Smoke on the Water

A Decent Honor

Every now and then, someone comes up with a thought of such power and simplicity, that the only thing to do is to simply agree; to say yes, that's right.

This is right.

I’m going to ask for as much help as anyone can give me on this, because this idea, I think is bigger than me.

Now, I'll have to add a black suit to my scant wardrobe of blues and greys, but that's a small thing.

Thanks, Og, for bringing this bit of nobility to the fore.  Long, long overdue also, welcome to the blogroll......  I'm proud to have you there, sir.

I sure hope this snowballs 'round the blogs.  As much as my site has diminished (kinda happens that way when I barely deign to write for weeks n' months at a time), it'll take a whole lotta mention on the high-traffic sites for this to take off the way it should.

Do help spread the word, m'kay?

Party Time

No, not that kind of party.

This kind.  Having been invited to a meeting of interested Galveston County Republicans, I arranged for a late arrival at work today, so that I could participate in this feedback session.

This session will be more about hearing FROM YOU than about speaking to you.  Some officials and activists will speak but everyone will be expected to keep comments short so that we can get around the room several times - NO LONGWINDED SPEECHES.  The hope is to hear both your carefully thought out comments as well as spontaneous input based on the input from others.

The audio will be made into a digital file and sent along with a key points transcript to Republican Party leaders, conservative movement leaders and elected officials across the state and nation.

And quite a session it was.  Starting with a great breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns biscuits n' coffee, the group enjoyed not only a hot and hearty meal, but a very fulfilling discussion of the Party and it's recent debacle at the polls.

With better than thirty active Republicans attending, a free-form dialogue ensued.  The comments of the attendees were virtually 100% on-target, forcefully yet respectably stated, and very, very refreshing to hear.

One thing I'd noted from the group as a whole, was how very, very little awareness existed among Republican operatives about the greater blogosphere, and of specific heavy-hitting conservative blogs in particular.

And that really, is too bad.  Because I'm of the firm belief that had certain personages among the Republican heirarchy been more familiar with those blogs, that a much greater awarness of discontent among the rank and file may have been noted in time to help stave-off the disaster which was November 7th.

So, for my new found friends of this Saturday morning, please allow me to introduce you to some of these highly persuasive voices in the conservative blogosphere.  Please do add these to your daily reads, and be the wiser for so doing!

Ace of Spades

Captain's Quarters

Cigar Intelligence Agency

Cold Fury

Doc Russia

Grouchy Old Cripple

Kim DuToit

LaShawn Barber

Michelle Malkin

Power Line Blog

Random Nuclear Strikes

The Lawdog

The Smallest Minority

Rivrdog

Kindly note that I've not specified each and every site on my blogroll.  That's not to denigrate those not listed, but I only want (for now) to draw attention to the more straightforward political commentary therein.  Some of the links on my blogroll are there as I simply admire, and enjoy, reading their works, regardless of topic.  And yes, I would urge you to spend a bit of time visiting them also, as much depth and worth exisits in their words.

Going further afield from straight commentary to some very impassioned and scathing rants, you can visit:

The Anti-Idiotorian Rottweiller

Four Right Wing Wackos

Just for two fine examples!

Now, of equal importance...   just as political, but with the unique voice of the Uniformed Services, resides the Mil-Blog community, and as represented on my blogroll:

Baldilocks

Blackfive

Citizen Smash

Greyhawk

Sgt. Hook

Of course, if you're not checking in at:

Drudge

Instapundit

..... at least three times daily, well then, you're just not up to date with the news behind the news!

And in closing, please allow me the indulgence of leaving you with a few of my better bits of political writing:

Fool's Gold

Us or Them?

Hard Hats

With this, a final link to a  more acerbic work, inspired in anger by the beheading of Mr. Nick Berg.

Lessons of Enemies.  Which, I'm happy to say, was nominated by some libs out there as one of the 20 Most Hateful Posts of 2004.  Damnation from the left is high praise, indeed!

Now then.  Enjoy the reads, and do please kindly leave your thoughts and comments by clicking on the word "comments" at the bottom of this post!

I sincerely hope that this morning's session will do some good.  Locally, to be sure.  Statewide, if we're lucky...and Nationally?  Who knows, but I'm not watching for pigs on short final in the pattern.

Nice to have met ch'y'all, everyone!

A Song of Hope

In a world overflowing with ugliness, beauty yet abounds.

A week suffering the repulsive assault of the Cajun Crackwhore, featuring well, what else....her crack; I arrived home with my senses numbed and my face hard.  Work has been such of late, but I'm saved only by the love which awaits at the home to which I hurry, nightly.

With dinner complete tonight, one random click of the remote landed the TV upon such as I had never seen nor heard.  And at the first crystaline note, my heart melted, my face softened.  Gone, the hardness, the bitter and angry defense against an ugly election, ugly media, ugly customers and an increasingly bleak and ugly culture.

Here, sing angels.

I'm sure I'm the ultimate latecomer to the phenomenon which is the group Celtic Woman.  But I'm equally sure that I'll not be the last on this bandwagon.

Believe me, incredibly though it may seem, they sound even better than they look.  They are indeed, a tonic for a weary soul.

Think of this.  Such is the power, majesty and quality of their performance, that the nausea which has been months of the self-crucifying madonna are purged from the mind's eye, gone and replaced by beauty and vocal splendor which the mateiral girl false prophet of whoredom could never imagine. 

The Dixie Chicks Ditzy Twits only dream of possessing a tenth of the talent, grace and beauty of this ensemble.

With the thundering orchestration of a Yanni production, yet displaying a subtlety and depth of musical nuance far beyond his ken, these young women prove once more, that true muscial talent will always endure, and shall yet prevail.

I am refreshed and grateful.

There is yet, hope.

Even for me.

If Only !!!

Hillary Clinton and her driver were cruising along a country road one evening when an ancient cow loomed in front of the car. The driver tried to avoid it but couldn't - the aged bovine was struck and killed.

Hillary told her driver to go up to the farmhouse and explain to the owners what had happened. She stayed in the car making phone calls to lobbyists.

About an hour later the driver staggered back to the car with his clothes in disarray. He was holding a half-empty bottle of expensive wine in one hand, a rare, huge Cuban cigar in the other, and was smiling happily, smeared with lipstick.

"What happened to you," asked Hillary?

"Well," the driver replied, "the farmer gave me the cigar, his wife gave me the wine, and their beautiful twin daughters made mad passionate love to me!"

"My God, what did you tell them?" asked Hillary.

The driver replied, "I just stepped inside the door and said, I'm Hillary Clinton's driver and I've just killed the old cow. The rest happened so fast I couldn't stop it."

(for you libtards, the above is what is called "humor".  get used to it.)

Life Goes On

Life is at times, overwhelming.

Such has been the case with me of late.  Between being bounced between car problems, a lateral shift from a job I hated to one I can tolerate (within the same group), the death of a car and the quest for new wheels....

....well, it's been a month, maybe more.

Much more to tell, later.  All in due time.

And I apologize to you, one and all.  I owe a few of you some personal mail.  Your inquiries have been kind, touching and have stirred me to write yet again.

On the world and political front; one might despair.  But, not really.

You see, regardless of the political climate created by the press, and even in spite of the political failures of the Republican party, the fact remains that it is now known more than ever that the democrats are indeed, the party of surrender, of defeatism and are not equipped to face the real threats of a hostile world.

Sure, they posture and preen about all the failings of this administration. 

But the real fact is that what war we wage in secret can not, and ought not yet be trumpted on the headlines of our traitorous press.

I too, hear the jungle telegraph drum the beat of discontent with this administration.  But in that same rythym, I also hear the utter rejection of what the left offers in it's stead.

And for what it's worth, that bolsters my hopes.

I think the dems will be a bit disappointed, come November.

The Truth About Clinton and Guns

Found this morning, via Instapundit.

This article from Judicial Watch, which provides excerpts from, and direct links to whole PDF documents eminating from the Clinton White House addressing their efforts to disarm America.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the public interest group that fights government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered new documents from the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas which shed light on the Clintons’ plan to attack the gun industry.  The following are highlights from the documents:

One excerpt from that article, which clearly tags the left's entire approach to victory through the courts and liberal tort attorneys.  What they could never win in a public vote, they seek to carry through the courts, usurping your will, and mine.

The "promising idea" identified by Blumenthal involved filing massive product liability and negligence lawsuits against major handgun makers, "the opening salvo in a campaign against the gun industry by an alliance of anti-tobacco attorneys and local governments," wrote The Los Angeles Times.  According to one of the lawyers involved in the lawsuits:  "We are going to do to [the gun industry] what we did to tobacco.  It's going to be a very large war."

I've read all twenty PDF pages in the aforementioned link.  And it's truly sickening to see the obvious  relish with which the Clinton White House attacked the rights of you, me and our fellow citizens.

I wish I had the free-time to write a solid takedown of each and every document, but alas, I don't.  But I will post this as rapidly as possible, and invite others in the gunblogging world to get after it, and publicize these Clintonian transgressions as widely and loudly as possible.

We must not let the Hildebeest bring such evil intent back to the helm of the Oval Office!  Now, the Hildebeest has been "playing to the center" as were, in regards to one of the Holy Grails of the democrat party; Gun Control.  Yet she, and every other presidential contender from the left has a deep-seated elitist streak in them.  And disarming America is at the core of their cause.

It always has, and it always shall be.

If you've ever given a moment's credence to the Hildebeest and her kabuki theater of "centrism", keep this in mind the next time the MSN gushes forth with their next gallon of leftist kool-aid.  And then do everything you can, with all your might to keep her wretched hands as far from the reins of power as is humanly possible.

This of course applies to the entire democrat party, but especially to the Hildebeest.  She's not just the most dangerous woman in America, she is indeed the most dangerous person on the left, and she must not ever weild presidential power.

Not if you cherish your rights as an American.

Leading to Somewhere

The worst thing about an extended absence from the 'net, is the process of catching up and processing the myriad issues and arguments which have arisen in the preceeding days.

Check.

The blogroll's contributions have been consumed and the MSN news digested, I believe I'm fairly current with the day's challenges.

Being at work, I can't type as much as I'd like, so I will provide a link to a very worthwhile article, with credit to Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive.net.  Here's the link, from Jules Critteden, Boston Herald City Editor.

Logic is irrelevant in combating these fears, as it is with children who fear monsters under the bed. This is not to disparage these fears. The threat is real. And while statistically remote, there is a factor that elevates terrorism beyond the many mundane fates we all dodge daily. It is the malice.

That is a damned fine piece of work, and I agree with it completely.

Per the title to this post, Mr. Critteden's article is indeed, leading somewhere.  I shall have a bit to say on the topic, and more.  Alas, for now, I must now toil till day's end.

Don't Touch That Dial!

My apologies for the extended absence from the keyboard.  Sadly, my Toshiba laptop succumbed to a hit from the Smit category of virus, from a trackback attack.

Bummer.

Good news though, is that I ought to get the (hopefully) successfully repaired 'puter back from the geektechguru later today.

Now, let me bail out from the borrowed company keyboard.

