LEATHERNECKM31

Phase Two: attack

In the mopping up following Operation Put a Boot Up Their Ass (thanks Toby Keith) I see several instances worthy of our feeling reassured and slightly optimistic for at least the next few months.

First it seems that Sen. Jim DeMint (arguably the only real Tea Party “leader”) is hard-pressing the facts and has called for the resignation of RNC’s failure at the helm, Michael “Hip Hop” Steele… no, that’s not quite accurate—he wants him 86’ed.   

(The Hill)- Shortcomings in Republican efforts during the elections are a reason Michael Steele should not continue as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), a senator said in an interview Sunday.

“Our ground game was not as strong as it could’ve been. We were outmanned on the ground,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said on Fox New Sunday.

Steele is an idiot, out of his depth and was never anything more than the GOP leadership zombies’ affirmative action hire… yeah, repubics do it too.

Steele isn’t a conservative, and like Colin Powell… American “hero” for giving press briefings in the Gulf War, and an utter failure as SecState… is nothing more than a mega-RINO.

If he gets bounced, he’ll immediately have a summit with Jesse or Sharpton confess his sins for not being “black enough”, and be welcomed back in the ‘hood as a true “African-American” with his hand out, blaming us honkies.

Don’t doubt me.

I also like the fact that SanFranNan is apparently forcing the issue regarding her future, demanding the minority leadership job in the House. Could the Traitor Party be idiotic enough to give her the j-o-b? Just might be.   

“We didn’t lose the election because of me,” Pelosi told NPR in an interview that aired Friday morning. “Our members do not accept that.”

Instead, the California Democrat attributes the loss of at least 60 seats to high unemployment and “$100 million of outside, unidentified funding.”

Delusional…. and that’s the way I like it.

Even jackasses like Joe Scarborough who apparently has some sort of TV job… are outing the Halfrican-American Savior of the Nation: 

Joe Scarborough: Top Senate Dems Tell Me 'Obama Doesn't Know What He Is Doing'

But for my money…. Dennis Miller sums it up best:

Miller on Pelosi: “She’s Batshit Crazy, I Guarantee You That She Sleeps Upside-Down”…

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If ObamaCare is such a good idea, then why are there 111 companies on the waiver list?

Because Obamacare doesn’t work; and they’ve admitted it… thus their friends get to opt out and your family gets worse or non-existent health care for an average of $2,000 more a year

Gateway Pundit’s analysis of the 111 names (full list here) turns up some familiar names — like SEIU and other unions:

#12– UFCW Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust
#14– IBEW No. 915
#19– Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
#33– Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123

#35–  UFCW Local 227
#52– UFCW Maximus Local 455
#55– Local 25 SEIU
#60– UFCW Local 1262
#78– Local 802 Musicians Health Fund
#83– Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund
#89– Int’l Union of Painters and Allied Trades
#91– Transport Workers
#92– United Federation of Teachers

Revenge of the Air Slaves:

Lead by pilots and crew members it appears that most American air passengers have finally caught up with Yours Truly and are fighting back over being treated no better than cattle, criminals or mental cases while real potential threats… Middle Eastern males between 18 and 30, especially in “traditional” clothing, seem to breeze through.

I have been threatened with “missing your flight”  and the whole, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” attitude from the same people you hated in grade school who were always the class monitors. “Teacher, teacher… Gary was talking while you were gone!”

I have been “wanded” repeatedly; once a TAS simpleton finally located the source of the ominous beeping… it was the metal clasp on my bag… the clasp which had “Samsonite” embossed on it.

Don, Mike and I watched… it was like the scene when the chimps discover the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Another time the country was saved when a TSAss captured my 4 oz. tube of toothpaste (the limited is three oz. and wrestled it to the ground. This was after he ask: “Sir, is there anything in the bag that with hurt me.”

Boy was that hard to resist….

Girl (ironically) terrorized

Screening has always been a joke, and post-9/11 screening is even more worthless considering the suicidal policy of not profiling anyone; which of course means profiling elderly white people, while men and especially white women.

What, you’re not willing to be fondled, threatened, grouped, shown “nude” on monitors for the amusement of people with GEDs?

