This is off-color, but the funniest thing my strange ranger best friend has ever said. He was a member of the wedding party for the wedding I went to on Saturday, and he proceeded to drink (by all accounts) all the champagne in the limo and then every glass at his table. After getting sufficiently plowed, he went outside for a smoke. We were all standing there, a group of people our age, and off tot he left of us were several members of both families of the bride and groom. My friend, in a drunken stupor, then asks loudly for all to hear,

“Who likes blow jobs and speaks some French?”

We all look at him, stunned and frightened at what he might say next, and mortified that he has already said what he has.

He then belts out “Moi!”

I almost choked to death on a vodka tonic.

This is off-color, but thePost + Comments

Link Love

All of these blogs are worth a look, and should now appear to the left in my permalinks:

The Sabertooth Journal

3 Bruces In Exile (this permalink is WAY overdue- sorry guys)

Cut on the Bias (which is merely overdue as a permalink)

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler (which is uber-mega-way overdue- and by the way, would one of you cheap bastards by his banner? I would, but the last banner I paid for the person quit blogging so I am gunshy now).

The Weigh-In

Silflay Hraka

and Sasha Castel

That is all folks. But guess what? I start getting a real paycheck this Friday, so it should not be long until I have a nice new look and a new domain name. Ain’t that something?

Link Love All of thesePost + Comments

Just got my tickets to Puerto Rico in December. Take that, Global Cooling. Or thank goodness for global warming. Or something.

Just got my tickets toPost + Comments

Also priceless in the Fukuyama speech is the litany of hypocricy on the part of the Eurocrats:

There are a number of areas where the Europeans have acted unilaterally in economic matters, and in ways that at times contravene the existing legal order. The EU resisted unfavourable decisions against them on bananas for nine years, and beef hormones for even longer. They have announced a precautionary principle with regard to genetically modified foods, which is very difficult to reconcile with the WTO

Also priceless in the FukuyamaPost + Comments

Europeans in Our Midst?

Francis Fukuyama presented a speech that has been widely linked in the blogosphere. It was a balanced an interesting piece, but several parts stood out:

Robert Kagan, in a brilliant recent article in Policy Review, (3) put the current difference between the United States and Europe as follows. The Europeans are the ones who actually believe they are living at the end of history, that is, in a largely peaceful world that to an increasing degree can be governed by law, norms, and international agreements. In this world, power politics and classical realpolitik have become obsolete. Americans, by contrast, think they are still living in history, and need to use traditional power-political means to deal with threats from Iraq, al-Qaeda, and other malign forces. According to Kagan, the Europeans are half right: they have indeed created an end-of-history world for themselves within the European Union, where sovereignty has given way to supranational organisation. What they don

Europeans in Our Midst? FrancisPost + Comments

No more posting until Sunday, most likely. I am off to another wedding.

No more posting until Sunday,Post + Comments

Gov’t Seeks to Ease Airport Hassles

They can not be serious.

Airline passengers soon may be able to board a plane without being asked whether they have kept a close watch on their bags. And starting right away, they can take drinks through security checkpoints.

I guess after failing to trip up a bunch of terrorists with those tricky interrogation techniques “Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry an item on this flight?” and “Have any of the items you are traveling with been out of your immediate control since the time you packed them?”), they have now realized what the entire public has known since day one. These are needless hassles, not precautions. I guess mother’s will now be allowed to carry their breast milk through airports.

Gov’t Seeks to Ease AirportPost + Comments

Will Warren is back with another gem.

Will Warren is back withPost + Comments

I Don’t Get It

New USA Today Gallup Poll Highlights:

– 86% believe Saddam is supporting terror groups planning to attack the USA
– 53% believe he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
– 94% believe Saddam either has weapons of mass destruction or is developing them.
– 83% of those who say he has weapons of mass destruction believe he would use them to attack the United States.

BUT,

ONLY 53% SUPPORT INVADING IRAQ.

What the hell is wrong with the 41% of the people who think he has or is developing weapons of mass destruction but who do not want to invade?????

I hate to say this, but we are going to have to be attacked several more times before people in this country are serious. The masses are ignorant, the Democrats are just using anything they can for partisan gain, and the Republicans can not engage the loony left effectively in debate, and when they do win, their idea of terror prevention is the garbage that is happening at airports around the country.

I guess we get the leadership we deserve, and it pains me to think how many more are going to have to die before we get serious.

I Don’t Get It NewPost + Comments

Sometimes the nerve of these people is just amazing.

Priests have been molesting alter boys across the country, and while the Catholic League and William Donohoe have been feigning ire and running cover for their church, the rest of the nation has been outraged.

On the other hand, a married couple engages in consensual sex in a cathedral, and Donohoe has an aneurysm. Yes, it was in bad taste. Yes, there are laws against it. There are also laws against pedophilia.

Let’s tie this all up. A married couple has sex in a church and two ‘shock jocks’ get fired.