More, later.

Thanks, Dad!

The following is an e-mail which I received from my Dad today.  He had wanted to post it as a comment to the preceeding post, but due to it's length, had called to ask me if the blog could "accept" such a lenthy comment.

Any comment worthy of such a phone call, especially from my Dad, is worthy of it's own post.  There are two sections to his mail.  The first is an article he is calling to my attention.  And the second, which I have marked in blue, is his note which accompanies that article.

So, with no with no further ado.........enjoy!

It is vitally important that Americans of all backgrounds understand that much of today's anti-Semitism, while aimed at Jews, stems from a belief system that equally rejects American and indeed Western civilization as a whole.

In an imfamous fatwa issued in February-1998, Osama bin Laden called on Muslims to kill Christians and Jews throughout the world--not just military personnel, but civilians--because we have seized and occupied Arab land. Our treachery, bin Laden claims, started with the Christian conquest of Andalusia from the Muslim caliphs in the 13th century!

On state-sponsored Al-Jazeera television, protrayed complacently as the "CNN of the Arab world" by mainstream media organizations in the United States and Europe, bin Landen and Muslim preachers who openly sympathize with him spread  their message to the Arab masses and intellectual elites. Murdered Americans are not victims but oppressors who are the legitimate targets of holy war, they argue. Those who die while killing us are blessed of Allah. For as long as they are physically capable, bin Laden and his followers will strike at America. To their mind, September 11 was Just an opening act.

The above paragraphs are direct quotes from "Preachers of Hate" by

Kenneth R. Timmerman. Graphic type change and color are my act, not

from the book. OBTW...Timmerman is not Jewish.

The book is powerful reading....I suggest you find the time to get it and read it,

and no, I have no int. in the book, I don't even personally know the man.

                                                   .......H&DS

Seems like a good and necessary read to me.  It's on the "buy" list!

Thanks, Dad!

Leftzbollah

A couple of years ago, I stirred the ire of the left when I compared them to the terrorists who beheaded Mr. Nicholas Berg.  It seems that those on the left who shrieked the loudest about such as Abu Gahraib, Gitmo and the rumored renditions of jihadist murderers also screamed the loudest when they were called on it.

Well, nothing's changed, they still are.  This is what I'd written as the conclusion of the aforementioned article, "The Lessons of Enemies".

Today, Nick Berg suffered his own, very personal September 11th.

And there you are, dancing in the very streets of America. I really can't tell you apart from the terrorists.

Good. Keep dancing, you ignorant shits.

You make large, lovely targets.

Keep reading, and you'll see that they still do!

The photo below is taken from the most prodigous Michelle Malkin's blog.  It is of a UNFIL "peacekeeping" post in Lebanon, along the Lebanon-Israeli border.  Two flags fly side by side.  One, the flag of the anything-but United Nations.  The other?  It is the flag of avowed terror organization; Hezbollah.

Now then, let's continue, shall we?  Here, we have a couple of photos of a Boston, MA gathering of Leftzbollah Moonbhadists.  A large percentage of whom, would be the primary throat-donors in the Western Caliphate.  Women without burkahs.  Jews.  Christians.  Infidels all, save for the smug jihadists already woven amongst them.

Here's another Leftzbollhist doing his thing in MA.

Savage has at least this much right; Liberalism IS a Mental Disorder!  Ironically, this July 13th rally in the good doctor's hometown of San Fransico was notably documented by Zombie.  I admire his daring to circulate like that amongst the Leftzbollahists, that's for damn sure.

Go look at all the photos linked on the above site, and see the face of Leftzbollah.

One of the most classic lines of parenthood is; "You're known by the company you keep".

And when neighbors choose as their company those who are sworn to the destruction of America, whose blood oath entails forcing me and you to choose between converting to their perverted cult of a false religion, or paying a huge jizya (tax) in order to rent the right to live as an infidel, or worse, to be slaughtered like a beast in the field merely because they deem it fitting.......

.....When they choose them as their company, companions and allies, they have then declared their emnity towards me, my friends and loved ones, your neighbors and this Nation.

The Leftzbollahists would have us to fear them.  Look at their anger, look at their taunting from behind checkered masks, brave behind their barricades.  And behnd the shoulders of men and women who are their betters, who wear the uniforms of various police departments.

They're not brave at all, cowering behind the protection of police, barricades and the sympathetic cameras of their allies in the mainstreeam media.  Pussy leftbollahists, gathering only in cities sympathetic to their National Socilist Worker's Jihadist Party's seditious antics.

A sedition which, in the name of so-called peace activism, seeks to promote the most violent elements of the most murderous religion on the planet.  A so-called peace, which is nothing more than the capitulation of modern societies to the seventh-century unholy caliphate.

Their very "liberalism" would be the first thing trampled by the mullahs and aytollahs, but so badly to they hate the very essence of this nation that they'd rather exsist in dhimmitude than flourish in freedom; just so long as the Right is vanquished.

For the Leftzbollahsts, their victory would also be their demise.

This past Friday, one fine example of the Religion of Peace Hate stepped over the line of demarcation which separates Citizen from Enemy.  Killing one American woman and wounding five others, merely for their offense of being Jewish, his actions were not unprecedented.

Now, let me make myself clear.  I'm not advocating taking up arms and preemptively shooting or otherwise doing harm to these likely murderers-in-waiting.  They've every right to free speech, no matter how wrong or offensive they may be.

Until, that is, such time that they decide to act on their rhetoric.  Then all bets are off.  But that's another discussion.  For now though, it is enough to note who they are, and to keep a wary eye upon them.

But should the need arise, if that watchful eye happens to be looking through the reticle of a Zeiss riflescope, all the better, should the need arise.  And given the hateful and angry rhetoric of the moonbat Leftzbohllists and their darlings in the murderous cult of islamofascism, I rather think that no longer a matter of if, but when.

And really, that's a shame.  They used to be the loyal opposition, but sadly, and steadily, they're just becoming the opposition, and disloyal at that. 

A wise commenter observed; "They're not against the war, they're just on the other side".

It seems that they're quite eager to prove the truth in that observation.

We shall watch, and see.

The Web of Trust

I have absolutely no doubt, that in the chronicles of the next generation, if there indeed is a next generation, that one Mr. Bill Whittle will be celebrated in history as one of the Clarions, whose calls rallied armies in the defense of civilization.

Let me for a momemt presume that you are not familiar with Mr. Whittle.  Those of you who are, ought proceed directly to his site and read his latest.  You know who he is, you know the link, you know what to do.

For you remaining and wondering?  Let me tell you.  Bill Whittle is the author of a book entitled Silent America, a compilation of his essays speaking to what it is to be American, and more.  I have the honor of possessing a uniquely signed copy of that book, and it holds the place of honor in my small collection.

Bill's works are not a quick read, but they are a necessary study.

The body requires the nutrition of food.  The mind, the stimulation of intellectual challenge.  The soul, needful of succor from He who is greater than us all. 

Likewise, the beating heart of Americanism, including it's roots dating to the earliest cries of "Let my people go!" uttered by Moses, require a regular infusion of idealism, inspiration and reinforcement of the founding concepts and principles of this Nation.

And more largely, the present  battle between the forces of (quite literal) darkness, be they advocates of  a seventh-century caliphate, or the equally senseless puveyors of a dark planet, unlit by the currents powered by the evils of fossil fuels......and the forces of light, of the advancement of mankind on this planet.  This battle also requires a constant affirmation of who we are as a civilization, and a constant realization of who and what are the forces who would tear this, and us, down.

No one makes the case in such a clear and forceful manner as Bill Whittle. 

No.  One.

A few minutes later, I could see a patch of ground directly below, and then, after a little more needlework, we popped out beneath the layer. There, dead ahead, were the flashing approach strobes…Burbank Airport, right where those damn little white needles said it would be. Truth to tell, I was actually slightly to the left of the runway centerline, and Craig, my mute flight instructor in the seat next to me, was slightly to the right of it. That is a hell of a feeling, coming home to civilization, to an airport beacon right where it was supposed to be, to leave death up in the grey soup just this once with a weird, indescribable, clearly paradoxical mixture of burning pride and deep humility.

How many people were there with me that day? Not just the obvious two – Dana and Craig, whose support kept my monkey brain in the back of my head to return to throw pooh another day. How many guys were watching me on radar, keeping me separated from far, far better men and women who do this in their sleep up there? How many people did it take to make the instruments, to mine the silica for the glass, to tap the rubber for the wires? Who laid the asphalt on the runways, who built the filaments in the approach strobes, and who attached the ceramic tips to my spark plugs? And how many millions of other unseen connections had to be made to allow me to do, routinely, and on a middle-class salary, what billions of dead men and women would have given a lifetime to taste – just once. In those few minutes I just told you of, I stood on the shoulders of millions of my brothers and sisters, not the least of which were two sons of a preacher from Dayton, Ohio – now long dead but with me in spirit every day. I was atop a pyramid of dedication, hard work, ingenuity and progress, following rules written in the blood of the stupid and the brave and the unlucky.

I had tossed myself a mile into the air and landed safe in this Web of Trust.

That, from the first chapter of his forthcoming book.

Now then, I hope I've piquied your interest.  Set an hour aside, and go read.

I know you'll be glad you did.

Bugged Out

A painful time slowly passes, and now life goes on.

Richer for having been blessed with eleven years of black and white love from a sweet and bitchy cat with a bunny rabbit's soft coat and the ferocious heart of a razor-clawed rottweiller.  All her pictures reside on the crashed hard-drive of my last laptop, but I shall redouble my efforts to bring that back to life, just to let you see the Queen of all Fatness in her prime.

She was a very special kitty.  And I do miss her so very, very much.

Now, this weekend saw me briefly vacating the New Dawn along with my remaining crew, Harley.  One of the most common scourges of life in a marshy marina is the occassional invasion by various multi-legged vermin.  I don't mind booting the occassional opossum off the deck of a night, nor leading the neighborhood feral cats to their begging station by the dumpster.  One night just over a month ago, I charged a local coyote who was stalking those feral cats.   They're not pets, but they're not pests, either.  And on the subject of pests, believe me when I say that  I do take great umbrage the visitation, quite uninvited, of the accursed palmetto bug;  a.k.a. the German cockroach.

I hate roaches almost as much as I hate jihadists.  It's a close thing, but at least the roach merits a bit of respect; it can't help being what it is.  Still, both must die, and seeing as I have the direct and immediate ability to carry out that wish upon my six-legged nemisis, I have undertaken to do so.

Harley is now safely ensconsed across town in a welcoming and loving home, and I am preparing here on the boat, a most unpleasant surprize for those scurrilous creeping cretins.  For as I leave the boat for work in the morning, I'll leave behind three steel cans, each resting in a heat-proof plastic cup containing an ounce of water, each.

The result will be a cockrauschwitzvellian slaughter of overwhelming intensity. 

