasant limit.  It was a first for all of us, and was most enjoyable.  We hoped it was one of three for the weekend.

As we were walking back, I noticed Blitz was limping.  I thought it funny, as she was in high gear the entire day, up to and including the last retrieve just minutes ago.  Now she was walking gingerly.  One of the guides said, "I bet it's sand burrs.  The land is covered with them.  For dogs not used to them it can ultimately get to them." 

We made it to the truck were I was able to get Blitz on the tailgate to give her a thorough exam.  I went straight to her feet, and audibly gasped when I saw them.  All of her pads were torn up.  Horribly, horribly torn up.  Her feet looked like hamburger.  I immediately went to work cleaning her feet, dressing them with pad medicine from my traveling dog first-aid kit, and wrapping them in bandages.  I cursed myself over and over - how could I not have paid more attention?  Blitz was a tough dog that had a huge pain threshold as the Rapala episode could attest.  While she never gave me any indication of any kind of situation until after the hunt had ended, I still should have checked her more carefully in the field and at lunch.  It was just another time where I let her down.  Even after that promise I made her on the day I picked her up. 

I got Blitz as comfortable as I could and took myself inside for dinner and perhaps a cocktail to try and take away my guilt.  Over dinner the guides asked about Blitz's condition, and the Texans raved about her performance.   I wasn't in the mood for much conversation and excused myself for an early evening.  On my way to my room I stopped and got another look at Blitz.  She was sore and tired.  I handed her some kibble and an apology and headed off to bed. 

I awoke the next morning, hoping the rest, medicine, and her famous resilience would allow her to participate in the second day of our three-day South Dakota dream hunt.  The liftgate  opened to the sound of a Labrador tail thumping loudly against a dog crate, and Blitz was standing there waiting to meet me and partake of some breakfast.  I opened her crate and she got to the door and balked.  With breakfast awaiting her, she was usually a yellow blur at this point.  Instead, she just kind of stood there trying to figure out a way down that would cause her the least amount of pain. 

I knew right away that her South Dakota hunt was over. 

I was able to get her out and fed, but kenneled her up and headed in for breakfast.  The Texans were hung over from a big night of shooting pool the night before, and the entire place wanted to know how Blitz was doing.  I informed them of her condition and that she'd not be hunting today.  And that's when I blurted out, "And neither will I."  "What?" one of the guides asked,  "You can sill go out and shoot.  There's still plenty of dogs to get the job done."  The Texans offered their encouragement as well.  One said, "Man, do you know how expensive this place is?  You gotta go!"  It was a great point, but my heart was broke.  "I originally wanted to do this trip for Blitz," I explained.  "This was all about me and her.  If she's not going, neither am I.  I'll be checking out and hitting the road right after breakfast."   

And, with two days left to burn on my South Dakota dream trip, that's exactly what I did.    

A Return to Campus

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I happed to be in the relative vicinity of my alma mater.  Since it was Easter weekend and most of the students had left campus, we decided to stop in and walk around a little bit to see howthings had changed. 

Many things remained the same, yet many had changed aswell.  Here are some photos from the trip. 

Timing on our little stop was interesting, as this year represents my 25th anniversary of my graduation.  It is hard to believe that so much time has passed.  What is even harder to believe is what those four years meant to my life. 

I’ve been walking this earth for 47 years, and I’d argue that there was no more meaningful period that would ultimately shape who I would become than those four years.  It changed me intellectually, socially, and spiritually.  It was the period in which I found most of my closest, life-long friends.  It was the period that pops into my head at least once per week with a fond memory.  I am who I am today as a direct result of the experiences I had in college. 

How incredible that such a short period of time can manifest itself so much in a life, especially when I consider some four year periods of my 30’s whereI can’t remember what the hell I did. 

I can’t wait for Homecoming this year.  God bless St. John’s University.

Same Old, Same Old

Different year, different budget, same old demogagury.

Why aren't you seeing this on the nightly news?  Seriously.

