I have a hard time listening to presidential candidates like Lincoln Chafee. He was one of 23 senators that voted against the Iraq War and to this day touts it as a mistake because no weapons of mass destruction were found. If that's all he's got to go on, he's delusional. The fact our troops found no cache of bio-weapons or a nuclear warhead doesn't mean the regime of Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs. Ask the Kurds if Hussein had WMDs and I'm sure they will disagree with Chafee, seeing as how they were the target of the Al-Anfal genocide or those Kurds living in Halabja. You will never convince me that Saddam didn't have WMDs, whether we found them or not at the time. There are roads that lead to the likes of Syria and Iran and things called cars and trucks that have traveled those roads. In my opinion, Saddam Hussein himself WAS the weapon of mass destruction, killing hundreds of thousands of his own people. The world is better off without him. And I thank George W. Bush for that.
Friday, July 3, 2015
WMDs
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Monday, April 21, 2014
Hottie of the Year!
Taylor Kitsch. Yeah, I know, I don't really have to say anything else. But how can you not? I mean, this guy is gorgeous beyond gorgeous. I spent several weeks in January binge-watching all of "Friday Night Lights," and followed that up with a select X-Men movie! And of course, not too long ago, Taylor was in a new movie, "Lone Survivor." He's definitely one to keep an eye on. That's why I'm just making him my hottie for all of 2014!
Friday, October 5, 2012
Delayed Hottie!
I can't believe I've been obsessing since May and haven't bothered to post about it til now. I must have been really distracted by this one!
Monday, April 16, 2012
Awesome videos!
If you want to see some awesome Q&A from Van Hansis and Jake Silbermann, formerly of As the World Turns, check out this series of videos starting with this one....
Make sure to watch all of them. They get funnier as it goes along! Including a bit about Van's undergrad degree from Carnegie Mellon! Yes! Just down the road from my grad degree at Duquesne, at the same time! Crazy small world, eh?
Friday, April 6, 2012
A few words about my "celebrity crushes" .....
Lest you think I have no life and suffer the doldrums of living only in my imagination, well, you know me pretty well then. No seriously. Not really. I just wanted to point out that my celebrity crushes might or might not be like yours.
If you go back further than that, that little "crush" I had on Duran Duran when I was in high school led to several years publishing a successful fanzine for them called "Carnival." When I rolled that over into a fanzine for their guitarist, I got a phone call from his solo management company as well.
Oh yeah, that hockey thing... A passion for Darius Kasparaitis and hockey led to traveling to Pittsburgh for games, which led to me moving to Pittsburgh for graduate school and running a website for Kaspar. So if he ever wants his name back as a domain, he has to call me!
Let me not leave out Sean Astin. Yeah, Samwise Gamgee himself, way before he was Samwise, mind you. That little obsession saw me traipsing around Tennessee and Virginia checking out sites where he filmed movies, which turned out to be kinda cool! I love a good road trip!
I can even trace this back to one of my first real loves, who shall remain nameless, and my attempts to reach him by phone. I once got a letter from his step-father and I think I talked to the maid on the phone. Hey, I was 10, give me a break. "Stalking" didn't exist then! And it's not like I could travel by myself.
So even though people laugh at my little celebrity obsessions, I can guarantee you that they have led to many unbelievable personal experiences for me. And I've met some wonderful people along the way! Come along for the ride, because you never know where we may end up!
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Hottie for the Hot Season!
Yeah, well, one obsession quickly leads to another. The old ones shouldn't feel bad. They'll always have a special place in my heart! But there comes a time to move on....
Here's hoping he gets lots more acting jobs so there's more to watch. In the meantime, here's a funny student short he was in...
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Hottie of the Season!
Yeah, since I don't post often, I had to change it from Hottie of the Month, to Hottie of the Season, meaning Winter. This is Luke Kleintank. You've probably never heard of him. Too bad for you. He's young enough to be my kid, but hey, he's legal! He's been on episodes of CSI: Miami, Law & Order: LA, Parenthood, Gossip Girl and had a recurring role on last year's No Ordinary Family. Most recently, he's played a new Squintern on Bones. Oh, he also was on the Young & the Restless for about 6 months, playing Noah Newman, where he sang and took lots of his clothes off!
