Cancer. Some Things You Can Do.

Most everyone I know well, including some folks I'd just as soon disown, are aware of the fact that I've recently begun treatments for metastasis of the cancer I had diagnosed and treated 3 years ago.  I have avoided airing those personal details in this public space, because I don't want to sound like I'm pining for anyone's sympathy.  Fact of the matter is though, the way I look at it: I'm luckier than any of you folks...I get to kick cancer's ass a second time.  The chest-thumping factor is, as Kramer would say, "off the charts, Jerry, off the charts!"

Be that as it may, there'll probably be at least a third and fourth time, many years from now.  And I have a point to make, so listen up.

In the first go-'round, I lost my job, my Corvette, a salivary gland, a sizable portion of beard, and most everything else I owned.  This time they've already spill't enough blood to float a small farm animal, and will soon claim a few sections of both lungs.  But, and I'm being 100% sincere, it's a minor setback.

My high school football coach just called me yesterday, and asked what he and our church could do for me.  I received the question as if to mean, what could they do to benefit me?  And answered that, besides their continued prayers, there was nothing I needed.  But there is one thing I wish I'd have requested, which will benefit far more than just me, and I may call him back.

I wish I'd have told him that the cancer that is inside me is not remotely as threatening to my life and what I value than the cancer that has grown unchecked around me, and which continues devouring healthy tissue.  Around, and amongst, all of us.  I am writing of the pervasive, intrusive, constricting, and malignant cancer that is statism, and all its forms.  All the greatest civilizations known to have existed, rolled into one, can't hold a candle to what the Founding Fathers established.  And while our economy chokes from the tumor squeezing its windpipe and our national security teeters precariously from the tumor rotting its brain, our elected representatives had no qualms in turning to funny boy Stephen Colbert for a little levity on the subject of illegal immigration.  Talk about fiddling while the shining city burns.

The Presidential administration sees fit to invest in offshore drilling to benefit Brazil, but simultaneously continue their moratorium on drilling in the Gulf.  That's 40,000 American jobs outsourced to Brazil, not by an employer trying to escape onerous regulation and taxation, but by the guy who gets wee-wee'd up at the notion of American exceptionalism.  The justice department (in an effort to assert and solidify federal authority) manages to fight against one state's attempts to stop illegal immigration, but can't justify an effort to investigate and prosecute blatant voter intimidation.  That is, the federal government will fight hard to protect its own power, but won't lift a finger to help fight for yours.

Banks that accepted "stimulus" funds but decided to repay them have been refused that option, presumably because the administration prefers having the control to having the cash.  This latest law to loan money to businesses contains such conditions that make it nothing but a trojan horse into those businesses to inject more governmental control.

Every new law and regulation and unvetted czar and Supreme Court nominee, that we've gotten from this President and this Democrat-controlled Congress and this Democrat-controlled Senate is consistent, not with an effort to engender Liberty for Americans, but an effort to destroy or pervert Liberty in the name of a more-collossal and controlling government.

Dear Coach,

Yes, there are a few things you can do, just for me:  Vote Republican.  Endorse and support the Tea Party movement.  Criticize governmental malfeasance and ineptitude.  Demand honesty and accountability from the national media.  Vote Republican.  Fight to abolish the income tax in favor of a flat sales tax.  Rage against Socialism, in all its forms.  Combat disinformation by the liberal media, and popular culture.  Vote Republican.

All of us will eventually die.  Some folks never really live, and that's the sad part.  I told one person that you wouldn't wish my condition on anyone, but if you had to, you'd wish it on the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-bitch you'd ever met.

Round # 2 for me with ACC, and I'm bringin' the hammers.

Help me win the fight against the more-sinister cancer: statism.  And we'll all win.

Thanks for the help.  Hey cancer, fill yer hands, you sonofabitch.

Why Do You Make The Big Bucks?

Back when I was building things for a living, I had these two laborers on the jobsite who were constantly trying to either get out of doing their assigned tasks or take credit for someone else's production.  Their names: James Carter and Willie Clinton.

Seriously, if they'd have been state road-working employees, they'd have been outfitted with upside-down shirt pockets, so the shovels they'd be leaning on would have a place to catch and keep them from toppling over when/if they fell asleep standing up.