A Dog Named Blitz - Chapter Seven, "Third Year: Part 5"

For background on this serial, please click here. You can also start at the previous section

By the time pheasant opener had rolled around, Blitz was at her peak in terms of performance.  We hit some game farms in the offseason, but despite it being nearly nine months since her encounter with a truly wild bird, she showed no rust whatsoever.  And I was struck by the non-verbal communication that we had developed as a team.  It is really hard to describe, but as we worked cover, she seemed to know exactly where I wanted her to go.  If she got distracted on something, a simple "Get in there," combined with a motion of my hand toward the cover I wanted her to investigate was all that was needed to correct her course.  Should she be hot on a scent in front of me and moving out of gun range, and a call of "Too far!" resulted in her circling back to me to restart her search.  As a team we were clicking on all cylinders, and it was so wonderful to be part of that unit. 

Our land had a good hatch of pheasants that year, and we were able to harvest a good many roosters for a farm located in central-Minnesota.  Despite the good year on my own land, I had often wondered if all of the stories I had heard about the birds across the border in South Dakota were true, and I longed to go there to see for myself.  And, of course, to share it with Blitz.  So when I happened to win a three day hunt for one at a grand hunting lodge outside of Pierre, South Dakota during a Pheasants Forever banquet that October, I felt incredibly lucky. 

The lodge that donated the hunt was hopeful that the winner wouldn't want to hunt alone and would be brining along a paying partner to join in the event.  And while I did ask a couple of buddies, I kind of hoped they'd decline as I really wanted to relish this trip as something for just Blitz and I to share.  So when the regrets eventually came in, I was very happy to book a trip for a solo hunter and his dog for the last week of October. 

The date of the trip came up quickly, and as I packed that Thursday afternoon for the 6 hour drive, my wife worried about me leaving alone.  I reassured her that the lodge would be full of other guests, and besides, with Blitz with me I was never alone.  I kissed my bride goodbye, promised to maintain cell-phone contact, and pointed my vehicle west. 

By the time I hit the border the sun had started to set into a beautiful, clear-blue sky, that had me hiding behind my sunglasses and visor.  Later, after completing dinner at a truck stop, I found the sky had turned to a pitch-black moonless sea of stars.  The flat terrain and lack of light pollution conspired to paint starlit beauty from one horizon to the other.  It remains one of the most beautify scenes I have viewed in nature. 

Blitz and I continued our trek west with Aimee Mann's Lost in Space playing in the CD player and serving as the perfect soundtrack for our nighttime driving along a completely deserted highway.  It was just me, my dog, Aimee, and the stars. 

We eventually pulled into our destination,  where I first watered and fed Blitz, prepared her for bed in her crate in the truck, then checked myself into the lodge.  The accommodations were as described on the lodge's website, and I retired to very well appointed private room to try and get some sleep for the big day awaiting Blitz and me. 

Sleep was tough, and I was up well ahead of the alarm.  I used the extra time to shower and get cleaned up, and by the time I had made myself as beautiful as I possibly could, I had indeed stalled enough that it was time for breakfast.  I headed to the main lodge area where I met their staff, as well as two guests with whom I'd be hunting that weekend.  Both were rich bankers from Texas, and like me, this was their first time in South Dakota.  We all tried to not eat too much of the incredible feast being served family-style on the table, talked through some strategy with our guides, and made ourselves ready to head out. 

Stepping outside, I was finally able to appreciate the landscape that was hidden in the blackness of my drive the previous night.  The land was straight out of Dances with Wolves.  A perfect match.  It looked exactly how South Dakota was supposed to look. 

We headed out to our first area, and got ready to hunt.  Blitz was extremely excited, but I was able to get her electronic collar on her without too much difficulty and let her run over to meet the two other Labs the guides would be using on the hunt.  As usual, the dogs got along great, and I knew we wouldn't have any issues. 

We developed a game plan that had the two Texans in between the two guides, and had Blitz and me off to the side.  While it was never verbalized, I knew this was on purpose.  The guides had no idea how Blitz would perform, and if she worked poorly, it would likely impact the tip they were expecting from the Texans.  They likely had such episodes before, and I didn't begrudge their decision.  I would have likely done the same thing, and Blitz and I were happy on our own anyway, so that was just fine. 

We started out on our first field, and nearly immediately I can tell that Blitz is on a running bird.  She was cutting back and forth like Barry Sanders, however the moves were not hers.  They were driven by the scent laid down by the currently invisible bird that was a couple of yards ahead of her, trying his best to lose the dog on his trail.  We pushed forward like this for nearly fifty yards, when Blitz's body language showed me that she'd lost the scent.  The bird had given her the shake, and was likely settled into a place of cover and hoping that we'd just walk on by him.  Blitz continued working, and I headed a different direction to see if I could possibly roust him on my own. 