Priests and the church hierarchy engage in a 30 year pattern of dabbling in buggery with unsuspecting children, lying to the authorities, bribing the victims into silence, and Bernard Law still has a job.

I got it now.

Sometimes the nerve of thesePost + Comments

Many Kudos to PhotoDude and everyone else who helped to rid the House of Representatives of the swine known as Cynthia McKinney. I love how CNN bought into the Zionist conspiracy nonsense, even though only 4% of the voters in her district were Jewish. Although it has long been clear the position CNN will take on anything having to do with Jews or Israel.

I do not think it is appropriate to claim this is a victory for the blogosphere, although I do feel that we are having a hand in shaping the debate. Only a fool would pretend that we have not had an impact. Only a total moron would think that the Instapundit and the other prolific bloggers are not watched closely by those in the mainstream media. Hell, members of the mainstream media are joining the ranks every day, joining the ranks of Sullivan, Marshall, Kaus, Jacobs, Postrel, and Lileks.

Several months ago, there was an article in MicroContentNews that discussed quite accurately how this new would pan out, and I believe it has been uncanny in its accuracy. The article stated essentially that their would be a food chain, and that food chain would stretch from the grass roots until eventually (and I am adding to Hiler’s thesis) it would be helping to shape the mainstream media. I read it, and I thought to myself that I wanted to be one of the big blogs, one of the ones to help shape issues ala Instapundit.

It has not worked that way, and I have to admit, I could not care less. I am quite happy with my 150-400 hits a day, and that is plenty satisfying and gratifying to me. I do not intend to go on some coffee induced posting binge, scouring the web for info. I have a role. I have readers who come to me for whatever reason, and they get what they want. I have settled into a cozy routine- I read the websites I would naturally read, and if I find something I want to comment on, I comment on it. I have about 30 daily blogs I read every day, and I always learn at least 30 new things every day. I have identified my role- I am the grassroots.

It sounds stupid, but in the blogosphere, we all can not be Instapundit. If we were, who would we read? If you read the Instapundit and those like him, they have an uncanny ability to find quality in both the press and the blogosphere. One of Glenn’s strong points is freely and loudly linking to any number of people- people you and I may have never heard of. Often times, I have e-mailed Glenn with things that I have read on other blogs or in obscure newspapers that I think he might have missed or might find interesting- or merely because I wanted to see his opinion oon the issue. Many times I have e-mailed him simply because I know he can reach more readers, and that it is FAR MORE important for important issues to see the light of day and be discussed widely than it is for me to have an extra 200 hits on any given day.

That is how I think things work- and I don’t intend to change. Neither should you. This is building in momentum, even if I think claims of victory are premature. Just keep commenting on what you know and enjoy, and recognize that the idea generation and information dissemination is what is important- not the counter stats.

Many Kudos to PhotoDude andPost + Comments

Instapundit and Others have Loudly and Appropriately

condemned Ann Coulter’s stupid off the cuff comments. For those of you who do not know what she said, here is the odious remark that has everyone buzzing:

Then she said: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”

I told her to be careful.

“You

Instapundit and Others have LoudlyPost + Comments

I can’t think of an appropriate comment. From Larry Miller’s report of his visit to Israeli hospitals, via Toren Smith’s Safety Valve:

Downstairs, before we left, the head of the hospital, an Israeli named Audrey, was showing me the children’s waiting room. I couldn’t help but notice, all around, an Arab woman with her son, an Arab family over there checking in, Arab children playing with the toys while waiting. The doctor saw the look on my face and laughed. “Oh, yes, we treat everyone.” I guess I was astonished. She just shrugged. “We’re Jews. This is how we live. It’s also for the future. They’re not going anywhere, and we’re not going anywhere. There will eventually be peace. There has to be.” When? A month? A year? A hundred years? More? She didn’t know. I had to say it. You’re incredible. You take everyone, you treat everyone, no one goes first, no one goes last, you just go in order of who needs help. That’s, like, Mother Teresa stuff. “We’re not saints, we’re just doing our jobs. It’s not easy, I admit. And it gets hard when they cheer when the bodies are brought in.” I looked at her. What did you say? She sighed. “Yes, it gets hard when they cheer.”

Just thought of a response.

Animals.

I can’t think of anPost + Comments

I Didn’t Know This,

but Kevin Holtsberry of Ideas, Etc., has a football blog named Pigskin. Kevin is a loyal Steelers fan (I am a maniacal Steelers fan- I stopped dating a girl when I found out her parents were Browns fans, and I cross the street if I see people wearing Cowboys paraphenalia so I don’t spit on them), so go check it out.

Also a must is Stillers.com.

I Didn’t Know This, butPost + Comments

Also from the Vodkapundit

It is widely thought that, facing his end, Saddam Hussein will launch chemical, biological, and

Also from the Vodkapundit ItPost + Comments