Given that the internal volume of the New Dawn would be well treated with one can of Fumigator, the strategic placement of another can in the bilges, and a third under the galley countertop and behind the fridge....well, there shall be no escape.  This stuff isn't your typical weak, aeresol spray.  No, this stuff is smoke, and it does what smoke does best.... permeating everything, penetrating every crack, crevice and corner.  It hangs and lingers in the air for hours.  Perfect, for finding and killing every last bug.

Of course, I shall completely de-power both the DC and AC circuits aboard ship.  There will be no chance nor source of a spark.  Now, I may have to sweep-up a crunchy carcass or two.  Or three. But the New Dawn will be pest free.  Oh, yes....I do treat the docklines quite heavily, too.  Every little bit helps when trying to bring the boat up to showable condition.

And of Harley?  He'll be back aboard Tuesday after work. 

I was remiss in not posting Ariel's pics when I had 'em in the now-crashed computer.  So, here's a pic of Harley from Sunday.  Well....you can see for yourself how well he travels.

Fourteen pounds of liquid loving yellow striped speckled belly'd pure purring affection. 

Take that, Acidman!

And yes, he's quite at home draped around my neck as I sit here n' there aboard ship.  Besides, I'm not into the whole parrot and eyepatch thing.  Arrrggghhh.

So then, I'm off to the master-berth aft.  A busy morning which will come early enough without racing to meet it late into the night.  Even though beauty sleep is a lost cause on me, I still need to get seven or eight hours of snooze before the accursed alarm shrieks it's daily accusation; AWAKE, YE SLOTH!!!

I think I'm gonna take that clock to the shooting range.  It'll be the guest of honor.

Quater Mil

Given the fitful start and stop nature of Smoke on the Water over the past couple years, I'm surprized it's come to this.

But at 6:25pm last night, the following event was recorded in my visitor & referal log.

6:25 PM

/

onthepatio.typepad.com/on_the_patio

That, ladies and gentleman, was the two-hundred and fifty thousandth hit on this blog.  A small milestone to be sure, but noted all the same. 

Thanks Marcus, for sending that visitor over from your site!

For the scant few who've stuck by Smoke on the Water, even in silent times.... and to those who may be brand new readers.  My sincere and heartfelt thanks, one and all.

Sackcloth and Ashes

Tomorrow evening, I complete a sad and mournful journey which began this past Saturday afternoon.

I shall lay to rest one of my two beloved cats; Ariel, age eleven.

Coming home tonight after work, I dug her grave just two hundred feet to the starboard bow, just off of the shale road that defines the narrow peninsula that is this end of the marina.  She will rest, overlooking the Intercoastal Waterway, which she often looked towards while resting serenely upon the cabin roof.

Ariel is survived by her brother and littermate, Harley.

She died of an enlarged heart, with the symptoms striking suddenly of a Saturday afternoon.  Less than two hours passed between her going down in distress, and the fateful decision at the vets.

Ariel died in my arms, with my lips upon her face, telling her over and over again how very much I loved her.  I love her still.  I shall always love her.

And tomorrow, I shall retrieve her frozen corpse from the vet, and will lay her to her eternal rest.

I miss her terribly. 

UPDATE:  8:10pm CST, Wednesday, July 19, 2006.

It is done. 

Ariel rests alongside her occassional friend; my neighbor John's late mop of a dog, Scruffy.

My hands, blistered.  My heart, broken.

Thank you all, for your condolcences and good wishes.  I am thankful.

Deep Sixed

The works of the late, great Rob Smith, the Acidman himself, are now linked in the sidebar category:  Davey Jones' Locker.  Gone, but never to be forgotten.

Arrrrggghhh.....  deep sixed, he is.

Now, carry on, mateys.

Bite Me

Which seems to be the mission statement of an entire airwing of voracious mosquitos.  "Bite Jim."

Which they do with gleeful abandon.  Somewhere in my DNA seems to reside a red and white checkerboard helix, entitled Purina Mosquito Chow.

London saw fewer attacks during the Blitz.

Still, modern science, chemistry and medicine offer various levels of relief.  So, even though I can't haul around a propane powered skeeter fogger, I can spray with Deep Woods Off, which helps.

But there are always the brave, few Kamikaze Skeeters who press their attacks through all defenses, attacking the vein with all the fury of a metrosexual IRS agent suffering from cold cream withdrawl.

And having been nailed by serveral such today, I found myself without my trusty Caladryl Clear (blessed be it's name), and had to resort to lesser offerings by well intended co workers.

Which is where the following comes in.  It seems there's a product intended for the relief of swelling and itching, which sounded tailor made to lessen the maddening after effects of a successful skeeter strafing.

My review?

Our Sacred Honor

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

With those final words in the Declaration of Independence, some fifty-six men stepped forth and put their signatures to that document unique in all of history.

In July of 1976, I too stepped forward and honored a committment I had made a year before.  I raised my right hand and swore the Oath of Enlistment for one hitch into the United States Air Force, with my life, and my sacred honor.

Every member of the United States Armed Forces has made that selfsame pledge, and those especially in our present generation do so as volunteers.  As did their forefathers some two hundred and thirty years before.  Millions have served, and many hundreds of thousands have died in defending this nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  It is here noted that the costliest war in our history was that one amongst ourselves; we are indeed, the fiercest of warriors.

Which brings forth the point of my view of today's celebrations.

Today we observe the founding of our nation with picnics, parties, fireworks and festivities stretching from sea to shining sea.  This is well, and as it should be.  I would that such may be the case for now and forevermore.

But, given the prolictivities of certain amongst us to make common cause with our enemies, that oath taken thirty years past yet lives; I remain standing, ready to serve.

Let my hand be against all enemies, foreign, agents of those foreign enemies, and enemies domestic, one and all.  May I be found not wanting, but standing in the breach against all who would betray this Nation unique in the history of mankind.

This land, bought in blood from a tyranical crown, shall not be sold cheaply to a new tyrannies, be they on the banks of the Hudson or the halls of Brussels.  Likewise, I shall stand against those who from within, seek to undermine the very foundations of our Noble Experiment.

This I pledge, with my life, my fortune and my sacred honor.

Jim

Sloop New Dawn

Galveston, TX

New Growth

An amazing thing, after a forest fire.

Be it sooner or later; sometime after the fire has wreaked it's havoc, after all that remains is but soot, ash and scar.  And......

....  LIFE, which makes it's appearance, anew.

And as with every forest which has ever existed, this cycle repeats through the ages.  Over and over and over again, from ancient millenia past, to the tiny sliver of time we call history, and into the future, long after we're gone, and are but ash and dust our own selves.

So now, from the dust of Acidman's ashes, which is the state he wished to return, rises a new growth.

A blogdaughter.

I found this in the comments to today's celebration of Rob.

I am at work right now...so can't be here for long. *sigh*

post'hu-mous: adj.
born after the death of the father

It's with this dictionary description of the word above that I am letting you all know that Rob has become a blog-daddy again. I have been wanting to have a blog for quite a while and even attempted once but chickened out.

Somehow I have the courage now.

That's Rob's longtime commentor, Cindi.  Go visit and welcome her.  Rob would have done it for her; I do it for her now.  And for him.

Got your back, Blogfather.

I surely do got your back.

Acid Flashback

At the time this bit appears on screen, it will be four in the afternoon in Georgia.

And, at that selfsame hour, many people shall gather at a funeral home in Savannah.  And likewise, untold thousands of words will also appearing on countless screens, from I expect, hundreds of writers.  All of whom pay homage to a great and fallen man.

Rob Smith was about as far away from sainthood as is possible and yet still be considered a good man.  And coversely, the cranky old bastard was a far, far better man than most who consider themselves saints. 

Acidman changed many a life.  Not only did his writing change my life, but his friendship, albiet from a distance, changed my life for the better.  Though I'd been reading and commenting on sites like the gone-but-not-forgotten Rachel Lucas, and the original Kim DuToit dot com, I had never even given a moment's thought to launching a work of my own.

That is, 'till Rob and Key Monroe joined forces and cajoled me into jumping into the abyss.

And as a result of that leap, my world has expanded far beyond my wildest imaginations.  I've been read, linked, cussed and praised by people and websites I'd have never imagined existed.

I have met and made many a friend, both online and off.

And that's really what so much of this comes down to.  Rob kicked me in the ass to start writing, as he thought I had something worthwhile to say.  But more than that, Rob gave a damn enough about someone he'd never met, to spend his time on the phone (which we all know he wasn't a fan of), and invest his experience, insight, humor and wisdom into me, and my fledgeling work.  Which in time, became a true investment of friendship, one with another.

I'm not alone in that.  He did it for dozens...maybe hundreds.  Truly, we shall never fully know.

Now, I don't claim to have been Rob's friend on par with his Georgia crew.  And only the ladies can know his friendship in the sorority of the scarlet toenail.  And most of them, ain't telling, nohow.  sigh.

I think if the number of blogs which hit the screen due to Rob's influence were calculated, the sum would be astonishing.  I'll wager that many readers became writers, just because they came to know that Gutrumbles had already blazed the trail ahead of them, that they had naught to fear in taking the leap.

Amusingly, some of those Acid-inspired blogs proved to be weak tea, dying in the scorn and derision of their progenitor.  I cannot count the times I read of Rob's ire at the various "mommyflowerkittenbabywhinypuppypoopyblogs" which came and often, went. 

Conversely, many times I burned countless hours, just reading links to other fine sites which Rob highlighted and recommended.  And I became friends with some of them, too.  Rob had a fine eye for great writing, and was generous in his appreciations.  He knew he was a fine writer, and he reveled in finding others, not in hoarding all praise to his own works.

Rob became a friend, and Rob introduced me to many a friend thereafter.  That ain't a bad thing, in and of itself.

As any writer knows, writing ain't easy, not if you do it well.  And Rob demanded that I do it well, or not at all.  So, I've tried here in this small site to stand in his shadow now and then, and every now and then, I've succeeded.

But mostly, I've been but able to stand in awe of the master.  His prolific output was beyond compare.  His take-no-prisonaers honesty, often breathtaking.  The consistent quality of his writing, a standard few can meet.

I won't speak much of the ongoing train-wreck aspect of his life.  Suffice to say, that mostly Rob was his own worst enemy on many levels.  And it is in those realms where I wish him to "Rest in Peace".

Because otherwise, I think Kevin Baker said it best.

If there's an afterlife, I hope yours is a lot like Costa Rica, with sweet nubile women, a working Roscoe, and all the good food, good beer, and good company you could ever want. You will be sorely missed.

Damn straight.

Now, a final word.  I've been as maudlin, emotionally torn-up and just flat-out shattered at Rob's demise as imaginable.  I've shared tears with friends on the phone, swapped some war-stories of Rob and most sadly, have been the bearer of the bad news to three who had not yet read of his death.  Those were the worst moments of all.

But now, it's time to move on.  Rob wrote often of his football days, of playing through the pain, of hustling through the hurt.  So, we've got it to do.

Life goes on.  Shitty things in the news which would've pissed Rob off still need ranting.  The laughable idiocy of the Left still need lampooning.  Bourbon needs be sipped, cigars need be smoked, hogs must be roasted and fresh green peanuts need their boiling. 

It falls to us to do all that, lest we be dragged off and shot.