Here is the trailer for his first feature film:
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Sans Soucy Blackberry Sangria
Blackberry Ginger Sangria
- 2 bottles of Sans Soucy Blackberry wine
- 1 cup of finely chopped fresh ginger
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 2 cups of frozen berry fruit mix
- 1/2 of pineapple tidbits
- 1 can of frozen orange juice concentrate
- 1/2 liter of 7-up or other lemon soda
Trust me, you should try this recipe. Obviously, any blackberry wine will do but Sans Soucy's is especially awesome!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
10 years ago today
Sunday, July 25, 2010
No oysters until further notice.
But hey, since when does Vice President Biden live close enough to the Gulf to qualify for a claim? After all, he billed a recent Gulf visit to BP. $75,000. That could have helped out a lot of struggling Gulf families.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Sisterly pride
My sister is the coolest and I have to share this awesome story about her. It started with sorrow when of her co-workers experienced a tragedy. Her co-worker"s schizophrenic son stabbed her other son in the head. One son is dead and the other is in jail. The funeral home said they could not even start on the funeral until my sister's co-worker gave them $5000. Of course, she didn't have that kind of money. No one does these days. My sister certainly doesn't, but she wanted to help. So my sister went and asked her boss if she could sell back some of her vacation days to the company. Her boss said yes. When her boss mentioned it to other co-workers, they all began selling back their vacation days until the company had the full $5000 to pay for the funeral.
People tell you to practice random acts of kindness every day, but few rarely do it. My sister does. And she won't toot her own horn, so I'm tooting it for her.
Love you, sis!
People tell you to practice random acts of kindness every day, but few rarely do it. My sister does. And she won't toot her own horn, so I'm tooting it for her.
Love you, sis!
Friday, June 11, 2010
THIS is why I love hockey...
Read this essay and you'll love it too! There's Something About Hockey.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
I hate today
Friday, June 4, 2010
New hottie
Yep! I saw "Prince of Persia." I'd read some pretty bad reviews of it but I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was pretty good. Granted, it's got lots of bits of other movies in it, but most do these days. There's quite a bit of "The Mummy" in it, including Gemma Aterton kinda looking like Rachel Weiss. Lots of sand, too. And desert guardians. There's obviously some "Lord of the Rings" there. Instead of a ring, it's a dagger, and there's that whole Aragorn-thing Jake Gyllenhaal has going on, which is always a good thing. As well as the Nazgul. It even has bits of "Hidalgo" in it, thanks to some grand escapes across desert village rooftops. And not to be outdone, quite a few tidbits from Indiana Jones movies. It also pays homage to time travel movies. There were some new things, too, tho.
But I obviously have a "thing" for this type of dude, as seen by other faves of mine:
So if you look like these guys, drop me a line!! Hahaha! Yeah, right. Won't hold my breath on that one!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Hottie of the Month
Monday, April 12, 2010
License to drink
I found plenty of wines I liked but I only bought 4:
Chili Dawg, Peaks of Otter Winery, Bedford - this wine tastes like hot pepper jelly and they served it with a bit of Easy Cheese, just like you would do salt with a shot of tequila! Great for around the fire pit! And the 2 hippies they had selling and serving the stuff? I hope they get a raise! They were so cool! This booth had tons of people around it ALL DAY!
Blueberry, Coltsfoot Winery, Abingdon - a sweet, smooth blueberry wine! And the folks at the booth were SO nice! In fact, all their wines were excellent, but I liked the blueberry (their sweetest) the best. They had a cranberry wine that would be perfect to serve with Thanksgiving dinner.
Late Harvest, First Colony Winery, Charlottesville - honeysuckle, roses and apricot. Tastes SO sweet. This is technically a dessert wine and it beat out Tomohawk's honey wine in taste for me, so I went back to buy a bottle.
Blackberry, Sans Soucy Vineyard, Brookneal - Most of the 15 wineries had their own special Sangria recipes on hand. I thought the best Sangria of the day belonged to Sans Soucy Vineyards, made with their blackberry wine! I went back for 2 glasses, and then bought the wine so I could make it at home! And the folks there? Super nice! And considered local.
