I made the mistake of going shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. I will never, ever do that again. After looking through the paper on Thursday night, I decided to make a run to CompUSA to pick up a few items (only one of them gift-related). As I pulled up to the store twenty minutes before the doors opened, I saw many cars but few people. Since it was very cold, I reasoned that most people were still in their cars. At three minutes before the curtain was raised, I got out of my truck and went towards the store. It was then I saw the crowd: five hundred people, standing in a dark line that wrapped around the building. For God's sake, it was CompUSA! Are there that many nerds out there?


In preparing for my "This Day in History" commentary, I read something that, if true, is personally disturbing to me. November 29, 1950 was the day in which the Chinese got involved in a big way on the North Korean side of the Korean war. While reading up on this, I came across a small paragraph which stated that, in 2000, the Pentagon admitted that it exaggerated the number of American dead from the Korean War. It seems that, from 1950-53, any American service personnel who died anywhere in the world were counted as casualties of the Korean War. If true, this reduces the real casualty figure from 54,000 to around 36,000. Why do I care? Well, that's quite a story.

As some of you know, my father is a navy veteran of the Korean War. The destroyer he was stationed on during that time, the Floyd B. Parks, saw significant action off the coast of North Korea. When he came home between trips to Korea (he made two), he was shocked by the apathy of the people back in Louisville. One relative even asked him, "Is that war still going on?". He has often commented on the fact that as many men died in three years of fighting in Korea as died during our ten year combat involvement in Viet Nam. His point in all this has been that the veterans of Korea were given a giant blowoff by their nation, whereas we have bent over backwards for Viet Nam veterans during the last fifteen years or so. I guess he just feels like his generation, wedged between the 'greatest' generation and the boomers, got the shaft. And now, the truth may hurt even more.

If you live in the United States, today is Thanksgiving. No matter who you are or where you are in your life, if you can read this and understand it, you have much to be thankful for.

A personal hero of mine, Enrico Fermi, died today in 1954. Born in 1901 in Italy (the same year as my grandfather), Fermi did most of his early research in his home country. In fact, he was the first human being to effectively slipt a uranium atom (although he did not fully understand what was taking place until much later) in 1933. He won a Nobel Prize in 1938 and used the awards ceremony in Sweden to escape from facist Italy (his wife was Jewish). He came to the United States and taught at Columbia.

When World War II began, Fermi went to work with a research team at the University of Chicago. This team was the first group to build a crude nuclear reactor and create a sustained reaction in December, 1942. Flush with success, Fermi telegraphed Washington. Not wanting to talk about the research in open terms, he sent the following message: "The Italian navigator has reached the new world and the natives are friendly".
(By the way, the term "SCRAM", which refers to the emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor, came from this Chicago team. It is an acronym for Super-Critical Reactor Axe Man and referred to a man who stood by to cut a rope holding a rod of graphite that would be dropped into the center of the nuclear pile to absord neutrons if things got out of hand.) Fermi spent the rest of the war working on the Manahattan Project.

Henry Kissinger is going to head the investigation into why our government didn't know about 9/11 before the fact and all the conspiracy theorists are having a field day. In some circles, Kissinger is seen as a slave to the Unseen Hand, the Trilateral Commission and the Bildebergers. In other words, he's a one-world-government man. Now, I'm going to say something shocking: I don't care. G.W. had no choice but to appoint Kissinger or someone like him. He has several things going for him: He is a household name, he has not political aspirations and, although he's a republican, he's not especially conservative. If the President had appointed anyone currently involved in politics or any branch of government, it would have been seen as a prelude to a cover-up.


Of course, this is all for show. Everyone in the intelligence community already knows what went wrong before 9/11---we don't have any people in these groups working for us. The U.S. long ago quit trying to infiltrate international groups because it's risky, expensive and requires dealing with people who are less than honorable. The British and Israelis have kept up their end, but they do not have the resources we do, so gaps exist. Believe me when I say that this problem pre-dates Bush, Clinton, Bush or Reagan; no ones going to lose their job or go to prison for dropping the ball because the real architects of this disaster are already dead.

Al Gore promises a new version of himself if he runs again. If the Dems knew what was good for them, they would disown him and get someone else. But, oh GOD!, I wish he would run in '04. I mean, now he has sunk to blaming Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for liberal defeats nationwide. Gosh, it couldn't have anything to do with the liberal's lack of new ideas or morality or sense of what the American people here in flyover country really want, could it? Nahhh....of course not. That would be too easy, and it would point out the fact that the "enlightened" liberal leadership are morons. But some of us already knew that.

