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I'm off to the slopes for two days.... *Mainly* for the kid's sake
but I expect I'll get a shot at a debilitating injury as well.
Course I could brake a limb at home just as easily. Nah, then I'd
miss the chance to freeze my butt off at the same time.

We are a proud, ancient people...

..... an we put things on our heads.

Phone Cards

Want to help a wounded soldier this Christmas? Troops hospitalized
in Germany would greatly appreciate getting phone cards. The cards
can be sent to the marine liaison:

Landstuhl Regional Medical Center



NAVMED DT Landstuhl Ge



LRMC CMR 402 Box 4



APO AE 09180-3460

And also..... I got the following from an article in the Stars and Stripes.
Give a click:
http://www.soldiertomovies.org/

Seen on a T-shirt

What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about?

Wadja do in school today?

From ananova:

Teacher gets students to write epitaphs

A teacher in northwestern China is under investigation for getting his students write their own epitaphs

Geng Xiaohong who teaches at a secondary school in Xi'an believes epitaph writing helps develop students' values and encourages them to think about the meaning of life, reports crienglish.com quoting Xinmin Evening News.

However the practice has made some parents and experts uncomfortable because talking about death while still alive is considered taboo in China.

The paper reported Professor Hao Wenwu from Shaanxi Normal University said: "If this technique is used too often children might lose hope in their life.

Taboo in China? It seems a little creepy here too.

frankentoilet

frankentoilet, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

Googling images for 'toilet', 'urinal', and 'bidet' was terribly easy.Constructing an image of Al Franken out of them was, well, I guess that was also easy. In fact, I'm not altogether sure that a folder full of toilet images won't spontaneously form into an image of Al Franken on it's own.

Rainy

What a day to go driving. Drizzle, between periods of drizzle
and more drizzle. Almost makes you wish for a storm.
Or summer again.
Ah well.

Securing the Death Road

Well worth reading the whole thing from Iraq the Model:

Securing the death road.
Ten days ago, and just before I was heading to my work station in Samawa, I got a phone call from my colleagues warning me from tacking the road the passes through Latifriyah and at that time the news coming from that spot was indicating a close military operation to put an end for the domination of the criminals over that segment of the road to the south.

The significant piece of news at that day was blowing up a small bridge over a small canal near Latifiyah, the small town that turned into a junk yard for burnt vehicles and a slaughter house for Iraqis; officials, IP and ING members and even civilians. Not to mention that all governmental offices were destroyed there....

Puzzler

A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, "Please come over here
and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how
to get it started."


Her boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's
finished?"


The blonde says, "According to the picture on the box, it's a
tiger." Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She
lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the
table.


He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then
turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not
going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a
tiger."


He then takes her hand and says, "Second, I want you to relax.
Let's have a nice cup of tea, and then....." he sighed, "We'll put al these Frosted Flakes back in the box."

The Rev

Former Democratic presidential candidate the Rev. Al Sharpton explains
why he would have been a better candidate than John Kerry.

Cute

Bravo, a 7-month-old male cheetah cub, takes a break with CJ, a 5-month-old
Anatolian shepherd puppy, after clawing out the brain of their trainer.

The Real Struggle for Iraq

THE REAL STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ
by Amir Taheri
New York Post
September 29, 2004
excerpt, more at http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/7794:

Those who want Iraq to fail so that Bush and/or America will also fail are now focusing their energies towards a single goal: postponing elections in Iraq for as long as possible. To achieve that goal, they will stop at nothing.

It was on that basis that opponents of Iraqi elections have cooked up a story around the claim that Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the primus inter pares of the Shiite clerics in Najaf, wants the election postponed or may even boycott.

U.S. and European newspapers that had always dismissed Sistani as "a reactionary mullah" have recently put him in the headlines and devoted lengthy editorials and op-ed pieces to his supposed opposition to the holding of elections.

The initial story was built around the claim that Sistani is unhappy with the elections because the Shiite share is limited to 55 percent of the total rather than 60 percent.

This is an absurd claim for the simple reason that the planned elections treat all of Iraq as a single constituency in which every vote is equal to every other vote. And if several or even all of Iraq's political parties wish to enter the election with a single list of national unity, how could Sistani overrule them? The ayatollah has never claimed to be a dictator.