One day, I saw them talking with each other and was wondering what they were up to, when Willie walked over to me.  He said, "We was wondering why it is that you make the big bucks."

I asked him if he didn't consider it possible that I earned more because I was willing to take on more responsibility and answer for my errors or wrong decisions instead of blaming someone else or some seismic anomaly, that I came to work prepared to do those things required to help my employer be successful, and that I considered his success was a good thing worth working for, and that I actually work harder and more efficiently than anyone else on that jobsite, and that I show up for work even when I don't feel like it, or because I do things myself that others in my charge cannot or will not do?

"No," he said, "I don't think that's why.  I think there's something else."

"You're right," I said, "come here and I'll show you why I make the big bucks."

I walked over to a block wall that had been poured solid with concrete, and held my open hand in front of it.

"Now ball your fist, and hit my hand as hard as you can."

In a rare moment of compliance (or maybe it was just that he was willing to seize upon any opportunity to take a whack at me), Willie did just that.  And I pulled my hand back, as he bloodied his knuckles on the unforgiving wall.

"That," I said to Willie, "is why I make the big bucks."

I watched Willie walk back to where Jimmy had been waiting expectantly.

Jimmy: "What'd he say, what'd he say?"

Willie then held his palm up in front of his own face and said, "hit my hand."

I chose those names in this tale because we've recently had a couple of former US Presidents by similar names inject themselves into the national discussion as if they're some kind of authority on, get this, the Tea Party and its emerging force as a voice for, and of, America.

Back in April, Slick Willie claimed that the Tea Party was "dangerous,"  but this past week was heard listing things "they" may be good for, peering professorially (and condescendingly) over his bifocals.  And Jimmy the peanut head recently suggested that Tea Party rallies were a lot like his own Presidency.

Wow.  Things are so bad now for the Corruptocrats that the two most-recent, most egregious examples of Presidential ineptitude not named Obama are swimming hard as hell to get in front of the wave, in an effort to deflect the reality that honest, law-abiding citizens who never envisioned themselves at a political rally, are indeed rallying to protest all the big-government intrusion and dependency that these two fostered and perpetuated their entire political lives.  Next thing you know, Owl Gore will be claiming to have invented the Tea Party.

It isn't a single person that gives the Tea Party ralliers their drive and focus, it's the result of caging good people in an ever-deepening invasion of statism.  The more those statists try to put their own brand on the Tea Party movement or belittle and ridicule its participants, or infiltrate those ranks with nutcases bent on smear tactics, the more they succeed in only defining themselves for everyone paying attention as the real enemies of America.  Like that bumper sticker said, "If they don't want civil disturbance, why do they keep disturbing us?"  The answer is that they just don't get it.

Power, for the statist, is the only thing that matters.  More laws and more regulations equals more authority and control.  Kinda like if I'd have let Willie and Jimmy have a "boss-for-a-day" experiment on the job, these folks have taken the past 23 months and proven just how inept and corrupt and un-American and rabidly evil they can be, given such unbridled authority.

The thing they did not count on was that good people maybe wouldn't sit silently while their country was sabotaged by its government.  We've seen the harm you can, and will, bring to our economy and national security, and individual liberty.  It would seem that enough good Americans weren't numb or asleep or addicted to your benevolence, despite the hardiest efforts of your assumed intelligensia and media, and none of your twists and perversions and slander come as a surprise to us now.

Anything other than finding useful occupation outside and away from public scrutiny, now that we've all seen you for what you truly are, only serves to reinforce our understanding of your destructive motivation, and the inherent danger therein.

...And for all those folks out there who were duped by empty Democratic rhetoric, Dennis Prager has a spot-on essay for overcoming emotional hurdles when it comes to "Danger on the right" at TownHall.com.  Please consider checking it out.

KLAVAN

I'm working on something that might have to go into the drafts folder for the time being. In realizing that possibility, it occurred to me to check what else I might have in there.

There was this...



Klavan's always a healthy diversion.

More livermush originality to follow soon, promise.

Cold Day, Hot Pie

Many, many years ago, in one of my earliest jobs in the construction industry, I worked for a grading and utilities contractor.  Our company's business was usually within about a 50-mile radius from the office, so our crews generally travelled to jobsites each day, as opposed to staying in hotels during the week.  One such early morning ride included our hero of this tale, named Bill.