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past two days. I was going to post some stuff yesterday (Tuesday) morning, but a pulled muscle and Excedrin PM intervened. And so it goes.


DLP has seen fit to bring us up to speed on Zod, that lovable leader-of-the-world-in-waiting. His site is here. Kneel, you worthless human.


Today is the birthday of Jimmy Hendrix. He would be sixty. Sixty! Would he be playing Vegas now, or would he be some kind of hip-hop record producer?

There was a huge crowd on the show today. There are about forty of us on the mailing list who have a standing invitation to attend and be a part of the show; in reality, there are only about 6 of us who are regulars. Most of the people on the list are just there because they asked to be included. Two of the newer people in the group both came from a car dealership in this area with a large web presence. Neither of them work there now---they have both moved on to sales positions with IT-related companies. The problem is that both of them want to sell something to the company I work for. Normally, this would not be a problem. However, being on a radio show wherein the name of my employer is mentioned implies some representation on my part and it's something I take very seriously. The truth is, I am not in a position to make any decision regarding their propositions. The most I can do is pass them off to my network manager, which is something I hesitate to do: it's the computer-geek equivalent of giving a group of Jehovah's Witnesses someone else's home address.


The situation will handle itself, of course. I will either blow them off or pull them aside and tell them that I am not going to act as a conduit for sales leads. But there is something else that troubles me: I, and many, many other people out there, never leave work. We are always connected to the corporation at parties, family gatherings, etc. When I'm on the radio, I mention the name of the company I work for because I want the listeners to know that I work in the IT field; otherwise, I wouldn't mention it at all. But people who are always "on", always networking, always making that new "friend", can't leave it alone. What's even worse is that what I experience is small potatoes compared to people in highly-visible positions. I would much rather meet someone and talk to them about something other than what I do for a living. I'm not embarrassed by it and I make a good living; it just doesn't really define me as a person. But yet, I am guilty of the same thing, especially when I meet a man for the first time (call me sexist)....you know, "So, Bob, what do you do?" "Well, Matt, I'm the Chief Counsel to the Holy Roman Emperor. However, after the merger, I will become Head of Thought for God." Yeeecccchhh.

Some of you who are politically and historically astute may be wondering why I have not commented on the anniversary of the Kennedy assasination. My omission was intentional for two reasons:


First, anything I write about it would have to include my personal theory on who had him killed, which has no basis other than my own gut feeling and a very good book I read about seven years ago. And since conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen these days, I don't want to sound any more like a crackpot than I already do.

Second, the baby-boomers have made JFK into the second coming of Christ. He was a good (but not great) President who led the country during a very tense time and stirred feelings of optimism not felt since the end of World War Two. However, his reputation for greatness has now far exceeded anything he did in his life. His father bought the 1960 election in Chicago, which won his son the state of Illinois, which then won him the Presidency. There is some serious doubt as to whether or not he would have won reelection in 1964. Stories about his death written by the ex-hipppies who now run the mainstream media portray that day in Dallas as the day all innocence was lost in this country. While it was a very, very serious blow to the national psyche, the real loss of innocence came from our increased presence in Viet Nam, a presence Kennedy expanded and wholly supported during his term (despite Oliver Stone's assertion that Lyndon Johnson started the whole thing).


Political assasination always damages a nation. It represents a break-down of the moral fabric and the peaceful transfer of power that has become the hallmark of our nation. But the boomers, in true "me, me, me" form, have managed to make the Kennedy assasination a crucifixion of all that was good in America. It is a childhood fantasy run amock; everything would've been OK if only daddy hadn't run off with the stripper. It happened when most of them were young and idealistic, and it seems as if the concrete of their passions set at that point.


Of course, this is grist for the mill to many boomers, the people who elected "one of their own" to two terms in the White House despite shady land dealings in Arkansas and more than a few missing people who later turned up as corpses. If you watch the news closely enough, you begin to see that most issues are wrapped around them: early reporting of AIDS in the 1980's ("we're not safe anymore") and Social Security ("the aging of the baby boomers") just to name two. It is generational narcissicism, and it even extends to entertainment: does anyone rememeber "ThirtySomething"? How about "The West Wing"?

I have to say that I have some amazing friends. Not until today (this very hour, in fact) did I know that an electric razor could be used as a marital aid in the event of an emergency. Not the business end, you boob; the handle end. The story is so convuluted that I'm not going to repeat it here, but damn! It's one of those tales whereby someone deserves both a man-hug and a swift kick in the jewels. Sorry...I had to share.

