Expert of Dumb

While speaking to a friend today he announced he has become an Expert of Dumb. When I asked him what he meant by that statement he replied that having to deal with the public face to face on a daily basis at his work he has in fact become the premier Expert of Dumb.

He works in a grocery store and gave some examples of the dumbness of the public he deals with daily - this is a high-end specialty grocery store and not a 'Big Chain' store so it would be safe to say the clientèle are a bit above average or maybe they are not. In the past few days over the holiday weekend he has had one gap-toothed individual ask for the gourmet burgers advertised in the paper only he pronounced the words like this: them gore-met burgarz that was abertized, another lady (or at least a female anyway) asking for Fillet Mignon as Fill-lets Mag-none.

I agreed with him, he has become a bona fide Expert of Dumb having to deal with people all day everyday and these two prime examples of the public mean.

Thought for the Day

Why is it that those who indulge in childish games always think everyone else indulges in them as well?

Drugged, Robbed then Killed in Rome

From the Newswire:

An American tourist was killed by a train as he walked on the tracks in a daze after he drank a cappuccino laced with drugs and then was robbed, railway police said Monday.

Frank Phel, 74, of California, died early Friday at the suburban Tiburtina station, police official Giovanni Piccolantonio said. Phel's hometown was not disclosed.

The suspected robber, a 54-year-old Italian man who was arrested Saturday, had chatted with Phel and his wife before fetching them cappuccinos at a local cafe and then adding a mix of drugs including sleeping pills, Piccolantonio said.

"This man approached these two tourists and earned their trust, and then offered them two cappuccinos with drugs," Piccolantonio said.

The robbery was filmed by security cameras at a nearby cafe, Piccolantonio said. Footage from other cameras also showed the man stumbling near the tracks, where he ended up by accident.

Phel and his wife, who was briefly hospitalized after the incident, had just completed a cruise in the Mediterranean and were going to Hungary by bus, Piccolantonio said.

Phel's wife went to Hungary, where her husband was born, after being released from hospital.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome did not have an immediate comment Monday on Phel's death.

Warren Buffett: America Is Already In A Recession!

Warren Buffett, whose business and investment acumen has made him one of the world's wealthiest men, was quoted in an interview published Sunday as saying the U.S. economy is already in a recession.

Asked by Germany's Der Spiegel weekly whether he thinks the U.S. could still avoid a recession, he said that as far as the average person is concerned, it is already here.

"I believe that we are already in a recession," Buffet was quoted as saying. "Perhaps not in the sense as defined by economists. ... But people are already feeling the effects of a recession."

"It will be deeper and longer than what many think," he added.

The 77-year-old chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. gave the interview while he was in Europe for what he called a "deferred shopping tour," looking for possible acquisitions.

Omaha-based Berkshire has about $35 billion in cash and is looking to invest. Berkshire's subsidiaries include insurance, clothing, furniture, natural gas, corporate jet and candy companies. Berkshire also has major investments in such companies as Coca-Cola Co. and Anheuser-Busch Cos.

Rally Cry of Freedom

"...for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

This excerpt from the Scottish "Declaration of Independence" is the most remembered line of the declaration which predates the United States Declaration of Independence by 400 years.

It is appropriate rally cry for those in the United States today who will not submit to rule by the Neo/Theo-Con cabal. A rallying cry that is being heard and heard clearly, so much so the Neo/Theo-Con cabal is shitting themselves trying to disappear fast enough and the nation and the world are loving every minute of it.

We Lost Another One!

We lost another one ...

Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86.

Martin, who went on to become one of television's busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said.

"He had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years, and he had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago," Greenberg said.

Martin had lost the use of one of his lungs as a teenager, and needed supplemental oxygen for most of the day in his later years.

He was surrounded by family and friends when he died just after 6 p.m., Greenberg said.

"Laugh-in," which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

Presiding over it all were Rowan and Martin, the veteran nightclub comics whose standup banter put their own distinct spin on the show.

Like all straight men, Rowan provided the voice of reason, striving to correct his partner's absurdities. Martin, meanwhile, was full of bogus, often risque theories about life, which he appeared to hold with unwavering certainty.

