Smoke on the Water

He Looks Almost Lifelike

The viewing is scheduled for this Thursday evening in Florida.

In lieu of flowers, it is requested that donations be sent to the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign or to the Republican National Committie.

Internment of the Kerry campaign is scheduled for November 3, 2004.

From The Ashes

First, my thanks to each of you who've commented, e-mailed or phoned your concerns to me these past several days.

Yes, I have kept up with reading the comments and mail. But as the preceeding post indicates, I've been mentally and emotionally taxed beyond words of late.

So, no words have been written.

Until now.

Haitus Interruptus

"Life is what happens to you while you made other plans."

It sort of fits the goings on in my world of late. And yes, my apologies to all of you for my lack of presence here at Smoke on the Water.

While I won't bore you with all of the dreary details of my life and times, suffice to say that I would have had to been a pollyanna-ish optimist to merely ascend to a healthy state of depression.

Sometimes, life just kicks you in the balls, and laughs.

Many times, I've sat here before the keyboard, but haven't had the slightest spark of energy to raise a hand to type. Although I've kept up with a most of my reading list, and have even sporadically commented some, this site has remained quiet since September 8th.

Well, that's gonna change.

I'm still clinging to hope in some personal matters, and I'm inspired beyond hope by the Category 5 implosion of the left. Further, with the demise of the misbegotten AWB, we've retaken a small piece of ground from the GFWs.

This past weekend, I made the drive from Galveston to Plano and back. Kim and Connie DuToit are not only the best of friends, but perhaps the finest hosts on the planet. I'll write more about that gathering later, but I met some truly fine people there. It was truly an honor to attend.

In all, the good outweighs the bad, and the bad has been brutal.

I don't know if that's a light at the end of the tunnel or an oncoming frieght train, but either way, I'm pressing on, regardless.

September (predictable) Surprise

Here it comes, the long expected onslaught of the left's counterattack against the President.

It's on CBS radio now, even as I type. It's in news links aplenty, as evidenced by Drudge. A new book which rehashes old and debunked charges is out, written by catty gossip queen, Kitty Kelly.

What they're attacking is chiefly, George W. Bush's Air National Guard record. They're so desperate to re-cast Kerry as being militarily superior to President Bush that they're trying to revivie the debunked meme of Bush being allegedly AWOL.

Their attacks, while despicable, laughable and frankly, childishly petulant and silly, is nonetheless to be taken very, very seriously. For they have the major socialist media in their corner. A media which has forsaken all pretense at objectivity and truly ought to have Kerry-Edwards placards on their field microphones instead of the CBS eye, etc.

Now, while I have neither the time nor inclination to do the in-depth research which will be required to debunk these leftist myths, I've no doubt that a the mainstream DNC's lapdog media is about to suffer a blogosphere avalanche which will make the Swift Boat imbroglio seem like a tempest in a teapot.

The left is beyond obvious in their attempt to emulate the impact of the Swift Boat group, hoping to realize an adverse impact on President Bush such as Kerry suffered at the hands of the swifties.

Not to be cocky, but I'm confident that the President, the RNC and a very astute slice of the blogopshere has been awaiting these scurrilous attacks. I believe that the left is about to learn once again, the meaning of the term backfire.

I think that the left has the proverbial tiger by the tail. But unlike the proverb, this ain't gonna end up butter, baby.

It's gonna be much bloodier than that.

The New Crusade

The word we're not supposed to say. Crusade! What, we're afraid of offending the murdering jihadist scum who just killed over three hundred people in Beslan, all in the name of Islam?

Let me get this out of the way right up front. Islam is not a religion of peace. Since Mohammed returned from Medina to take Mecca under the sword, Islam has always been spread by force, and rejected on pain of death.

A Message From My Dad

Just shy of two weeks ago, I flew to Orlando, FL in order to be with and help out my Dad and Stepmom while he underwent a tricky surgical procedure to fix a hole in the wall of his heart.

I'm glad to say that he's on the mend and doing well. Except for that minor annoyance known as Hurricane Frances. Obviously, my prayers are with all of yours, not only for him, but for everyone in Florida.

The winds from this storm are a bit lighter, but it's duration over land and quanity of rain are far, far greater. While giving prayers of thanksgiving that southernmost Florida dodged the bullet, lets not forget that the lands North of Miami are being pummeled for the second time in less than four weeks.

So, while Dad and Dodie are hunkered down in the stout cottage which is their castle, I thought I'd take this opportunity to pass along an open-letter he wrote by way of thanking y'all for your kindnesses while he was in dire straits.

OPEN LETTER TO: All that were kind enough to use Jim's SOTW blog to graciously wish for me a safe procedure and rapid recovery. You number so many; I felt I could not answer each one individually with any journalistic synergism.

I am reduced to being essentially "speechless". I can think of no single word, sentence, or for that matter, a paragraph that expresses just how I feel. Appreciative of your prayers, yes. However it goes beyond that. Proud that you consider Jim such a friend that you consideration spills over on-to his father,{me}. It goes beyond that.

