One Of My Better Lines Too

Ho hum. Another day, another quote From On High cited by the mainstream press.

World Net Daily is considered part of the mainstream press, right?

On Those Waterless Urinals

Nobody else is going to address this issue - one that every guy who has ever raced into an interstate highway rest area facility for the purpose of relieving his ... tension has wondered about - so it falls on me to bring this up:

What's with those new-fangled waterless urinals?

Here, it seems, is the scoop:

Waterless urinals going mainstream
By The Associated Press

Falcon Waterfree Technologies and Waterless, two companies headquartered in Los Angeles, are manufacturing the world's first waterless urinals -- units that look and act like your standard men's room commode, albeit with no water and no flush valve.

The systems function by draining urine into a cartridge at their base, where the discharge passes through a liquid sealant and onto the drain by way of gravity. The liquid sealant is less dense than urine, so it floats above the discharge and isolates it from the restroom environment.

From the user's point of view, there's no flushing and no odor: When urine hits water, it reacts to cause ammonia oxide. Get rid of the water and the smell goes, too. (link)

Well, it's certainly a step up from a big hole in the ground. And, if ammonia oxide, whatever that is, doesn't render us, upon inhalation, sterile over time, and doesn't contribute to the ever-growing problem with ozone depletion/global warming, then I'm all for it.

But a question must be asked: What are they going to do about all the pubic hairs? No water, no flush. No flush, lots of accumulation of ...

Here's the deal. Peeing should be a pleasurable experience, one that we all look forward to with eager anticipation throughout the day. And, at that moment of greatest joy, I don't need a reminder that thousands of germ-laden, virus-mutating, infestation-harboring, open sore-suffering males have been there doing God-knows-what moments before I expose myself to ... God-knows what.

So figure out a way to eliminate those little calling cards in the bottom of those space-age urinals, or bring back the tried-and-true flushy kind.

For the sake of all mankind.

The Latest On That Bland County Puppy Farm

Well, it looks like the two sides in the Bland puppy mill debate have squared off. And, if this account is accurate, those who operate the business where 167 dogs were burned to death in a barn fire in eastern Bland County in March are going to get their needed permit to reopen their establishment:

Emotions run hot during Bland public meeting
By Greg Jordan, Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Bastian, Va. — Passionate pleas supporting or opposing a plan to replace a kennel that was destroyed by fire in March were heard Monday by an capacity audience and the Bland County Planning Commission.

A public hearing held at the Bland County Board of Education allowed members of the public up to three minute apiece to speak about a request from Ivan Schmucker, an Amish farmer, for an additional use permit that would allow his family to operate a kennel on his farm.

“We have been doing this for years and we have a love of dogs,” Schmucker said to the supervisors.

Schmucker said his plans called for a facility 40 percent larger than the previous kennel. It would pet doors that would allow dogs to escape the building in case of a fire, have smoke detectors connected to the family’s home, radiant heat provided by hot water pipes, fire extinguishers where required by code, and other features.

One of the Schmucker neighbor’s, Frances Yates, said of the barn that had burned was “a fabulous facility, clean, and all the dogs were well cared for” and that two boys in the family were “almost lost” trying to help the dogs. (link)

The only person cited in the article to speak out at the meeting against the puppy farm was an individual from North Carolina, which probably did more harm than good.

So the Amish will soon be back in the business of breeding, on an even larger scale, those $700 dogs that America seems to love to own.

Meanwhile at the local animal control facility in Wytheville, where dogs are slaughtered every day because nobody wants those that aren't $700 each, it will be business as usual as well.

It's a strange and mixed-up world.

Spending Like Drunken Sailors

We were subjected, at the instigation of then-Governor Mark Warner, to a massive tax increase in 2004 to stave off fiscal disaster in higher education. Little did we know that the looming "disaster" was in fact going to be something of an orgy.

The outragious news:

Va. Tech board approves budget and capital plan
The $967.2 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year is 7.4 percent over the year before.
By Greg Esposito, The Roanoke Times

Blacksburg -- At its first meeting since the April 16 shootings, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors took time Monday to recognize victims and heroes of the tragedy before getting down to more typical board business.

Foremost among that business was approving a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The board OK'd a 2007-08 fiscal year budget of $967.2 million, a 7.4 percent increase from last year's $900.6 million budget. The budget was approved unanimously and without discussion.