Goodbye, Rob.  Adios, Acidman, you cranky old bastard.

Your friend,

Jim

Sloop New Dawn

Galveston, TX

Robert M. Smith

1952-2006

His Obituary

Dammit, the man was but 54 years old.

Way too soon, Brother Rob.......way too soon.

Please be so kind as to go there and sign the guest book.  Thank you.

A Viking's Funeral

Well, not quite, but I'll be damned if this isn't absolutely perfect. 

Found as Trackback No. Fifty from Samantha's News.... , of yesterday's passing of Rob Smith, a.k.a. Acidman.

Rube, whoever you are.......  I am in your debt for such a perfect send-off.  Thank you, sir.

Ovid relented, and dimmed the lights. Clearing a path, he grabbed the nearest empty chair and sat at the table. "What the blazes happened last night?"

Plato looked up from his glass and said, "The New Guy."

Oh, yeah, thought Ovid, The New Guy. "Man, I thought Limbo was supposed to be for the virtuous heathens!"

Plato grunted indifferently, and downed the glass of fizzy grey liquid at a gulp. He belched wetly, and for a moment seemed unsure if it had been a one-way trip. Once he became convinced, he looked at Ovid and asked, "Have you seen Elektra?"

Pure. Awe-Inspiring. Genius. 

If you don't go read the whole thing, you can kiss my cracker ass.  And if you don't both shed a tear and break out a laugh, you ought to be dragged off and shot.

Rob would have loved it!  I can think of no higher tribute to Rob, and no higher praise for Sir Rube.

Truly, an inspired bit of writing.

Silent Echoes

I still cannot wrap my mind around the thought of Acidman's passing.  His words live on, why not him?

Yesterday found me speechless, profoundly unable to put words to the loss of a giant.  And yes, Rob was a GIANT, both in life, and on the keyboard. 

While I pecked away ineffectually, Rob was there with encouragement, advice and humor aplenty, helping to launch Smoke on the Water.  And launch it he did, sneaking the announcement of this site out there well ahead of it's intended time.  His quote (Nov 30th, 2003) is lost to his archives which start in mid 2004.  But he basically took great joy in kicking my blog out and into the open, while I was still yet building it.   An Acidlanche, as it were.

Mostly (still) speechless, I have read some very moving tributes to Rob, and I shall link to a few through the day in between work and tears.  For now though, my thanks to Chris Muir at Day by Day for this:

And yes, Rob leaves that much of a void.

G'bye friend.  I'll wait to hear your Gibson on the other side.

I'm still in a state where words fail me.  Yesterday, I could barely see to type, and even worse as I circulated my blogroll and Rob's comments on Samatha's "News...." post.

So, I'll let those more eloquent works from those sites speak for me, for now.  Myself, I am still distilling what Rob has meant to me, and the impact of his passing.

I know this; it is immense, and has changed my life for the better.  Thank you, Rob. 

Blogfather, I hardly knew ye.

Now, a few words from his friends:

Denny Wilson, a.k.a. Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanata

I drove up. As I was hobbling into the restaurant, he looked at me and said, "You're the sorry sumbitch who keeps catbombing me".

We talked about blogging. His philosophy was sumpin' he picked up from Lileks. You throw enough shit against a wall, some of it will stick. So, you write, write, write, and write. Some of it is bound to be good.

I remember him saying that there were three types of bloggers: there were linkers, like Glenn Reynolds; there were thinkers, like Stephen den Beste; and there were stinkers, like Rob and I.

Velociman

I'm going to miss the ornery little pissant. At least you knew what you saw was what you got. You may not like it, but Rob would be the first to tell you to Kiss His Cracker Ass. And I admired that. I laugh about Catfish having no filters, but I think Rob introduced the blogosphere to mainstream non-filtered bullet-dodging seat-of-your-pants writing. At the risk of sounding trite he did push the envelope, and knock down a few walls. If he went overboard (N-Word!) he would eventually be almost apologetic about it. But you knew deep down he didn't give a shit. He was warts and all. And I admired that, too.

To Robbie. My friend. RIP.

Donnie, at Cadillac Tight

Rob Smith, a.k.a. "Acidman", has passed on. Rob inspired me to start blogging lo those many years ago, and he was always a good friend to me. I'll miss him very much, and the blogosphere will be poorer without him.

Rest in Peace, Pappy.

Dax Montana, as posted by Yabu in his behalf:

As he said: We will share a moment of grief, with a moment of life.

And from Yabu

Thank you Rob, and may God rest your soul.

I’ll be there Thursday.

Cool Runnings.

Kim DuToit

I was always pestering him to come and visit us, but he never did—he was either in rehab or in too much pain, or else jumping whores in Costa Rica (which is how I’ll remember him, the horny-toad Cracker bastard).

The world will definitely be a less-interesting place from now on…

Misha, at the Anti-Idiotorian Rottweiller

And beneath that rough veneer, beneath all of the raging against the fading of the light, there was a warm, loving man. Most of all I remember his posts about his love of his son, Quinton, in which the “softer side of Rob” shone through like a beacon.

That’s a side of him that I’ll remember well. A side of him that showed me and everybody else who cared to read that, no matter how much anger and frustration one man holds, there’s always more to a man that, that there is good as well as the bad and the ugly.

Some will remember him for the bad and the ugly, some will remember him for the good. I will remember him for all of it.

Because it was all him. He let it all hang out, that was his gift to anybody who cared, and I accept it all gratefully. Warts and all

R.I.P., Rob. I’ll have a drink to your memory tonight.

Key Monroe

I know I am not the only one who has struggled to wrap their brain around this. It is amazing that the "good ol days" of Blogworld were only two years ago and change. Rob has had his struggles of late, I know, but I knew he'd come back to us. After all, for many of us, he is our Blogfaddah. And even during the rough patches, I have observed and concluded that he is just too stubborn to die.

So I stared at the words today, and waited for them to go away. To change. To not be true.

Steve of Hog on Ice

Rob was a real writer. Nothing was hidden. He said things about himself that I would hesitate to reveal about my worst enemy. I read his site even when I forgot to read sites belonging to close friends. He was a true original.

Rivrdog

Rob feared no one, but many feared him and tried to use the weight of absurdity and political correctness to destroy him. The list is long: his company, the infamous Kerr-McGee, his ex-wife and through her, the courts. He rose above all of them, and cut their absurd lives and arguments to shreds.

Kevin Baker, at The Smallest Minority

Rest in peace, Acidman. If there's an afterlife, I hope yours is a lot like Costa Rica, with sweet nubile women, a working Roscoe, and all the good food, good beer, and good company you could ever want. You will be sorely missed.

Dana of Frankensoul

And now he's gone.  My heart is broken.  Rob, you will surely be missed.  While I am very sad that you are gone, I am so very very happy that we became friends and that my life was graced with your presence.  My life is better because you were in it.

Daniel Medley of LoBoWalk

It appears as though half of the blogoshpere will be converging on Fox and Weeks to pay final respects to that cantankerous troubadour of blogdom, Rob-Acidman-Smith.

I can’t make it, but if it were in anyway possible, I’d be there in a heartbeat.

Peace and love, brother. Peace and love. 

Oceanguy, Somewhere on A-1A

They need to know their father was a good man who loved them both with all he had. I hope these eulogies from so many strangers will help. I hope their memories of bad times is extremely short, and that, in a very short time, only the good memories remain and their pain is replaced with the joy he would want them to feel while remembering him.

Good-bye Rob... Rest in Peace.

Matt of Baboon Pirates

I never played the blogparent/blogchild game, but Rob's blog is one of the first I read on a don't-miss daily basis, and I sure wouldn't have started writing mine if I hadn't been hooked into the blogosphere by Rob and a few others.

Raging Dave

Rob Smith was one of those other people. You read his blog, and you didn't know whether to curse him out or laugh out loud. You looked at the things he did in life, and you had one of two thoughts. It was either A) "Oh hell, I wish I'd done that!" or B) "Did you mean to fuck it up that bad, or was it an accident?"

Never once did you read his writing and go "Meh. Whatever." 

Da Goddess

I will miss his delightful cackle, his deeply sweet Southern drawl, his promises to come visit (I'll likely always be a bit pissed that he let me down on that one), I'll miss his wonderfully warm songs, the beautiful music he created, and I'll miss not being able to have him watch, or at least hear, my son play the guitar Rob sent him.

And damn if it wasn't just last week that I was on the phone with a blues legend, telling him of Rob's kind gesture. You see, the guitar was sent to Little Dude because he'd seen this bluesman in concert. Rob had seen this man at Merle Fest and understood the inspiration. The guitar was Rob's contribution to my son's future as a musician/storyteller. He always did stuff like that.

Jenny, a.k.a. Trailer Park Girl

We lived far apart and had each had little idea of what the other was like on an everyday basis, yet we learned some of each other's deepest secrets and glimpsed some of each other's darkest aspects.  We also had some good laughs and saw some of each other's nobler qualities.

My good friend Marcus, of On the Patio

I only met the guy in person once and that was recently in Austin. I was having breakfast alone and he had woke up late and was looking for the group that had already departed for a while. He joined me at my table, ordered food and neither of us really had an appetite. So we talked a bit. My impression was that he was not the same person that wrote all that stuff on his blog. Denny mentioned that he had played linbacker in school weighing in at 130 lbs..."he played above his weight." Denny was aluding to the fact that he had been a fighter all his life, and the point is well taken by any that did read or had met him.

Well, my impression is that he wrote above his weight as well. In person, what I saw was a quiet man that had something to say.

Serenity's Journal

This guy had some of the funniest stories, some of the saddest stories, some of the meanest stories.  He was a complete asshole at times, a racist prick and a soft hearted bastid.  But he always told the truth and he didn’t give one gottdamn who pissed in their Cheerios that morning over it.

Jay G., of North Georgia Dogma

You’ll be missed, Rob. You’ll be missed.

And if you’ll all excuse me, I’m off to the range. To shoot a bunch of guns I don’t own.

RW, also with North Georgia Dogma

Crap. This sucks. Rob was one dude who never let PC get in his way (whether you agreed or liked…didn’t matter, he spoke from the gut, just like his site’s name implied). Sadly, IIRC, he was an athiest so I’d be lying if I tried to be the type of person he’d hate and say “see you on the other side” so I’ll simply say “so long, my friend. You defintely left your mark.”

Jeff Soyer, of Alphecca:

Rob was haunted by many demons, some physical and some caused by others in his life. He faced them as best as any of us could have. The difference is that he never shied from sharing them with us. That's what made many of his posts so engaging and vivid.

Eric at Straight White Guy

Dear Rob,

… I took the news of your passing this morning with a very heavy heart… as I sit here now, I am listening to the song I asked you to play for me in Austin back in April… you know the song I’m talking about… the one that you could sing so well… thank you for singing it for me in Texas….

… damn, I am sad to see you go…

…. remember when I first met you in Dahlonega and you tossed me that ugly-assed Jawja Blogger tee-shirt as I walked up to the table?... I had only been keeping a blog for three months when I met you and the gang… and I never felt so welcome… remember back at the cabin with all of us playing and singing and smoking?... what a night… Kelley and orgia singing “Me and Bobby McGee”?... man, Halloween on Blood Mountain… what a trip….

