Summer finally arrived.

After some days and nights this month where I questioned if it would ever warm up, summer arrived. The mountain is out and it is 90 degrees outside. We go from not warm enough, to too hot.



The boys wanted to go to Papa and Nana's to go swimming. I obliged. For once they didn't complain when I took them to the grocery store.

Saturday Simmer Story

So, at the risk of my blood pressure, I logged on to read the news while I ate my lunch today. As if I needed evidence that things are cockeyed, I found this lovely story. Put away the breakables before reading.

The part that really tweaked me more than anything else? Here:

"Regarding the main route for exiting energy, Iran will definitely act to impose control on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz," he [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Chief Mohammad Ali Jafari] said of the Gulf waterway through which about two-fifths of all globally traded oil passes.

I'm pretty sure that this topic has been kicked around before. We cannot let these chimpanzees develop their own brand of canned sunshine. CANNOT. LET. THEM. DO. IT.

They have not hidden the ball with respect to their intentions toward Israel. Every time we let them think they can dictate to us, they get a little bolder. The time for talk is passed. Now it is the time to treat them they way you would any misbehaving animal. Whack them over the snout with a rolled-up newspaper. They decide to become a threat, then they get put down. Hard. As in "Their only useful purpose in their short, hot, unhappy lives was to serve as an example to others." Unfortunately, Islam and and its acolytes are feeling their oats. Britain's cowardly retreat over its kidnapped sailors, the success of Barry "Throw 'em under the bus" Obama in the dhimicratic primaries, the congressional dhims preaching cut and run style surrender until even they could not ignore the fact they were wrong and now, cartoonishly try to take credit for the successes. These factors have directly aided the ascendancy of the crescent and its new found clout in the world.

Who do I blame? The Democratic Party. It has slavishly pandered to the whims of the environmental radicals and consistently and predictably voted against any energy policy that could offer any semblance of energy independence in this country. They opposed nuclear energy at every turn. This is, of course, a ridiculous proposition as the fwench have had nuclear power for decades without incident. If the fwench can do it, we can do it.

Every single time drilling for domestic oil has come up, the Dhims wring their hands and say "No." Then they whine about the price of high oil and how the dependency on foreign oil "puts us at the mercy" of people like the clownshoe threatening the oil routes through the mideast. Excuse me? You do everything in the world to empower these clowns, and then you whine when they start squeezing and you blame the Republicans? The mote in your collective eye, which is the size of a six by six, must be transparent.

Reading the story, I was reminded of a similar threat which I personally heard uttered fifteen years ago. I was young and dumb (i.e. liberal) at the time I heard it, and even at the very moment I heard it fall from this nutter's lips, I knew he either didn't believe it, or was possessed of that special brand of stupid that gets lots and lots of people killed. I was an intern in the Canadian House of Commons in the spring of 1993, and he addressed our group of American students days before the Canadians passed NAFTA. He had just gotten done telling us how the US and Canada would be quick to let Quebec into NAFTA after it gained its independence from Canada. Everyone in the room was dumbfounded. I finally asked the obvious question: "Why do you believe that?" The answer "Well, you want to use the St. Lawrence, don't you?" Even being painfully liberal at that point. I couldn't believe what I just heard. This frog was arrogant enough to try to dictate policy to us! At that point, even I wanted to lean forward and say "Who the hell do you think you are? We're UNCLE. Perhaps you've heard of us. We really couldn't give two farts in a hurricane about your disputes with Canada, but I have NO DOUBT that we will keep the river open, chief. But you are welcome to try and stop us from using it...if you dare."

Reading this story, I really didn't feel any different, except for the understanding of the position the Dhims have put us in with their hair brained policies. If we take care of Iran...and I don't think we have a choice, then we are going to have to drop a piano on them. That means that we will kill a fair amount of people who have nothing to do with their country's policies, because the only way we make an example is to level the entire country. At the same time. The best way to accomplish this will be to turn it into glowing glass. And even then, we will have to expect collateral attacks for some time, all of which would have to be dealt with brutally, until their numbers are so reduced that they will submit, or until they are extinct. It is an awful scenario. I type it with no joy, and no pleasure, because I know we would be doing it alone. Europe long ago surrendered its sovereignty when it took this viper to its bosom. Even knowing better, they will be against us, in a pathetic attempt to reserve a few more years of life as western powers before their visitors become their masters. And it makes me angry. Not that Europe is lost. Their current predicament is the end result of centuries of crappy choices, and I think that perhaps the time has come to stop saving them from themselves. No, I am angry because of decades of idiotic policy contrary to our nation's self interest put in place and maintained by the Democrats. Because we have not been allowed to and still are not allowed to exploit our own resources, and therefore the chimps in Iran get to hold the rest of the world hostage until they reach their stated goal: The destruction of Israel.

