ROFL ------------ love it.  Love it.  LOVE IT!

President Bush obviously took his cue (in using the C.H.I.T. reference, that is) from a recent Perish the Thought post.

Herd'em up, Cowboy!

OKOKOK .... to appease those who nevah NEVAHHH cuss or those who may be offended by a socially-unacceptable-but-appropriate word, substitute the word "dung" (after all, it is biblical) -- as in camel, donkey, lion, etc. .... or for the poetically inclined -- it rhymes with stung and hung.  As opposed to c.h.i.t. -- which rhymes with snit, fit, hit, bit and QUIT!!!

-----  

ummmmm ... but Mr. President?  I ain't too keen on talking wif your mouth full o butter roll, though, yanno?  I bet Laura lectures you when you get home ....

From PajamasMedia:

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt says Lebanon has become a proxy battleground for Iran in its resistance to US-led pressure on its nuclear program: "Iran is telling the United States: You want to fight me in the Gulf and destroy my nuclear program? I will hit you at home, in Israel," he told Arab news channel Al Arabiya.

Continuous updates at TruthlaidBear.

Unbelievable.  Truly treasonable.  Unforgivable.

That an American Newspaper, specifically The New York Times' photography staff would refer to the "incredible courage" of a photographer who stood by as a terrorist sniper took aim at American troops.

Beyond belief.

Exactly where are the guidelines that determine WHEN and HOW a response to terrorist aggression is "proportionate?"

Someone forgot to send Israel a copy.

Unperturbed by international criticism, the Government of Israel continued to pound Lebanon's civilian infrastructure, destroying roads, bridges, fuel dumps and mobile telephone installations as well as Hezbollah targets, including a Beirut radio station.

It believes that Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shia group, badly overplayed his hand on Wednesday by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers in a daring cross-border raid and killing eight others.

Israeli generals and diplomats are now arguing that their attacks are simply a belated effort to achieve what the Lebanese Government and United Nations have consistently failed to do: implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for all Lebanese militias to be dismantled.

"As long as Hezbollah is in the south of Lebanon this will lead to a destabilised region," Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, told The Times.          - www.timesonline.co.uk

* Bold type added for emphasis.

The puppet-states who have allowed Syrian and Iranian terrorist groups to manipulate their policies and "proportion" the massacre of Israeli citizens may have finally awakened the sleeping giant. 

Ahhhhhhh ... here it is. 

Page 16, paragraph 34: when the sleeping giant says "Enough is enough" -- the guidelines state to cry, "Disproportionate!!!"

Suggestion for the G-8 Agenda:

1) Since some of our global neighbors' most profitable commodity is producing terrorists, why not tax exporters and importers? 

-- Hold nations that specialize in global terrorism accountable.
-- Let those who harbor them pay doubly.
-- Quadruple the fines if commodities enter another country illegally.  
-- Add a few excise taxes to get everyone's attention.  
-- Charge astronomical non-refundable fees for returning "goods that damage." 
-- Tax on the basis of potential threat, language(s) spoken and training. 
-- Brand (with butt iron) their foreheads with a special stamp to indicate "bearer has been specifically packaged as a Certified Hate-mongering International Terrorist."     

C.H.I.T. for short.   

And if nations refuse to pay taxes -- Reuters, MSM and the New York Times can post their names and write op-eds about them.

Walmart, Big Lots, Roses, General Dollar, Eckards, Best Buy, Dollar Tree, Pic n Pay, Target and other discount conglomerates will likewise agree to NOT import any more of their name-brand knock-offs.

The World Bank will foreclose on their land and auction it off to an info-mercial kingpin. 

That'll show those CHIT-heads somebody means business.

Cindy Sheehan's started a pick-a-time-slot fast to bring the troops home.  Slogan:  "Bring the troops home FAST" .... catchy, eh?  And a few Hollywoodites, Pink Cods (oops, I mean, Pink Codes) and bleeding heart libs are joining her. 

One or more days a week, mind you.  You just sign up.  Like, take turns.  And bring your own bottled water. 

Well, heck.  Why not? 

It's just the principle, yanno?  Like, who has the time to fast full-time anymore?  Good God -- folks could die fasting ALLLLLL the time!

Plus ... Gotta your hair done on Friday.  Gotta exercise at least once a week.  And there is the all-you-can-eat shrimp special at the bar on Tuesday's.  Book signings, blog writing and interviews on Monday.  You absolutely must play cards with the buds on Wednesday.  There's the Thursday girls-nite-out party.  Gotta get the nails done Friday afternoon .... Laundry?  Kids' soccer match? ... Church on Sunday ...  Cleaning the litter box.  Weekly staff meeting?  Don't forget the sauna ....  And political rallies -- can't miss a political rally. 