Dale of Mostly Cajun

He had a lot of acquaintances and probably most of them called themselves his friends. I call myself one. You don’t have to always agree with your friends.

I hate that it ended like this…

Rob, we’re gonna miss you, buddy…

We should all wish to leave such a  mark on this world. 

For now, that is all.

Rob Smith, a.k.a. "Acidman", has passed on. Rob inspired me to start blogging lo those many years ago, and he was always a good friend to me. I'll miss him very much, and the blogosphere will be poorer without him.

Rest in Peace, Pappy.

Dax Montana, as posted by Yabu in his behalf:

As he said: We will share a moment of grief, with a moment of life.

And from Yabu

Kim DuToit

I was always pestering him to come and visit us, but he never did—he was either in rehab or in too much pain, or else jumping whores in Costa Rica (which is how I’ll remember him, the horny-toad Cracker bastard).

The world will definitely be a less-interesting place from now on…

Misha, at the Anti-Idiotorian Rottweiller

And beneath that rough veneer, beneath all of the raging against the fading of the light, there was a warm, loving man. Most of all I remember his posts about his love of his son, Quinton, in which the “softer side of Rob” shone through like a beacon.

That’s a side of him that I’ll remember well. A side of him that showed me and everybody else who cared to read that, no matter how much anger and frustration one man holds, there’s always more to a man that, that there is good as well as the bad and the ugly.

Some will remember him for the bad and the ugly, some will remember him for the good. I will remember him for all of it.

Because it was all him. He let it all hang out, that was his gift to anybody who cared, and I accept it all gratefully. Warts and all

R.I.P., Rob. I’ll have a drink to your memory tonight.

Key Monroe

I know I am not the only one who has struggled to wrap their brain around this. It is amazing that the "good ol days" of Blogworld were only two years ago and change. Rob has had his struggles of late, I know, but I knew he'd come back to us. After all, for many of us, he is our Blogfaddah. And even during the rough patches, I have observed and concluded that he is just too stubborn to die.

So I stared at the words today, and waited for them to go away. To change. To not be true.

Steve of Hog on Ice

Rob was a real writer. Nothing was hidden. He said things about himself that I would hesitate to reveal about my worst enemy. I read his site even when I forgot to read sites belonging to close friends. He was a true original.

Rivrdog

Rob feared no one, but many feared him and tried to use the weight of absurdity and political correctness to destroy him. The list is long: his company, the infamous Kerr-McGee, his ex-wife and through her, the courts. He rose above all of them, and cut their absurd lives and arguments to shreds.

Kevin Baker, at The Smallest Minority

Rest in peace, Acidman. If there's an afterlife, I hope yours is a lot like Costa Rica, with sweet nubile women, a working Roscoe, and all the good food, good beer, and good company you could ever want. You will be sorely missed.

And now he's gone.  My heart is broken.  Rob, you will surely be missed.  While I am very sad that you are gone, I am so very very happy that we became friends and that my life was graced with your presence.  My life is better because you were in it.

Daniel Medley of LoBoWalk

Oceanguy, Somewhere on A-1A

They need to know their father was a good man who loved them both with all he had. I hope these eulogies from so many strangers will help. I hope their memories of bad times is extremely short, and that, in a very short time, only the good memories remain and their pain is replaced with the joy he would want them to feel while remembering him.

Matt of Baboon Pirates

I never played the blogparent/blogchild game, but Rob's blog is one of the first I read on a don't-miss daily basis, and I sure wouldn't have started writing mine if I hadn't been hooked into the blogosphere by Rob and a few others.

Raging Dave

Rob Smith was one of those other people. You read his blog, and you didn't know whether to curse him out or laugh out loud. You looked at the things he did in life, and you had one of two thoughts. It was either A) "Oh hell, I wish I'd done that!" or B) "Did you mean to fuck it up that bad, or was it an accident?"

Never once did you read his writing and go "Meh. Whatever." 

Acidman, R.I.P.

I shall but copy and past the notice that Rob Smith's daughter Samantha posted on his blog this afternoon:

June 26, 2006

News...

This is Sam. Rob has passed away. They found him at 2:00 this morning slumped over on the couch. He did not shoot himself and no pills or alcohol were found in the house. When I find out anything else I'll let you know. Out of respect for my family please do not leave nasty comments.

~Sam

Posted by Acidman @ 02:10 PM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

Rob was a friend, and for a while, a mentor in blogging.  Though our conversations eventually took distant paths, our correspondence never led away from the trail of friendship.

Godspeed, Rob.  Rest in peace.

And to Samantha, Quentin and Mommie.... my prayers are with you.

L SEE D

This is an LCD Inverter for a Toshiba Satellite laptop computer.  It resides in the lid-screen of the computer, immediately below the screen and beind the word "Toshiba" on the bezel.

And without it, the screen projects no luminousity through the LCD pixels.  The image is there in data terms, and is only faintly visible in direct sunlight or very bright light into the screen.  Translate faintly visible as completely, utterly and totally useless in functional terms.

I just replaced that TAMURA HBL 0220 unit in my Toshiba, and am once again in possession of a working 'puter.

Though I've not been able to post to Smoke on the Water, I've not been wholly without the ability to read and keep up with the news. 

More on that, in just a bit.  For now, I just thought this status report would suffice.

The Flag and The Corps

Here at Smoke on the Water, this year's Flag Day is dedicated to the heroes and heroines of the United States Marine Corps.

The past few weeks have been a witness to a particularly rabid series of attacks on the Corps by not only the jihadists, but a cadre of even craftier enemies; the press.

But just as Zarqawi met his fate but a week ago, so also shall the Fifth Column of the Fourth Estate meet with the abject failure of low ratings, falling circulation, public aprobation and the disdain of history. 

So, Marines.... Semper Fi, from a long-ago Airman.  It is with no small pride that I dedicate this year's Flag Day to the Corps.

May you continue to defeat your enemies at CNN, ABC, CBS, NYT, PBS, NBC, BBC, Time, Newsweek and every other bastion of subversive propaganda.

May the traitors from your ranks find defeat, digrace and dishonor with every breath they take until the day they die.  This means you, Murtha.

May the songs of your victories cause anguish to your enemies, be they foreign or domestic.

May the Flag of the Corps fly proudly, ever so long as the Flag of the United States of America still waves.

Carry on, Marines, carry on.

Catch of a Lifetime

Writing is hard enough sometimes, and then you read something like this, and it gets damned near impossible.

You see, when an artisan like Val Prieto hangs a new fresco of words upon in the gallery which is Babalu Blog, I look at my own keyboard, and my fingers feel as clumsy wooden dowels attached to the pine blocks of my hands.

One cannot read of Val's family and finish the story unchanged. 

Of course, while my wife and I gave them the grand tour to the house and property, all I wanted to do was show my Godfather the canal. My brand new, very own, private fishing hole. The one that still beckoned from behind the brush.

"Tio," I said pointing out towards the canal. "Lo mejor es que tengo donde pescar." The best thing is I have a place to fish. "I was just cutting my way through the brush to get to the canal."

No sooner had I said that than Padrino took off his nice travel-back-home-via-airplane shirt, grabbed the machete that I'd stuck into the ground and he attacked the dense shrubbery hiding the canal. My old man followed suit.

So there we were, the three of us - my Godfather, my father and me - working in unison for hours, chopping and cutting, dragging and dropping, pulling and yanking away at the Florida Holly brush that covered my private fishing hole in my brand new home.

And when we'd cut and removed just enough of the shrubbery away for us to walk straight up to the canal's edge, my Godfather went to the car and came back with one of his fishing rods. He asked for a piece of bread which I quickly ran to the kitchen to get but we had none. All we had was crusts from yesterday's pizza. I went back to the canal with a piece of pizza crust, Padrino took it from my hand, cut a little piece off and he hooked it on. He dropped it into the water and not a minute later had caught a fish.

The man that had taught me to fish with the patience of a fisherman had just caught the first fish from my own private fishing hole. Mi Padrino me bautizo la pesca.

The fish on the end of the line wasn't the prize catch.

Now, go read the whole of Val's tale, and learn a bit because of  the Catch of a Lifetime. 

And I'll sit here and try to whittle my fingers back down into typing order again.

Zero Sum Zarqawi

Let's do the math.

This.......... (murdering incompetent coward)

Plus THIS.............

Equals THIS !

One Very Dead Terrorist Leader along with a goodly number of his crew.

Now that's what I call an elegant equation.

UPDATE:  12:30. 

THE BEST Take on the Zarqawi Zapping:   

Well, I'm Dead

Spew Alert!  Get those liquids far from the keyboard!

D plus Sixty-Two Years

Where once screamed shell and tourtured soul, where the sands became more soaked by blood than by the sea; now quiet prevails. 

And in today's moments of silence, give thanks to Almighty God for the sacrafice of brave men once young.  Too many, forever young but never forgotten.

Thank you, gentlemen.  Though I haven't words adequate to express my undying gratitude for your sacrafices, I do know of one who did, and who spoke them with unmatchable eloquence.

I give you, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

This was an emotional day.

The ceremonies honoring the fortieth anniversary of D-Day became more than commemorations. They became celebrations of heroism and sacrifice.

This place, Pointe du Hoc, in itself was moving and majestic. I stood there on that windswept point with the ocean behind me. Before me were the boys who forty years before had fought their way up from the ocean. Some rested under the white crosses and Stars of David that stretched out across the landscape. Others sat right in front of me. They looked like elderly businessmen, yet these were the kids who climbed the cliffs.*

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor."

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots' Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: "Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do." Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgeway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee".

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

I cannot add to the greatness of The Gipper, so I'll simply say; thanks for reading this, and thanks to all who served, fought, bled and died on that momentous day.

That is all.

The Quotable Crusader

There is a post you need to read, penned by the indomitable Emporer Misha of the Anti-Iditorian Rottweiller.

But before I give the link to read the aforementioned post, I'm going to post here, some selected excerpts from Misha's responses in the comment section which follows the original article.

I think you'll find them worthy of note on their own merit, which is indeed why I'm featuring them here at Smoke on the Water.

And if you think the comments are good, just wait till you read the article which inspired them.  It is indeed, a hallmark piece, and ought be writ large upon parchment, a work for the ages.

But first, the comments.  Misha writes this in response to commenter Coydog.

We have to draw a line in the sand. We have to say “this far and no further” while we still possess enough sand to draw it on.

We cannot win a war walking backwards, we cannot stop the advance of a faith that means to wipe us and all that we believe in out unless we dig in our heels and start taking the fight back to them.

And we must keep on fighting until they have had enough and surrender or until we can fight no more, whichever comes first.

The worst that can happen if we choose to heed the call of the generations that went before us is that we may die, die doing our duty in a manner that we can be proud of.

Or we can stay in denial, we can keep our heads in the sand until they’re chopped off.

We can piss away all that Western civilization has built and be cursed by future generations for our cowardice, our lack of honor and our lack of will to fight for what is right.