There were many other wineries that had really good wines. I would have bought more but didn't think it prudent, being unemployed and all. Mattaponi Winery had an excellent strawberry wine, probably the best of the whole event. Peaks of Otter had a mango that was great, a peach that was super and good blueberry, blackberry and strawberry wines too. Tomohawk Mill had a great honey wine! Fincastle had a rose sangria that was a huge hit with the crowd. It was good, but I still liked Sans Soucy's blackberry sangria better! And of course, Chateau Morrisette had all their great wines out! They have a brand new blackberry wine that was awesome! The only reason I didn't buy any of their wine is because my two favorites of theirs (Red Mountain Laurel and Sweet Mountain Laurel) are sold in our local grocery stores!
The only downside to the day was involving some of the above-mentioned Sangria, which everyone was more than happy to give out samples of, just like their wine. Except for Hickory Hill Vineyards from Smith Mountain Lake. When me and my friend went up and asked to taste the Sangria, he told us only one sample per group. Huh? When every other winery is pouring sample after sample? At first we thought he was joking, but then he poured my friend a sample, but not me. Well, I'm not buying anything I haven't tasted myself, so I just walked off and tore up the brochure I had picked up. I won't buy their wine with that attitude. And why doesn't it surprise me coming from people at Smith Mountain Lake? I've always found people from up there a tad snotty. You have to understand I live in the only lakeside town in Virginia, next to the largest lake in Virginia, and yet Smith Mountain Lake thinks it's a super special place to be. More like, it's super crowded. You want to have nice, quiet, lakeside living, you come to Buggs Island Lake. You want to hear jet skis and power boats all day, you go try to afford something at Smith Mountain Lake.
Okay, forget my rant about lakes in Virginia, I still think that was a shitty attitude to have at a wine festival! The whole point is to show off your wine and let people taste it so they buy it. Won't be buying anything from Hickory Hill and I'll tell others not to, also.
But with that one minor exception, the day was awesome, the band rocked (ain't nothing wrong with good Bon Jovi covers at a wine festival) and the people were friendly! Thanks to Melinda, Linda, Mary, Charlie and all those other hard workers who make cool stuff like this possible in little 'ole Clarksville.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Heath care is not a right.
Although national health care is noble, it is NOT a right.
Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want -- not to be given it without effort by somebody else.- Leonard Peikoff, Ph.DI've seen a lot of talk lately, since BHO's health care passed, that health care for everyone is a right. I've especially seen these posts on Facebook, which should probably tell you the intellectual properties of those espousing such delusions right there. Re-read the above quote. Contrary to what you probably think, it is NOT referring to Obama's health care plan. But wait, read more:
The right to life, e.g., does not mean that your neighbors have to feed and clothe you; it means you have the right to earn your food and clothes yourself, if necessary by a hard struggle, and that no one can forcibly stop your struggle for these things or steal them from you if and when you have achieved them. In other words: you have the right to act, and to keep the results of your actions, the products you make, to keep them or to trade them with others, if you wish. But you have no right to the actions or products of others, except on terms to which they voluntarily agree.Notice in the Declaration of Independence, you are guaranteed the right to the pursuit of happiness. Notice it is the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself. It means you have to work at it. It's not handed to you on a silver platter. Wait, there's more:
That is why the U.S. system defines rights as it does, strictly as the rights to action. This was the approach that made the U.S. the first truly free country in all world history -- and, soon afterwards, as a result, the greatest country in history, the richest and the most powerful. It became the most powerful because its view of rights made it the most moral. It was the country of individualism and personal independence.
Today, however, we are seeing the rise of principled immorality in this country. We are seeing a total abandonment by the intellectuals and the politicians of the moral principles on which the U.S. was founded. We are seeing the complete destruction of the concept of rights. The original American idea has been virtually wiped out, ignored as if it had never existed. The rule now is for politicians to ignore and violate men's actual rights, while arguing about a whole list of rights never dreamed of in this country's founding documents -- rights which require no earning, no effort, no action at all on the part of the recipient.
You are entitled to something, the politicians say, simply because it exists and you want or need it -- period. You are entitled to be given it by the government. Where does the government get it from? What does the government have to do to private citizens -- to their individual rights -- to their real rights -- in order to carry out the promise of showering free services on the people?Have you answered that question yet? Think about it. It goes on:
The answers are obvious. The newfangled rights wipe out real rights -- and turn the people who actually create the goods and services involved into servants of the state.