Vladimir Putin is questioning how staunch some of our allies (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) really are. I agree with him 100%. If we could have seen behind the closed doors of power, my guess is that, after 9/11, Pakistan was read a list of American demands and she folded. Saudi Arabia is another matter. Our relationship with her is only one of convienence for both parties. It sort of reminds me of our relationship with Marcos in the Phillipines: he was anti-communist, so we played along while he stole from his own people. Times are different now, and the Saudis are on the other side of the table. If I were Bush, I would make a move towards making Russia a member of NATO. Crazy? Not in the least bit. They know terrorism first-hand, they have proven that they can be steadfast allies and it would show how serious we are about keeping them in the "friend" column. And, as far as Europe is concerned, they are the toughest SOBs on the block.


The Sci-Fi Channel aired a documentary tonight about the "UFO" crash at Roswell, New Mexico. The channel hired an archaeological team to dig in the area rumored to be the crash site. As you can imagine, they found nothing conclusive. It amazes me that, 55 years after the "fact", people still debate about a government cover-up. As Ben Franklin said, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in the past few days. The node our cable modem is on has been down for about two days and this is first chance I have had to get back online. I can create posts at work, but I can't publish them. I'll try to come up with something juicy tonight if anything strikes my fancy.

Here's an article in Time magazine from some investment guru telling people to take out a second mortgage and buy stock with the money. Let me see if I understand this: go into more debt to make investments in something that is highly uncertain in the the short term. Am I the only person who sees anything wrong with this? Evidently I am. Here's an interesting factoid for you: the number one reason people take out a second mortgage on their home is to....drumroll, please...buy a car. A car? That's right, a car. That's taking equity out of an appreciating asset and investing it in an overpriced appliance.


I do realize that I have a bias: I hate the idea of a car payment. We have a small one now, only because we didn't have quite enough money saved to pay for our Focus outright (had we been able to wait another year, we would have paid cash for one). But it really bothers me to make payments on something that is depreciating as I type this and, by the time we are finished with it, will be practically worthless. But, somewhere in time, cars became "investments". Is a toaster an investment? No way. The only difference is one of price; somehow, the auto makers had to make us believe that their product is worth a year or two's post-tax wages (depending on what you buy). It's a sham, but we all buy into it---after all, we are what we drive. All flash. And, man, am I getting sick of it.

I just heard an interesting quote from Dennis Prager (I'm paraphrasing): "After seeing the twentieth century, faith in the goodness of humanity takes a leap of faith that makes belief in the supernatural seem rational." And I have to agree. Furthermore, I believe this is one of the fundamental differences between the left and the right in this country: the left believes that paradise on Earth can be achieved if we only had that one, final something that would usher in a new era. That thing could be national healthcare, less defense spending or whatever. Those of us on the right believe in the sinful nature of man: people are greedy, selfish, base creatures who are only kept from anarchy through the moral values extolled by our judeo-christian society. Morality can not be legislated or enforced by higher taxes.

Kelli and I went to the Speed Museum this past weekend to see a traveling exhibition of French painters. To be accurate, it was actually an exhibition of painters who worked in France, since Mary Cassatt was included and she was an American. I found it mesmerizing to see so many works that have only existed for me in books. I am by no means an art expert; if I see something and it strikes a chord in me, I like it. It can be the color or the subject matter or the mood.


So there was a small Monet there. I have never seen a Monet up close and I was struck at how heavy his brushstrokes were. I mean right there, inches from my nose, was a canvas that he worked on and touched and cared about. The little globs of paint were still bright, as if he had painted it the day before I saw it. It was like getting to read "The Great Gatsby" from Fitzgerald's hand-written first draft. There was just something so personal about it that defies description. I know this sounds sappy, but I actually found myself tearing up a little as I stood there. To passersby, I must've looked catatonic.

