LEATHERNECKM31

Everything old is new again...

News item:  Sales of Spam — that much maligned meat — are up as consumers turn more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets.

This comes as no surprise to Don, a true Spamhead, who never stopped believing in the canned mystery meat. Born in 1950 at the height of post-war Spamania he stuck with it. A lot of his cooking when Lynette is absent involves Spam.

A traditionalist, he eschews nuevo-Spam dishes such as Spam Wellington and braised Spam tips for his Spam straight up... fried Spam sandwiches with a side of chips or those sweet-hot jalapenos.  

According to Hormel Foods Corp., strong second quarter sales of Spam helped push profits up 14 percent;  Spam sales were up 10.6 percent in the 12-week period ending May 3, compared to last year. In the last 24 weeks, sales were up nearly 9 percent.

Don is doing his part, but then his Spam consumption hasn't really changed since the mid-50s.

Don is concerned, however, that Austin's "Spamaram"--the 29-year-old celebration of the canned ham product--is in jeopardy... Don and other concerned readers click here.

And in case you wondered:

Spam Ingredients:

• Chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added.
• Salt (for binding, flavour, and firmness)
• Water (to help in mixing)
• Sugar (for flavour)
• Sodium Nitrite (for color and as a preservative)

Yum yum!

(Some) Nutrition Information:

• Calories Per Serving: 170
• Calories Per Serving From Fat: 140
• Serving Size: 2 oz.
• Total Fat: 16g
• Saturated Fat: 6g
• Cholesterol: 40mg
• Sodium: 750mg
• Vitamin A: 0%
• Vitamin C: 0%
• Calcium: 0%

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia eats a sandwich of SPAM (Spiced Ham.--get it?) and mayonnaise on white bread three times a week... which explains a great deal.

Lastly... because you knew that I'd do it.... more Spam, Spam, SPAM

Sorry for the quality of the above but the "old" Newsweek cover (left) was gonna run, until the wife of Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham blew a gasket and demanded it be changed to the B&W, much lighter Obama on the right... complete with halo.

"After working on the attached cover all week and making multiple modifications, the cover was killed late Friday night. Why? The wife of the editor stopped by, apparently saw the cover and expressed her disapproval. Amazingly, the previously approved cover, worked on all week, was killed. I guess we know who has the final say..."

I was a reporter/photographer for 10 years and I know news photos and news photo editors and shooters (can I say that in a piece about Obama?), and there is simply no news justification to go with the poor, amateurish, over-exposed shot on the right. That's why I believe this story from Rumormonger. 

Meacham's wife reminds me of Larry David's wife, Lauire, a (raving, leftist bitch) both in real life and how she is portrayed on his HBO show "Curb Your Enthausdiam".... no wonder he divorced her.

That's her with Cheryl Crow, apparently an entertainer, and a spokesman for Weight-Watchers.

Fortunately, the show is going strong (although he divorced his TV wife at the end of this season as well.) On the show Laurie is "Cheryl", played by the sexy and lovely Cheryl Hines.

So what we have here... is not a "failure to communicate", but a bimbo, who controls her husband, who controls a major magazine, which is in the tank for any leftist candidate, especially Obama and, and uses its news coverage to throw the election to Obama and bring the country down.

And you didn't vote for gaw-damned one of 'em.

Maybe not old... new again... maybe it's what's old is tweaked and is new again.

The US Army has replaced our Afghan fighters' AK-47s--the most durable, ubiquitous and dependable shoulder weapon in the world--with the venerable M-16.

I'm not knocking the M-16 which in its current variations is a fine weapon (though the "knock-down" argument over the small, high-velocity. 5.56mm round versus the 7.62mm NATO round still rages). The reason for the change was brought about by improved and more disclipined marksmanship by the Afghans. At this point in the war the Third World's "pray and spray" approach to combat is hardly a winner.

The AK is everywhere because it's cheap and could be mass produced even by the French if they wished.

But beyond 250-300 yards, smacking someone with an AK, even for a decent shooter, is rare. The M-16 is very effective at 600 yards.

And we must remember that Afghanistan is not the jungle, tree-line environment of Vietnam, it's more ridge line, valley and canyons in which  medium to long range accuracy is an asset. 

Better trained Afghans with M16 and M4s will up the kill numbers, and despite all the crap about hearts and minds, and "talks", and diplomats..... depriving the enemy of his life is what it's all about.

