Panty-waists go home!

As a man, born and raised in the heartland of America during an era when it once again became "cool" to be patriotic and enthusiastic about BEING American, I am forced to voice these words to the World at Large...

Go PACKERS!

That's right, I am cheering on the last vestige of a once proud small-town American tradition that dates back to the 1890, and one that the Green Bay Packers have been playing since 1896. They are the third oldest team in the NFL (behind only Chicago and the Cardinals, and then only by one year), they have more national championship titles than any other team (12), they have more players in the Hall of Fame than any other team, they are part of the oldest and most heated rivalry in professional sports (Packers vs Bears), and they are the ONLY community-owned franchise in football history.

Most importantly, this is a team that boasts the most dedicated and supportive fan base in professional sports today. No other team has maintained a "sold-out" seating status every single year they have ever fielded a team in the NFL (and that's 88 years), even though they have managed to field some of the worst teams in NFL history. No matter how badly this team has played (and any fan will tell you they had some BAD seasons), the stadium sold out, the lot was full of tail-gaters, and the broadcasts were watched like they were covering the Second Coming.

Names associated with this team are also associated with the very institution of Football itself: Curly Lambeau, George Calhoun, George Hallas (yes, you read it right!), Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, Forrest Gregg, James Lofton, Jan Stenerud, Don Hutson... but none so great as Vince Lombardi himself. A coach of such ability and magnitude that the entire League determined that the man who won the first to Superbowls... and three Chanpionships before that... should have his named memorialized on the very Trophy he christened... the coveted Lombardi Trophy.

This is the team that is now only ONE game away from it's 6th Superbowl appearance and its 19th Championship game, with one of the single greatest quaterbacks to ever play the game leading them on.

How can a guy like Ryan... who disdains football as a passtime for coarse, beer-swilling, ball-scratching intellectual trogladites... not see the storied tradition that follows this team in all its successes and failures? The Cardinals had Pat Tillman, who gave his life for his country after the invasion of Afghanistan... but the Packers had no fewer than 11 active roster players either enlist or re-enlist after 9-11, two of which have carried a giant American flag out onto the field before each game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay that carries the names of local soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that are serving abroad.

I get misty every time I think of the tradition that follows this organization, and anyone that isn't touched by it (like RYAN) must be a union-card-carrying, pinko commie FAG that HATES America and swears at his MOTHER and still pisses the bed at night under his "Princess Jasmine" comforter.

Ryan...

Real men watch FOOTBALL!

I love the PACKERS!

More credit where it's due...

For this one, I am going to give Bush his "kudos"... very nicely done.

If you haven't watched the clips of his speech from Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, then check them out on YouTube... several Army bloggers have them posted, if the major networks don't.

My opinion on this? If the President really can cement a signed and ratified pact between the Iraqi government and the US, then all Barack's and Hillary's tripe about "immediate" troop withdrawls from Iraq are for nothing... they will be bound to honor the pact as much as any President after Truman was forced to honor the agreements that kept troops in Japan, Germany and South Korea since 1945.

Short and sweet... Bush has FINALLY used a little "pre-emptive" tactics in his own Administration and has (possibly) changed the face of the election completely. If the Dem front-runners can't bitch and whine about troops in Iraq, then what are they going to bitch about? If our commitment in Iraq becomes a matter of international agreement on the scale of NATO or our permanent bases in Japan and Korea... hell, how long were we in Panama?... then no amount of ranting and promises to bring home troops "a battalion a month" at a time will make a difference.

Best part is that the "pact" should be completed and ready to be ratified by July of '08... just in time for the Conventions.

I bet Ron Paul is having kittens right now!

How about a BIG Bund welcome!

Here's a surprise for both Jambo and Ryan...

Today, this blog can expect a visit from CW3 "Rick", USASOC... fellow Wisconsin refugee, boyhood friend of the Brothers Foster, and a damn fine American all around. I'll leave his name at simply "Rick" for now, as I don't want the man kicking my ass for associating his name with our decidedly NOT PC rantings.

I fell out of touch with Rick after the Storm, and hadn't actually heard from him (in person or email) since I moved to NEPA. This is a friendship of some duration, I can tell you! Jambo and Rick actually attended PROM together! Well, not together, or course... more like they attended the same dance, with different dates... you get what I mean. ANYWAY, that must have been, what? 20 years ago for you two? 1988? And in the intervening years, Rick has served the nation in many capacities in the US Army. I do not hesitate to tell you that he is, without question, a true American hero in every sense of the word. AND he's a fantastic father. AND he's a dedicated husband. AND he's a heart-felt and passionate Christian. AND he is one of the very few people I will associate with that can manage to roll a sock so tight as to be able to THROW it through a plate glass hotel window while mind-numbingly drunk. AND he didn't turn me in for flat-out stealing an American flag from in front of a popular off-base sports bar near Fort Rucker, AL, in a fit of VERY misplaced patriotic fervor.

LOL... man, it seems that every time Rick and I have seen each other in person over the last 20 years, whether it was at the "Ponderosa" back in Bayfield County, WI (Rick's birthday) or his graduation from Warrant Officer Candidate School (the "flag" incident... hehe) and all the times in between, we have managed to tie on some of the most spectacular drunks of my life! No one ever gets "hurt" of course (hang-overs not withstanding), but just the graduation celebration cost a bar a flag, the hotel a dresser and a window, our little group of friends about a pounds-worth of brain cells, and to my knowledge NO ONE has seen Chuck since that day! He just got in his car and drove off into oblivion! HAHAHA! THAT'S funny, right there!

So, I hope Rick sees this and has a laugh or two. Chime in anywhere, friend! We'd love to hear from you.

