Makin' Bacon

The Atlantic has a terrific article on my favorite food, the great american vegetable- Bacon. It essentially discusses artisan Bacon and the many new ways of creating this wonderful meat, and focuses on a Connecticut smokehouse that is slowly but surely taking the Bacon world by storm. How large said world is, we'll never know, at least not in the next 2 weeks. I will soon be ordering some of the Apple Bacon to give it a whirl. If it's as good as Corby Kummer claims it is, then I'll be in hog heaven, as it were. I must apologize though, the link to the article really stinks. You only get the opening salvo and then are forced to join them as a subscriber. If you feel the need to subscribe, I recommend it. I enjoy reading the Atlantic, but just don't have the kind of money it would take to fight a copyright infringement suit should I paste the entire article here.

And Iran, Iran so far away...

I'm not sure how credible the information from Cicero is, but if even half of it is confirmed, then Tehran will be our next battleground. Who knows how well organized the Democratic resistance is inside the Islamic republic, but let's hope they can help. Hopefully the foreign policy wankers who prefer negotiating away terrorism rather than killing it don't get their way anytime soon. Does wanting a confrontation with Iran make me a Neocon or just someone with anger issues? I guess it could be both.

Hitchens' Revenge

I think Christopher Hitchens is one of the smartest people around. Of course I think a lot of people are smart for different reasons, but that's neither here nor there. In early September, Hitchens met the challenge of "debating" George Galloway, the soon to be ex-Respect MP. Galloway is best known for trumpeting the "leadership" of Saddam Hussein, and recently Bashar Assad. Of course, when he said most of these things it was only suspected that Galloway was on the take. He also made a rather bloviated appearance in front of the U.S. Senate, which of course was nothing but 100% grade A horsepucky. Hitchens had the compliment of being in Galloway's ad hominem crosshairs for pointing out George's hypocrisy. Now there is an overwhelming abundance of proof of Galloway's corruption (and that's putting it lightly) and Mr. Hitchens has an excellent companion piece in Slate.

My new Pen Pal

It's been nearly a month since I e-mailed Senator Mike DeWine and longer since I e-mailed Congressman Steven LaTourette. Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I received an e-mail from Senator DeWine acknowledging receipt of my e-mail and that he'll be following up soon. Half an hour later I had a response. It's laid out somewhat like a form letter, probably written by a staffer, but it does address (sort of) my anti-budget pork concerns. Actually now that I have re-read it again, I'm not very satisfied with the response. Well for what it's worth, here it is:

October 25, 2005

Dear John:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your concerns with the costs of the
relief efforts in the Gulf states following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
I appreciate knowing your views on this issue.

As you know, the combined force of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in
one of the largest national disasters in our Nation. I am committed to
providing the full amount necessary for a comprehensive recovery effort
that meets the short- and long-term needs of the Gulf region and its
residents. I agree that as stewards of your taxpayer dollars, Congress
must take steps to manage relief funding efforts in a fiscally responsible
manner. I also feel that it is important that we have a team of
inspectors general to evaluate all funding provided for the relief effort
to make sure that the money is spent wisely and efficiently.

In addition, I am extremely proud of the National Guard troops, government
workers, Red Cross volunteers, and citizens who have generously provided
their assistance in the rescue and recovery efforts. I commend their
efforts and keep all of the victims and their families in my thoughts and
prayers.

Again, thank you for contacting me. If you have any additional questions
or concerns, please feel free to contact me anytime.

Very respectfully yours,

MIKE DeWINE
United States Senator

Moonbattery

I really don't care much for or about Cindy Sheehan. She lost a child to war, and now acts as if it is her constitutional right to force her way into every discussion. After seeing her 15 minutes dry up after everyone with half a brain cell passed her off as a complete loon, she is now trying to inject herself into the 2008 presidential debate. As if she matters. This woman is completely off her rocker with anti-Israel, anti-US and anti-intelligent rhetoric. She has decided that she would test out how much power she really doesn't have, by trying to pull the rug out from underneath Hillary Clinton. That's no easy task given Hillary's battle with her waistline. "I think she is a political animal who believes she has to be a war hawk to keep up with the big boys," said the crazy lady. It's interesting that she considers anyone who thinks withdrawing from Iraq a bad idea is a "hawk." I find it to be a matter of common sense, no matter what one thinks of the precursors to the war, and some of the subsequent mishandling that you don't just leave a weakened country to fend for itself. It certainly wasn't done with Germany or Japan following WWII. Nor was it done to the south following the Civil War. If you want to see a truly mishandled post-war withdrawal, you can reference Desert Storm. The entire post war plan consisted of "Let the Shia rise up and take over." Boy that worked well. Back to the point at hand though. Cindy Sheehan is a jaded mother, who got her meeting with the President and blew her chance to speak up. She didn't get any cajones until she met some Democratic p.r. people who saw the opportunity to manipulate the situation to their ends. As it turns out, it was a tremendous failure. She opened her mouth one too many times and out flopped some anti-semitism. This woman should be charged with assault and moon-battery (bad pun, I know).

Stupidity Unleashed

Citing unnamed and anonymous, and likely non-existent sources, America's leading racist, Lightning Lou Farrakhan, is continuing his assault on intelligence everywhere. Today's nugget is his continuance of the conspiracy theory du jour, "That the Army Corps of Engineers blew up the dikes in New Orleans to wipe out as many black people as possible." The leading voice of stupidity said, "a member of the Army Corps of Engineers saw burn marks on the concrete." I find this hard to believe. I'm no demolitions expert, in fact the extent of my explosives experience involves M-80s, but I'm fairly certain that when combined with dynamite or other conventional explosives, concrete disintegrates into rubble without leaving burn marks. Concrete is sedimentary in nature, meaning that it is rather loose, as anyone who has dropped a cinder block will tell you. So what I gather from this, is that the Prime Minister of Hatred would rather blame white America for all of society's ills rather than address them head on and work to fix them. Oh, wait a tick, this proves it, "FEMA is insensitive, there are not enough blacks high up. The Red Cross, too. It's too white, it is! Racism poisoned the bloodstream of politics." So there you have it, lack of diversity in every agency is what caused the entire hurricane and subsequent disaster relief disaster.

Who you gonna call?

Every once in a while, members of the media unleash stories that illuminate the rough and tumble missions undertaken by our outstanding servicemen. This story is indeed one of them. It involves an insertion team, the "Ghost Busters," made up of members of the 82nd Airborne, and the reporter with them from the Christian Science Monitor, in a 3 part series. This is the first article. Sometimes stories like these help to make up the good news/bad news gap created by the overzealous liberal media types.

Update (10/12): Here is the second part of the series.

Update (10/13): And here is part three.

Cooperation

Hail to Thee


Last Sunday, the New York Times had a great article, in the sports section of all places, about my father's last Battalion: the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division. It's a good story on the interpersonal relationships being formed between our forces and the Iraqi security forces. The best quote of the entire article is this: "When people say it's horrible that you are training those Iraqi soldiers because they will never be as good as we are, they are missing the point," said Capt. Mike Whitney, commander of the 1-30th's Alpha Company. "No, the Iraqis will never be as good as we are, but they don't have to be. They just have to be better than anybody they face here."

Porkbusters Redux

I have yet to receive a response from either Congressman LaTourette or Senator Dewine. I'm not quite giving up, but it's not looking very good. This piece from Andrew Roth of the Club for Growth does not bode well. I can't imagine that either of these guys are very busy worrying about their constituency, then again I could be wrong. It'd be nice to receive a response acknowledging that they've received my inquiry rather than the current level of response, which is akin to conversation with a brick wall.