In Marine Corps close combat training... I don't recall screaming "Aarrgghh.... Negotiate!!"

Et tu, Scott?

As a presidential press secretary Scott McClellan made an adequate White House intern.

As a friend and confidant, he's the guy who chats up your wife when you're out of town.

And it was his chance to do something important in his miserable little life, but he folded like a raghead tent for 30 pieces of silver.

McClellan's's kiss and tell book, "What Happened?" is apparently full of innuendo, supposition and self-praise and excuses while he bashes the president and key members of the administration.

A pampered little fat boy who went to UT, Austin, (explains a lot) comes from a politically-connected family; his brother runs Medicare and Medicaid, and his mother was Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn, who ran one of the more embarrassing and corn-pone campaigns for governor in recent memory, last November.

"Texas is great, but we can do better. Now is time to replace this do-nothin’ Drugstore Cowboy with One Tough Grandma," said Strayhorn, former democrat, former Republican, former railroad commissioner, former comptroller, and failed independent candidate for Governor. 

And just to top off Scotty's gene pool, his father is a disbarred attorney who claimed that LBJ ordered the "hit" on Jack Kennedy.

President Bush has had some success in picking his people, but his loyalty to some of them has been his downfall... McClellan, a minor player, is one of his worst selection.

The Washington Post found this in the chapter on the Iraq war in the advance copy of his book: “What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

Thank gawd Little Mac, whose only real accomplishment was being president of his frat, chose a life of eating donuts at Starbuck's instead of going to West Point.

I cannot find what sort of royalties McClellan will bank from from the sale of his book; his speaking fee $15,000 - $25,000 will rise in proportion to the sales of his book, which in turn will make him the darling of the left-wing Bush haters. It will be a sure No. 1 on the NYT best sellers list, and will lends itself to the obligatory anti-Bush movie or made for TV opus.

Ironically, he'll probably become a millionaire for his treachery, while his boss will probably leave after eight years in Washington, having lost money.

But then George Bush wasn't into it for he money.

Speaking of money... Remember William "Cold Cash"Jefferson, (D-LA) the congressman who stuffed $90,000 in his freezer until the feds showed up with a search warrant?

Well, here's a new wrinkle--another indictment for "Dollar Bill".

BTW, San Fran Gram Nan Pelosi, that crusading reformer of all things congress hasn't even started an investigation of Jefferson; hardly a surprise, the dem-lead House is too busy investigating Bush.

Jefferson gets a "pass" like Barry Obama, because he's black, and because he told Pelosi to take her suggestion that he resign his committee chairmanship, and place it somewhere sans sunlight.

Lastly, Allahpunditover at Hotair.com reports that the list for Sec State in an Obama administration contains the following fellow Marxists:

• John Kerry (he was in Vietnam),
• Joe Biden who simply refuses to stop running for president.
• Chris Dodd, Peace Corps veteran,
• and last and least, Little Tommy Daschle

Oil and one incompetant snake oil salesman

Tuesday torrent.

In Nor'Texas it rains like some monsoons I recall.

Coop and Capt. Jack deal with the accompanying light show and explosions well enough; Sparky believes he is about to die. 

My web hosting service, Typepad, has been giving me headaches for the last week or so; in that time you may have noticed fragmented sentences, missing words, etc. in my posts. This is largely the result of a "new and improved" Typepad composition page. They seem to be following the Bill Gates approach to computing---unveil the latest thing and then spend two years trying to fix all its problems.

Bear with me.

On the heels of the latest Soviet-style show trials in which thuggish members of congress demanded that oil company execs confess to and then justify their massive 9-cent-per-gallon profit gasoline while paying more than 40-cents-per-gallon in taxes, there's this:

"MOSCOW, May 26 (Reuters) - The Russian government cleared on Monday a proposal to reduce the mineral extraction tax on oil, the first of many steps it is planning in order to revive production growth in the key industry.

"The government approved amendments to the tax code under which the tax-free threshold for mineral extraction tax will rise to $15 per barrel from the current $9. The amendment needs to be approved by parliament.

"Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said the measure will allow oil firms to save over $4 billion annually and invest this money into new projects to spur production growth.Former president and current prime minister Vladimir Putin has also promised to introduce tax breaks for new oil-producing regions such as the Arctic shelf, Yamal and Timan-Pechora." was.

The Russians, murdering Commies who have only 20 years of "freedom", will be kicking back $4 billionin taxes which their oil firms will use to fund increased eploration and productions... some of it right on our doorstep.