Fast????  As in go-without-food-for-a cause-until-you-die fast? 

ummmm .... Let me check my calendar....

OK, pencil me in for Saturday, 3 until 6 -- no, no, no -- make that 5.  I have a dinner party at 8.

In a previous post, Gull suggested (quasi-tongue in cheekish) several points:

Establish regional offices to register illegal immigrants. Offer a moratorium for employers of illegal immigrants.  Issue interim registration cards to illegal immigrants, allowing them 2-3 years to complete monitored citizenship requirements.  Begin immediately to collect taxes on current incomes.  

What will happen? 

-- Local, state and federal tax bases will rise, in partial compensation for the cost of caring for/educating illegal immigrants and their offspring. 
-- INS employment will expand, including but not limited to bilingual citizens -- who could also be employed to patrol US borders .....
-- More American dollars will remain at home because untaxed income (previously sent "home" to support non-resident families) will be monitored by extensions of Homeland and National Security agencies.
-- Landlords will be required to notify authorities (subject to monumental penalty) if more than 3 persons per bedroom are residing in one dwelling.
-- Driver's license agencies will be required to issue provisional licence to drivers who fail to provide proof of residency and domicile (i.e., social security card, utility bills, tax returns, voter registration, etc.).
-- Tell-tale fancy vehicles (which any of us could afford if we didn't pay taxes) will be legally profiled -- indirectly creating a boon for public transit systems and used car sales, coupled with a decrease in pimping prostitutes and crack house deliveries -- which will benefit everyone. 
-- Yard sales, fruit stands road-side venders and flea markets would require fee-based permits (obtained by proof of social security card, driver license, utility bill, tax return, voter registration, etc.), issued individually to families/site venders.

What Gull does not address is the issue of work permits to allow illegal immigrants to remain -- to perform low-paying jobs which legal citizens shun .....

Herein may lie the rub on the issue of illegal immigration. 

... Flashback to the epoch of slavery and the treatment of non-white immigrants ....   Those who survived did so at the bottom levels of a social and economic caste system. 

If a work permit program is to be a component of immigration reform (and I feel it should), regional agencies must closely monitor the registration system to ensure that work permit holders aren't again victimized (even willingly). 

Paramount will be monitoring employers and related custodial programs -- including but not limited to provisions for housing, health care and education. 

The key, in my assessment?  Holding employers accountable through a strengthened monitoring system.

..........

Afterthought:  Some legislators want to collect back taxes on salaries earned by illegal immigrants.  Phooey. 

There is absolutely no way to monitor the collection of back taxes uniformly and equitably.  No way.  Forgive and forget.  After all, it was our current system that has allowed illegal immigration to flourish. 

Move forward.  Not backward. 

Please. 

  I love the cool(er) weather.  It was in the low 50's this morning and has warmed up to the high 60's.  Color me fall.  Remind me next week (when we're back in the 90's) that it's almost August.

Watched part of CBS news this morning -- only because they were discussing blogs.  Seems most bloggers are unread, educated, intelligent, make good money and are trend-setters ..... No mention of spelling skills.  Strange how they interviewed "Wonkette" -- the woman (who began the blog), which is now written by maybe 2 men ... I no longer read the blog for that reason ---- ever appreciative of the reality that it usually takes two men to do the job of one woman.

Yeah, that's my photo above.  I'm so dang-nabbed tired of hiding from the stalker who shadowed me for years -- on and off line.  A recent incident (or more realistic -- a string of incidents related to my work) has me carrying a gun 99.9% of the time.  When I'm not armed, I have an instrument which can be used as a club.  I've adjusted to my mind-set and have decided that any fool who wishes to do me physical harm best make their first blow fatal.  If I can get up, I'll kill the bastard(s).  Meanwhile, as the weather allows, I'm now roaming about more freely in the dusk and darkness than I have in a long, long time.  May God have mercy on his/their soul if I meet those who wish to do me harm.  I certainly won't.