Credit where it's due

I agree with everything Ryan has said (or almost everything… I’ll get there in a second), but I have to give credit where credit is due, right?

Well, then…

DAMN that was a good slam! I shot fresh hot coffee right out of my nose while sitting at my desk when I read the “bunch of unsold Mary Kay products in her hatch-back” bit… frigging HILARIOUS!

The woman excels at making herself insignificant on as routine a basis as she can manage, it would seem, and she manages it solely based on what she says. I have no idea how the good people of California can bring themselves to keep her in office, with the amount of crap that she spits out of her singularly unattractive mouth on a daily basis. How she keeps deluding herself and others that she is the voice of the Democratic Party is beyond me… but she does.

About General Pat… I’m all for giving credit where its due (she above), but that would mean I should refrain from giving it to the CIC as you suggest, wouldn’t it? Tell me Bush wouldn’t have kept supporting Rummy till hell froze over or the next inauguration came about, if Rummy hadn’t thrown in the towel first… I dare you! He’d have backed that loser all the way to January of 2009, if he had to. Rummy’s leaving the DoD is what brought about the “surge”, because the DoD staff could then push rational, objective and realistic strategies and tactics to the Cabinet and the SecDef. Give the credit to General Pat and Secretary Gates, if you must give it to anyone… but not Bush or Rummy. Rummy didn’t want it, and Bush just “ok’d” it. Not much to give credit there, huh?

"No dice with the frauline?"

Having read some beltway online magazine's in the past, such as The Hill (co editor Mort Kondrache from FOX) and The Weekly Standard, I long ago realized that within the DC loop Nancy Pelosi is considered "dumb." With a chuckle and a friendly rib directed elbow other congressmen, Senators, and media joke about her incapacity for thought. She has confirmed yet again this little dirty (not so) secret about the first woman Speaker of the House. Today she is sending out a formal press release describing the troop surge as, "a total and utter failure." This within 24 hours of General Patraius announcing that the once most hostile province in theater, Anbar, is so improving that full control of security maybe handed off to the Iraqi forces by March, allowing a number of US troops to come home.

The point is that by any objective standard the surge has been a smashing success. I'll agree it was long over due, etc, and Titus may feel compelled to say who will be accountable for past mistakes .... but that's not the point I'm making here. The move is clearly working and the CIC should get the credit if he's going to receive the blame when things were going poorly. And my more specific point is about Pelosi. Here she is, showing just how inept she is as a "leader" and as an individual in my opinion. How morally bankrupt does one have to be in order to think that downplaying the obvious success and sacrifices of our men in combat is an acceptable condition of attacking your political foe? The only reason she holds that seat is because she's the daughter of a powerful CA politician whom was mayor of San Fransisco for a while. Otherwise she'd be doing hair of Fifth and Figueroa in LA with a 2 pack a day habit and a bunch of unsold Mary Kay products in her hatch back that has a "sexy single" bumper sticker half worn out on the back .....

On being "pink"...

THAT was the most honest defense of your determination to support the organization of front-line Table Games associates at Caesar's Palace to date, and it is one I can live with.

I will no longer question your actions or thought processes, now that you have admitted to following your passion for "pissing off" the management that anyone that has worked with you in the past KNOWS is your primary mode of entertainment while at work.

Having seen first hand the lengths you will go to just to make sure people like Carpenter and "Frau Judy" suffered the most difficult shift possible whenever it suited you, I can very easily understand your inclination to take the "proletariat" path of organized resistance.

My only other point is that concerning the functioning, practical relationship between a dealer and the pencil/pit boss. I understand that times have changed and it is no longer as easy to abuse the system as it might once have been... but to suggest it has been eliminated from the work place is inaccurate... even incorrect.

Having moved from the ultra-mega-giant corporation world of Caesar's/Harrah's/Bally's and back into an enviroment where the "share-holders" constitute a body of people that wouldn't fill a city bus, I can say first-hand that this is not the case. While Mohegan Sun (Uncasville or Wilkes-Barre) still fights favoritism and preferential treatment like any other big business, they employ a very "old school" system of merit-reward that allows managers to give the best assignments to those team members (we don't use the Harrah's term of "associates" here) that "merit" them, as long as the manager can justify the assignment with rational and measurable performance evaluation.

In short, I can give the best jobs to those that do the best work... and I can't tell you how much easier that makes the job when I think back to how we USED to do it at Harrah's. The ones that consistantly fail to perform either quit or get fired when they do not improve their performance, while the ones that perform do the job with damn near enthusiasm to stay on top of the job ladder.

The corprotate PC world is alive and very real, I admit, but it isn't the only world available to companies and corporations. Anyone that worked for the Grand when Lyle Berman was in charge will know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

Here's the electoral question ...

Huckabee won Iowa, while McCain finished third in that state. McCain won New Hampshire while Huckabee finished third. Romney came in second place in both. Which is the better position? I know it's campaign minutia, but I think Romney has the edge there - consistently high via his actual percentages. And that "third" place finish for each of the others is misleading - around 11% when you're in third. Romney's two second place finishes gave him above 30% in each case with the highest/winning number achieved yet being 39%.

I think Romney wins every state through super Tuesday here on out, and on that date (Feb 5th) he gets the majority of the 21 states and that's that. I was surprised Hillary won, but it was still close, Obama's 36 to her 39%.

At any rate, why the hell are we allowing Iran to run those bumper paddle boats up against our destroyers with no consequence? Time was when that would have gotten them blown out of the water while the rouge regime disavowed them as rouge soldiers so as to not raise our ire.... sheeeeeesh.
FR