I’d rather die on my feet, thank you very much, with the song of the sword as the last sound I hear.

And this, from his response to Mike Zeares 

The list of battles fought and lost by my noble ancestors is long indeed, the only constant being that if there was a fight to be had, they’d be right in the middle of it. I suppose that’s one of the main reasons that there are only about 5 million of us to this day.

I remember visiting the Alamo and seeing the flag of my native land in there, next to the flags of every other nation that lost one or more sons on that day.

I was honored, of course, to learn that a son of my country had given his life on that day, that he’d laid down his life in defense of my adopted home, but I can’t say that I was all that surprised.

If there’s a fight going on and there’s a Dane within a day’s ride of it, he’ll be there like a cat to catnip. It’s in our blood and it has done absolutely nothing to help us survive. As a matter of fact, it’s a bloody miracle that there are any of us left, considering our nature.

Maybe G-d keeps us around to piss everybody off.

I don’t know. All I do know is that I have it in me as well. I’ve been drawn to hopeless causes more times than I can remember, I’ve had my ass kicked every way you can imagine as a result, but I have no regrets and I’ll do it all over again if the opportunity presents itself.

It’ll be the end of me eventually, I know, nobody stays on a lucky streak indefinitely, and one day my dumb ass will write a check that I can’t cash, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

We all die. We’re born with that sentence hanging over our heads. It doesn’t matter. You’re already dead. Just make your death mean something.  (emphasis, mine)

Now that you've read a bit of the commentary, it's time for you to go read the whole thing.  And I assure you, you'll understand why I've highlighted Misha's quotes in Blood Red.

Ride to the sound of the trumpets, the battle is nigh!

Ace High

In tennis, scoring a point from an unreturnable, smashing serve is of course, an Ace.  Likewise, so is a fighter pilot possessed of superior armament and skills, who has downed five or more of the enemy's aircraft.

And in a standard deck o' fifty-two, the Ace reigns supreme.

For some time now, I've had a draft of an essay sitting on the back burner.  And every now and then, I'd edit what I already had, or add a new paragraph or  thought, but it never quite came together in a manner I thought fit for publication.

I needn't bother now. 

Ace, of Ace of Spades has taken keyboard in hand, and thoroughly dissected the fetid, fevered swamp which is the mind of the progressive.  And done it in a manner so startling in it's brilliance, that I am quite humbled by it's magnificence. 

Leading lights of leftism have a powerful psychological tool for enforcing their own preferred orthodoxies. It's one thing to tell someone he's wrong on an issue; it's another thing to tell him, impliedly, that he's evil or stupid because of his stance on an issue. True, a leftist can reject any progressive leader's opinion. But when he does so he imperils his sense of self-worth. If progressivism can be challenged on this point, why not that one? And if it can be fairly challenged on many points, then how can it be those who believe in progressivism are enlightened for doing so? If major tenets of orthodox progressivism are open to debate and challenge, doesn't that mean that one's status of intellectual, based almost entirely on one's belief in progressivism, is similarly open to challenge?

That way madness lies, of course.

Give yourself thirty minutes and truly spend some quality time reading Ace's exploration of the core of the progressive.  Read it twice, and dwell upon it awhile.  It is filled with "damn, I wish I'd have said that!" bits of goodness.

And then laugh the next time a progressive moonbat spews forth with their usual blather, as you'll be well prepared and able to just grin at 'em.

Which of course will drive 'em nuts, but only you will know why.

Now then, my musty olde unfinished essay goes now to the digital dustbin, and that rightly so. 

Nicely done, Ace. 

Observing Tradition

As most folk look back on their three-day weekend, courtesy of observing Memorial Day on a Monday, I thought it fitting to perhaps evoke one more rememberence of those who gave all in their service.

For today is the Traditional Memorial Day.  From when our National Holidays weren't all about us, but about those to whom we give tribute.

Often, it is when we return to our normal grind, that we look back on an event, a moment or a memory; only then to fully appreciate that which is observed through the perspective of time. 

So, as you look back on your weekend, look also to those whose sacrafice bought you that time.  Reflect on your freedom, bought by their service, their blood and their honor.

And join once more, In Rememberence.

Pfc Chad Hill salutes at evening retreat.

25th ID, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii

I think that the greatest tribute we can render to the fallen, is to quite simply, live the American Dream in their honor.

And no, I don't mean shopping, spending, buying and the like.  I mean ensuring that their heritage is passed down to our young.  I mean seeing to it daily, that the values and ideals which fostered the founding of this great Nation are instilled in every mind and heart.

To those who gave all, we can give but faint measure of effort.  But we can give our complete and utter committment to their memory, and in so doing, help ensure the future of this great Nation.

Give now this service to their memory, in their honor.

And as you live your week, your month and the months to come, every now and then, stop and raise that tankard of ale by your grill, smile, and toast them in the Spirit of America which they died to help preserve for each of us.

They'd not want us to be endlessly maudlin and 'ever in mourning for them.  Fact is, I think if we were, they'd rise and kick our asses for not quite getting what it is they fought for.

Life.  Liberty.  The Pursuit of Happiness.

Go be Americans, and shine, people!  And long may we wave.

That, is the tribute.

For Love of Country, '06

Originally published for Memorial Day in 2004, this remains one of my favorite, most heartfelt works.  And every word of it rings true, even today.

I will leave this post up through the Memorial Day weekend.  And, I have something to follow for the traditional Memorial Day, which comes this Tuesday, May 30th.

For Love of Country

And of our fellow man.

In the face of this electoral season's acrimony, it behooves us all as Americans to every now and then declare a truce, step back from the brink and to take stock of this awesome Nation of ours.

Of all of ours.

Be you Raving Liberal or Vast Right-Wing Conspirator, this time is not about you. Or about me.

It is about Them.

It is for The Fallen.

Each year the soldiers of the Third United States Infantry Regiment ("The Old Guard") take part in the ceremony called "Flags In." Just before Memorial Day, each grave in Arlington National Cemetery is decorated with a small American flag.

The flags remain in place until the conclusion of the Memorial Day Weekend when they are all removed. It is the only time during the year when American flags are permitted at all gravesites in the Cemetery. The "Flags In" detail took place this year on Thursday, 27 May 2004.

Personally, I believe deeply that we lose something vital to our survival as a Nation when we forget the blood of patriots.

Words, symbols, heated rhetoric and clever argument all pale when measured against the brilliance of the white of marble, the emerald carpet of living grass borne over they who rest beneath, forevermore.

And the fields and fields of flags upon each, bearing quiet witness to the precious, eternal value of that sacrafice.

Dignity, honor, respect and a day of rememberence is all that they ask now of us.

Especially, rememberence.

So, this weekend, set aside if only for a day, thoughts of (D) or (R). Rail not against your fellow American, nor wish harm to him, his party or his creed.

Not on this day.

The men and women in those graves are no longer Democrats or Republicans. They are still and eternally though Americans, and are forevermore worthy of this day given but to them.

Honor the Day. Honor Them.

From their dark and silent graves, they give more honor to our Nation than any one politican, party or officeholder dares ever imagine.

Dignified beyond words, with nobility above the highest offices of government, these silent warriors speak loudly of what it is to be American.

They did not die for the Republicans. Nor for the Democrats, Greens or Libertarians.

Whether in combat, or fifty years later surrounded by only the memories of comrades long since passed, the men and women resting forever under those flags once marched proudly under that banner. They have earned nothing less than the unqualified respect of a grateful Nation, and her grateful people.

The last full measure of devotion is an awesome, terrible thing. Yet, magnificent; and it is upon the altar of their sacrafice that we enjoy the freedom of the greatest Nation in the history of the world.

Stand and salute, and remember them.

For our own sakes, and especially for theirs.

REMEMBER THEM!

Freedom is Beautiful

Why is this woman smiling?

Let her tell you in her own words.......

"On a final note, I must clear up a misconception about this conservative. I can’t speak for others, but I don’t push the “colorblind” idea because I think it’s stupid. We couldn’t ignore differences if we tried. That’s not the way God made us. He created a truly diverse universe that is beautiful and awesome. It’s various colors, shapes, and sizes are pleasing to the eye. I won’t pretend we’re all the same except for skin color. We are all part of the American culture, but each of us is also part of a sub-cultural group. These have much in common, but they also have their differences."

La Shawn has been on my blogroll, and a daily read of mine about as long as three years or so that Smoke on the Water has exisited.  And believe me, she's clearly one of the smartest and most insightful voices in any media, much less the blogosphere.

If you're new to Smoke on the Water, my archives are only mildly entertaining.  Enjoy 'em if you've the time.  But La Shawn's works ought be required reading, and I earnestly urge you to do so.  You'll find it time very well spent.

You'll learn a lot about the beauty of freedom...complete and total freedom, from a truly beautiful lady.

God Bless you, La Shawn, and keep up the good fight.

The Art of the Rant

With apologies to GMC's marketing slogan.

This is a Professional Grade Rant.!

"You want to really turn yourself into an icon against established religion? You want to hear your name whispered in awe of your bravery? You want to become a crusader against dogma and the establishment? Go ahead, because there’s your chance. Stand up, just for once in your miserable, useless life, to something and somebody likely to actually strike back rather than shake their heads in pity."

"But of course you won’t do such a thing. That would require actual bravery and, as we all know, the only “bravery” exhibited among the feckless, “progressive” cowards is the kind that doesn’t involve any actual, you know, risk."

That was written by a trained and experienced Professional.  Caution, do not attempt to imitate, serious inadequacy and subsequent embarassment may occur.

All kidding aside, thanks, Misha.  What you said has needed saying for a long, long time.  And I don't think anyone ever has, nor shall, ever say it better.

Now, if only someone would give her a copy to read?

Endangered Species

Though not on the E.P.A.'s Endangered Species List, the RINO, a.k.a. Republican in Name Only, surely merits a spot on that roster.

Espeically given that some of them can't seem to understand the difference between a United States Citizen and and an Illegal Alien.

Illegals granted Social Security

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 19, 2006

The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment -- even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.    

"There was a felony they were committing, and now they can't be prosecuted. That sounds like amnesty to me," said Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who offered the amendment yesterday to strip out those provisions of the immigration reform bill. "It just boggles the mind how people could be against this amendment."    

The Ensign amendment was defeated on a 50-49 vote.

Here's what needs to be our new Endangered Species List, as reported by Allah.  Notice that we're only discussing erstwhile Republicans here.  Note also, these also tend to be the RINOs on the wrong side of the 2nd amendment, Campaign Finance Reform *gag, spit!* and many other conservative imperatives.

Brownback (R-KS)
Chafee (R-RI)
DeWine (R-OH)
Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Voinovich (R-OH)

I have no heated anger towards these RINOs.  Fact is, I have an ice-cold dismissal of them as anything other than obsacles to the restoration of National Sovereignty; obstacles to be swept away in every possible election.

Well, they can understand getting their asses voted out of office, which is a goal I wholeheartedly endorse.  No, no yelling or screaming needed; merely don't send 'em one red cent.  That, and get some true Conservatives to run against them in the primaries, no matter the odds.