Against this backdrop, audiences were taken from scene to scene by quick, sometimes psychedelic-looking visual cuts, where they might see Hawn, Worley and other women dancing in bathing suits with political slogans, or sometimes just nonsense, painted on their bodies. Other times, Gibson, clutching a flower, would recite nonsensical poetry or Johnson would impersonate a comical Nazi spy.

"Laugh-In" astounded audiences and critics alike. For two years the show topped the Nielsen ratings, and its catchphrases_ "Sock it to me," "You bet your sweet bippy" and "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's" - were recited across the country.

Stars such as John Wayne and Kirk Douglas were delighted to make brief appearances, and even Richard Nixon, running for president in 1968, dropped in to shout a befuddled sounding, "Sock it to me!" His opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was offered equal time but declined because his handlers thought it would appear undignified.

Rowan and Martin landed the show just as their comedy partnership was approaching its zenith and the nation's counterculture was expanding into the mainstream.

The two were both struggling actors when they met in 1952. Rowan had sold his interest in a used car dealership to take acting lessons, and Martin, who had written gags for TV shows and comedians, was tending bar in Los Angeles to pay the rent.

Rowan, hearing Martin was looking for a comedy partner, visited him at the bar, where he found him eating a banana.

"Why are you eating a banana?" he asked.

"If you've ever eaten here, you'd know what's with the banana," he replied, and a comedy team was born.

Although their early gigs in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley were often performed gratis, they donned tuxedos for them and put on an air of success.

"We were raw," Martin recalled years later, "but we looked good together and we were funny."

They gradually worked up to the top night spots in New York, Miami and Las Vegas and began to appear regularly on television.

In 1966, they provided the summer replacement for "The Dean Martin Show." Within two years, they were headlining their own show.

The novelty of "Laugh-In" diminished with each season, however, and as major players such as Hawn and Tomlin moved on to bigger careers, interest in the series faded.

After the show folded in 1973, Rowan and Martin capitalized on their fame with a series of high-paid engagements around the country. They parted amicably in 1977.

"Dan has diabetes, and his doctor advised him to cool it," Martin told The Associated Press at the time.

Rowan, a sailing enthusiast, spent his last years touring the canals of Europe on a houseboat. He died in 1987.

Martin moved onto the game-show circuit, but quickly tired of it. After he complained about the lack of challenges in his career, fellow comic Bob Newhart's agent suggested he take up directing.

He was reluctant at first, but after observing on "The Bob Newhart Show," he decided to try. He would recall later that it was "like being thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool and being told to sink or swim."

Soon he was one of the industry's busiest TV directors, working on numerous episodes of "Newhart" as well as such shows as "In the Heat of the Night," "Archie Bunker's Place" and "Family Ties."

Born into a middle-class family in Battle Creek, Mich., Martin had worked in a Ford auto assembly plant after high school.

After an early failed marriage, he was for years a confirmed bachelor. He finally settled down in middle age, marrying Dolly Read, a former bunny at the Playboy Club in London. Survivors include his wife and two sons, actor Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

At Martin's request there will be no funeral, Greenberg said.

Martin lost the use of his right lung when he was 17, something that never bothered him until his final years, when he required oxygen 18 hours a day.

Arriving for a party celebrating his 80th birthday, he fainted and was treated by doctors and paramedics. The party continued, however, and he cracked, "Boy, did I make an entrance!"

You bet your sweet Bippy you did! Goodbye Dick.

Life on the farm

With all the projects and what not going on I have had to hire on several new people to help out on the farm and in the shops and all is going great.
Even have a new neighbor, granted by neighbor I mean they live two miles away on the backside of the farm, a nice family by the name of Vega.

The boring details of daily chores on a farm is exactly that ... boring. It is the odd happenings that cause pause for reflection. For instance when the cow came onto the porch and frightened a burglar last year, that stays in one's memory. This morning's adventure is no less memorable.

One of the new people was down by the creek around dawn for a little skinny dipping before breakfast and in typical stereotyped fashion another of the farmhands removed their clothing from where they had left them to another location hidden from their owner. The skinny dipping worker got out of the creek and found the clothing missing but instead of panicking he just began to do his morning job au natural with the intention of shocking whomever took his clothing. As I said he is new here so it was he who was shocked when he came into the hen house to find a couple of other workers there working sans clothing - the look on his face was priceless as Julie informed him it was she that had taken his clothing and put it in his closet while wearing only a basket of eggs in her hand (ok, she was wearing boots, you don't want to go into the hen house barefoot - although the newbie did!).