So it's come to this... all the democrats and a good percentage of the GOP dipwads are Marxists and Putin's Russia is looking more and more like the post-WWII boom that made America the world's economic colossus.

"Keep leather pennies on yer eyes"

The bottom 75-percent of US wage earners pay fewer taxes than the 27 US oil companies-- $90 billion in 2006.

In addition to income taxes, the top 27 companies paid $10.9 billion in non-income taxes and collected more than $48 billion for the federal government in excise taxes on the industry’s products in 2006, API reported.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimates the “worldwide effective tax rate… of the top 27 energy companies was 40.7 percent in 2006. For the past three years, the oil and gas industry’s effective tax rate has exceeded top corporate income tax rate of 35 percent.”

 

In 2007, ExxonMobil, the nation’s largest oil company, reported $404.6 billion in revenue, $40.6 billion of which was profit. Yet the company paid $105 billion in taxes in 2007 – more than two-and-a-half times as much as it made in profit.

 

Gouging? Hardly; the thumb in your eye (and wallet) belongs to your government, not Exxon.

Sir Gaffe-a-lot.

Slips of the tongue, forgetting a name or "misspeaking" happen to everyone with a voice. And for those in the public eye--especially if running for the world's highest office--almost everything a candidate utters comes in for scrutiny.

The difference is, GOP gaffes (potato, po-tah-to) are dissected and blown out of all proportion, dire conclusions are deduced by the democrat media lackeys, but they virtually ignore the following Obama observations:

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

Whaaat?... He sees dead peolple?  

I for one don't think this is a gaffe.... I believe that he actually doesn't know what Memorial Day means. "Quick Barry... and there's no life line. What do we honor on Veterans Day and when is it?"

and this:

Finding himself--the would-be CnC--devoid of any military experience, knowledge or appreciation on Monday's national holiday... he tried to wear a relative's battered helmet.

From the WaPo: "Referring to an uncle who had been one of the first U.S. troops into Auschwitz, the concentration camp, (sic) Obama said: 'The story in the family is he came home and just went up in the attic'."

Oh yeah, that's right; poor, pathetic combat vets who couldn't get a job or cope with their problems... throw yer uncle under the same bus you tossed your granny... Obama, you rat bastard.

Over at The Ace of Spades...they point out that Barry's mom was an only child (what uncle?), his father was a foreigner and was not in anyone's military, and finally, Auschwitz is in Poland and was liberated by the Red Army in January '45.

High school history students might recall that the American Army was having a bit of a problem at that point in its advance with what Patton and the rest called "The Bulge".

'Course even some high school students know we only have 50 states... not "57" or more.

And for eight years democrats have made a living slandering GWB as "dumb"?

Here's the Chi-Town Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet's tabulation of the Sir Gaffe-a-lot gallop to the demwit nomination:

Consider the items that have been accumulating since Obama announced on Feb. 10:

• Marking the anniversary of the March 1965 "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala., Obama, speaking at a church, said his parents got together "because of what happened in Selma." Obama was born in 1961.
• Obama told Larry King on CNN -- asked about that anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton YouTube ad, a doctored version of a spot created for Apple computers -- "We don't have the technical capacity to create something like that."
• Obama did not know what he was talking about. Any professional media consultant can manipulate images on video. Turns out the creator -- unmasked last week as a political operative who worked for a firm overseeing the technical side of Obama's Web site -- made it at home on a Mac.

Read on:

May we live to their example....

                                  ALL IMAGES © TODD HEISLER/ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

This is the seventh Memorial Day since our global enemies declared a religious war on us on yet another sunny morning while we slept.

As of today, we have suffered the loss of 4,082 of America's best and brightest, which by previous measures of armed conflict is minimal, but nonetheless grievous; and at this major turning point in Iraq, the casualties are at a four-year low.

But on this day, our thoughts turn to all our honored dead... as well they should.

I've grown weary of criticizing the callous disregard and ignorance shown by tens of millions of our citizens; in the the UK the war dead are honored on "Remembrance Day"... perhaps we actually comply with the sentiment we're supposed to demonstrate, this one, single day of our 365--and simply remember.

We are in the midst of a war for our very survival; today we have weekly reminders of the cost of our freedom and who pays for it.

Here's a link to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

As of this day, we have lost 26 in May and the loss of each soldier, sailor, airman, Marine or Guardsman leaves behind comrades, friends and family who love that young American deeply; their lives will never be quite the same. 