Nor is Iraq an Iranian-style "Islamic" state, where a single mullah can overrule everyone else and even suspend the basic tenets of the religion. Anyone who knows Sistani would know that he is the last person to play the deadly game of Shiite-Sunni rivalry.

Note also that the January election is to form a Constituent Assembly, a body that will write the nation's new constitution. It is therefore important that the assembly enjoy the widest possible support among all Iraqis.

Immediately after Saddam's fall, some of us had urged the Bush administration to transfer power to an interim Iraqi government and organize elections as quickly as possible. Sistani endorsed that view as early as August 2003, calling for a transfer of power to the Iraqis and the holding of elections.

His position has not changed. Sistani wants elections, and wants them as soon as possible. All he asks is that the international community, including the United Nations, play a role in organizing and supervising the series of elections planned for next year. His hope is that Iraq would not only have a new constitution, to be approved in a popular referendum, but also an elected parliament and a government with a clear electoral mandate before the end of 2006. That, he knows, is the fastest way for the Coalition forces to leave Iraq in peace and with dignity.

Sistani insists on international participation, beyond the U.S.-led Coalition, for two reasons. First, he knows that divisions among the big powers over Iraq are harmful for all concerned. He wants them to unite in helping the people of Iraq make their true feelings known through free elections. Second, he knows that the elections will enjoy greater legitimacy if the international community unanimously endorses the results.

Sistani's message is simple: Think of the future of Iraq, not the settling of past scores.

Driving tricks

I only post this because I'm pretty sure I was driving behind this guy on thursday:

Man drives 375 miles with no hands

An Indian man has driven 375 miles without using his hands in a bid to get into the record books.

It took 15 hours for R S Santhosh Kumar to drive from Parassala, near Thiruvanthapuram, to Kasargod with his hands tied to the driver's seat.

The jewellery shop owner controlled the steering wheel, brake and clutch with his legs alone, reports Vijay Times.

Kumar, from Neyyanttinkara in Kerala, said he had been training for the event for the past five years.

The event was monitored by officials of the Limca Book of Records, India's version of the Guinness Book of World Records

Having a Bad Day?

Not as bad as this guy I'd wager:
(scroll through the whole sequence)

French troops find terrorists

I got tired of looking at that sad picture so I scuttled it.
Say a prayer for the innocents caught up in Africa as well.

It's just that their "bad guys" don't carry guns or set up IED's.

Feeling Testy

I've had days like this:

Lumberjack's revenge

An angry Austrian lumberjack used his chainsaw to reduce his boss's furniture to matchsticks.

After the fight at work, the 37-year-old drove to his boss's flat in the town of St. Johann, reports Tiroler Krone.

After cutting a rectangle into the door with his chainsaw to get in, he then destroyed a table, armchair, corner seat, the complete kitchen furniture and the wardrobe.

Neighbours who heard the noise of the chainsaw called the police.

When they arrived, they found the man sitting peacefully amongst the remains of his boss's furniture.

Police say the man caused an estimated £3,500 of damage.

We Shall Whine Triumphant One Day

The Politics of Victimization

[Mel Gilles, who has worked for many years as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse, draws some parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to the election.-- Mathew Gross]

Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the new language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, “Why did they beat me?”

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.

They will tell you, every single day.

The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.....

And it continues on in this vein. I mean sheesh. Dan Rather was humiliated because he tried to use forged documents to scuttle a presidential reelection. It wasn't because we red-statists, in our ripped white tank-t's, were drunkenly hurling abuse and stomping around the trailer park, looking to open a can of whup-ass on the man. (Well, OK, I was, I'll admit it, but I was in the minority) Most people were just wondering how a major news network could stick with such an obviously flawed and biased story for so long. Is that abuse? Were the blues off somewhere making a police report, pleading with their mascara-run eyes for the officer to protect them from that mean blogger who claimed Dan's documents were forgeries. "Oh, and then they, sniffle-sniffle, questioned Dan's motives, officer. They called him, sniffle-snorfel, a liberal too, I think. Oh it all becomes a blur. I just want to stay at my mother's tonight."