Right now he is still trying to figure out how the fact that being nude on this farm was the norm had escaped his notice for the three days he has been here. Pretty much wondering the same thing, myself. I guess this means we'll be seeing him around the pool in the evenings now.

Outfox the Fox

Danny Kaye at his best From 1956's "The Court Jester"

Not All That Unbelievable Now Is It?

What is so scary is that it isn't so far fetched as one imagines.

Daily Funny

"They" say I am the mastermind of the entire operation!

Now, if "they" would be so kind as to tell me which entire operation I am the mastermind of then we'll all know.

*****

Don't you just love reading the daily horoscope!

Chatter

There has been a lot of chatter over on the backpackers forum about goings on on yet another forum falling victim to the the PC police. It seems whenever the open flow of ideas is curtailed by a few misguided persons at one location the tragedy of it is known throughout the world - literally.

I must say it is disgusting how this is allowed to happen and what is more disgusting is the fact that hate and fear replace honesty and understanding when it happens. The loss is felt by all who strive for that honesty and understanding.

The bright side to this is that those locations where such has occurred wither and die ignobly as fitting they should and usually a lot sooner than some expect thus leaving room for places not infested with the like who seek to prohibit others to flourish and new locations to emerge and grow.

*****

New feature:
There will be more posts under the heading "Chatter" as I peruse the forums I frequent and find what is the rage of the moment. Just as the profuse distaste of censorship that is making the rounds for the past few weeks on blogs as diverse as there are diverse people.

New Look and the Fearless Afraid

How you like the new look? I thought that since I was updating the looks of my other blogs and company websites I thought I would do some sprucing up around here ... man does it take time!
Still have a few friends to put back on the list and several new ones to add, whew.

Speaking of the fearless being afraid ... our (the Mrs., dog actually) Jack Russell Mac Duff took off at a full run outside today on his regular pattern of the neighborhood, when he can get out past one of us going out, where he usually dares all the labs and retrievers (of which there are several including my two monster-sized labs) to a 'fight' and plays with them until such time as I can catch him or he tires out which ever comes first ... and it is usually me tiring out first anyway.

Today however we had to go meet a friend so I could not give chase so I let him run free. When we returned from our meeting there was a note on the door from a neighbor saying she had let him in the back door after her very overweight fat cat chased Mac Duff right into her arms with his tail between his legs - I wish I had seen that ... that dog isn't afraid of anything except thunderstorms, in fact the bigger they are the better he likes it - until now that is. So we can all mark it down ... Mac Duff is afraid of overweight cats.

Top 10%: It runs in the family.

Just got the grandparents copy of the book and certificate listing my grandson as one of the top 10% of students in the United States - not too shabby for a boy who passed the SAT with a perfect score at 13 years old.

Now he is eligible for over 254 scholarships of $10,000 each on his academics alone, not to mention the athletic scholarship offers he has already gotten from several major universities - he won't be 14 until September.

He said as a tiny tot his wanted to be like his Papa and he has been determined to be just so that he has excelled in academics and athletics with no push to do so by either his grandparents or his parents ... something too many children have happen to them by failed dreams of their parents.

So he has his certificate to hang on his wall next to his copy of my certificate from the time I was among the top 10% of students in the United States.

Of course his being eligible for all those scholarships doesn't hurt because if anyone is tighter with their money than I am it is he ... he still has every penny of the trust fund I set up for him at birth plus every cent of interest - there are six zeros after the numerals by the way, so paying for any college in the world from his on funds is not an issue.

Excuses Needed

It's Memorial Day weekend.
Do you know what that is?
For a lot of folks, it’s just an excuse to drink beer and get onto a boat.

Essentially Eclectic

Essentially Eclectic is off and running.
The new store is carrying several designer lines of of clothing from small labels to big labels, leather goods, Celtic gifts, teas and coffees, gourmet cooking oils and mixes and body care products.

(with all edible goods from organic and natural ingredients)

Response has been great. I even had another artisan approach me at a party the other day inquiring about having her sister's line of bead-work pieces in the shop, so the eclectic mix is growing.

Here I thought being retired meant I didn't have to work!