On a frigid January morning, Bill's foreman pulled the company crew-cab into a convenience store about half way to their jobsite, a new sewer line project, approximately 1.5 hours drive from the office.  Bill, like most of his coworkers on the drive, had been snoozing on the way to the job, but rousted himself up to fetch some coffee and nabs (nabs = nondescript name for any type of snack food).  In addition to his coffee, Bill left the store with a pack of smokes and a factory-packaged fried apple pie.  Bill drank his coffee and smoked a cigarette while they were stopped, but put his pie away unopened for later in the morning, when he'd be taking a break.

When the crew arrived at the jobsite, and while the equipment operators lubed, cranked, and warmed up their various machines, Bill filled the resevoir of what's called a salamander heater with off-road diesel fuel.  The temperature was expected to only get into the 20's for a high that day, and the fellows would be wanting to keep warm, especially their hands.  A salamander heater has a metal saucer-shaped tank about the size of a small wash-tub as a base, with a 6" metal smokestack protruding skyward from its center.  The surfaces can throw off 150-degree heat, and really make a difference for men working with their hands to ward off the numbing effects of the cold.  Although a very chilly day, the weather was otherwise clear, and the crew began shouldering the task of laying pipe and setting manholes.

Then, about 9:30 that morning, Bill's breakfast started petering out, and he remembered that fried apple pie.  Man, he thought, that thing would be just the ticket about now.  And, it'd be even better if it was warmed up.  Of course, there wasn't a microwave oven on a pipeline jobsite out in the woods, but he did have a heat source: the salamander heater.  So, Bill went to the truck, grabbed his pie, took it out of its wax-paper wrapper, and laid it on the base of that heater, up close to the stove-pipe.  And waited.

15 minutes or so later, Bill figured that the time was right to check on the consumability of the pie.

Now, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, and having a limited understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, Bill didn't consider the possibility that his pie could theoretically be every bit as hot as the heater on which it had sat.

Bill, with his gloved hands, picked up his pie.  He turned the pie from hand to hand but couldn't guage the pie's temperature through the thick leather gloves.  At that point he decided to do one of those things that later affords no deniability...he slapped the very hot pie to the right side of his face, leaving a D-shaped scorch mark.

"Ssssssssssss"

That moment of stupidity was one that old Bill was never able to, during his tenure with that particular company, live down.  And he eventually moved to greener pastures.

Recollecting this story reminds me of the temporary stupidity of folks who've chosen to endorse Democrats in recent years.  Can there be any deniability at this point that the Democrat Party is almost universally corrupt, particularly the Presidential administration?  Is there not a shrinking distinction between Democrat and Socialist?  The Obama/Biden White House has set new extremes for ineptitude and cronyism.  Chris Dodd and slobbering Barney Frank are finally going to get the "credit" they deserve for wrecking the economy.  The Clintons are proving to everyone that they never give a damn about anything besides more power, recognition, and authority for themselves.  Reid and Pelosi have shown exactly how lustful for more big-government schemes they can get when their authority goes unchecked.  Rangel and Waters could end up in jail for their crookedness.  Chicken-Little Gore's wealth redistribution scheme (and latent hypocrisy).  John Edwards' cheat-a-thon, and John Effin Kerry's boat-cloaking maneuver.  NC Congresscritter Boob Etheridge assaulting a student.  Funny man Franken's stolen election.  Bribery and scandal with Blago and Sestak.  Everything Alan Grayson has uttered.  The Atlanta-area Congressional dipshit that thinks Guam could tip over for having too many US soldiers stationed there.  Thuggery and shenanigans and corruption and outright ignorance.  The list goes on and on.

Seriously, if there's any good anywhere in the Donkey party, I ain't seeing it.

It may not be enough to scrape that Obama/Biden sticker off of your Prius in the months and years ahead...You may have to move to a place where nobody knows you, or knows what that big, D-shaped scorch mark on your face is all about.

Call Me Capricious, Then

I just never really find myself in disagreement with The Hammer.  Except, well, this time.

Charles Krauthammer said yesterday that Sarah Palin's endorsement of Christine O'Donnell versus Mike Castle in Delaware, is "destructive and capricious", because in his assessment she has no chance of beating the Democrat in November but Castle would be a "shoo-in."