But all of our lives are better as a result of their sacrifices.

Good speed, Allen, Bittner, Speedy, McStoots, Dolan, Sgt. Hill, and all the rest... comrades all.

The dead soldier’s silence sings our national anthem.
- Rev. Aaron Kilbourn  

Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen,

Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men. ~Richard Watson Gilder

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.  ~Joseph Campbell

All we have of freedom, all we use or know -This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
~Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899 

 They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.  ~Henry Ward Beecher

These martyrs of patriotism gave their lives for an idea.  ~Schuyler Colfax

They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.
~Philip Freneau

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
- Thucydides

“I consider it no sacrifice to die for my country. In my mind, we came here to thank God that men like these have lived rather than to regret that they have died.”    - General George S. Patton

In honored glory....

For the fifth time in the Long War the Medal of Honor will be awarded to an American hero who died saving the lives of his comrades.

The White House announced today that the family of 19-year-old Army Pfc. Ross McGinnis of Knox, Pa., will accdept the Medal of Honor in ceremonies June 2.

McGinnis, was standing in the gunner's hatch of a Humvee when an enemy grenade was tossed in the vehicle's crew compartment. He shouted a warning and instead of leaping to safety, he dove inside and smothered the grenade, killing him instantly.

His family has suggested via Blackfive.net that anyone who wishes to make a memorial donation to send something useful to a service member overseas, a veteran or local service member and present it as a gift from PFC Ross McGinnis.

Gifts to his unit may be sent to:

SFC Cedric Thomas
1st Platoon, C/1-26 IN
Task Force Blue Spader
APO AE 09390-1537

McGinnis is the second U.S. soldier since Somalia to be awarded the nation's highest award for valor; he joins 1stSgt Paul R. Smith, right, who was credited for stopping an enemy attack with his machine gun until his was fatally wounded.

The three other posthumous Recipients are Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, and SEALS Lt. Michael Murphy and fellow SEAL, Master at Arms Second Class Michael A. Monsoor.

Both Monsoor, right, and Dunham, above, sacrificed their lives in the same manner as Pfc. McGinnis, placing the lives of others beyond their own, in the greatest traditions of the military service.

 

Murphy, a SEAL team leader, (right) was killed after exposing himself to enemy fire while calling in air support to keep scores of Taliban fighters at bay.

Murphy and two others team members died in the desolate Afghanistan redoubt and are survived by Marcus Luttrell (below) who was able to escape after being blown off a ridge toward the end of the pitched battle.

Here's a good way to start the Memorial Day Weekend.

Luttrell ("Lone Survivor") was in the Big Apple to address the NRA convention the other day, but he almost missed the speech. 

Arriving late the night before, he checked into the swank hotel in his jeans an untucked shirt and went down to the snooty bar for a beer; he would later admit it was a place he shouldn't have been.

Plunked down at the bar in a T-shirt emblazoned with the Texas flag, the 6'5" 240-pound retired Navy SEAL and Navy Cross Recipient was approached by a "foreigner" who started running down Texas and America...

Thanks to Uncle Jimbo over at Blackfive.net for the video of Marcus Luttrell conducts cultural awareness training.

Especially Vietnam and Iraq War vets will appreciate this:

Canada is set to deport coward Corey Glass, 25, who deserted his national Guard unit and feld north says he did so in 2006 because he did not want to fight in a war he did not support.

Glass, who's still on active duty and is considered absent without leave, (when I was in this have been desertion--ed.) applied for refugee status at the Canadian border in August 2006 on the grounds of objection to military service.

But Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board denied his application for refugee status Wednesday, prompting the Canadian Border Services Agency to issue a June 12 deportation order.

Seems even the Canadians won't tolerate cowards deserting their units.

C'mon back Little Corey... did I mention that Luttrell has a twin brother.... also a SEAL?

Have a good weekend; remember these fine men who helped make it possible.

 

 

 

 

 

Color-coding history

Okay. This is right in my wheelhouse.

Spike Lee, the director who seems to make only cache "black films" which do little business but are loved by guilt-ridden white critics, can't generate headlines with his work so the other day he called Clint Eastwood a "racist."

Lee couldn't carry Clint's .44 magnum... it weighs more than he does.

Lee attacked Clint because his two films--"Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" didn't give a co-starring role to the black Marines who served in non-combat units on the "sulphur island".

"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee said Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival.

"Soldier"? I thought we were talking about Marines.