Today in 1967, Father Charles Watters was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. For those of you whose only use for Catholic priests is as the butt of jokes about young boys, I post the entire citation here:


"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Chaplain Watters distinguished himself during an assault in the vicinity of Dak To. Chaplain Watters was moving with one of the companies when it engaged a heavily armed enemy battalion. As the battle raged and the casualties mounted, Chaplain Watters, with complete disregard for his safety, rushed forward to the line of contact. Unarmed and completely exposed, he moved among, as well as in front of the advancing troops, giving aid to the wounded, assisting in their evacuation, giving words of encouragement, and administering the last rites to the dying. When a wounded paratrooper was standing in shock in front of the assaulting forces, Chaplain Watters ran forward, picked the man up on his shoulders and carried him to safety. As the troopers battled to the first enemy entrenchment, Chaplain Watters ran through the intense enemy fire to the front of the entrenchment to aid a fallen comrade. A short time later, the paratroopers pulled back in preparation for a second assault. Chaplain Watters exposed himself to both friendly and enemy fire between the 2 forces in order to recover 2 wounded soldiers. Later, when the battalion was forced to pull back into a perimeter, Chaplain Watters noticed that several wounded soldiers were lying outside the newly formed perimeter. Without hesitation and ignoring attempts to restrain him, Chaplain Watters left the perimeter three times in the face of small arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire to carry and to assist the injured troopers to safety. Satisfied that all of the wounded were inside the perimeter, he began aiding the medics--applying field bandages to open wounds, obtaining and serving food and water, giving spiritual and mental strength and comfort. During his ministering, he moved out to the perimeter from position to position redistributing food and water, and tending to the needs of his men. Chaplain Watters was giving aid to the wounded when he himself was mortally wounded. Chaplain Watters' unyielding perseverance and selfless devotion to his comrades was in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army."


What the citation doesn't mention is that the bomb which killed Father Watters was from an American plane.

Sorry I didn't post anything over the weekend. I had some update work to do on the ol' PC which ended up being a long tear-down/cleanup.


I heard an ad just now for Diesel Injection Service, the company I used to work for. It is a very small operation, so it is strange to hear them advertised on a large station (where ad time is pricey). It is also strange to hear the place described as "exciting, rewarding and fast-paced". For some strange reason, no one said "dirty, thankless work at a company run by a man who, were it not for his father, would be selling used cars at a buy here/pay here lot". I'm not bitter. Really.


The battle for the Ia Drang Valley began today in 1965 in South Vietnam. This was the battle portrayed in the movie "We Were Soldiers". It marked the first significant battle between U.S forces and the NVA. The North Vietnamese were routed, but not before the Americans sustained heavy casualties.

Damn...I just lost an entire post. ARGH!

So let's try this again. As you are probably aware, I use Blogger (www.blogger.com) to host this web log and provide the template. On the sign-in page, there is a section listing recently updated blogs. I try to click on one or two a day and I have been pleasantly suprised many times. There is one thing, however, that I find troubling: the lack of proper grammar and usage in other people's posts. Lest you not think me hip, let me state that I understand the "new-speak" that many of the kiddies use today. It's a sort of "I like to write, but not the way the Man demands" protest. Well, kids, it's crap. We speak a wonderful language that is, for all intents and purposes, a universal tongue. It should be preserved, and preservation starts with proper usage.

I am not without sin. I have been remiss in not using proper capitalization and punctuation in my posts. That ends today. Sister Claretta would be proud (DLP, ask Stazz).

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight; nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety; is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better persons than himself."


-- John Stuart Mill

voyager 1 flew by saturn today in 1980. this marked the first time that a spacecraft from earth had flown by the huge, ringed planet. up to that point, astronomers believed that saturn had six rings; the fly-by proved that there were hundreds of rings, seemingly defying the laws of physics. any time you see a huge, color-enhanced photo of saturn, it probably came from this mission or the mission of voyager 2, which flew by the planet in 1981.


i'm not going to get on a god-rant here, but there is almost something miraculous about the way the planets are arranged in our solar system. for those of you who slept through this part in grade school, let's review: Mary's Violet Eyes Make John Stay Up Nights Proposing. what, you say? mercury, venus, earth, mars, jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune, pluto in that order, going out from the sun. if earth were any closer to the sun, it would be too hot to support mammals as we know them. any further away, and it would be too cold. on top of that, jupiter and saturn and large enough that they exert some serious gravity on anything heading towards us from outside the solar system. this doesn't completely protect us from huge stuff, but it does do a pretty decent job. makes you wonder.

bill moyers has written an editorial you need to read. even though he will never read it, here's my response to his "thoughtfulness":


mr. moyers,

i read with some interest your latest 'now' editorial. it is unfortunate that, in your last active years, you have chosen to become a mouthpiece for the hard left in this country. it is even more unfortunate that my tax dollars go to pay your pbs salary. however, since pbs long ago lost any semblance of balance in news coverage, i suppose your opinions are considered mainstream in the halls of public television. those of us who know better long ago stopped voluntarily contributing to public media.