And that's what is going to seperate US from THEM.  If we can't get behind a constructive solution for RINO REPLACEMENT REMEDIES, then we've got some shaky ground under us while we rant and rage.  That same energy, placed behind a winning conservative candidate would be far more effective, anyway.

Point is, these RINOs do not, and will not "hear us", no matter how loud or angry we get.  The only thing they "hear" is empty campaign coffers and the echo of a losing vote tally in their campaign headquarters.

No matter how well the fine-tune their rhetoric between now and their next elections, never forget them who for who and what they are. 

By being Republicans in Name Only, they dishonor Republicanism, their constituents and this Nation.  If they want to be on the side of the socialist left, I'm sure the democrat party would welcome them with open arms.

And I for one, say Good Riddance.

Come November, I'll see you at the polls.  BE THERE!

Us, or Them?

UPDATE: 10:30pm CST.      Welcome Instapundit guests!

And it seems I've some in agreement, and some comments and links which are just howlers.  A bit late tonight for me to fully respond to the comments (and hate mail), but I'll give it all a good run through tomorrow morning.  Until then, keep the cards n' letters coming.

Remember this though.  I'm just as committed to:  1.  The Fence.  2. NO AMNESTY.  3. Militarization of the border, as needed.  4.  Instantly deporting all illegal alien felons.  5.  Cutting off the "carrot", i.e; the social services which support so many millions of illegal aliens.  6.  No "fast track" to Citizenship, other than that which any Legal Immigrant must accept.

And I'm committed to voting out any RINO pacifist who wants to kowtow to Fox and the reconquistas.

What I've pointed out though in this essay, is that among ourselves, manners matter.  Or, at least they should, lest we be confused with our opponents on the left.

Now, on to your reading.  Welcome aboard!

A day and a half after the President's speech on illegal immigration and our Southern border.

In that time, I've made a pretty fair scan of the sites on my blogroll, as  well as many others which were linked by their own articles.  I've clicked-through to a whole lot of InstaLinks, and some from Drudge.  It has been to say the least, interesting.

Now, in my scant three years of manning the helm here at Smoke on the Water, I've never let up on reading what's out there, even though I've suffered some extended, self-imposed absences from this keyboard.  And in that time, I have formed many friendships, both purely online, and not a mere few which have become freinds in the coporeal world.

Some other site-authors and commentators exist out there who I'd never want to be friends with.  Or for that matter, even associate with.  Nor, with whom to be compared.

Kos, and his demented minions.  Atrios, for similar reasons.  And the entire cesspool which is the Democratic Underground....  a toilet long overdue for flushing.

What these sites and their leftist synchophants are famous for, is their never ending hatred of, and unreasonable anger towards, any and all things conservative; all things Bush!  And not a well-reasoned anger, or for that manner, any reason whatsoever.  It is enough that Bush breathes for them to erupt as the snarling pack of rabid curs that they are.

It is bad enough to read their ragings, ravings and rants.  One's head simply cannot comprehend how in their throes of hate, how any semblence of reason, logic or any sort of orderly thought process can be so lacking in an otherwise human skull. 

In fact, the mere style of their hate is their hallmark, and they're justly known for their lunacy, and well laughed upon by their betters from the universe of reason and sanity.  Moonbats, we call them, and rightly so.

But now, I fear for us.  For the conservative blogosphere's anger towards President Bush has begun to resemble the foam flecked frothy faced insanity of the left.

And I do not like the comparison.  We're better than that, and we're better than them.

Get this through your heads, my friends.  We've already made a difference, we've forced the issue and are beginning to see some traction in our direction.    I, too, don't think the President's speech was enough, but it was a start.  A wobbly start, admittedly, but would you have no improvements at all, or can you take a breath and pause in your intemperate rage long enough to realize, that it's a start?

Granted, it's not much of a start, and leaves much to be desired.  So, we'll just have to press on, relentlessly keeping the pressure on for those desires to be realized.  But we must do it in a manner in keeping with the ethos of our Tribe.

Hell yes, keep the pressure on and keep those cards, calls, letters and e-mails going to your congresscritters.  They need to know...hell, President Bush needs to know, that we're more or less politely, not going to let up just because a good start has been launched.  But we also cannot punish them for making a start, or elsewise, why would they find it reasonable to listen to us, if we but punish them for at long last, responding?

For the fools who oppose us, and the RINOS, well, that's what primaries are for.  Run some real conservatives against them, and keep hammering away on the issues.  Where it counts, which is only in the voting booth.

Keep the pressure on in the blogs, and with everyone in your life's reach.  And do so in a manner so as to be a credit to yourself, your politics and your tribe.

Dammit, do it as a Citizen that your fellow American can look to, and respect.  Not like the leftist assnuggets on the Hate Bush! side of the planet.

Tony Blankley opens "The Price of Secure Borders" with:

I've always found that avoiding insanity is useful in life — which in American politics sometimes puts one in the minority. As a second proposition I would argue that when in negotiations, if he with whom you are negotiating is moving in your direction, don't walk out of the room.

Of course, anything by the esteemed Mr. Blankely deserves the read the whole thing endorsement.

Blogrolled sage DANEgerous wisely points us to NRO columnist Jim Geraghty's ten-ring take on the subject.

...as I mentioned, what kind of lengths do you think the Democrats will go to in order to keep power once they’ve got it? Does the “Fairness Doctrine” ring a bell? You think Pelosi and Reid wouldn’t try that tactic to hinder conservative talk radio? How about McCain-Feingold 2.0, with a particular focus on controlling “unregulated speech” on the Internet and blogs?

Think the MSM was cheerleading for Democrats in 2004? How much more fair and balanced do you think they’ll be when their task is to defend Democratic House and Senate majorities AND elect President Hillary Rodham Clinton? My guess is, they’ll make the CBS memo story look accurate and evenhanded by comparison.

Think the GOP can prevail in close races once they’re out of power? Ask the members of the military who had their ballots in Florida blocked. Ask Doug Forrester how well his anti-Torricelli campaign worked when he suddenly faced Frank Lautenberg at the last minute. Ask Dino Rossi. Ask Democrat Tim Johnson if he’s glad the last county in South Dakota to report its results just happened to have enough of a Democratic margin to put him over the top in 2002.

You don't win by losing.

And linked from the same DANEgerous post from above, this from Karl Maher.  In Buddhist Republicans, he writes:

I remarked somewhere, on this blog or the other one, that one of my earliest political memories was seeing a Vietnamese Buddhist monk on the evening news immolate himself. He seemed peaceful, in the Lotus position. Just another Karma-related fatality, though; didn't do much for Vietnam.

Well, tonight I have seen Republicans set themselves on fire. I don't really know what got the monk's toga twisted. But illegal immigration has really done it for Republicans. Check the Corner, where Kathryn Lopez has made an absolute ass of herself; check the open thread at Redstate, check the comment thread on your favorite conservative blog.......

Go and read what follows that, espeically his list of Bush accomplishments and milestones from five years in office.

So, does all of this make you think that I'm satisfied with the President's speech?  Well, I'm not. Nor am I happy with his insistence of the pursuit of a comprehensive Immigration Reform bill.  Not in the least.  I would far prefer to first secure the border, and then discuss what next to do.

But I am happy that immigration has found it's way onto the Executive Radar, at long last.  At least it's there, and it's our team fielding the ball.

Our job now is to not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

And that's a real possibility, given the venal and ill tempered viperitude being vented by otherwise sensible opinionists, bloggers and even nationally syndicated columnists from the right.

Again, from Geraghty:

But apparently the Kos are not the only ones with an all-or-nothing mentality. Sometimes in life you have to use the West Coast offense, nickel and diming your way down the field instead of going for the long bomb. If I want a more conservative government, I get it by electing the more conservative of the two choices, even if he isn’t as conservative as I would like. I do not get it by sitting on the sidelines and pouting, and letting the less conservative guy take the reigns of power.

So I put it to you.  Are you going to act like the US, which as brought us so far, so solidly and so successfully, or are you going to act like THEM ?

It is said:  "That which we admire, that which we emulate, we become."

And I have long admired the the Conservative community, be it newswriters, authors, columnists, bloggers and friends.  It has always tended to attract the mature of mind, the responsible, the civil, the well reasoned and well spoken.  The Grownup Party, if you will.  I've always wanted to emulate the best of who, and what, we are.  But then of course, we always do seem to go from that lofty perch, and fire countless rounds right through our own feet.  The Stupid Party, and we may well deserve the title.

Conversely, I've always been struck by the childlike petulence of the left, with their immature logic, temper tatrums, their overwhelming and overreaching and over-loud pouting and shouting.  The Evil Party, and no more fitting a monniker can they ever wear.

It pains me that I find a significant few of the conservatives whom I admire, to be acting just like them.

I have seen the Stupid Party, and it is US!

UPDATE, 18 May 06,     Noon, CST.

Other blogs linking with this post:

The Other Side of Kim

The Anchoress

Kitty Litter

Gulf Coast Pundit

Lucianne "Must Reads of the Day" (18 May 06)

Dr. Sanity

The Anti-Idiotorian Rottweiller

The Democracy Project

Random Nuclear Strikes

Leslie's Ominibus

Supply Side Politics

plus, see those trackbacks!

Seventeen Minutes

I thought it might have taken a little longer, but seventeen minutes is what we got.

Given that 7 pm CST is when I start my drive home, I listened on the car's radio, and taking notes at 70 mph isn't highly reccommended.

Or for the faint of heart.

From my carefully and hastily scribbled notes:

The tone was about right.  I heard a serious President try to take on a very serious topic.

I did not hear a surefit of pandering to Vicente Fox, or Mexico in particular.  And that is what I had dreaded highly as the countdown to the speech came on.  Yes, there was the little diddy about "Mexico is our neighbor, and our friend", but that was delivered minimally, almost as an afterword.

A good point, delivered with reasonable force of conviction, and which I agreed with, was the President's declaration that we do not have control of our borders.  And of what the consequences of that loss of control has wrought in terms of our society.  For that, I say "well done".

On the issue of a fence, I am disappointed.  Though the President did mention a better barrier in the metropolitan areas, what I wanted to hear; what we needed to hear, was lacking.

What should have been said was that the United States would henceforth begin construction of the best wall the taxpayers can buy.  That the construction, starting in the metro areas and continuing as far as necessary, until the wall runs from the Gulf to the Pacific, or until Mexico gets the clue and commences with true border enforcement on their side of the frontier.

But he did mention the unmaned aircraft, and I might take that to include the aerostats which Doc and I discussed the other day.

With more time than seventeen minutes, perhaps he could have more strongly emphasized our Nation's history of legal immigration through Ellis Island, and even here in Galveston, Texas. 

And on the topic of assimilation, he did fair in his endorsement of English, but again, just a bit short.  Until we make English the absolute and official language of these United States, we'll not turn the burner up under the Melting Pot which President Bush so aptly invoked.

The best moment though?  The end of "Catch and Release".  Perhaps his most forceful point of the entire speech, and which must be put into force at once.