(And of course, he's wrong anyway, one of the Lee trademarks: One of Eastwood's co-producers, Robert Lorenz  had to explain to Lee that 12 black extras were used in the landing scenes. "They are there in this film ... but the focus of this film is the story of the flag raisers. This film is very much about racism and the treatment of Ira Hayes, the Native American flag raiser.")

Yeah, Hayes had it tough as a Pima Indian in the Corps at that time, but it didn't dominate what I thought was a very flawed movie anyway.

Some historical facts:

There were some 700 black Marines on Iwo in non-combat roles---if there was such a designation on the hellish island. There primary tasks included running ammunition to the front lines, burying the dead, and unloading the amphibian crafts at the waters edge. My guess is that there were thousands of Puerto Rican, and even Brooklyn and New Jersey Marines who performed the same and similar tasks.

Guess what, Spike...? Eastwood didn't feature them in either movie.

Guess what #2.... in neither of Eastwood's Iwo movies (one from the perspective of the six Marines who raised the flag on Suribachi and the other from the perspective of THE JAPANESE) did not feature any black Marines.

Why...? Because they were not assigned to combat units; to portray them as such would have stood history on its head. I have no doubt, however, that in some future movie about Iwo, a black, a Hispanic and a woman will take the places of three of the flag raisers on Suribachi... "... calling Mr. Stone, Mr. Oliver Stone."

You want a documentary on Iwo featuring black Marines in all disproportion to their actual role, Spike...? call Ken Burns. (BTW: And just look how unfairly even the libs' favorite documentarian was treated on his last outing. See here.)

By the way, where's the Spike Lee movie about black Marines or any Marines for that matter, on Iwo?

Wait for it....

Someone with half a brain might just suspect that Lee is such an insignificant little dipwad that he slandered Eastwood solely for the purpose of grabbing ink for his new movie, "Miracle at St. Anna", about four members of the 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Infantry Division in Italy during WWII.

Lastly, you know who was left out of "Flags and "Letters"?

The 27 Marine Corps and Navy Medal of Honor Recipients, that's who; if anyone has a bitch coming about Eastwood's Iwo movie it's Marines Herschel "Woody" Williams and Jack Lucas, and Navy Corpsman George Wahlen--our three surviving Iwo Recipients. There was not even a passing reference to any Recipient; in fact, "Flags" was almost devoid of any American heroism.

The single most decorated battle in history, one-quarter of all Medals of Honor earned by Marines in the entire war, the bloodiest, most costly fight in Marine Corps history... and no heroes?

So come to think of it, if anybody has a bitch about Eastwood's movie, it's Iwo vets, black and white, the Marine Corps and all Marines.

No, you din't

The Amazon said several weeks ago that she was "proud of the U.S. for the first time in my adult life” because her husband was running for president.

Obama praised his wife’s patriotism then and said that for Republicans “to try to distort or to play snippets of her remarks in ways that are unflattering to her I think is just low class …."

Now The Messiah has issued another warning to those who would dare question his wife's campaign comments... “But I do want to say this to the GOP. If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful. Because that I find unacceptable.”

As always, Rush Limbaugh nails it:

RUSH: With Obama we started out, we couldn't talk about his big ears 'cause that made him nervous. We've gone from that to this: Not only can we not mention his ears...
We can't talk about his mother.
We can't talk about his father.

We can't talk about his grandmother unless he does... brings her up as a "typical white person."

We can't talk about his wife, can't talk about his preacher, can't talk about his terrorist friends, can't talk about his voting record, can't talk about his religion.
We can't talk about appeasement.
We can't talk about color; we can't talk about lack of color.
We can't talk about race. We can't talk about bombers and mobsters who are his friends. We can't talk about schooling. We can't talk about his name, "Hussein."

We can't talk about his lack of experience. Can't talk about his income. Can't talk about his flag pin;  can't call him a liberal.

When it started out we just couldn't talk about his ears.
Now we can't say anything about him.

The Fourth Estate, endowed by our Constitution with near complete protection under our freedom of speech is supposed to serve as government watchdog... almost to the extent of being part of our unique "checks and balances" system provided for by The Framers. 

To Jefferson, the central issue of the American experiment was whether:

"man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions....

Today Jefferson would condemn the left media's 60-year collusion with the democrat party for what it is... an adgenda to consitantly favor one political party over another and blanant attempts to throw elections to their fellow liberals and leftists.