i wonder what brought you to this. was it your years of service in the johnson administration, where you saw a war in southeast asia become a quagmire because of an ineffective democrat? no, that can't be it; even johnson seems competent in comparison to jimmy carter or bill clinton.

was it your years at cbs news, where you saw national journalism go from a noble profession to an entertainment venue full of socialist bias? no, this isn't right, either; you were a raging liberal long before the large paychecks of network news called you away from public service.

i think, mr. moyers, that you have been done in by time. those of your ilk are getting old now, and age brings reflection. and you must realize that, despite all you have accomplished in your life, your beliefs have met with failure. the 'great society' that johnson dreamed of produced generation after generation of welfare dependency. 'non-aggression' with the soviets only resulted in their invasions of czechoslovakia and afghanistan and only ended when a 'war-monger', ronald reagan, met and beat them at their own game. the liberal dream of universal healthcare was stomped out by the great unwashed, those who you claim to be one of but secretly loathe.

you lost, mr. moyers, and now you are a bitter man. pitiful.

today is veteran's day. if you are a veteran, please accept my thanks for your service to our nation. i am a veteran by the dictionary definition of the term: i wore the uniform, did what was asked of me, and got out with an honorable discharge. but when i think of veteran's day, i always think of the men and women who have actually been in harm's way. those are the people to whom this day belongs.


kelli and i were in the bookstore last weekend and i was thumbing through g. gordon liddy's new book. in one of the chapters, he mentioned a rather startling statistic: during world war two, sixteen percent of the population was in the military in some shape or form. today, at any given time, less than 1% of the population is in the active-duty military. a thought struck me when i read that: there are many, many people of my generation who just don't 'get' the military. that crystalizes so many things for me in terms of my outlook on the world and such. it also explains the 'loathing' that so many feel about the military: their impression of the military has come from hollyweird, not from first-hand experience. it all makes sense.

the u.s. marine corps was formed today in 1775. semper fidelis, you guys (and gals). i think the marines are still angry that they are considered part of the department of the navy. after all, sailors are considered soft by marine corps standards. but i digress.


we had some serious, serious weather here earlier tonight. several tornadoes touched down north and west of here, but we were spared the worst of it. i was still at the radio station when the warnings started coming in and we quit taking computer calls and began turning things over to the feds to issue warnings (as if stations have a choice; those weather notices override local broadcasting and CAN NOT be bypassed). i left at 5:30 because i could no longer serve a purpose and i wanted to get home to kelli in case anything went wrong. went i got here, she had already broken out the flashlight, the candles and had some blankets in the bathroom (the safest place in this house). god love her; she's a planner.

apocalypse now voted the best movie of the past twenty-five years by a group of british film critics. that'd be just fine with the boys on the boat...they just wanted to go home.

wait, wait, wait...my favorite line from the original theatre release of the film: "they taught men to drop fire from the sky but they wouldn't let them write 'f**k' on the sides of the their planes because it was obscene."

best exchange (between marlon brando and martin sheen):"are you an assasin?"----"i'm a soldier"----"you are neither. you are an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill"

i've seen it once or twice. by the by, DO NOT rent the 'redux' version....there are reasons they edit films, and sometimes those reasons are worthwhile.

the talk of nuking ourselves into extinction made me think of my favorite post-apocalyptic movie, damnation alley. george peppard (the a-team), jan micheal-vincent (airwolf---one of my all-time corny favorites) and some other faces you'll know. check out the link; you'll enjoy the read.

interesting group of photos on art bell's web site: prisoners from afghanistan in transit to cuba. it's art bell, after all, so you'll have to come to your own conclusions.


it's cold and clear here tonight and the stars are bright. in a way, the stars are like time machines; the light we see left them long before we were born and, in some cases, long before there were human beings around to look up at the night sky. so we look up and see a star (and possibly a solar system) as it was, not as it is. and somewhere out there, i am sure, some being on another planet looks out at the average star that is our sun and wonders about us. it wouldn't suprise me to discover that there are civilizations watching us or listening to us right now. they don't come here because, right now at least, we have nothing to offer them

there is an interesting theory (i don' t know who originated it) which holds that any civilization with plans to develop interstellar travel has to first survive the discovery of plutonium and uranium. we have had atomic power for nearly 60 years, an instant in galactic time. we are still dealing with it. eventually, one of two things will happen: we will either move beyond the danger (through better defense or universal disarmament) or we will destroy ourselves. if we render the 'nuclear option' useless, then conventional war on a worldwide scale once again becomes possible. at that point, we will have to address the real causes of strife on our planet: greed, lust for power and all the other sins of man that have been with us since cain and abel. if, somehow, we move beyond our base selves, then, perhaps, we will be contacted by one of the more 'senior' civilizations that i believe is out there watching and listening.