I love playing the lottery and those silly scratch-off cards.  Always have.  Always will.  I "invested" $25 in 4 cards and 5 quick-picks back in May.  To date, I'm several coins to the good .... I call it my mad money.  I use it to purchase medicines I don't want my employer to know I'm taking and for 5 weekly quick-picks .... Years ago, I would have thought nothing of driving to the casino or hopping a red eye to Atlantic City.  No more.  I feed my gambling habit playing scratch-offs and Pogo.  Everytime I lose at poker (on Pogo) I replinish my tokies via Pogo slots or at the roulette table.  What I lack in skill I make up for in perserverence.  Bottom line: I hate to lose tokies.  I could care less about badges or tournaments.  It's the thrill in "possessing" 4 million absolutely useless tokens that keeps me clicking.  Cash them in for chances to win prizes?  You gotta be kidding.  They're mine.  I won them.  If my account were to get screwed up and my tokies were to be lost -- I'd be devastated.  I'm not sure how wise Pogo admins are to the addictive nature of owning a few million useless tokens.  I hope they don't increase the annual fee.  I might have to spend some more of my mad money.

Tiger's back.  He looks great.  I love that kid.  Sports analysts may put him down or chink away at him personally or professionally (always from a distance, noticed?), but networks and tournament sponsors worship him.  When he's not in the field -- ratings drop.  When he's on his game, scores and records tumble.  Skill and personage aside -- he's the greatest marketing influence ever to lace a shoe.  And as a testament to the quality of his competitors and the manipulation of course layouts  -- he's likely the greatest golfer.  Ever. 

                                                         Politics aside: 
North Korea best be glad they're firing duds.  Japan is not a nation they want to intimidate ....

The need for Immigration Reform didn't begin with the Bush Administration.  For all their humanistic posturing, libs dropped the ball on this issue longgggggggg ago.  Illegal immigrants have historically contributed to local economies while concurrently draining localities fiscally.  Once Congress determines how these non-sanctioned residents can legalize their citizenship, the sooner we can collect taxes on their incomes. 

My suggestion? 

Establish regional offices to register illegal immigrants. Offer a moratorium for employers of illegal immigrants.  Issue interim registration cards to illegal immigrants, allowing them 2-3 years to complete monitored citizenship requirements.  Begin immediately to collect taxes on current incomes.  

What will happen? 

-- Local, state and federal tax bases will rise, in partial compensation for the cost of caring for/educating illegal immigrants and their offspring. 
-- INS employment will expand, including but not limited to bilingual citizens -- who could also be employed to patrol US borders .....
-- More American dollars will remain at home because untaxed income (previously sent "home" to support non-resident families) will be monitored by extensions of Homeland and National Security agencies.
-- Landlords will be required to notify authorities (subject to monumental penalty) if more than 3 persons per bedroom are residing in one dwelling.
-- Driver's license agencies will be required to issue provisional licence to drivers who fail to provide proof of residency and domicile (i.e., social security card, utility bills, tax returns, voter registration, etc.).
-- Tell-tale fancy vehicles (which any of us could afford if we didn't pay taxes) will be legally profiled -- indirectly creating a boon for public transit systems and used car sales, coupled with a decrease in pimping prostitutes and crack house deliveries -- which will benefit everyone. 
-- Yard sales, fruit stands, road-side venders and flea markets would require fee-based permits (obtained by proof of social security card, driver license, utility bill, tax return, voter registration, etc.), issued individually to families/site venders.

Will it work?  Maybe.  Maybe parts of this suggestion will.  At least I have made a suggestion -- which is a heckova lot more than some of our bleeding heart critics have offered ......

Before a final run to the grocery store for the annual July 4 cookout, I browsed the blogosphere for inspiration and found, not to my surprise, a post over at Human Events on -- of all things wonderful --
  's!!!!

I love them.   With mustard, slaw, onions and relish (please).  Hold the chili unless it's sweet.

I've grilled them indoors (bless you, George Foreman), in the oven, in a bunker in Vietnam, in the snow, on the beach, at the lake, in the woods, over unscented candles, over hot coals, in the fireplace, in the microwave, in lab class, in camp fires and on Coleman stoves around the world. 

Wherever there is flame -- I'm game.   I'll take the blackened meaty innards of a sausage casing any day.  Almost any way. 

And hold the gadgets (weenie rotisseries?  boiled in water?  pffffffffth).  Gimme a stick and an open fire.  If that 'dog ain't burned, it ain't a 'dog! 

    Message to PETA:  I don't care that hot dogs may contain unspeakable animal body parts that no one (in their right mind) would consume.   And don't try to factor my fear guage about floor sweepings or foreign objects or a kazillion calories.  I don't care!