Then start raising hell… may cost you getting to grandma’s house on time, but it will feel great.

Tale of two cities…

Stream of consciousness during trips to revisit my youth… from which I came away depressed.

I hung out with Tim, Jeff and Sandi, and toasted Diane and Nick after their wedding in Fort Morgan Colorado.

Two days later I saluted as “taps” sounded for Tommy in Taft California… My friends, my two hometowns.

-----------------------------------

“Saigon... sh**t I’m still only in Saigon... Every time I think I’m gonna wake up back in the jungle.”

Uh, sorry….. Denver; not Saigon….. stuck in Denver once more waiting for a DFW hookup. Dunno if it’s just Mile High or if someone’s high here.

I’ve covered about half the country on back-to-back flights the last two weeks… yin and yang… wedding and funeral in my two home towns.

And if I’d wanted to be in Mogadishu, Beirut or Tijuana, I’d have flown to those places instead of the two small towns to which I owe my first 14 years of education. Ninety percent of my life-long friends lived or still live in those real-life versions of Norman Rockwell’s America as it was 40-50 long years ago.

Sadly, those towns no longer exist, the remains burned out husks, illegal immigration and/or the flood of those more interested in establishing a Muslim, Hispanic, Buddhist or Hindu enclave in my America.

My Sis says, “that’s diversity.” And I say… “not what I signed up for; don’t like it, won’t accept it.”

On a frequent basis over the last three days I’ve been unable to understand in Spanish, West African, Somali and Fillintheblankistanish accents, and gawd knows what other languages; I have been stared at blankly when speaking English.

Fort Morgan Colorado is gone.

Taft California is gone…. neither will be coming back. Taft was the site of the 1910 Lakeside Gusher, the biggest oil gusher ever seen in the US, which destroyed the derrick and sent 100,000 barrels a day into a lake of crude.

Some of the best years in my life were in Taft, a Standard Oil Co. company town that provided huge tax dollars to my education that I couldn’t fully appreciate from age 15 to 20.

On the streets of the historic oil boom town in Central California the most frequent sight is Hispanic males, 18-30, with backpacks and carrying at least one or two plastic grocery bags…. and just dropped off by the coyotes.

Mexifornia reached the San Joaquin long ago.

Fort Morgan is also overrun with illegals, every third store on Main Street is Mexican and just for flavor, Somalis are flooding in courtesy of a left-wing, do-gooder church that cannot seem to find any Americans to help.

Blade Runner

Waiting outside LAX for a rental car shuttle was a nightmare and very much like the sci-fi movie Blade Runner, set in 2019 Los Angeles . You can only count on the airport police to be English-friendly. Ask for directions, pick-up schedules from those waiting for the shuttle was fruitless… and most were employees wearing LAX ID cards.

And on the Denver leg of the trip just two hours before, I was busted for dangerous, potentially terrorist…. toothpaste.

Sergeant Oaf Isshus of the TSA glared at me, “Sir, you have undeclared liquids in your bag.”  

Angry White Dude: “You wanna put your paycheck on that?”

Sgt. OI: no response—first round to me on points.

Naturally I have to schlep all my boots, belt, computer, sport coat, two bags and three plastic tubs over to where he waits, hands on hips in that I-have-a-GED-and-no-one-can-take-that-away-from-me look.  It’s the kind of look we see often on this horse’s ass face:

Sarge places both hands on the my bag.

“Sir, is there anything in here that will hurt me?”

I have several options in such occasions…. I tend to group the possible retorts under:

Flippancy

Ridicule

Disgust

and Barely Contained Contempt.

I decided on “Hardly” from the Sarcasm folder,… complete with the smirk and additional facial combinations of all the above expressions. There may have been an under the breath snort.

He immediately goes to the shaving kit and there retrieves a small, near-empty toothpaste tube and a brand new tube of that $4.50 paste guaranteed to turn your teeth bright as Chiclets over night. 

Like Perry Mason holding up the smoking gun evidence just before the defendant would have been acquitted, he growls…"these are in excess of the 16.37 deciliter/gram micro dram limit (or some other bull crap communist measurement I don’t understand).”

AWD: “Well, I got here with ‘em.”