and you thought i was going to talk politics, didn't you?

i am in serious need of some information, and i'm hoping that someone reading this can help. ebay has been running an ad in some of the mags i read that shows seven people standing on a rooftop holding various items. they are standing in kind of a 'v' formation and the guy closest to the camera is holding what appears to be a handspring treo phone/pda. you have probably seen the ad. so here's the dilemma: i really, really want to know where the photo was taken. the skyline in the background looks very familiar, as if i have been very near to where the picture was taken. it's one of those weird things that just makes me stare at the ad whenever i see it. it's driving me crazy.

i don't know where to begin to look. it's obviously not a stock photo; it was probably shot just for the ad. i have considered contacting ebay, but i'm pretty sure that would be fruitless. the company is headquartered in san jose, ca., but that probably doesn't mean anything, either. it's getting to be like a song i can't get out of my head. any help you can send my way would be appreciated.

abraham lincoln was elected to the presidency today in 1860. he was the first republican to hold the office. lincoln had entered the national spotlight during his 1858 run for a u.s. senate seat in illinois, where he debated opponent stephen douglas over the issue of slavery. these debates came to be known as the lincoln-douglas debates and still stand as classics of the political scene. in those days, a 'stump' speech was often really given from a stump, and you only heard the orators if you were standing within earshot. lincoln, a giant man for his generation, probably had no problem holding everyone's attention. i have always wondered what the great men of the 18th and 19th centuries sounded like; we have written histories that describe a man's style, but no audio. the first president for whom we have recordings is theodore roosevelt. his voice, captured by the crude recording devices of the day, comes off tinny and small, but loud.


question of the day: could ike eisenhower be elected in 2002? how about william howard taft? what do these two have in common? neither of them was good-looking by our current standards. ike was not particularly tall and was bald. taft was enormous and weighed in at something like 300lb. (rumor has it that he had to have a bathtub specially made and installed in the white house).

i am thinking about electability and good looks because of the third congressional district race over in louisville. ann northup, the republican incumbent, won the race, but by a fairly small margin. her opponent, jack conway, is a young, very handsome guy who worked in the governor's office. no democrat has come this close to defeating northup, but, then again, none of them have been this attractive. this may seem trite, but there is logic to be found here. conway didn't really hit on any hot-button issues; he just sort of told everyone that he was the other choice and he looked good doing it. mike ward, who held the seat before northup and was beaten by her in '96, is short and fat, but ran a very good campaign. hmmm. just a thought.

i get taken out to the woodshed over at dlp's place. read all about it.

well, well, well...the people have spoken. maybe now, we'll get some federal judges confirmed instead of burying them in the judiciary committee.

and gray davis was re-elected in california. he spent $68 million, a record for any governor's race in history. funny thing is, simon was a pathetic opponent and he came within 8 or so points of actually winning. bye, bye, national aspriations. but, you know, it was typical california: style over substance, sound and fury signifying nothing.

walter mondale goes into retirement starting today. funny thing about that minnesota race: the democrats, always flying the flag of cultural diversity and tolerance, picked an old, rich white guy. good job and thanks for playing.

quote from tom petty in rolling stone (yes, i do thumb through it) about the sexualization of young girls (one of the things that makes me want to vomit):

"It's disgusting. It's not just pop music, it's fashion, it's TV, it's advertising, it's every element of our culture. Young women are not being respected, children aren't being respected. Why are we creating a nation of child molesters? Could it be that we're dressing up nine-year-old women to look sexy? And even if we're wrong, let's not do it anyway. I really don't put it past these advertising people to say, 'Well, look, we made a lot of money when we brought the nine-year-old out and made her look like a hooker. Let's do it again.' "

don't do me like that

and so today is election day. regardless of your political leanings, you owe it to your nation to go vote. voter apathy is born of ignorance; anyone who says that it doesn't make any difference who gets elected is too lazy to do their homework and learn the issues. republicans and democrats are polar opposites on many, many important issues of the day. i'll give a brief synopsis (this list does not represent individual candidates, but the party platforms...your results may vary):



1. if you support the death penalty, vote republican. if not, vote for the democrat. (this is the one big issue with which i disagree with my conservative friends; i do not believe that you can be both pro-life and supportive of the death penalty).