Now we have to care what happens when we do the right thing, where as we could have been able to to do the right thing without regard to the Iranians.

Thanks Dhimicrats. Your 15 minutes are almost up, and the adults will take over and clean up your mess...again.

Happy Friday!

This Friday's Hot Brunette is proof that it pays to watch the old movie channels. None other than Rita Hayworth, probably best known for driving Frank Sinatra insane. I suppose if you have to lose your mind over a woman, she is a good choice.

Child Rape Not Subject To Death Penalty

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana stepfather could not be sentenced to death for raping his 12 year old step-daughter. The rationale was that since the child was not killed, a death sentence was disproportionate to the crime. The decision, written by Justice Kennedy (what a shock) cited an "Evolving sense of decency." among other factors.

Let that sink in for a moment. You can rob a child of their innocence and trust, the former they can NEVER get back, and the latter can only be restored over time with a lot of effort, and frankly, the odds are against her, and the state can't take your miserable life away from you for doing so.

Another product of our enlightened times, no doubt. In ten years, I'm sure we can expect the rationale that she consented to it. After all, "consent" seems to be the excuse for turning cultural norms on their ears these days.

The Court issues its ruling on Heller tomorrow. God help us all if the Court screws that one up. No gun owner I know is going to go along with any incorrect ruling quietly.

My brother, Alex, has been posting some pretty good stuff lately. Never being one to stand on ceremony, I now freely horc some of that stuff.



And this quote from a news story he cited: "Kill the chicken, and let the monkey watch."

I like it. That right there is sidebar material, it is, it is.

Some Thoughts on Gas Prices.

1. The prices ARE NOT a reflection of supply and demand. Anyone who expects me to believe that the Indians and Chinese are the cause of this must think I have the impaired IQ of the average Obama supporter...that's like a jock strap, only far, far nastier, if you must know. They may be adding to price pressures, but considering that tens of thousands of people just got killed in natural disasters over there. This is about greed.

2. This is not about oil company's greed. The next idiot who says that to me gets singled out for "special tuteledge". Of course, they are making record profits, as any Dhimicrat within spitting range of a microphone or camera will tell you. But, in true Dhimicrat style, they only talk about the part that fits their warped agendas. Why so negative, you ask? Great question. Finish the thought with me. If you sell the same product day in and day out at a price that will gain you the same PERCENTAGE of profit for the product no matter the price you pay or the price you charge, then you will earn the same percentage of profit, no matter the amount of dollars you earn on sales of the product. If you pay more for the raw material, say $135 a barrel when you paid $67 a barrel a year ago, and you raise the price of the finished product to earn you the same percentage of profit that you made a year ago, and the finished product has to be purchased in roughly the same quantity, then yes, you will make profits, and in this case, record profits. BUT THE PERCENTAGE OF PROFIT STAYS THE SAME. And your cost for the raw material continues to climb. So even though the revenue is up, the costs are too, and the percentage of profit remains the same. And in the meantime, the government takes a cut 3 times as large as the average profit on the sale of gasoline. Think about that the next time you see the welfare queens buying steaks at the supermarket and you are buying hamburger. Or you see some Dhimicrat in Congress mouthing off about the need to raise your taxes.

3. The idiots who say "If we start drilling offshore and in ANWR tomorrow, it wouldn't make any difference in price. I call bullshit and impose a 15 yard penalty with loss of down. While it gives the marxists like Obama and other Dhimicrats convenient excuses to continue to do nothing and try to let the rest of the world surpass us in every way that matters, it is not true. The prices are affected by anything that could have an impact on supply. Katrina blowing into the Gulf? Prices go up. The Saudis meet and discuss pumping a few extra million barrels, the price goes DOWN. Tell the uuuuulating rock worshipping savages that we will start exploiting our own resources and they will lose a significant portion of business from their single largest customer...by a lot, and the price will go down. Precipitously. And let's face it. It really wouldn't hurt for us to be a little less dependent on them for oil. Especially when we have so damn much of it in the Bakken Reserve, and offshore.

Oil. It can be cheaper. We can make it happen. And we should do so and deny a lucrative market to people who want to kill us.

Camp Kilworth, Part V

The weekend's take: (From top left) Camping, Orienteering, Cooking, and Hiking.



Saturday Night Unwind.


Home Sweet Home


Last Campfire


A good experience for Heir No. One, but I still felt bad. Camp Kilworth is on 25 acres at Dash Point in Federal Way, overlooking the water. When the land was donated way back when, it was right directly in between Seattle and Tacoma, in the middle of nowhere. Now it is prime high end residential real estate. There has been much drama including a court case, allegations of a deal with the family having a reverter interest, millions of dollars in value, and rumors of a deal with the City to have them take the campground over. The net result is a camp with facilities in really sad shape. Many of the campsites are overgrown, half of the trails were closed decause they were unsafe, the stockade style lodge at the overlook is condemned, the obstacle course is falling apart, the bathrooms were disgusting, and we couldn't go down to the tidal flats because the trail was closed. I understand that the local scout counsel doesn't want to put any money into facilities that they may not be keeping, but in the meantime, the kids are the ones who are losing. I hope the counsel either decides to keep it or ditch it, and focus on the other camps.