After about a minute of kicking around Blitz and I headed toward each other to regroup and start a new move forward when she locked up in a point about thirty yards directly in front of me.  "Point!" I yelled to the Texans and their guides.  "Point?" a couple of them replied.  "Yeah, my dog's on point.  Get ready!  OK, Blitz, get him!"  Blitz jumped forward, and a rooster pheasant burst from the cover and headed on a flight line straight toward the Texans.  My shot was not a safe one, so I kept my gun down and waited for one of the two other guests to dispatch the first bird of the day, which they did so adeptly.  Blitz, hot on the bird's flight line, was immediately on the fallen bird and quickly brought it back to me for her first South Dakota retrieve. 

We progressed along, with Blitz's performance repeating again and again, while the dogs of the guides often had a hard time maintaining control, and were flushing birds ahead of the team.  Luckily, we flushed lots of hens and saw few roosters, which allowed us to hunt hard without filling out our limit immediately.  The way it was shaping up, we'd be able to hunt nearly most of the first day, which is exactly how I wanted it. 

While we were hunting birds that had previously been hunted and that were quick to flush wild, when they did flush, they did so not as singles or doubles, but as massive flocks.  Flocks.  The land, this South Dakota, was exactly as billed.  Those birds that did not flush and sat tight were what we were after, and Blitz was a the height of her game.  She easily outflushed the two other dogs we were with by a combined three to one margin. 

As we'd reach the three quarter mark of a given field, the guides would ask one of the Texans to move out and around us, outside of the cover, to the end of the field to "post" it.  This was designed to hold any birds from flushing that we happened to be pushing in front of us until we were able to get in gun range.  The Texans were the ones tapped for this task as the dogs were needed to push the birds, so that gave me a pass from flushing.  Which, as it turned out, worked just fine for me, as the action was far better on the "dog" side of things as opposed to the "post" side of things. 

After a couple of fields, I started to feel guilty about not posting, so when the guide suggested one of the Texans head out, I volunteered that Blitz and I would do it.  That raised disagreement from the guides who knew that Blitz was way better in the field that outside of it, but I insisted. 

I was surprised that one of the Texans originally pegged for the job said that he'd be joining us as well.  As we got on the trail and headed to our appointed duty at the end of the field, the guest said "I am not that wild about posting, but I do know that when I'm with your dog I see a hell of lot more birds.  I'm sticking by you two!" 

We ultimately headed in for lunch where the sentiment was shared by both Texas guests.  "Buddy, your dog is way better than the guide dogs.  Do you mind if we finagle a way to hunt by you?"  I told them it'd be a pleasure, and we finished off lunch and got ready to go. 

Review of Glen Campbell's Mystic Lake Review

StarTribune writer John Bream today reviewed last night's concert featuring Alzheimer's sufferer Glen Campbell at the Mystic Lake Casino.  The review read like an ordinary concert review, however this was no ordinary concert. 

As stated, Campbell has Alzheimer's.  His case is fairly progressed.  It is only a matter of time before his family is faced with some really tough decisions.  But in the mean time, his family (both biological and his extended family of fans) are saying "goodbye" via this tour. 

While I did not attend the Mystic Lake concert, based on the review and Campbell's performance at the 2012 Grammy's, the performance was not a concert per se.  It was as it was billed.  It was a "goodbye." 

He forgot the words?  Don't care.  He had trouble with his daughter's name?  Perhaps "heartbreaking" to Bream, but in sharing the stage with her dad another time, it was likely precious to her. 

That was Alzheimer's in all of it's ugliness.  It is a brutal, punishing taker.  But the performance was also beautiful.  I'll get to why in a second. 

Campbell is lucky as his diagnosis came early enough for him to be able to conduct this tour.  For many families, there is no such luxury.  There's just a bitter, paralyzing diagnosis, followed by "what the hell do we do now?," followed by just living with it day by day by day.  No stage.  No crowd.  No applause. 