2. if you think you're taxes are too high, vote republican. if you like giving away your money, vote for the democrat. (republicans have raised taxes before, but only rarely)

3. if you think gun ownership is a right inherent in the free nature of man and NOT by the federal government, vote republican. if the big, shiny guns scare you and you think the bad men should turn them in, vote for the democrat.

4. if you believe people should be judged on the content of their character, vote republican. if you believe that we need programs to 'level the playing field' by lowering standards for minorities for college admissions, public service jobs, etc., vote for the democrat.

5. if you believe our military should remain the world's finest, vote republican. if you believe that having a strong military makes us a 'bully' that 'forces' our culture on other societies, vote for the democrat (and please grow a pair while you're at it)

6. if you believe that there is a distinct american culture and that this is greatest society the world has ever known, vote republican. if you believe all societies are equal, vote for the democrat (if you are a woman and believe in respecting all cultures, please move to saudi arabia where women can be beaten in the streets or, better yet, move to any of the african countries where female genital mutilation is common and condoned in the name of islam...and dont' forget to take your burkha).



on another note, i read something in this month's wired magazine about the pearl river delta and all the taiwanese companies that have relocated there. i was not aware, until i read the article, that it is now legal for companies from taiwan to operate in mainland china. as many of you know, taiwan is considered a 'renegade province' by the chinese government. therefore, i always thought that no economic cooperation between the two was allowed. that changed in 1990, but no one called me to let me know (damn you, deng xiapeng!).

here's my point: when i build a pc, i can tell you where all the parts are made before i buy them: the case is from china; the monitor is from korea, taiwan, malaysia or china; the motherboard, memory, video and sound cards are made in taiwan; the cpu (i like amd) is from germany, ireland or malaysia; and on and on. now, everything that says 'made in taiwan' is probably made in china. that means your pc or mac is almost 100 percent chinese. now, who really runs the internet?

seems like the cia found some terrorists responsible for the bombing of the uss cole in yemen in 2000 and sent them to meet allah. fewer of them means less danger to us and that's a good thing. thus will be this war from now on, i believe: small incursions, hits on one or two people. even if we go into iraq, it will be small potatoes compared the first gulf war. our military, although smaller than it was during the cold war, is exponentially more powerful. the next ground incursion by u.s. forces will see the beginning of what tom clancy called 'hyper-war'---surgical strikes that destroy a nation's ability to fight almost instantaneously. the old, traditional concept of fighting overland to a nation's capital is done; from here on out, we'll go right to the capital and knock the head off the beast. it saves lives on both sides.


today in 1990, iraq issued a statement saying it was prepared to fight a "dangerous war" rather than give up kuwait. they have a habit of issuing death threats like that. then, after the b-52s fly away, everyone is crying and surrendering to helicopters and news crews from cnn.

the iran hostage crisis began today in 1979. it ended 444 days later when then-president carter promised to unfreeze $5 billion in iranian assets and give $3 billion in aid. i don't think the aid was ever given; i'll have to check that out.


interesting story about that. during the crisis, richard marcinko (who went on to write the excellent non-fiction book 'rogue warrior' and ten other less-than-great novels) was working in the pentagon as an aide to the cno (chief of naval operations). as many of you know, a rescue operation that was supposed to set the hostages free ended in failure and the deaths of eight servicemen. marcinko was in the planning meetings for the raid, and was blown away by the lack of aggressiveness on the part of some of the generals involved. part of the plan called for one of the helicopters to land near a highway south of tehran that was lightly traveled at night. one of the generals asked, 'what happens if a car comes along?' marcinko's answer: ' we have no choice but to kill the passengers; we can't let them go and we won't have enough men to guard them'. the room fell silent and one of the generals asked: 'you would kill civilians?' marcinko responded: 'the hostage-holders are all civilians; if we have the chance, we should kill them all as a message'. the room fell silent again. it was then marcinko realized that the raid would fail because the american military could not be as bold as the men who had taken the hostages. food for thought: if a people only understand brutality, do we resort to brutality to make them understand the error of their ways? hmmmm.

bill clinton and his florida harem. in the name of heaven, when will he go away? he's like that drunk uncle that keeps coming by the house and pinching your sister's butt. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

the promotion at the mall went well in comparison to the low expectations i had set for the event. i only talked computers with one fellow and his friend, both of whom i had seen around town when the wife and i were still into the club scene. the problem centered around service pack 1 for windows xp, which is causing problems for some people. if asked, i tell people to proceed with the update, because, one way or another, we will eventually have no choice---it will probably become a prerequisite for future security updates, etc. b.s. tells people to steer away from it, and we actually argued about it on the air one day. now, whenever anyone has a problem with the service pack, i get called into action. it's like i'm the patron saint of winxp sp1. bow before me, you sinners.