Camp Kilworth, Part IV

Getting the "chips" he earned for his brag vest over the weekend.



All the pack that showed up.


Helping to retire the colors. (Heir No. One is carrying the den flag)


Taking the colors out of the firebowl.

Camp Kilworth, Part III

Campfire Olmlettes. The boys enjoyed making them, just not eating them. We had enough adults that nothing was wasted.


Heir No. One whittling. He was the only Bear Scout there for the entire campout, and the other boys, who were all Webelos, would not let him whittle with them, since he hasn't earned his Whittling Chip yet. He is well on his way, however.


The view from the top of the firebowl. At one time Saturday afternoon, there were four sailboats out at the same time. I watched them for about 20 minutes. They were all tacking at the same time, and I was feeling nostalgic for sailing on Lake Huron with Alex's 22ft. Tanzer.


Before the Saturday Night Ceremonies, "making sure the fire was ok".

Camp Kilworth, part II

Hiking to the Obstacle Course



Rope Swing


Over the Wall


Running the Tires

BSA Camp Kilworth, Part I

Looking out the tent door Saturday Morning.


Heir No. 1 on the podium at the firebowl


The boys who showed up.


On the hike. (Stopped at the Ft. Phillips stockade building on the overlook, which is condemned.)

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Today's smokin' hot brunette is none other than the incomparable Catherine Zeta Jones.



Catherine, like myself, has Welsh roots, although she is much closer to them than I, having actually been born and raised there. No doubt, the linguistic peculiarity of the region is a primary cause of her incredibly hot accent. Known widely for her roles in the Zorro flicks, and starring opposite Sean Connery, an ardent Scottish nationalist, in Entrapment, she has been acting for many years. My personal favorite of her work is that of Isabelle in Ocean's Twelve. If there is another Ocean's movie, and I hope there is, I hope there is a part for her in it.

Lawsuits Over Thong Malfunctions...

Victoria's Secret is being sued for a thong injury by a 52 year old female traffic cop.

Fast Forward to a forum in the Court TV coverage:

"...well, the acceptable tolerances for sudden "sparkle disengagement" from a thong is only 11 inches, traveling at a speed of 1 ft/sec, and this particular design is inherently unsafe because the average "sparkle disengagment" is 27 inches at 3.5 feet per second, which is sure to cause damage to cranial facial areas. In this case, it was reckless to put such a product on the market, and VS should be liable for her full damages, up to and including reconstructive surgery to her face."



"And if VS would post warnings that say "WARNING: IF YOU ARE A FAT OLD COW, DO NOT BUY THE SPARKLY THONGS BECAUSE YOUR CONDITION CAN LEAD TO CATASTROPHIC "SPARKLE DISENGAGMENT" AND CAUSE BLINDNESS IN ANYONE UNLUCKY ENOUGH TO SEE YOU IN ONE?"



*With a totally straight face* "I'm not sure that any warning is appropriate for such an unsafe product."

Sure. Laugh now, but you wait. It is coming.

Father's Day in the Park

Heir No. Two demonstrating the FAIL! method of scootering.

A good time was still had by all.

Lady Heather's Back!

And Blogging with the rest of us again. Link is fixed to the new space. Don't be a stranger, LH.

Father's Day

It was one of those rare days here in the Pacific Northwest. The sky was blue, and there was a glowing yellow ball suspended in it. The light felt warm, so we packed up the boys' scooters and went to the park.

I'll post pics tomorrow, since Blogsnot is malfunctioning tonight.

Nike's New Endorsers

101 days of sex brought couple intimacy ... and fatigue

By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:17 a.m. PT, Tues., June. 10, 2008
A lot of people may think they want to have sex every day — but actually doing it for 101 straight days is more than an adventure, it’s a book.

As long as it isn't a doctor's visit followed by shots,its cool.

That’s what Annie and Doug Brown discovered after she suggested they embark on a journey that her friends told her she was crazy for even thinking about. Married for 11 years, the couple had a 7-year-old, a 3-year-old, careers, and dozens of demands on their time and energy. And she wanted to have sex every day for 101 days?

I'll second that.

“Immediately after I thought of it I had second thoughts,” Annie Brown admitted to TODAY’s Ann Curry Tuesday. “My friends, when I told them about it, their mouths would drop open: ‘Are you crazy? What have you gotten yourself into?’ ”

Probably part of the "Sleep with your husband? How bourgeouise." set.