I must admit, I never believed I'd see the day when the leftist news media was more in the tank for a politician more than they were for the Clintons. I stand corrected.

Since the 1960s all the major federal elections won by Republicans should be set apart with an asterisk (*) to indicate that in order for the GOP candidates to have defeated their opponents, they had to also beat the newspapers and television networks, colleges and universities, Hollywood, unions, trail lawyers, the ACLU, George Soros, not to mention, a sizable herd of RINOs.

Ground Control to Major Tom...

Anti-Sadrday musings and colorful bits from around the world (while it holds):

As an ardent fan of The Beatles I vividly recall the keruffel The Lads caused in '63-64; to some adults they were the end of the world as they knew it, while others simply sniffed at Beatle music insisting nothing could ever rival Lawrence Welk or Glenn Miller.

I knew better and told my father that "yeah, well, we'll be listening to these guys' songs for the next 50 years" which of course at the time seemed like an eternity to me.

Nonetheless, I was more right than I could have ever imagined. Here, then, is a flash back to a kinder and gentler time before things turned dark.

From a 1964 US World and News Report interview with Harvard sociologist David Reisman, a noted author on social trends:

Q: Professor Resiman, is the furor over the singers who call themselves the Beatles a sign that American youngsters are going crazy?
A: No crazier than hitherto. In the first place, any large city will turn out a minority capable of nearly anything. One mustn't exaggerate and attribute to the vast majority the reactions of the minority.

Read on, it'll make you feel better, better, better, better, ahhhhhhhh..

And here, ladies and germs, you have the proof any 10 year-old boy already knew:

Having a dog provides enough dirt of the right kind, the new German study suggests. But it may be important that baby meets dog early enough to affect the immune system as it develops. “Our results show clearly that the presence of a dog in the home during subjects’ infancy is associated with a significantly low level of sensitization to pollens and inhaled allergens,” said Joachim Heinrich of the National Research Centre for Environmental Health in Munich.

The same protective effect was not seen in children who had frequent contact with dogs but none at home.

Robotic suit could usher in super soldier era

Everything Robert Heinlein wrote about in "Starship Troopers" is correct! Read on.

And... to close out our little space and music confab here are The Top Ten Songs to Orbit Earth selected by a 14-year-old Norwegian girl, Therese Miljeteig, who won a competition staged by the European Space Agency (ESA)---and did a great job in my opinion (except I would have subbed David Bowie's "Major Tom" for anything by pedophile R Kelly):

Here Comes The Sun - Beatles
- Come Fly With Me - Frank Sinatra
- Rocket Man - Elton John
- Up Where We Belong - Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
- Imagine - John Lennon
- Flashdance - What A Feeling - Irene Cara
- Walk of Life - Dire Straits
- Fly - Celine Dion
- Rockin’ All Over The World - Status Quo
- I Believe I Can Fly - R Kelly

Comin' in on a bi-wing and a prayer

Talk about your hypocrites....

The democrats' media hammered on Mitt Romney's religion to point that most Americans never learned anything else about him, but that he is LDS.

Mike Huckabee, a preacher, wanted to take a break (and separate himself from the GOP pack) with an appropriate Merry Christmas ad instead of the usual invite to the knife and gun club.

Result.... he was excoriated by the democrat media for placing a "floating cross" in the background as he wished "peace on earth and good will to men", women and feminists.

Never mind that it turned out that the "cross" was simply the juncture of bookcase shelves, the Rorschach-susceptible atheists in the newsrooms howled their outrage.

Yet what happens when Obama panders in the most gratuitous display of politics in religion ever seen?

Nothing.

"Faith" now trumps "hope" and "change"...?

Amen.

Peggy Noonan wrote yesterday that the GOP was "falling apart... dying"; although I believe she's begun to to fly less-than-conservative colors in the past several months, she's on the right track.

"What happens to the Republicans in 2008 will likely be dictated by what didn't happen in 2005, and '06, and '07. The moment when the party could have broken, on principle, with the administration – over the thinking behind and the carrying out of the war, over immigration, spending and the size of government – has passed. What two years ago would have been honorable and wise will now look craven. They're stuck."

While I disagree with her about the war, she's in the 10-ring with the other calamities that Bush and the GOP congressional leadership (sic) allowed to happen.

As a direct result, we face a stacked deck in November--a choice of the lesser liberal.

And that lesser liberal is a man who is reaching out to the left wing nutroots and going hat-in-hand around the country explaining that not only is he for hope and change... he can get cozy with the other side.