So with the time his diagnosis and disease gave him, Campbell hit the road for a goodbye tour.  And you can view that act in two ways.  One, as something to pity as one succumbs to the taker.  Or two, as a beautiful celebration of one giving the finger to the taker and going down with a fight.  

I hope for all of his family at Mystic Lake last night, that they enjoyed the latter.     

Here is Campbell at the Grammys in 2012

Butterfly Boucher and Denison Witmer Downloads

Our friends at Noisetrade are currently offering a couple very strong downloads.  Both are highly recommended.

Enjoy:

A Dog Named Blitz - Chapter Six, "Third Year: Part 4"

For background on this serial, please click here. You can also start at the previous section

As Blitz was growing up, my mentor through the process was my buddy Fuzzy.  While he failed me in the pheasant trial, he was there along the whole way of bringing up Blitz; advising about things like food, training, accessories, hints and other tips.  As Blitz was my first dog, this was welcome information to a neophyte like me, and I appreciated being able to learn from his experience. 

Fuzzy came upon this knowledge via his experiences with his own dog, Vic.  Vic was a husky male, going a good hundred pounds, and stranding nearly six inches higher than a Blitz at the shoulder.  Vic was also about seven years Blitz's senior, so Fuzzy had been though just about everything with Vic, whereas I was always blazing new ground.  Hence, I appreciated the insight, advice, and free schooling. 

While Vic was on the big side of the Labrador spectrum, he was a gentle giant.  In all of my years of hunting with him, I never saw any cross behavior from him with either people or other dogs - kids and puppies included.  He was just a mellow, easy- going dog which made things easier for dual dog training sessions that Fuzzy and I held with our hounds.  We were actually able to put both dogs in the same crate when transporting them when space got tight, which I'd never seen before.  We'd cram the crate full of Labrador, they'd somehow settle in, and we wouldn't hear a peep from them until we arrived at our destination. 

As rambunctious as Blitz was, Vic always tolerated her incredibly well.  Sometimes better than any of us. 

Throughout Blitz's development Fuzzy and I would take the dogs up to the duck camp for what we called "dog training."  This exercise was done on a summer weekend, and usually ended up with dogs and trainers getting soaking wet, and a beer or two getting drunk.  We were aided in this training by use of a contraptions that leveraged blank .22 shells to launch dummies for the dog to fetch.  Depending on the strength of the shell and the size of the dummy, the launcher could easily thrown dummies a good hundred yards, which proved to be beneficial for those times in which a hyperactive young dog needed to burn off some energy.  The gun-like pop of the launcher, combined with the splashing of the dummy in the water replicated hunting conditions very well, and the dogs just loved it. 

While Vic was a gentle dog, he was also a fetching machine, and lived to retrieve.  With his stature and long gait, he was an incredibly powerful swimmer, and would leave a wake that made it clear to all where he was and where he was going.  Since he had this incredible passion and drive, it was tough on him to take turns while we worked both dogs.  However, Fuzzy trained him very well to sit until he was told to fetch, and he did so dutifully.  For a dog that loved his job so much, it was a tough task indeed. 

This behavior also applied when we were in the boat while we were hunting, where Fuzzy would generously let Blitz have retrieves while keeping Vic in place.  And despite deferring to the younger dog, Vic had the patience of Job. 

The fall of Blitz's third year, the four of us were hunting an area that was in the shallow part of our lake.  A summer drought had made the lake level lower than normal, and instead of the deep areas being three feet deep, they now were a very shallow two.  Hunting that morning had been slow, and we had little to show for the time we had on the water. 

We were in the middle of some tall tale contest when we heard the distinct call of a Gadwall behind us.  On queue, the duck he moved out in front of us and circled our boat.  Fuzzy and I both were making our best duck calls, trying to entice this lonesome single duck closer to the decoys we had spread on the water in front of us.  However, something was wrong, as our quarry definitively was seeing or hearing something not to his liking.  Despite him circling us multiple times, we were unable to draw him any closer than to the fringes of our shotgun ranges.  We worked hard, calling our lungs out, holding statue still, and keeping our heads down but simultaneously trying to track him from the same frozen, head down position.  This led to a lot of "I lost him" "You see him?" "Out front now" "Lost him again" whispered conversation. 