The answer is in Doug Brown’s book, “Just Do It,” which will be released on June 26. Which raises another question: Does the world really need another book about sex?

If it sells, and I suspect it will, then yes.

“There’s 10 jillion books about the Kama Sutra and there’s a lot written by therapists, but there wasn’t a book that was like a window into a relationship,” Doug Brown, a feature writer at The Denver Post, said. He said he had his doubts about actually writing about the intimate details of his marriage, but soon realized there was more to what he and his wife had set out to do than “just doing it.”

Monogamy? What a freightening concept.

‘Madcap adventure’
“I wasn’t sure if I’d be comfortable writing about it,” Doug admitted. “But by the end of this thing, it was just this wild, kind of madcap adventure. It was a really colorful romp, so I knew we had a good story.”

No pun intended, I'm sure.

The idea grew out of a conference called “Sex and Pop Culture” that Doug had attended in Florida for his newspaper job. When he got back, one story he told his wife struck her.

Is that like the "Sex, Drugs, and Politics" course I took in college?

“This man gave a talk about being in the ‘100 Days Club,’ a club that you don’t want to be in because it means you haven’t had sex with your partner for over 100 days for whatever reason — whether you’ve been in a relationship for a long time or your wife’s just had a baby,” Annie Brown told Curry. “So, I said to Doug after he told me about that story, ‘Maybe we should reverse it.’ ”

Sounds like a winner.

The Browns’ marriage wasn’t sex-free, but, as with many couples, it was something they did only when everything was lined up perfectly. A 2004 study by the National Opinion Research Center found that the typical American has sex 66 times a year, while young married couples have sex 84 times a year.

OK. So either a lot of people lie about it, or someone's numbers are flawed.
The Browns were proposing to get more than that in just a bit over three months.

Frequently, after hard days at work and raising the kids and keeping a home, their only physical contact was a quick peck before falling asleep. When Annie suggested doing it for 101 straight days, Doug thought he’d reached nirvana.

As any guy would.

‘It was exhausting’
The experiment began in January 2006. The couple tricked up their bedroom to be a more romantic retreat and turned off the television. When Doug traveled on assignment, Annie traveled with him. They did it on top of a mountain, in expensive hotels and cheap ones, on an exercise ball and at a sex convention in Las Vegas after watching porn together for the first time ever.

In otherwords, they had fun and enjoyed each other.

“We learned that you just have to do it,” Doug said. “You couldn’t do this for the rest of your life. It was exhausting.”

And yet, he still seemed eager to hurry home.

So exhausting that when the Browns reached their goal at last, they took a month off. It was during that time that Doug went through the journals both had kept during their amorous adventure and put together the outline of the book.

What else was he goning to do?

Their physical intimacy led to emotional intimacy and an interest and involvement in each other’s lives that the Browns hadn’t had since they were newlyweds.

HHHHHmmmmmmmm. Can I hear a "Duh!!!"

Robi Ludwig, a therapist who joined the conversation, said that a similar approach could work for others.

“I think the intention would work for every marriage,” she said. “It’s a very creative way to approach a relationship. When couples lead hectic lives, you don’t feel like having sex. Sometimes you just have to say, ‘Let’s just do it.’ ”

I'm betting that most guys do that already.

The rest can take care of itself, Ludwig continued. “From behaving that way toward each other, you create that spark. If you have the intention to create that spark and behave lovingly toward each other and romantically toward each other, you’re going to have a better relationship with your partner. It’s just going to happen.”

Yes.

The Browns confirmed the expert’s diagnosis.

And without clinical bona fides. Imagine that.

“We touch more,” said Doug. “We would have entire days and maybe had a peck at the end of the night, and that was the only time we touched. During the 100 days, it wasn’t just the sex; we were hugging each other, and that has carried on.”

“What we really learned is that we have to take care of each other more and pay attention to each other in ways that we haven’t since the early days of our marriage,” said Annie.

And if more people followed suit, there might be a noticible drop in divorces in the country.

Another thing to add to the list of reasons why casual sex isn't always a good idea.

Guys, are ya out there sport screwing? Beware the brand.

A freind suggested that I get a hobby...

...but this dovetails nicely into a longtime passion of mine: Great Lakes Shipwrecks. And like a true geek, I got very excited reading this this morning. I could babble endlessly about all sorts of facts that you really don't care about. In this case, I think its enough to say that the British wasn't very bright. Smart people don't get on the lakes in October or November, unless they must, and in an 80 foot sloop? No thanks.

Still, this is a huge find.

Happy Friday!

Today's Happy Friday! Woman is a blast from the past.

Dorothy Lamour. A beautiful woman with a huge filmography and said to be a close freind of J. Edgar Hoover.



Enjoy!