A little pandering please?

Please. Someone with political power pander to me. I'm not a woman so choosing a woman VP didn't do much for me. Sure she has that naughty librarian vibe about her but I just don't feel like I'm fully pandered to.

I live nowhere near any oncoming storms so no politician can cancel any activities or offer up prayers or thoughts on my behalf. There aren't any forest fires here either. I really feel ignored.

Just sayin'

Obama clearly doesn't have enough experience to be president of this great land. If only he had the type of broad background that say...the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska has.

Personally, I don't think experience means as much as firm, core beliefs about what makes this country great. Now that we know who all the players are let me just say this:

You will not find my fingerprints anywhere near the mess that is coming from this election. I'm going to vote for the Barr/Root ticket and soon I'll have a Barr yardsign in my front lawn. I am willing to live with whichever chump the rest of you decide to put in office.

Biden's real secret revealed

The little fact that the mainstream media has kept from you is that Joe Biden is actually disgraced former Vice President Spiro Agnew.  Biden's selection as a running mate is all part of a master plot devised by Dick Cheney which was started years ago when Agnew's death was faked back in 1996.

Here is the photographic evidence as Agnew's older persona (aka Biden) represents the age progression.  Remember, you heard it here first.

Joe Biden	Spiro Agnew

I need to go now.  I have to get fitted for a new tinfoil hat.

The Best DNC Speech So Far

I will just say that I was rather surprised by this. He's a nut but he gave the crowd of whacko collectivists something to shout about and he was about 80% correct in the process. Nice job Dennis.

Odd conversations

Two things I never thought I'd ever say:

"No, Thomas is cheeky one."

and

"Please don't drink from the crayon cup."

Biden?

Wow, Biden for VP. He's a mainstream, blue collar Roman Catholic, articulate and nice...it's like a dream come true, man.

I like Biden but I'm betting Obama will regret this choice.

Something about Seattle that doesn't suck

I'm back

Non medicated free association post...get ready.

The Russians are attacking Georgia and it's about time. Aside from Atlanta and the beautiful coastline around Savannah the state isn't one of my favorites. I hope they don't destroy Stone Mountain.

Thanks for your emails and kind messages from last week. You're all very thoughtful.

You can't bet on baseball if you're a baseball player. It's a rule that goes back to the early days of the game. If you bet on baseball you're out of the game. This way no one can ever hold anything against a player and cause them to ruin the integrity of the game...thus making fans not trust the outcome. The same should be true for politicians. Both Edwards and Stevens should make quick exits from public life. Sooner not later.

I'm still for open borders.

I sent John McCain's campaign some pizza coupons last week. They sent me a reply-by-mail envelope wanting some donations. Instead I gave them some pizza coupons that came in the junk mail. I hope this helps if they get hungry sitting around thinking of ways to convince people to vote for a man who isn't fit to lead. On the back of the envelope I wrote, "Bob Barr 2008".

I was asked about my position on the 2nd Amendment by someone presenting the tired question of whether people should be allowed to have machine guns or cannons. My answer is always the same since the mental midgets that ask always think they have me trapped somehow. Yes, people should be able to possess cannons if they wish. Reading about Henry Knox who was a mere book seller that brought many cannons into his possession as not a professional soldier but as a citizen fighting against his government's regular soldiers. I'm thinking if Mr. Knox had been limited to the modern thinking of the 2nd Amendment he would only have possessed a hunting rifle with a trigger lock. Oh the mysterious wonder of a living constitution.

I just voted in my state's primary election. Current state laws assure the extinction of Libertarians on ballots so my duty as a voter went by quickly. Aside from voting no on all proposed local taxes and voting for a (small L) libertarian family member running as a PCO...I left the ballot mostly blank.

Bernie Mac died and that is really sad. I loved his TV show because it was essentially about the challenges of a man that took parenting seriously. I've read that the show was based on his real life as he took care of three kids that belonged to his sister who was recovering from drug problems He had ups and downs in the show but in the end you had a sense that his life's mission was to raise those kids with love and firm instruction.

What have you all been up to the last two weeks?

A word about Lori

Lori was my best friend's wife who passed away this week at a young age.

Lori was a person, who like myself, was pretty self-made. She learned how to do things and eventually did them well. Like me she was also a writer but had stronger literary skills than I possess as she was an avid reader and a skilled editor.

As long as I knew her she was a writer. Not exciting stuff like novels or stuff like that but the boring stuff you do to keep a paycheck. Things like manuals and internal documentation for some of the largest companies in the United States. She also worked on classified documentation for a new strike fighter. Writing and understanding complex concepts was something that looked easy when she did it. She was one of the only people who read my manuscript in an early form that I felt apprehensive about. She knew the rules and knew how writing is formed and I knew whatever she had to say about it was going to be well-informed and honest.

I met her years ago and I can't even tell you when exactly. Maybe 15 years ago or more? I knew she was something special when my buddy actually introduced me to her. You see my friend and I share one personality trait and that is we don't have a burning intuitive longing to be liked by others. We are what we are.

Lori tolerated me greatly but probably never liked me much. I found her to be generally reserved around me but always really nice. Seems cold doesn't it? But it wasn't. Sometimes I'd call my friend on the phone and she'd answer. We'd talk on the phone for sometimes an hour about a bunch of subjects and I'd sometimes forget what I called him about in the first place. It was then that I learned how smart she was and more importantly...how much smarter she was than me. I always enjoyed her company far more than she enjoyed mine. That's not unusual really.

A testament to her character was that she got involved in AA which sort of shocked me because I never thought she drank that much and maybe to some standards she didn't. She did recognize a trait in herself that she didn't like and like any self-made person she did what she thought was necessary to better herself without the pushing of anyone else. She organized AA groups and helped allot of other people who I'm sure were way far worse than herself.

The last year or so has been pretty intense for my buddy and Lori. A long mis-diagnosed bout with cancer had begun to eat away her life before it was fully discovered. She passed away like a self-made person does...when they're ready and not a minute sooner.

Not much else to say and that's okay. It's a woefully pointless task to attempt to summarize someone's life in a few paragraphs or even an hour long memorial service.

To honor Lori I will end with this poem by William Butler Yeats.

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

A Heavy Day

My best friend's wife passed away last night. She had cancer. She was young.

I don't mean this to be a bummer of a blogpost but these things happen in life. We joked earlier when talking about arrangements that the death rate among humans is very close to 100%. Sort of the weird things you discuss around the awkward presence of mortality.

I'm going to take a few days to gather myself emotionally and be a strong supportive friend so I can't promise any updates in the next couple of days.

Thanks for understanding.