This duck appeared to know the gyrations it was putting us through and seemed content to just tease us.  Finally, after numerous circles, he turned behind us and appeared that he'd be close enough to present us a shot.  "Get ready," I told Fuzzy, "We're not going to get a better shot than this."  He agreed, and we'd take the duck as came into range.  Unfortunately the closest he would get ended up being behind us.  That meant we needed to stand up, twist our bodies 180 degrees, acquire the target and make a good shot, all while the duck, now tipped to our presence, was flying away as hard as he can. 

Most of these types of shots result in misses, but both Fuzzy and I popped up with guns blazing, and one of us was able to break a wing and sent the duck sailing one hundred yards away into the shallowest part of the lake.  We knew the duck was barely hit, and that if we didn't get to him immediately, he'd swim into the cattails where we'd never be able to find him. 

We immediately moved in tandem, lowering the blind and making the boat read to move.  Within seconds we were under way, and were quickly in proximity of the duck.  From here I sent Blitz to retrieve, but immediately noted that she was having difficulty.  With the water being only a foot deep in this location, and with a good three feet of mud underneath it, Blitz could only make small headway.  Vic, having been called into heel by Fuzzy to allow Blitz the retrieve, watched Blitz struggling, the duck swimming away, and uttered his displeasure.  Vic had the uncanny ability to sound exactly like Chewbacca, and his groaning at the scene unfolding in front of him was straight out of Star Wars. 

I was concentrating on Blitz, trying to encourage her to find her way through the mire when we were all rudely interrupted by a one hundred pound Chewbacca-groaning dog cannonballing into the water.  Fuzzy screamed his displeasure at Vic breaking, but the old man had seen enough and was out to show the young dog how it was done.  Blitz, knowing that she now had competition for the bird, swam harder but absolutely did not move any faster.  Vic, on other hand, was able to leverage his size to find some footing on the bottom and was bounding through the water and mud.  In three bounds he was to Blitz, in four more bounds he had the duck, and about 8 bounds back and he was in the boat before Blitz even had time to turn around. 

When she did get turned around, she gave me a look like "What the hell was that?"  What it was, exactly, was our Job, our gentle giant, finally having enough.

My Name is John Daker

Sorry, Bubb Rubb and Lil' Sis, but I have a new web favorite:



In case you missed that second verse, it goes

"If your wife says "get down"
and she gives you a frown
that's amore"

Hat tip to House Baby

Voter ID "Veto" Suffers from Bad Timing

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recently held a mock"veto" of legislation that will allow for a constitutional amendment requiring voters have ID from going onto the ballot this fall. 

His timing is a little bad, as this video has just been released. 




Why is it that the same party that demands that we carry health care, and has allocated a half billion dollars to ensure enforcement, cares not one whit about voter fraud? 

Anyone smell anything fishy here?

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Happy Easter

He is risen


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Bill Ayers' Thoughts on OWS

From the man that famously helped launch Obama's political career come some really interesting insights:

Unemployment Goes Down in Green Bay

After over a year and a half without a job, my better half landed employment.  It is a part time gig at a local retailer, and I could not be more proud of her.  She sourced the job by herself, had no contacts or "ins," and got it completely on her own merits.

Given her career path to this date, she's clearly underemployed.  Neither of us care.  Ditto so many millions of Americans currently in the same boat.  Something is better than nothing.  And after nearly two years of nothing in this perpetual recession, a part time gig at a retailer is a welcomed addition.

Congratulations, sweetheart.  You make me very proud. 

And to formally greet you back to the ranks of the employed, here's Elvis Costello:

The Bravest Driver in Green Bay

No comment necessary...

Juan Williams - A Reasoned Voice in the Trayvon Martin Incident

Through his commentary at The Wall Street Journal. and via Fox News Sunday, Mr. Williams shows he is the rare African-American voice that sees the bigger picture.  You can read his comments here.

While other black leaders stoke the flames of racial hatred and violence, Juan Williams asks the tough questions. 

Where is black "leadership" on those issues?  As stated here earlier, there is close to a genocide being committed, but unless a white (or white looking, as the case may be) person can be blamed, it is not news.  Not an issue.

Until we drop the demagoguery and get down to the big issues - the real issues, fear, anger, and ultimately violence will continue to ensue.

Black "leadership," indeed.