Nor do I care what potential diseases live in those ground-up body parts smished into that sausage casing.  Heat kills!  And if the char-blackened casing (which I also love) is harmful within itself -- sobeit.  And pass the mustard.

Quoting an in-your-PETA-face quote:  If God didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them taste good! 

Anyway -- if hot dogs were so harmful, why would the Babylonians make calendars and subsequently designate July as National Hot Dog month????  Eh?  Eh?  Hallmark knew a good pitch when they saw it, too. 

And speaking of pitches -- it's unAmerican not to loveeeeee hot dogs.  What do you think makes sports so popular?????  Is it the spirit of competition?  The thrill of the home run or the deep pass to the end zone?  Heck no --- it's concession stands and     !!! 

Mark my words:  Oscar Mayer may someday become a national icon.  Rumors are that Mount Rushmore engineers are now working on a hot dog-replica walk-way to the base of the monument!

And speaking of Mt. Rushmore --. one of my most memorable hot dogs was consumed in the adjacent Custer State Park one cold, wintry night while shivering over a Coleman stove .... but that's another post and yet another of many, many, many memorable hot dogs consumed across this wondrous land .....

God.  I think I'm going to cry. 
No I'm not. 
It's <sniff sniff> just the onions.

Happy Birthday, America!!!!!!!!!!!  

More from National Review, June 30, 2006:

Time again for Tom Stoppard’s “Reporter Doll”: You wind it up — and it gets it wrong. The news of the Hamdan case broke on Thursday, and the headlines have offered an account almost the reverse of what has actually taken place. The main message, coming out quickly, was that the Court had checked an executive running beyond control, breaking past the boundaries of its powers under the Constitution and the laws. That was the version Through the Looking Glass. The more sober version was that five judges, under the pretext of reining in the president, had defied the restraints that the Congress had placed, quite emphatically, on the courts.

 

Those restraints had been enacted precisely to keep the judges from extending their power into the domain of military judgments. More than an attack on the executive, the decision in Hamdan showed contempt for the Congress. The Court treated as a mere trifle, to be put aside, the clear power of Congress under the Constitution to grant, to shape — and to withhold — the jurisdiction of the courts. We might ask, where is the outrage from Arlen Specter, so quick to take offense on other occasions when the Court seems to be disparaging the force of reason in his legislative handiwork?

What Legal Protection for Terrorists?

Salim Hamdan was a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, before he was captured in Afghanistan. He was charged with providing protection, running weapons, and discharging other services for people involved in a design to kill Americans. Justice Stevens insisted that Hamdan had not exactly been found guilty of any overt act that fitted the definition of a war crime. But that did not prevent Stevens from declaring at the end that “Hamdan is a dangerous individual whose beliefs, if acted upon, would cause great harm and even death to innocent civilians, and who would act upon those beliefs if given the opportunity.” Stevens and his colleagues would not challenge then the authority of the executive to “detain him for the duration of active hostilities in order to prevent such harm.”

Then what was the issue? If the government sought to try Hamdan and punish him through a military commission, the rules there would not be as protective of defendants as the procedures in courts martial or in other courts. The military commissions could admit hearsay evidence, or evidence with probative value that would be thrown out in other courts. There would also be more restrictions in seeking judicial review, along with a host of other differences.

But why could the commissions not have a different cast, dealing with combatants who were not part of national armies, respecting the rules of war? After all, during the Second World War, FDR himself ordered military commissions to try Nazi saboteurs who had landed in New Jersey and Florida. Hamdan could be charged with overt acts far clearer than the acts that could be plausibly charged or proved against those saboteurs. And yet they were tried and executed with remarkable dispatch. But Justice Stevens and the majority argued that Congress had acted since then to make such procedures more exacting, to make the military commissions come closer, in their legal regimen, to that of the courts martial.

That reading, however, was not at all so clear to Clarence Thomas and his colleagues in the minority. The majority was imputing to Congress an intention of making all military tribunals more “legal” and fastidious in the same way, a reading that depended on conjectures plausible or implausible. In striking contrast was the intention made unmistakably clear by Congress in December 2005, when it enacted the Detainee Treatment Act. And enacted it with the Hamdan case very much in mind. That act offered some restrictions on the treatment and interrogation of detainees, but it was also quite emphatic in stipulating that “no court, justice, or judge” shall have jurisdiction to consider petitions for habeas corpus emanating from detainees held in places like Guantanamo Bay.