You don't need to think of health care as a special case; it is just as apparent if the government were to proclaim a universal right to food, or to a vacation, or to a haircut. I mean: a right in the new sense: not that you are free to earn these things by your own effort and trade, but that you have a moral claim to be given these things free of charge, with no action on your part, simply as handouts from a benevolent government.You have a right in America to try to get health care, any kind you want or can afford, not be provided with it for free:
Under the American system you have a right to health care if you can pay for it, i.e., if you can earn it by your own action and effort. But nobody has the right to the services of any professional individual or group simply because he wants them and desperately needs them. The very fact that he needs these services so desperately is the proof that he had better respect the freedom, the integrity, and the rights of the people who provide them.Yeah, but it's just rich people who are paying for health care. Nobody else can afford it. Not so:
Under any socialized program, it is the "little people" who do most of the paying for it -- under the senseless pretext that "the people" can't afford such and such, so the government must take over. If the people of a country truly couldn't afford a certain service -- as e.g. in Somalia -- neither, for that very reason, could any government in that country afford it, either.
Some people can't afford medical care in the U.S. But they are necessarily a small minority in a free or even semi-free country.This was a speech about Bill Clinton's health care plan back in 1993. Everything holds true today tho. Even though it is a noble cause, health care for every American is NOT a right, and I'm getting sick of people saying it is. That just flies in the face of the Constitution. Anybody remember that piece of paper?
I'm all for giving the disadvantaged health care, I just don't trust the government to do it. Have you stood in line at the DMV lately? Tried to forward your mail at the Post Office? Tried to get your tax returns done correctly? If the government had authorized Wal-Mart to come up with a national health care plan and implement it, I would be all for it. But the government can't run anything.
Nobody seems to care about our national debt, but these same people were sure bitchin' and moanin' when Republican administrations wanted to spend money on the military.
Speaking of the military and safety, I saw something recently that said Obama had kept us safe longer than Bush and I laughed hysterically. Bush kept us safe for 7 years after 9/11. I won't even go into the fact that the build up for 9/11 happened on Clinton's watch. And since Obama has been president? Three terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Oh sure, it wasn't 3000 people that died, so you probably didn't notice:
- Little Rock, AK - Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, an American Musclim opened fire on a U.S. military recruiting office. Private William Long was killed and Private Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded.
- Detroit, MI - Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempts to detonate an explosive on an aircraft enroute from Amsterdam to Detroit. During the incident, the suspect ignites himself on fire until he is extinguished and overpowered by two passengers. The aircraft lands safely in Detroit with the only injuries reported to be the suspect himself and two others.
- Austin, TX - American Joseph Stack lit his house on fire and then flew a small plane into the IRS building after issuing an online manifesto against the IRS and the U.S. government.
Oh, and for anyone thinking that nationalized health care thing is a win, I've got a few things to point out... First off, it's not a win for America, it's a huge loss, you just don't know it yet. Wait and see. And even if it DID turn out to be awesome, Obama didn't do squat to get it done. It was all Congressional secrecy and behind-the-scenes blow jobs by Pelosi. Obama passed the buck and said (just like Jean Luc-Picard on Star Trek: TNG, "Make it so!") and she did. I still have yet to see Obama actually DO anything. But, good news for him, he'll get credit for it. So while everyone still thinks its a good thing... GO HIM!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Maybe I should teach a class..
Stalking 101... Hey, you go with what you're good at right? I'm fresh from a road trip to my old stomping grounds, Pittsburgh PA where I took in hockey practice and a game.
Here is the cutest picture from practice, or rather, players leaving practice:
Mike Rupp #17. Defenseman. Big boy. 6'5". Drives a monster truck. And the cutest smile and dimple ever!
And the cutest from after the game:
Kris Letang #58. Half my age. French Canadian, meaning he speaks fluent french. Oui!
All in all, I got 8 autographs on my 10-year old Kasparaitis jersey! Very cool! Plus, I just love Pittsburgh in general. I had such fun there during my two years of graduate school. This time around, we ate dinner outside along Carson St. and then walked around taking in all the sights, meaning all the different people that are routinely found on Carson St. Bikers, punk rockers, hippies, sports fans, college kids, sluts, jocks, rockers. It's like Bourbon Street without the masks, Beale Street without the sidewalk boozing, or Duval Street without all the souvenir shops.
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