Retire. Please. Now. Don't Wait.

Thank God Senator John Warner isn't leading the war on terror. The man hasn't the first clue as to how it should be fought.

His latest boneheaded suggestion?

Troop levels should be based, not on battlefield strategy and tactics, but on messages needing to be sent. Messages.

This is embarrassing:

Warner: Bush Should Bring Troops Home
By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer

Washington (AP) - Sen. John Warner, a prominent Republican on military affairs, urged President Bush on Thursday to start bringing some troops home from Iraq by Christmas.

Such a move would send a powerful warning to the Baghdad government that time is running out, said Warner, R-Va.

Warner said the president next month should announce the withdrawal of a certain number of troops to send a "sharp and clear message throughout the region and the United States" that the commitment in Iraq is not open ended. (link)

Would someone wake this old man up and remind him that it's the diplomatic corps that is utilized to deliver messages and not the 101st Airborne?

Christ Almighty.

Meet Your Delegate

Wythe County's Anne B. Crockett-Stark. Our 6th District representative in Richmond. The woman who singlehandedly (well, she had a little help) stopped the liberal Democrats (and too many liberal Republicans) in their tax raising tracks just months ago.

She is about so much more.

See here (click on the image) who she is, where she's from, and where she plans on going.



You go, Annie B.

Footage courtesy of Roanoke.com.

The Circle Of Life

This is a butterfly bush.

Paula and I plant them because they are lovely.

And because they attract lots of butterflies.

Hence the name.

Of course the butterflies attract scads of praying mantises, which look exactly like butterfly bush stems.

The praying mantises like to eat the butterflies.

Crows love to eat praying mantises. Especially the ones fattened by the butterflies we attract.

Teenagers in the area like to shoot crows.

And when I get my hands on those teenagers ...

Thus, we come full circle.

A parable.

It Worked So Well For Jimmy Carter ...

Bush urged to boycott Olympics

Making A Mockery Of 'Human Rights'

One can only shake one's head in disbelief:

Amnesty International endorses abortion
By David R. Sands, The Washington Times

A leading British bishop has resigned his membership in Amnesty International and an Australian Jesuit college said it will no longer work with the leading human rights group after the organization last week officially endorsed a new policy supporting a woman's right to an abortion in certain cases.

More defections could follow in the aftermath of the policy shift, officially adopted by delegates from around the world at Amnesty International's biennial meeting that concluded Friday in Mexico City. (link)

Let me look up the word amnesty again. I think I may have misunderstood its meaning.

The world's "leading human rights group" endorses the slaughter of the most innocent human beings on earth.

Shameful. Utterly shameful.

Your Definition. Not Mine.

"Mountaintop Removal Mining"

Around here we prefer to think of it as "Landscape Beautification."

And a job bank.

Up in Manhattan (and, in this case, in the nation's capital), where newspaper reporters will never come within a thousand miles of us, much less be forced to breathe the same air or be required to actually conduct a conversation with the underclasses found herein, surface mining is viewed differently. Like they've ever really viewed it.

Take the second sentence of this article:

Rule to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining
By John M. Broder, The New York Times

Washington, Aug. 22 — The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams. (link)

Blasting the tops of mountains. Dumping rubble. Pejorative in a slick sort of way, yes?

Here's our take on the subject, pal:

Here we think of it as land reclamation. We're bringing the landscape back to its original God-created condition, a topography free of those awful, craggy, unsightly, inhospitable-to-man-and-beast mountains that encroached upon our previously pristine region through volcanic upheavel brought on by the planet's Paleozoic Era. We're assisting Mother Nature in the healing of a ghastly wound.

See? Two can play this game.

You say mountaintop removal mining. We say JOBS.

In Other Words: ANYBODY BUT HILLARY

Al Gore Wins Democratic Straw Poll

Babble. Babble. Babble.

I've seriously tired of John Edwards. How he became a successful trial lawyer - his only claim to fame - probably has more to with the flaws in our "jury-of-our-peers" legal system than with his ability to put together two cogent, meaningful sentences and to not contradict himself from one to the next.

Take for instance this bit of drivel:

Edwards Goes After Clinton, Obama
By Philip Elliott, myway.com

Concord, N.H. (AP) - Voters shouldn't pick a presidential candidate on the basis of either "change rhetoric" or a yearning for the past, John Edwards says, seeking to draw clearer lines between himself and rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On the other hand, he said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, "I don't think just the word 'change' means much to people. I think what they want to see is ... the substance of what you want to do.

"I mean, what is the policy of the word? In my case, it's been a very aggressive set of very substantive ideas ... because otherwise the change rhetoric all sounds the same." (link)

Seems fair.

So what does this new kind of politician, one who shuns the rhetoric of old and who believes in "substance," have to offer the electorate?

"It's more whether you want to look forward or look back, whether you want to see a president who is willing to take on the establishment or not. I don't believe we can change the country without having a president who is willing to take on the establishment."

"It's going to sound like I always sound. I'm incredibly optimistic. There's a lot that's possible in America, but I think there's a toughness and a seasoning and a willingness to fight the fight."

Yeah. That reeks of substance.

Go away, man. You're starting to annoy me.

Then Never Mind

I thought yesterday that Michelle Obama had a future in politics. She seemed like a breath of fresh air, speaking truth to power. She stated that which many of us have come to know. That is: Hillary Clinton couldn't keep her husband from molesting chicks in their home (while she was in a nearby room) and she wants us to believe she can lead the free world? Pardon me while I take a moment to toss my breakfast.

Anyway, it turns out Michelle, the total babe who had my vote for VEEP, for a moment anyway, apparently didn't mean what she clearly said:

Obama Denies Wife Took Swipe at Clinton

Too bad. I guess it depends on what the meaning of the phrase "If you can't run your own house, you certainly can't run the White House" is.

What Has This Guy Brought On Himself?