Sgt. OI: (triumphantly) “But we found ‘em.”

A one-second riposte lay lightly on my tongue:

“Your mommy must be so proud.”

Knowing I had to get to Taft, I straightened to near-attention and instead said, “Yours for a safe America.”

He had nothing…. he clutched the TWD—“Tubes of Mass Destruction”; and returned to his post to call E.O.D., still unable to tell the difference between Shari'ah, Wahabi, Hindu or Paki, but I can guarantee that he nabs every 75-year-old granny with a walker.

Fort Morgan was the loveliest little town in Eastern Colorado up to the 1980s, now many areas appear to have been airdropped from the Ozarks or deep, deep in the coon ass woods of Louisiana… or what I imagine Fallujah to be.

These pics represent what Fort Morgan’s down town looks like… I’d say about 35% of the business are devoid of English signage.

Note plywood over the window.

Had this happened 40 years ago the hardheaded Krauts that populated Fort Morgan would have marched on city hall.

This is the duplex I lived in during seventh grade. The best thing about the place was the huge back yard of luxurious grass…. just right for a giant whiffle ball diamond (the garage roof was only a ground rule double.)

Even weeds won’t cover the yard now.

I lived in this small tract home while in grade school.

Yeah, some wildflowers and shrubs, but over grown with grass and weeds for the most part.

Not far away the mother of one of my gal pals in the 1970s lives the the same trailer park sub-division she did then; since then it has turned into a way station for scores of wet backs.

She appears to be the only Anglo and only female senior in her neighborhood.

You work all your life in America and end up living your last years in Guadalajara. 

I always loved this post office, it’s neo-classical style is timeless and always reminded me of the nation’s capitol and the best postal system in the world….

…. which now helps Mexicans and Somalis send their money out of the country.

To my friends in Taft and Fort Morgan, this isn’t intended as a criticism of the towns that are still your bedrock, the homes and community you devoted your lives to preserving …. it’s just that I’d hoped for far more as we near the last few innings of this game.

Or at least to hold our own.

24: beat up from the feet up

The only memorable thing has-been actor and full-time communist Danny Glover ever uttered was “I’m getting’ too old for this s**t.”

I thought of that yesterday, sitting in the Mile High City, on stand-by, waiting for a plane, any plane, to DFW.

The refrain of Warren Zevon’s “Things to do in Denver when you’re dead”  drifted in and out of my brain from the moment I arrived from Gillette Wyo., and my Dad’s funeral.

You won't need a cab to find a priest
Maybe you should find a place to stay
Some place where they never change the sheets
And you just roll around Denver all day
LeRoy says there's something you should know
Not everybody has a place to go
And home is just a place to hang your head
And dream of things to do in Denver when you're dead

Flying “non-rev” means that when all “revenue” seats are taken I can climb aboard and with a good shot at first cabin; but  springtime in the Rockies, cancellations in the system, the ridiculous Lesbionic Homeland Security bureaucracy and the overPC and undersmart TSA combined to prevent my leaving until 8:02 p.m.—last flight of the day. After all, the Flying Granmoms (left) are one of the greatest terrorists threats we face.

… which finally got me in my bed by 12:25 a.m. today—21 hours after I started out.

Historically in these situations I am usually Angry White Dude; no super powers… but everyone stays away from me; works just as well.  But yesterday I adopted my ReporterMan visage and so-cloaked, I can be detached and just observe, as if I was not in the same boat.

So here we go (click on photo to enlarge) :

Uncle Gene and I flew out of Gillette together for Houston and North Texas respectively. A fellow traveler was kind enough to take a quick snap.

We hugged (Gene and I), wished each other well and I thought I had my standby seat. Not so fast… three available, I was fourth.

Thus began the Long March.

For the next 11 hours I reported to various gates in the DIA B Terminal only to be turned away each time; but “stand by” means exactly that. Originally I was at B23. The next flight was B60 which I estimate at between a third and a half mile.

Anyway, between schedule flights and gate changes I made the trek four times and ended up last night just two gates from where it all began. 

Interesting characters abounded.

There was Pippi Longstockings, left, who shall we say, was wound a little too tight for air travel… she went everywhere with us—The Dirty Dozen—who had the least chance to hook a ride. 