A “Rebuke” Without Precedent

As if to soften the sting of the decision for the executive, Justices Breyer, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Souter pointed out that “nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.” With the same expansive gesture, Justice Kennedy noted that “Congress has the power and responsibility to determine the necessity for military courts, and to provide the jurisdiction and procedures applicable to them.” Nicely filtered out of his gesture was the recognition that Congress had done just that — and done it forcefully: no courts or judges in fact have jurisdiction to hear these cases.

That was the central, dominant point that Justice Scalia would make in leading the dissents. He would make it with a clarity that was penetrating, precise, and unanswerable. The Detainee Treatment Act was signed on December 30, 2005, and governed all cases as of that date. The majority would affect to believe that Congress intended to cover only those cases arising on or after December 30. But as Scalia showed, the plain meaning of the act was to govern all cases in this field, including the cases that were already underway.

Years ago, Felix Frankfurter had reviewed the history of Congress governing the jurisdiction of the Court, and as he recalled the days of Reconstruction, after the Civil War, he recalled the lesson of Ex parte McCardle (1869): that the Congress, in controlling the jurisdiction of the courts, could remove that jurisdiction even for a case that was sub judice, under judicial review, even at the time. As Scalia sought to show, this understanding, carried through, had been confirmed in a long line of precedents. What had happened, suddenly, to “stare decisis,” to that veneration for precedents long settled, of which we had heard so much, expressed so feelingly, during the recent hearings for Samuel Alito? But now Scalia had to remind his colleagues that when Congress said, unequivocally, that “no court, justice, or judge” was authorized to hear a petition for habeas corpus in these cases, the Congress had evidently meant the Supreme Court as well.

From Unaccountable Judges

What was so deftly masked by the Court was the truth that almost never speaks its name: that when it comes to the preservation of a constitutional government, it is far more critical to restrain judges seeking to extend their controls to the military, than it was to rein in the executive’s command of the military. When judges pronounce on cases, our attention is usually drawn to the justice that is done to the people on either side. In the trick-of-the-eye we may fail to notice that when the judges take a case, the first impulse is to assign to themselves the power to govern.

In the case of Hamdan and the military, the shift was so subtle that even Justice Stevens hardly seemed to notice: The executive argued that it was impracticable to apply to cases like Hamdan’s the rules that apply in courts-martial, but Stevens and his colleagues did not see such practical difficulties. “It is not evident to us,” he wrote, “why it should require, in the case of Hamdan’s trial, any variance from the rules that govern courts-martial.” It was not evident to Stevens and his colleagues? But why would they have the competence to make that judgment, and even if they did, how would they claim the authority to make it? If a president were wrong, he could be held responsible. But the judges could not be readily removed, as they are there these days nearly for life. The judges were claiming nothing less than the authority to judge “military necessity,” not from their involvement, every day, in the direction of operations, but from their cloisters in the Court, surrounded by clerks. As Scalia aptly warned, this kind of case brings the Court into conflict with the executive “in an area where the Executive's competence is maximal and ours is virtually nonexistent.”

Al Qaeda’s Conclusions, and the Military’s

Congress may swing into action now to make clear again that the president has the authority to set up military commissions. Yet, that fine tuning belies the grosser truth, evident to the rest of the world, and evident even more to al Qaeda: The risks have been diminished for making war on the United States. “If you are captured, you may be detained for a long while. But if there is any effort made to try or — gasp! — to punish you, you will have access to lawyers and you may readily tie up the government in litigation. You will come under the rule of judges. You will become, in that respect, like other Americans, and that is gravest punishment you will suffer.” On the other hand, the lesson drawn by the military may be this: If you wish to call down three 500-pound bombs to dispatch Zarqawi, the Constitution imposes not the slightest restraint. But if you take him into custody, he is in the hands of the lawyers, and the leverage may shift to him.

If we weren’t living in such pusillanimous times, the Congress would recognize that the decision in Hamdan was a deeper affront to the Congress than to the executive. It would respond by making a cosmetic change in the Detainee Treatment Act, firming up the power of the executive, affirming the military commissions — and inviting the Court to try it one more time, but this time to get it right. In the best of worlds, with the best writers, the Congress might also add a preamble to remind the judges that, in the design of the Constitution, the judges, no less than presidents, must respect the boundaries to their own reach.

If there is any principle at the heart of the American revolution, and bound up with the very idea of government by the consent, it is the principle stated and restated by Clarence Thomas in these cases:  The safety of the American people cannot be put in the hands of officials who bear no direct responsibility to the very people whose lives are at stake in their judgments.