In my stumbling way, I can only say. In body, I know none of you. In spirit, I feel as if I have known all of you for the last 20 years of my life. 20 years ago, I reached the conclusion that there REALLY is a God. Not only that, but he loved me, sinner that I was and am. That overwhelmed me.

For only the second time in my life, I have been overwhelmed. Gentlemen & ladies, I love you, one and all. You are wonderful.

Until you disavow any knowledge of me, I shall gleefully call all of you MY BLOGGERS!~

H. W. "Harry" Seigler.

I'm contiunally amazed at how smart that old-man got since I was fourteen. Funny how it works that way, ain't it?

And if I missed replying my thanks to any of you who wrote, please forgive me, and add my thanks to my Dad's.

Thank you, one and all.

Hog On Nice

Bitch. Slapped.

Hurricane Frances is but a mild breeze when compared to the force of Steve's category-five takedown of Susan Estrich's bleatings.

I blame myself for not seeing it coming. In politics, you should always let cynicism be your guide. Estrich appears on Fox News and makes an effort to be polite to conservatives, and she often seems fair, and she once went so far as to debunk the nonsense about the 2000 election results being corrupted by the involvement of a distant Bush relative. I was taken in. Then I saw her column for September 1st.

Shrill. Anti-male. Packed with baseless innuendo. The kind of thing you expect to see at Democratic Underground.

NOAA's got it wrong, friends. The Perfect Storm is alive and well, and is blogging from Coral Gables, Florida.

If Steve ever masters his piano to the same degree he does a 'puter keyboard, I'm buying front row seats to his Carnegie Hall debut.

And somehow, I don't doubt that day shall come

Guns and Crime

Here, we find a useful tool for determining once and for all, if guns really do cause crime.

Satisfying both scientific and analytical standards of acedemia, this one objective and ongoing test provides real-time proof as to the latent culpability or the lack thereof, of one particular Smith & Wesson Model 19.

Click here for proof you can see before your very eyes.

And if any of you should observe the gun in question actually cause a crime, please be sure to record the event for posterity.

Because if it does, it will be the first time in recorded history that a gun has ever been responsible for any act by a human.

grins to Airboss for the tip!

Dear John

George Bush just sent the Dear John letter on behalf of the American People.

I'm going to just quietly wipe the tears from my eyes, savor the fine cigar I've just put flame to and bask in the warm glow of the speech and the Maker's Mark, which in this instance, pales in comparison.

There simply is no comparison.

Several impressions from the speech and from the convention.

First, President Bush has more genuine presence in the tip of his little finger than Lurch has in his entire being.

Now, the talking heads of the alphabet media scramble furiously to spin this somehow into some sort of a gaffe of W's.

They will fail, and miserably.

Come the morning, we'll see all manner of literary desperation from the mainstream dead-tree, broadcast and cable media, gasping like oxygen starved catfish for any semblence of credibility to lend to the Kerry campaign fiasco.

But it's done, really.

The Kerry Kampaign is but a walking corpse, not unlike the caricture of Lurch which he so strongly resembles.

Sometimes life does bring justice, and that on occassion waxes poetic.

G'bye, Dear John. And it's not that we hardly knew you.

It's that we did.

In The Storm's Path

I have much to write about, and damn little time in which to write it.

Florida braces for yet another cataclysm, your prayers and support for all in the storm's path are vital. My folks seem to be in as good as a place as can be asked for, yet still the risks are serious and the hazards are all too real.

Hurricanes are powerful beyond words, unstoppable and relentless in their movement. Being in the path of such storms is never a thing to be desired. Yet, they are a vital part of nature's engine, bringing change and renewal by first bringing terrible havoc and destruction in unimaginably huge swaths as the storm marches across the land.

I suppose what few wise Democrats remain as their party's faithful must have that same feeling as many Floridians do right about now.

For there is coming onto their party a destruction which is indeed, powerful beyond words, one unstoppable and utterly relentless in it's movement.

The quiet tempest which is the classic, silent majority of Americans are not unlike a hurricane, organizing with neither guidance or malice into a powerful, focused and coherent force. A force which, when unleashed will do to the offical Democrat party what Hurricane Andrew did to Florida a few short years ago.

And today, Florida once more lies in the path of a storm of unimaginable power and scope. Hurricane Francis is the stuff of nightmares. The wise have already sought shelter or have secured themselves and their property as well as possible.

My folks in Orlando came through Charlie, suffering nothing worse than one lost panel of siding, a mess in the yard and a few days without power. Obviously, my hopes and prayers are that they do as well or better in this storm.

Others to keep in your thoughts and prayers are Val Prieto, Steve H., Kim, Dana, Bob Baird and Chris Muir.

Chris' cartoon says volumes:

They'll all be back, after the storm. They are all resolved to do so.

But I'm not to sure about the Dems reprise after Hurricane W. hits 'em come November. Some things, even FEMA can't fix.