Thought of the Day

Isn't it funny how those with no credibility are always questioning those with credibility.

Court: Texas had no right to take polygamists' kids

A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.

Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.

The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.

*****

And round and round it goes. While the sect may have been a place of questionable ethics the state of Texas had no business doing as they did. Being different is not a cause for such abuse by those supposedly in authority. I say supposedly because the people are the authority and not those claiming to be their representatives something that is very confused in the minds of some.

Something akin to a third of the children taken were victims of some type of abuse and two thirds were not according to the official transcripts of the proceedings thus far.

The question is why were cases of those third not thoroughly investigated and those found responsible arrested and prosecuted as the individual cases they are in lieu of a 'cattle round-up' corralling everyone on the basis of innuendo, false allegations and fear of differences?!

I am not trying to defend the guilty nor the innocent here ... I think it is none of my business what adults do in the religion until it affects me directly - if they want to marry multiple times while still married to all others before it is fine by me, I do not have to do that nor am I frightened by others doing that.

Raising their children is also not any concern of mine until it actually harms the children or affects me directly (something which it will never do but the harming of a child does ... under any circumstances). Which is why I question the total lack of investigation by Texas authorities. Traumatizing a child as they have done (over 400 times no less), is just as harmful as any abuse at home and more so to a child who has not been abused at home.

There was a case locally about twenty years ago where a young child of four would scream bloody murder whenever his was around his grandfather ... who turned out was molesting the child. had the authorities then, reacted as have the Texas authorities have now, it would have not come out that the child's mother (the grandfather's daughter) was molesting her own child as well. The child would have been left with his mother, who would have continued to molest the child had the authorities 'jumped' on the first suspicion without investigating the case.

Now in his early twenties the child is a happy individual who has nothing to do with his grandfather and mother. Both of whom are in the last years of their prison terms for the abuse of the child.

How many of the sect's children will be happy individuals twenty years from now?

Petty People, Small Minds

Have you ever had it to here with some petty small mind?

Well, I have.

The most recent is on a forum that I used to frequent and participate in but since the petty small minded individual that is currently causing an itch came onto the scene I have not frequented nor participated there as much.

This self proclaimed tyrant insists on reading meaning into things that are not there nor were even thought of until he interprets it as fact ... which has garnered so many complaints I have lost count yet he persists in his claim that it is myself and one other who are generating the complaints.

First, as I am not even there a lot nor do I post attacking or ridiculing posts willy-nilly when I am there so that is not be true.
Second, I have received in excess of 200 e-mails from over 175 individuals (and only two repeat senders) saying exactly the opposite.

His claims as to being fair are a bad joke as he has allowed the wing-nuts and lunatic fringe to rant and rave unabated, attacking a ridiculing everything and everyone with impunity ... something that had been all but stopped by a few members unafraid of the howling monkeys and the previous individual to function are the forum's chief moderator from the early days of the forum when the wing-nuts ran amok and no one wanted to be on the forum and membership was declining ... the same thing is happening again with the allowance of the bile spewing from the lunatic fringe.
Mature posters of all stripes are leaving the forum and all state the two reasons are the renewed wing-nut ranting and the new chief moderator's allowance of such while censoring of any that oppose such.

Things such as this are not allowed on this blog and my readers appreciate that.
Opinions vary and those presented in a mature civil manner are accepted as what they are.
Ranting, spewing bile and hatred will never be tolerated here - that is about the only intolerance you will find here (other subjects and topics may be added as time goes on. For example certain types of porn will most likely be on the taboo list, so you get the idea).

Over 9000 regular readers read this blog, thank you.

There is a new forum linked to the right that is just up and hopefully will be running with people of those varying opinions posting on virtually any subject - the forum is set up as an ultra forum in which all groups and interests can have a say except the haters and the fear mongers.
Check them out.

Sage Wisdom

Don't get so busy fighting alligators that you lose sight of your objective.

Say it ain't so, Teddy!

Sen. Edward Kennedy has cancerous brain tumor

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor Tuesday in what could be the grim final chapter in a life marked by exhilarating triumph and shattering tragedy. Some experts gave the liberal lion less than a year to live.

Doctors discovered the tumor after the 76-year-old senator and sole surviving son of America's most storied political family suffered a seizure over the weekend. The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962, and came as a shock to a family all too accustomed to sudden, calamitous news.

"Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy family have faced adversity more times in more instances with more courage and more determination and more grace than most families have to," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "Every one of us knows what a big heart this fellow has. He's helped millions and millions of people - from the biggest of legislation on the floor to the most personal."

Kerry added: "This guy is one unbelievable fighter."

Kennedy's doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said he had a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe, a region of the brain that helps govern sensation, movement and language.

Seizures can be caused by a wide variety of things, some of them relatively minor. The finding of a brain tumor - and specifically a glioma, an especially lethal type - was about the worst possible news.

Kennedy's doctors said he will remain in the hospital for the next couple of days as they consider chemotherapy and radiation. They did not mention surgery, a possible indication the tumor is inoperable.

Outside experts gave him no more than three years - and perhaps far less.

"As a general rule, at 76, without the ability to do a surgical resection, as kind of a ballpark figure you're probably looking at a survival of less than a year," said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

In a statement, Dr. Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of neurology at Massachusetts General, and Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy's primary physician, said the senator "has had no further seizures, remains in good overall condition, and is up and walking around the hospital."

"He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the physicians said.

An Associated Press photographer who was given access to the senator on Tuesday captured Kennedy, dressed in a gray sweater and dark slacks, joking and laughing with family members as he sat at a table in a family room at the hospital.

Kennedy's wife since 1992, Vicki, and his five children and stepchildren have been at his bedside.

"Obviously it's tough news for any son to hear," said Robin Costello, a spokeswoman for one of Kennedy's sons, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. "He's comforted by the fact that his dad is such a fighter, and if anyone can get through something as challenging as this, it would be his father."

Kennedy, the Senate's second-longest serving member, was re-elected in 2006 and is not up for election again until 2012. Were he to resign or die in office, state law requires a special election for the seat 145 to 160 days afterward.

Among the potential Democratic candidates: Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general; Rep. Edward J. Markey; former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, Kennedy's nephew; and Kennedy's wife. The Republican contenders could include former Gov. Mitt Romney or former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey.

Kennedy has left his stamp on a raft of health care, pension and immigration legislation during four decades in the Senate.

Senators of both parties heard about Kennedy's condition during their weekly, closed-door policy lunches, and some looked drawn or misty-eyed.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving member of the Senate, wept as he prayed for "my dear, dear friend, dear friend, Ted Kennedy" during a speech on the Senate floor.

"Keep Ted here for us and for America," said the 90-year-old Byrd, who is in a wheelchair. He added: "Ted, Ted, Ted. My dear friend. I love you and miss you."

"I'm really sad. He's the one politician who brings tears to my eyes when he speaks," said former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., who happened to be in the Capitol.

In a statement, President Bush saluted Kennedy as "a man of tremendous courage, remarkable strength and powerful spirit." He added: "We join our fellow Americans in praying for his full recovery."

Malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year. In general, half of all patients die within a year.

"It's treatable but not curable. You can put it into remission for a while but it's not a curable tumor," said Dr. Suriya Jeyapalan, a neuroncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The Kennedy family has been struck by tragedy over and over. Kennedy's eldest brother, Joseph, died in a World War II plane crash; President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The tragedies thrust "Uncle Teddy" into the role of surrogate parent to his brothers' children. He walked Caroline Kennedy down the aisle.

A high point in his life came in 1980, when Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. He eventually bowed out with a stirring speech in which he declared, "The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die." His eulogy for his brother Robert was equally stirring.

The low point was 1969, when Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha's Vineyard. The accident killed aide Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy at the time was married to his first wife, Joan, whom he later divorced. His failure to promptly report the accident, and questions about his relationship with the young woman, may well have cost him the presidency.

Kennedy has been active for his age, maintaining an aggressive schedule on Capitol Hill and across Massachusetts. He has made several campaign appearances for Sen. Barack Obama.

"He fights for what he thinks is right. And we want to make sure that he's fighting this illness," Obama said Tuesday. "And it's our job now to support him in the way that he has supported us for so many years."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said: "Ted Kennedy's courage and resolve are unmatched, and they have made him one of the greatest legislators in Senate history. Our thoughts are with him and Vicki and we are praying for a quick and full recovery."

Last summer, Kennedy announced a deal with a publisher to write a memoir, scheduled to come out in 2010.