Here she was literally begging for two seats; either she wanted the agent to create more seats or to kick someone else off. I decided to make sure I always knew where she was… it wasn’t hard.

John Dapper, there, was so interesting-looking, that I almost went over to strike up a chat. He seemed above all the minor chaos, a ship of serenity in a choppy sea of wasted energy and tension.   

Later, Madame Hermione Praust-Dowager rolled past me with dignity and class born of advanced years, with the many painful  memories of the long-lived and the moxie to remain on the go while her peers shuffled land-locked with aches and pains, watching the last few innings of life’s Great Game.

She could have been Mr. Dapper’s mum.

Naturally I was drawn to the children and dogs, there was a great number of the former and few of the latter.

Here was a little guy who seemed to be whispering “hellllp meee” from his rolling incarceration. He didn’t seem miserable so much as bored and tired; I could relate.

And The Kid was most serine of all; carried everywhere, most needs immediately cared for, food provided 24-7, home and hearth, free medical care, free clothes and constant entertainment; no responsibilities, 100% ego-centric, selfish, caring little for his neighbor, desirous of others to fight his battles…. in other words, he’s well on his way to becoming a liberal democrat. 

That’s okay Kid, you’ll get it in the end because grown-ups know that “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

I love watching kids.

They wring the absolute max out of life; they go and go and go until they hit the inevitable wall.

Sleep.

Get up the next day and do it all again

 

And in the middle is that zoned-out period where they fight the inevitable, the end of the day.

I am reminded of Dylan Thomas’ admonition for those of us now a great distance from our rookie year…. “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Children live that… so should we.

That and opposable thumbs are the reason we’re the most successful omnivores in the history of all  Creation. 

Politics even made an appearance, or at least a politician in the form of former Congressman Tom Tancredo who was partly responsible for bringing the suicidal issue of illegal immigration to the forefront of voter consciousness during his run for the 2004 GOP presidential nomination.

I met him a few times; we were on a talk radio show many years ago when he was a state senator, but I was too tired to be chatty.

Still, he’s a good guy and led the way to make shoring up our borders an absolute necessity.

Here are a few more photo highlights:

These people were happy…. they had guaranteed seats:

Lady Bighair is an attractive woman in her late 30s; if I’d had more time I would have suggested taking a great deal of volume out of her mass of hair. Sometimes, less is more; I would have stressed the need for a much shorter, feathered cut to frame her face, and perhaps lighten it overall with subtle streaks about three-four shades different.

Just as importantly, Honey, you have to lose the “I’m a college sophomore living in the dorm and this is what I wear no matter what my Mom says.”  Uh-huh… that’s over Dearie; go with a gray pencil skirt, a simple blouse and a dark, short jacket to create a more visible waist; and definitely plain black boots with a three-four inch heel to elongate the figure (she couldn't have been 5’5”).

Finally…. take the Holstein cow shoes that you must have purchased on a dare and give them to a seventh grader… you’ll both be happier.  

Sorry…. where was I?

Oh… I’m winding this up.

Now this guy I have a problem with… or more correctly, his T-shirt.

Son, it’s absolutely not; and I can tell you why…write me here at the LM31 Southern Command HQ.

And I wouldn’t be a great photojournalist if I wasn’t willing to go the distance in serving my readers. I will never stop speaking truth to power and commending those willing to brave 11-degree temperatures to travel and support our national economy:

Oh…. and Pippi?

Well, after being a pain in the ass of B Terminal, she and her hubby finally got seats on a Texas outbound.

But she was nowhere to be seen; as names were called and seats taken, she was gawdknowswhere as her husband checked his watch called on the cell phone, looked down the concourse and fretted.

I’d have gotten on the plane.

Finally, probably only minutes from being the last of the Dozen, she jog-walks up, hands over her boarding pass and is now… unfortunately…  in Texas.   

It’s a drag….

On the road… (with apologies to Jacks Kerouac and Webb).

The story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect me from the usual threat of law suits.

DFW. Thursday 2:15 p.m.

I’m working the waiting watch out of  boredom. My name is Thirsty; I have no partner what with the dogs boarded at Club Canine in Denton.