so i walked in the door this afternoon and the phone was ringing. it was her. i'm not going to say who 'her' is, but some of you know the story and the rest of you will have to use your imagination. she calls kelli every now and then, presumably to keep their friendship from high school alive. but it never fails---she calls when kelli's not home. then there's an awkward few minutes while we talk and catch up on what's happening in our lives, and then we say goodbye. and you know what? it's been fourteen years and it still hurts to talk to her.


i know what you're thinking: matt, you're married now. you shouldn't think that way. well, it's not what you think. the last time she was in town and the usual weirdness ensued, i spent a long time thinking about why i get so bent out of shape when she's around. there was a time when i would've walked through fire for her. she was the air i breathed and the reason i got up in the morning. at a time in my life when nothing went right, she was the one thing that made life worth living. but that time passed long ago. now she is just someone i used to love, another regretful mistake for my warehouse of wrong turns. so why? why?


there are two answers. the easy answer says that, when she's around, i am reminded of the person i was: scared, jealous, confused, crying and thinking that tommorrow would not be any better than today because she might not be there and the thought of that was too much to bear so i dealt with the issues and the constant drama and the mood swings and every other goddamned thing that came with the package. and i hated myself for it, and very nearly lost friends over it and, if i could read my heart as it was then, i probably went in the navy because of it. so when that phone rings and it's her, i am that kid again, angry and hurt and needing to make her feel pain like i did. but the niceties of adulthood turn me down to a rational old friend who never talks about the past with the girl he would have done anything for.


then there is the harder answer: she has accomplished everything she every set out to do, and that's just not the way it was supposed to be. i needed her to fail, and fail hard, in order to even up the score. but she never did. she kept on going, all the way to a great marriage and a doctorate. i long ago quit wishing ill will upon her; but hearing her makes me realize that i once did and it kills me to think i held any one person in so much contempt. she did not deserve it---she had more to deal with than i could have ever imagined. and that makes me feel that much smaller for my ill will.


wow...i probably shouldn't post this, but it's going anyway. i am the man i am because of all that i have done, and this is part of that, for better or worse.

the iraqi vice-president says that americans will be sent to hell if we invade iraq. ummmm, ok, asshat.

i remember before the gulf war, the media were crying like a group of unpaid whores about how large the loss of life was going to be in iraq. and look what's changed: absolutely nothing. the same tired, lame arguments put forth by the same, tired ex-hippy journalists about how "we just can't go it alone" without the u.n. if memory serves, the last time the u.n fought a full-fledged war it was in place called korea. who did the fighting and dying by a large, large majority? americans. who mans the dmz today? americans. who rebuilt south korea? americans. is there a pattern to this from which we could learn? why, yes virginia, there is: the u.s. IS the united nations. without u.s. support, the u.n. would become, like g.w. said, a debating society. too late, george; it's already useless and weak.

i'm listening to a replay of the paul wellstone "memorial" service from tuesday. for those of you who missed it, here's a story about the backlash.

why is anyone suprised? this is the party of bill clinton, al gore, jesse jackson, lewis coleman (local guy), gray davis and tom daschle. did you really think that they would be somber and respectful? my god, people, there were t.v. cameras there! they had to turn it into a rally! that's what the left does: spew emotion, kill the messengers and, never, never let the truth get in the way of feeling good and spreading the "love".


i am soooooo looking forward to the elections on tuesday. one of the reasons i am looking forward to it is because we get to vote, one of the greatest rights we have as a free people. i also love voting because of our polling location: a small school here in town where kelli and i are minorities. i would be willing to lay down large green, based on national trends, that we are the only registered republicans in the precinct. in 2000, there was active campaigning going on by the POLL WORKERS (things like "now, you make sure you don't vote for bush, now, ok?" to which i responded, "oh yeah, algore's my man" and laughed). i didn't fret; i knew that g.w. was going to carry indiana. this time, we get a chance to throw out barron hill, our congressman in the ninth district. mike sodrel, his opponent, is a solid guy who has been involved in the community (esp. the boy scouts) for years and runs a very successful trucking business. i have a soft place in my heart for the trucking industry, and it helps that i agree with him on many issues.