Why is it that "reaching across the aisle" always means conservatives have to compromise and not the other way 'round.

McCain is the father of the "Gang of 14", the porous border, amigo, and the pledge that a McCain administration will contain democrats. Unless he picks Harry Reid, San Fran Gam Nan Pelosi, or Barney Frank he'll be skewered for choosing not near liberal enough. The same idea worked out so very well for Bush didn't it?

The Constitution and the wishes of the citizens of California were trampled yesterday as thousands of fat women with crew-cuts and Birkenstocks prepare for the mass mockery of marriage.

I'm torn; on one hand, I say let 'em get married, they should be as miserable and as poor as the rest of us; because "marriage" means "divorce" and divorce... even a diverse divorce... means attorneys and money... lots of it, will be sucked right outta their chained up wallets.

You absolutely can prove you bought that collection of tea cozies long before you and Percival met? Doesn't matter... it's gonna go in a big "community property" pile and the judge will determine what you own.

Serves you right, dumbasses.

On the other hand, I'm reminded of the scene when Charleton Heston loses it after he descends the mountain with the tablets to behold a spectacle that if filmed today would be far more historically accurate.

Edward G. Robinson is leading a conga-line around the Golden Calf and urging on all manner of shenanigans, just before Chuck hurls Commandments I through V, blowing up the calf and a lot of people in robes and disrobes.

Anyone who believes "gay marriage" is not proof of a society losing its moral path didn't see the movie.

Dissenting from the 4-3 California decision, the minority wrote that the court should have deferred to the legislature and the voters, particularly in view of the increased protections for same-sex couples enacted in recent years.

Exactly.

It is time for the substantial majority of Americans who don't want the institution of "marriage" turned on its head, to pass state laws banning the gay marriage as well as a federal law. That's the way it's done in our Republic... not by handing the decision to a handful of people in robes... remember what happened to them in the second reel?

Greens... the new Reds

Random shots in a target-rich environment:

As expected, the cuddly, 1200-pound polar bear is now officially on the Interior Department's "threatened" list, giving enviro-whackos another limited victory as we probe the frontiers of $4-gallon gas.

The Stealth Commies will use this to destroy our economy by suing to regulate, thwart and undermine anything that could possibly contribute to "global warming" and thus "threaten" the "threatened" ursines.

More importantly, try finding the following story anywhere in the MSM the last couple of days; increasingly the New Media... talk radio and the blogosphere... is our only source of non-leftist information.

Yesterday Senate Republicans fell four votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a democrat-led filibuster threat against an up or down vote on oil exploration the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); the usual suspects, Obama, Clinton and McCain voted to continue the ban on drilling, now in place for the last 25 years.

And if that's not enough you may have also missed the following:

Cuba is exploring and potentially developing oil fields in Cuban waters within 50 miles of Florida. Cuba is partnering in the exploration projects with China, Spain, France, and Canada.

These fields are estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to have more oil than the ANWR.

So while the rest of the world drills away and gas prices now increase on a daily basis, chances are your senator and/or congressman prevents us from achieving oil independence from the Middle East.

And yet more to make your head explode:

The White House said on Thursday that President George W. Bush would not veto a final bill from Congress that orders a halt to filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve while oil prices are very high.

The Senate late on Wednesday approved a measure previously cleared by the House of Representatives that would stop deliveries of crude to the U.S. emergency petroleum stockpile until the price of oil fell below $75 a barrel.

The United States started the petroleum reserve in 1975 after oil supplies were cut off during the 1973-74 oil embargo.

"Good" you say?... not from where I watch the dollar amount on the gas pump blur past while the gallon amount could be timed with a sun dial.

We're at war in the very region which supplies a ot of our oil... gee, what could happen? Besides, making availabele the 70,000 barrels daily that were pumped into the 701-million-barrel reserve--a system of salt caverns on the Gulf coast--won't make a penny's worth of diff at the pump.

This is just another empty gesture by pandering politicians--like the "gas tax holiday" which is supported by Clinton and Maverick. Obama, in a rare display of clear thinking, opposes it.

Those taxes are used to fund badly needed road repair; and giving me 18 cents a gallon in return hardly makes a dent in cost of a full tank which is surely making its way to $100.

One day social scientists studying this era will shake their heads, stunned that the greatest democracy in world history committed suicide while the rest of the world ran wide open.