There had been a storm. They say in this part of Texas it’s normal. They cancelled my flight anyway.

I should be half way to Portland by now. Niece. Graduation -- MSW-School of Social Work. Five years… she’ll be a Republican.

Instead I’m in line with all the other cancelled flight non- fliers.

Behind me are Ben and Jerry (not really, I just decided to call them  that); Ben is an Episcopal Priest in the Diocese of New York and Jerry is his special friend, or “life partner” as Episcopals seem to prefer nowadays.

I ask if they’re baseball fans… “Mets,” Ben says. I discard the usual  the jokes… it’s been a long time since 1969, why rub it in?

I’m nursing a stress headache from trying to remember everything I had to do before take off. Tires me out. I forget stuff.

I try my sure-fire “Episcopals… they’re the Catholics who flunked Latin, right?”

Jerry quips back… “Catholic Lite”, he says.

I like Jerry.

We walk a yard or two and kick our carry-on bags along; mine is tan military canvas; Ben and Jerry’s are non-descript…. not flamboyant, like you’d expect.

Ben has a brother in Houston…. Ben’s complaint is that everything he smokes in the bar-b-que tastes like “it was left behind in a burning building.”

“Is it always brisket? I ask.

“Yes,? How did you know?”

“I live here,” I said.

In an hour I learn a great deal about Ben… not much about Jerry; I assume he’s a stay-at-home priest aide or something.

4:18 p.m.

Finally it’s our turn at the counter… the boys go to Houston and I have the 8:25 to Portland.

“Mozel Tov,” I say…. Ben gets it. Ben waves shyly.

I make my way to the first bar. “Tequillarealto”…. no doubt I can get a beer.

“Thirsty,” she asks, taking in my five-o-clock shadow.

It’s 5:43 p.m.

“Yes,” I said, “how’d you know?

Consuelo cards me. I smile and say thanks; It’s important that the public take an interest in law enforcement.

After two quick beers I pay the $28 tab and tell her not to declare her tips. It’s the only way a young working mom can make it in this crazy mixed-up world.

“Mozel tov, I say.

Consuelo says, “Que?”, she grabs the tip and backs away.

Back in the boarding area, it feels like I’m in one of those airplane disaster movies from the ‘70s.

I’m George Kennedy.

It’s 7:47 p.m.

Seated across from me are The College Co-Ed, an Army sergeant headed overseas or just getting back; Amy, the young secretary on her first trip with The Boss; there seem to be no blind people or guitar cases, and lastly…. Hector, a well-meaning but a very fat man who will have the seat next to me or will be unable to open the emergency hatch when we’re screaming to get out.

I should have driven…

… with the dogs.

CAFE standards... unsafe at any speed

 

I see them in their little Euro-box, tinfoil cars with their babies strapped down like Gregory Peck's Capt. Ahab in the final scene of Moby Dick, and I cannot help but wonder... is the little politically correct, Obama bumper-stickered family doomed like the crew of the Pequod?

Sadly, many such motorists (let us call them "The Greens") are.

I just filled up for $2.62/g (prices may vary in your area); don't look for that to hold because with oil below $80/b, the ragheads are gonna shut down the production spigot pretty soon.

Anyway... in my '05 Titan pickup I get 18 mpg highway on a good day; the Greens will go 50 to 75-percent farther than I on the same amount of fuel.  

But what's the real cost?

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (via The Heritage Foundation), in the years since CAFE standards were mandated under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975:

• about 46,000 people have died (through 1998) in crashes that they would have survived if they had been traveling in bigger, heavier cars.
• This averages about 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained by the mandated mileage standards.

Furthermore, a 1989 study by Harvard School of Public Health economists found that the weight of the average American automobile has been reduced 23 percent since 1974, much of this reduction a result of CAFE regulations. They concluded that "the negative relationship between weight and occupant fatality risk is one of the most secure findings in the safety literature." Also,

• government studies have found that making small cars heavier has seven times the safety benefit than making light trucks lighter.

"But GA, what about saving our planet and reducing consumption of Big Evil Oil? 

As fuel efficiency has improved, consumers have increased their driving, thus offsetting nearly all the gains in fuel efficiency.