While I do see the value of having the raw numbers of "R's" in the Senate and all the inherent reconstructive power of a conservative majority, the time for half-measures is long gone.  Chris Christie didn't seem particularly electable, and neither did Scott Brown.  I don't want any shoo-ins, unless they've proven dependable in flawlessly adhering to the Constitution, and Castle can't remotely make that claim.

Out with establishment RINO's.  I'd rather lose with the good guys than win with the losers.

And a vote for Castle is a vote to just lose a little, instead of maybe winning a lot.

UPDATE:  Michelle Malkin reminds us that "9 terms (of phony republicanism) are enough."

UPDATE 2: Check out Mark Levin and Jim DeMint ("I've been here when we had the numbers, and we didn't have the principles") at the National Review.  Reference the Mark Levin podcast pane.

NC Sheriff's Association Wants Your Prescription Info

From Drudge and the News & Obscurer, the NC Sheriff's Association wants access to your medical records.  Their argument is that there's practically no way to enjoy their donuts and perform crime-fighting responsibilities in a traditional manner, so why not just make it easier for them?  What's the big deal about a little invasion of privacy, anyway?

Okay, let's assume there is widespread prescription drug abuse.  Is warrantless access to a citizen's health information even remotely a good idea?  Ever?  I know, or have known, lots of cops, but there isn't any one of them I want knowing that much detail about me.  And I don't even take prescription drugs.

Lynn Bonner, in the N&O quoted Lee County Sheriff Tracy Carter as saying, "We can better go after those who are abusing the system."

And we're expected to believe there'd never be any abuse by the authorities against one of my neighbors?

So, in order to stop drug abuse, good North Carolina citizens must condone and accept police intrusion on their liberties?

I'm all for enforcement of the law, but not at the expense of personal privacy, so I say no thanks.  If you can't do the job of law enforcement without reading a person's private medical information, then either you just can't do the job, or that job doesn't need doing.

The Other 9/11 Mega Mosque

From Alec Rawls' Error Theory.  Remember, this is the big project that I refused to help out with, the Shanksville Flight 93 Mosque, which is no less a mosque than the one proposed near Ground Zero.

If plans to burn copies of the Koran (or cartoon characterizations of Mohammed) hurt your feelings, consider how divisive and destructive the schemes to erect these muslim structures are to the rest of us.  Ain't saying I condone book burnings, but I do agree with whatever it takes to pick a fight with the cowards who would otherwise be cutting up stewardesses and pilots with box cutters and then flying planes into iconic American structures.

Alan Keyes against the Flight 93 memorial




Conservative hero Alan Keyes is asking whether there is a pattern of submission surrounding the nation's 9/11 sites. Apparently he has seen our video expose of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the crescent memorial to Flight 93 (now called a broken circle). Like any straight-thinker, he doesn't like what he sees. The Flight 93 crash site is no place for a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, no matter what it is called.

On this point, Keyes cites Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo's 2005 objection to the newly unveiled Crescent of Embrace design:

Back in 2005, then-Rep. Tom Tancredo was reported to have sent a letter to the National Park Service "asking the Interior Department to reconsider the crescent-shaped design of the memorial to those aboard a plane hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, because some may think it honors the terrorists." Tancredo quite sensibly argues that "regardless of whether 'the invocation of a Muslim Symbol' was intentional, 'it seems that such a symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam.'"

Keyes notes our claim that the design is still replete with terrorist memorializing features and he seems to find it credible. Why shouldn't he? The damning features are all right there in architect Paul Murdoch's design drawings. Thank you Doctor Keyes!


"It’s not just embarrassing. It is a dangerous willful blindness, spurning the woken vigilance of Flight 93."

That's the last line of the full-page advertisement that Tom Burnett Senior and Alec Rawls will be running in the Somerset Daily American this Friday and Saturday (when the two first ladies will be in town for the 9/11 anniversary):


Click for legible image. Full ad-copy PDF here (large file warning).

We are hoping that visitors will hold onto our ad, maybe even tape it to their car windows, and most especially, show it to any press people they come across. Hey, if the Park Service can use 9/11 to plant the world's largest mosque on the Flight 93 crash site, we can use 9/11 to object.

Please continue the article after the fold...