I Was Going to Post The New Crowder Video…

…but decided against it. Crowder parodying Olbermann and cross-dressing just does not feel right. Or relevant.

Here is something that, if not exactly right, is more relevant to my life:

They could ask Destiny… or would that be too catamite of them?

Thoughts on Patriot’s Day

Well, today is 9/11 (“Patriot’s Day, for those that tire of just saying the date)…

And I really do not have much to say on the matter.

I’ll just steal others’ work and not call it my own!

Basil’s Two Cents

Moe Lane’s Declaration of RAGE! (What if the “Third Way” was: Calmly picking up your Chainsaws to fight off the mindless Mohammadean hoard? Could I pick the third way then?)

Big Hollywood has many, many words and posts on the subject…

Sarah “Paladin” Palin uses the vile Facebook for some good.

Thoughts on Obama’s School Day Address

If he did not refer to himself so many times (I counted 66 “I”s and “Me”s that were not quotes from someone else), I would not know this was from Obama.

He kept it apolitical (well, other than the hubris of using the presidential bully pulpit in such a way) and focused on personal responsibility. Of all the speeches I read though from Obama, this was by far the least offensive and most in-line with the American experiment. Here are some quotes:

“But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.”

“And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.”

“But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you.Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”

“But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.”

“The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rightsand put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter andFacebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.”

Of course, I could be wrong. What’s your take?

To Sunray and Back

In all the hullaboo of the past couple of weeks, I have yet to give you a proper travelogue of my trip to Sunray, Texas. This is my attempt to do so now.

For those of you (like me until I actually arrived there) that do not know where Sunray is, it is a small town of approximately 1500 people about an hour North of Amarillo. It is quite a drive (took me 8 hours to get there, 7 hours to get back). And the sights I saw would blow your minds.

The GPS decided to send me through the wastelands North of the Red River, turn west in the horrible pile of smoldering buildings that used to be called Oklahoma City, and turn North once I hit Amarillo. It was an interesting experience. I got stopped by the border guard. They seemed nice enough people, bravely defending our nation from the roving bands of hippies and other sub-human scum that populate Those United States. Driving through the 5-mile wall was an haunting experience. Pitch darkness surround you, with the occasional crush, rotting bodies of those who did not escape the concrete pouring peeping out. WinStar Casino survived by forming a thick glass dome around their property before King Norris ordered the creation of the border wall, for those of the gambling persuasion. They even hired mole people to do all their outdoor services (valet services, parking lot lawn care, dome repair, washing mangled bits of human flesh off of visitors’ cars, et cetera). Most people probably would not notice the difference.

I am relatively happy to report that the Wasteland is attempting to at least restore the semblance of civilization they had going before they were accidentally nuked by Those United States. Unfortunately, they think civilization is measured in highway repair efforts. I drove through 4 different highway repair zones in my brief time in the Wasteland. Then again, the billboards tell a story that the denizens of the Wasteland had little idea what civilization was in the first place. Ads for this one Ham Sandwich joint peppered the first hour across the border. Once I got past the Ham Sandwich place, billboards for various tourist traps (casinos, drive-thru safaris, an action figure museum) showed that the Wasteland had little of value to offer. Kind of sad, when you think about it.

But still, the mutants that inhabit the wasteland still take legal tender and not crave the flesh of men, so it could be worse.

The effort I had to exert to get back into the Kingdom of Texas was much greater than the effort it took to get out, as one would expect. I’m not allowed to divulge all of the tasks one had to perform to prove one’s allegiance to the great Kingdom of Texas (we are trying to keep to riff-raff out), some of the things I am allowed to list (to try and scare out would-be trespassers) are:

• Gargle 50-alarm chili.
• Hit a target with a long arm whilst blindfolded.
• Perform a bone-shattering roundhouse kick on a captured mutant.
• Rip a mutant’s heart out without killing it and feed the organ to it.
• Survive 5 minutes in an artificial black hole and then escape.

I got through, filled up the car, and continued on my way.

I got to see the largest cross in North America from the highway and passed by a place advertising a free 72 ounce steak (so those places you here about actually do exist). The Texas panhandle is a sparsely populated, hilly prairie; there is not much to see.

I had a nice visit with the parents. Apparently, Mom is cooler than I am (she has an iPhone, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account). They say one dies a little when ones discovers that one’s parents are cooler than one is; I think I had some hair follicles dissolve. Dad seems content with semi-retirement, having given up the lousy Wal-Mart job to work as a teacher’s aid for the school district. And R Lee Ermey hates gum balls but loves to paint with machine guns.

I pseudo-ignored the suggested route on my way back to Denton. My mouth had not yet healed up from the 50-alarm chili, which is so hot that Yankees would burst into flames at the mere smell of it, and did not wish to try again while healing up from the experience. The guards said King Norris is the only one able to consume it without being at least somewhat burned by the fiery dish. So, I stayed in Texas throughout my trip back. It drove my cheap GPS a little crazy, but it eventually found the right track.

I got to drive though Bowie, thus completing my efforts to at least visit all the cities that NCTC has a campus in. I also got to see the empty space that supposedly holds the mythical city of Decatur. They say that if you arrive in the actual city, you are vaporized by the giant, laser-shooting robo-ants that guard the recipe to “Texas Tea” (which is the source of all things Texan). It’s not exactly a recommended tourist spot, if you get my drift.

All in all, a good trip.

Read a Book!: Brave New World

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

I do not quite remember who started my search to read this book (you remind me, I’ll give the appropriate tip of the hat), but I finally found it at a decent price (ironically enough, at the local used book store in Denton) and devoured it in 2 days.

Some of the criticisms aimed against the book are valid (a little too sex focused; what caste was the love interest in?), but the analogy is scarily apt. Big brother coming in the form of hedonistic instant gratification is a tempting beast; one only needs to look at America’s partial descent into it’s arms to see that. I probably would have enjoyed the book a little more if I did not read the forward (Huxley seemed to have missed his point on a couple of things), but it still was a good read.

Read this Book!

Interesting Read

What’s the Point?

Tip of the Hat: Reader Tony

This Dog is Racist!

At least, that’s what the liberals would imply.

On another note, who feeds dogs carrots? That’s cruelty to animals.

Tip of the Hat: IMAO