Though the President did not flesh-out just what he would do about the tens of millions of illegal aliens already here in the U.S., he did address the issue.  But I flat out disagree with him that paying a fine and going "to the back of the line" isn't amnestey.  It is nothing less than amnesty, albiet with a price.

So, let's say he gets his way on that.  Will we see the unceremonious ejection of illegal aliens who are found to have not "paid their fine"?  Will we have the nerve and guts to instantly deport those who don't step up and even try to work with the program?

That's what worries me.  If we haven't had the guts to do it for the past forty years, I'm not sure that the will exists to do it in the next ten.

But if we're to survive as a Nation, we must do exactly that.

And finally, what I wanted to hear the most, I heard not at all.  The President missed a prime moment to invoke shame upon those hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and their socialist motivators, who dared flaunt their numbers in the streets of our Nation.  My words would have been "How DARE you!", in these United States of America!

But, all in all, I give the speech a "7".  A "B-minus" if you will. 

I'm relieved that I'm not as infuriated as I'd feared I would be.  I'm just mildly annoyed right now.

But I'm sure that once the Senate gets back into play, there'll be plenty of fury to go around.

A Sucker Bet

I'll be watching President Bush tonight, as he speaks to the Nation from the Oval Office.

Though I wish for an uncompromising message in support of enforcing our immigration laws, frankly, I'd be astonished if the President actually came through on that.

So instead, I'm braced to endure listening to some mealy-mouthed apologetic for what is likely to be, and remain, an unsolved problem.

Until, that is, we place a substantial wall along our Southern border.

Anyone want to take odds that I'm wrong?

See me after the speech.

Speed Traps

Given the state of hysteria from the screeching class, and their MSM progenitors in regards to the hue and cry over the NSA's ongoing tracking of civil phone records,  I thought I'd take a moment and shine a bit of light on the topic.

In order to draw some comparisons of the NSA's telephony traffic data mining to some other widely accepted practices, let's look at something we're familiar with seeing in daily life.

The police officer who monitors the speed of traffic via radar.

What happens when an officer is running radar at the side of the road?  Well, let's break it down.

Each and every car in the lanes under observation is hit by the radar beam.

Each and every car's licence plate may be visible on the video from the patrol unit's dashboard video camera and recorder.  Those recordings may be archived for later review.

Ninety Nine point Nine-ish percent of all traffic passing that officer's radar, unmolested.  And most of them were in fact, speeding.  But not egregiously, and so proceed on their merry way. 

And why no complaints about an invasion of privacy?

Let's look at that.

The cars are not on private property.  Rather, they're rolling along a public thoroughfare.  The mere fact of their presence on those roads is public knowledge.  And, if they're travelling along the highways equipped with (for example) Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) cameras, a record of each car's transit is created.

Now, even though I'm rather opposed to police cameras in terms of general street level monitoring, I do understand the benefits of such on the freeways and other primary traffic routes.  And records from those records can be used for many practical and valuable applications.

Visual analysis of the tapes can reveal factors which create choke points for the flow of traffic.

Data capture software applied to the same tapes can count the number of cars in any given moment, or over any measured period of time.

From those tapes, traffic patterns can be decuced, and when changes to the roadways are considered, certain extrapolations, projectoins and predictions can be made.

And certainly, more nefarious patterns can be detected.  Such as the small percentage of drivers who selfishly drive their cars on the shoulder of the road to cut ahead of traffic, or who cut through a corner gas station to avoid a pesky traffic light.

Not only can those patterns be identified, but so also can the cars be positively I.D. by their license plates.  And by extension, so can their registered owners.

And still, no cries about a Right of Privacy?

Well, no.  Not insofar as a mere recording of that which is clearly observable on a public highway.

Now, if our Officer Friendly were to single out a particular car from those streams of traffic for exceeding the speed limit, no privacy is yet lost.  A bit of anonymity perhaps, but nothing more.  And if nothing more than the brief transaction of a license check and a citation written occurs, then the only erstwhile privacy lost was that which was not truly private, i.e; the driver and his car's interior being visible to Officer Freindly as he performs his duties.

It is those parts of the car's interior which are not in plain sight, which enjoy the same extended presumption of a Right of Privacy as one's home.  But that which is in plain view is possessed of no such right.

So, if our intrepid Officer were to observe some contraband lying in plain sight in that car's interior, then a transformation occurs.  With the introduction of probable cause to the situation, then the mechanisms of law become available for the State to assert it's right as empowered by the Constitution.  Officer Friendly, securing either the permission of the driver, or the permission of a duly empowered Judge via a properly issued warrant, may then intrude on the driver's privacy.  And so, the search begins in earnest, leaving no corner or crevase of the car unexamined.

It is in much the same manner that the NSA's data mining operation is likely conducted.

The hundreds of millions, even tens of billions of records of all calls made in the U.S., even in a week's time, would be impossible for any number of people to individually review.  It simply cannot be done.

But pumping those records through an intellegently designed relational database can, much like the aforementioned highway studies, reveal patterns.  Some of those patterns can shine the light on particular "cars", or in the NSA's case, specific phone numbers, either as call originators or as receivers of multiple calls from other suspect numbers.

It is from the sifting of billions of those records that certain numbers reveal themselves as having pattern-links to phones which are known to belong to people with links to the shadowy world of terrorism.

Call detail records are the equivalent of seeing millions of cars pass by a parked police cruiser.  And the software which is looking at those records is the equivalent of a speed-gun's radar beam.  Nothing more.

Fact is, I'll wager that your company's PBX came from the manufacturer with a call-accounting package as part of the deal.  I've know this, because I've been the corporate buyer of such on more than one occasion, and I've been on the paid consultancy side of the fence on a few other deals.

Companies, and especially call-centers, use call accounting software to track all manner of telephony trends.  Peak calling times, calls to or from the most heavily trafficed area codes, average call duration, shortest and longest calls, most calls to or from a given extension; the possibilities are nearly endless.  They also find and identify phone abuse by their employees, of times resulting in disciplinary actions or termination.

The NSA's data-mining program is a Call Accounting Program, writ large.  But it is no more invasive than the police radar beam, only looking at the exterior of hundreds of millions of calls as the zip along the wires. 

Looking at the traffic data reveals nothing of the interior of those calls, which would be the actual conversations.

Yet, it is not until a suspicious call-pattern is revealed that an NSA type agency will hand over it's probable cause to a more active, investigative and enforcement agency, such as the FBI.  Who will then use that probable cause to secure a warrant from the FISA court, allowing the Feddies to then finally, actually and not until then...  listen in on the calls to and from the number(s) in question, in order to further determine the nature and scope of, if any, terrorist plots and schemes.

For a more scholarly and experienced view of the constructs of the actual Data Mining, I urge you to go and read Mr. DuToit's extremely well done pimer on the topic.  You really do need to do exactly that, if you haven't already. 

Note that none of this requires any names, nor the content of the calls—that would be the privacy of the thing, and that’s where it seems that the NSA, if they’re telling the truth, has been quite circumspect.

But what this data gives the smart analyst is that when you establish that (357) 243-3006 belonged to Abdul El-Bomba, who received a call from his brother Aziz, a known member of Hezbollah in Syria, you now have the ability to focus only on all the calls Abdul made and received, to see who was calling him and whom he was calling. That would be a couple hundred calls, out of the (literally) tens of billions of records you’ve collected.

Be it on a Public Highway, or a Public Utility, the exterior of your private conveyence is not a private fact.  It is rather, a freely observable matter of public record.

Really, it's not hard to understand.  Except for idealogical lefties.  And the only thing it seems they understand these days is their hatred of All Things Bush.

I salute the NSA for doing their job, and doing it damned well indeed, as evidenced by over four years with no further terrorists successes since that fateful September day in 2001.

Due in no small part, I'm sure, to their Data Mining programs, which the howling assmonkeys of the left would love to see canceled.  They've already wrought great damage to the programs with their coordinated publicity, tipping the U.S.'s hand to the jihadists.  I wonder what classified asset they'll betray next, and when?

Females & Firearms

This evening, our local (Houston, TX) ABC affilliate runs a special segment on their 10pm news, focusing on Women With Guns.*

*if they post this segment as a video on their site, I will update that bold with a link

I watched this couple minutes of airtime with rapt attention, and here are a few observations:

The segment opens with some women who can damn well shoot!  At what appeared to be seven or ten yard distance, the groups being fired, live on camera, averaged no more than four inches with no flyers.  This, with both S&W (or Taurus?) snubbies and a full-sized Glock in 9mm or .40 S&W.   I could not I.D. the handguns beyond those quick takes.

Featured are normal, sane, respectable women who are CHL holders.  To me, the students appeared to be late '30s~mid '40s suburbanite types.  Either professionals or housewives.  Or, of course, both.

The report citeed Texas Department of Public Safety  stats  of 247,000+ CHL holders, of which 44,000+  are women.  And if I heard it right, that that female percentage is the fastest growing segment of the class.  Which, was reported if not approvingly, at least not derisively.

KTRK's reporter showed a good center-pouch CHL ladies leather purse while highlighting a lady who carries at all times, and another who carries when she feels she needs to.

The report placed a strong emphasis on the fact that these women, and all CHL holders train ardently for non-violent dispute resolution.  The female instructor got that point across with no clouding whatsoever.

On air, that same instructor explained that many women are reluctant to handle a handgun in the beginning, but with some instruction, usually become better shots than the men.  (I already know this, having instructed some four dozen-ish women to shoot....  most respond to instruction much better than the average Joe at the range.)

And finally, this most unusual feature showed these ladies being happy, having fun, and with two couples being featured also.  One an instructor couple and a second just as a shooter couple...and they didn't make 'em look like Reba McIntyre types from Tremors.

All in all, this was how news ought to be presented.  Objectively and factually, with no sneer, spin or other coloration by the reporter. 

Of course, I'm sure that a buncha prune faced lemon suckin' anti gun fear mongering million mom march types will decend upon KTRK with heaps of e-mails and letters of scorn.  Count on them to berate KTRK for not "baaaaallllaanciinnngg" the segment with the obligatory Brady (panties in a) Bunch spokesweasel, or the usual lying VPC propagandist.

How much do you want to bet that those groups will scream for "equal time" to respond to the Females & Firearms segment?

Equal time, my ass.  After forty or fifty years of virtually nothing but a steady media anti-gun drumbeat, this one segment is but a grain of sand on our side of the scale, versus a dumptruck load of the same from them and their ilk over the years.

But the nature of truth being what it is, that one grain of sand will weigh heavily upon that scale.

Truth outweighs a lie, even a Big Lie.  All it takes is a few truth-tellers who just won't quit! This segment told a big truth, and in a huge way. 

I salute KTRK for their objectivity, honesty and courage in airing this feature.

I strongly encourage you to do the same.  They hear us in our uproar when we're slammed.  Let's make sure that they hear us in our praise when they get it right:

KTRK TV
3310 Bissonnet,
Houston TX 77005
Our Phone Number is (713) 666-0713

( their "contact us" page doesn't provide the e mail addy, it sends the mail internally via their webpage, but I'll send this post's permalink to 'em all the same)