In June 2006, the board approved a budget increase of 9.7 percent from the previous year. (link)

Nearly a billion dollars. To be spent in one year. Approved without discussion. Much of which comes from Joe Taxpayer, who can ill afford it.

Hey, drunken sailors, reality check: It's high time someone discussed this.

Outlays at Virginia's public institutions of higher learning have exceeded the rate of inflation - double, triple the rate - for a number of years now. Where will it end?

It won't. Not as long as reckless school administrators and their willing accomplices in Richmond are writing checks that we the voters are forced to sign.

Cuccinelli For U.S. Senate

Finally someone of importance stands up, speaks up, and says what red-blooded Americans have been screaming at their television sets:

Cuccinelli hits Bush on immigration*
By Seth McLaughlin, The Washington Times

A Republican member of the Virginia Senate criticized President Bush for supporting an immigration plan that awards amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, telling supporters he no longer considers Mr. Bush the leader of the Republican Party.

"Dear Fellow Republican: My president is wrong," state Sen. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II told supporters in an e-mail. "There's no other way to say it. ... For much of his presidency, President Bush has functioned as the head of the Republican Party. Not any more. ... This immigration bill is something of a 'last straw' for ordinary Republicans." (link)

Meanwhile, our elected representative to the Senate, John Warner, has remained unconscious silent on the most important subject before Congress this year, next to the war on terror.

Warner, like the good Washingtonian that he is, is expected to go along with his pals there, whatever they decide.

Kudos to Ken Cuccinelli. If, at that point that someone finally makes up Warner's mind to not run for reelection, the Party finds itself in need of a qualified replacement, it need look no further.

Here's one plea for Mr. Cuccinelli to step up to a more important role in leadership.

* I find it annoying that this is referred to as an immigration debate. It is, in fact, an illegal immigration debate.

What's This?

I thought the Republican Party had the market cornered on political corruption. Lo and behold:

Jefferson charged in bribery and corruption
By Jerry Seper, The Washington Times

A federal grand jury in Alexandria yesterday indicted Rep. William J. Jefferson, Louisiana Democrat, on charges of bribery and corruption in his promotion of telecommunications equipment and services in Africa.

The 16-count indictment said Mr. Jefferson, 60, sought bribes for himself and his family, including the $90,000 in cash found by FBI agents in a freezer during a search of his Washington home. The nine-term congressman is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (link)

Will we see all that moralizing about corruption - Jack Abramoff! - and the odor that emanates from Washington by the likes of the New York Times once again? I'll certainly be holding my breath ...

Why It's a Joke

This is enough to make a grown man cry:

Senate bill to cut aliens by only 25%
By Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times

The Senate's immigration bill will cut annual illegal immigration by just 25 percent, and the bill's new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal aliens within a decade, Congress' accounting arm said yesterday.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in its official cost estimate that many guest workers will overstay their time in the plan, with the number totaling a half-million in 2017 and reaching 1 million a decade later. (link)

What a laughingstock.

Until these comedians in Washington come to the realization that their current efforts are going to make the problem worse, there'll be no "comprehensive" immigration bill. And that is as it should be.

Enforce the law! Protect our borders!

Then think about dreaming up new laws.

Cult Or Home-Grown Terror Cell?

I hope someone in law enforcement is keeping an eye on this bunch. In part because they plot live just up the road.

Why Do We Enjoy Wallowing In The Woes Of Others?

I don't have an answer but it does seem to get us through the day, doesn't it?

By the way, the New York Post is still only 25¢? That may be the bigger story.

The GOP Loses One Of Its Own

Senator Craig Thomas has died:

Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming Dies at 74
By Susan Jo Keller, The New York Times

Washington, June 4 — Senator Craig Thomas, a three-term Republican from Wyoming, died Monday evening, just hours after his staff reported that the treatment he was receiving for leukemia was no longer working. He was 74.

Mr. Thomas’s family issued a statement saying he died Monday evening at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia. (link)

I mention his passing for two reasons. First, I'm ashamed to admit that I had never heard of the guy. And I read as much as anyone, and more than most, about politics and current events. That says something.

Secondly, it took the rabidly political Times all of three sentences before its obituary mentioned the implication of Thomas's death as it relates to upcoming votes ("Because the seat will remain in Republican control, the balance of power in the Senate will not shift, a prospect that shook up ..."). Lowlife trash.

Anyway, Craig Thomas is dead. May he rest in peace.