Use your head... you know this to be true from your own life experience: it's the well-known "rebound effect"--greater energy efficiency leads to greater energy consumption.

For example... I don't care what mileage my Harley gets or what gasoline costs. I can putt as far as I want to go for next to nothing. (I think my '92 Soft Tail gets about 50 mpg and I run Premium). If I got 3.5 mpg, I'd think about it every time I climbed on. 

The CAFE program have done nothing to decrease our reliance on foreign oil--one of its many purported goals. Moreover, it has done nothing to "improve" the environment; but it has succeeded in slaughtering almost 50,000 of us... more than the total combat deaths were suffered in Vietnam.

On the verge of an election that is sure to herald a tsunami of leftist agenda legislation such as the CAFE standards, the above is just one example of how such liberals will increase your chance... every day, in many ways... of dying early.

So, go ahead and stuff your grand kids in a piece of crap Civic, Metro or Prius if you want.

It's the Rule of Unintended Consequences which I summarize this way: "The unintended consequence of swimming polls is drowned children."      

Lastly, here's some news for The Greens as they tremble before the coming onslaught of GLOBAL WARMING: 

Parts of California see coldest temps since 1893...

Cold temps in Oregon break 118-year-old record...

Alaska glaciers grew this year, thanks to colder weather...

No Country for Old Conservatives

Despite leaving a rainforest for 102 weather here yesterday, I'm glad to be back in Texas.

I found that the Pacific Northwest while beautiful, seemed to be on vacation like I was (with the exception of the lumber and dairy industries) .

Worse (for me) was the pronounced feeling that by arriving there, I had left my country.  Like the unique ecosystem that surrounds Lake Quinault, Washington and Oregon lives in separate reality; there is no doubt that living there is great scenery and climate-wise, but politically--for me--it's not unlike being in a foreign country.

Pacific Northwest dominate culture is only just parallel to what I consider America's culture--conservative, Christian and patriotic.

A recent Seattle poll shows Obama with 52-36 margin over McCain in Washington and a 49-39 lead in Oregon... I suspect the margin would be only slightly bigger in Canada or France.

Washington's U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray rank near the top of the most liberal in the Senate. Each of them received 100% ranking from the NAACP and NARASL -- the people who want to kill babies in the womb. 

But the League of Conservation Voters only rates them at 87%. Think about it, that means the enviro-whackos are farther left than virtually any leftist virus in the nation, even the ACLU.

Seaside

The little coastal towns are Victorian, interesting, and for the most part, not overtly "touristy".

Increasingly, I felt out of place and somewhat uncomfortable, knowing that I'd have to run an ad to find a fellow conservative. Fortunately, two of my major stops were in the air and space museum in McMinnville Oregon and the nautical museum in Astoria Washington. But naturally, most of the visitors to those venues were from a presumably more conservative somewhere else.        

I think I was able to narrow my reaction to this essential... for "them" my conservatism is dismissed as politics. I disagree... this is my country, my feelings are for my nation, not for a party. Why do these fellow citizens hate my country? Why do they hate it even more during this war which threatens our virtual existence?

Why do they shout down John McCain yet cheer Ahmadinejad who has threatened to destroy us and our stalwart ally, Israel?  

Why do they praise the mass-murderer Castro and scorn Ronald Reagan? 

To "them" my views are hopelessly archaic, while theirs are oh so enlightened and global.

That's because love of country in a large portion of this nation was strangled to death in the 1960s.   

And as my faithful readers know, I place the blame directly on us--The Worst Generation---those born between 1945-1960. It is not surprising the leftists from those years never grew up sufficiently to infuse in their young, a simple, heart-felt love of America.  

Sadly, I have lost... am deprived of...  beautiful areas, great cities, even states of my beloved country. It's as if The Second Civil War has ended in a draw, but the Americans have lost.

Best part of the trip? Dani and Oliver's wedding, and seeing for the first time, the legendary Spruce Goose.

It was wonderful to see two intelligent and sober young people begin married life surrounded by family and friends.

And it was really great to photograph, touch and marvel at some of the greatest aircraft in military history.

Yeah, I bought a t-shirt.