Monthly Archives: April 2007

Current events - national, Politics

Tell us WHY, Jesse!

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Jesse Jackson perceives benefit to be had by showing up in New Orleans to lead a protest march.

Jackson leads protest in New Orleans

Published: April 29, 2007 at 12:24 PM
NEW ORLEANS, April 29 (UPI) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson joined about 750 people for a protest against the lack of progress in rebuilding the poorest parts of New Orleans.

750? That’;s a pretty sad showing, especially when you count the Reverend Jackson and his normal group of bootlickers, sycophants and toadies, then ad Hizzoner Mayor “Chocolate City” Nagin and HIS group of hangers-on, toadies, leeches and slugs.

“I see the Saints are back, the basketball team is back, the white top tablecloths are back and Mardi Gras is back,” Jackson said Saturday. “But 250,000 people are not.”

Jackson joined demonstrators in the Lower 9th Ward to question why hurricane recovery money has not trickled down to many homeowners struggling to rebuild. Much of the criticism was directed at administrators of Louisiana’s Road Home rebuilding program, the Times-Picayune reported Sunday.

Rev. Jackson is doing what he does best, skipping around the truth. Money is making it back into New Orleans in a way novel to Jackson and his crowd: PEOPLE ARE WORKING FOR IT!

Why aren’t all those folks coming back to New Orleans? Well, let me tell you: First, a lot of people that were relocated found that there’s a bright new world out there where you CAN get out of generations of poverty.

A lot of small business people have found that hard work in other locations is different than New Orleans. You can actually just go to work and make money without having to wade through layers of bureaucracy and graft.

And Jesse’s normal power base, well, let me be quite frank: They will stay where you put them, sitting on the porch, drinking forties, scoring a bit of undocumented pharmaceuticals, and waiting for the world to take care of them, just like they did in New Orleans for generations, children of LBJ’s War on Poverty. Except they’ll be doing it in Houston or Atlanta or Kansas City or wherever else those buses happen to have stopped. No ambition. No skills. Dead ends. Products of the dimmocrat party who used them for one thing, and one thing only, a happy voting block necessary to keep dimmocrat politicians in office.

Why isn’t the government paying these people to rebuild? You don’t pay people to rebuild what isn’t theirs. If you were living in government-paid housing, the rebuild money goes to the owners of the housing, not the occupants.

But ol’ Jesse ain’t gonna let that stop him form laughable protests.
The demonstrators marched to the intersection of Jourdan Avenue and North Galvez Street, where a levee breach destroyed surrounding neighborhoods in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The marchers included New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League.

The Name Game

The Name Game XCV

Wasn’t easy finding a hometown paper in Abbeville, Louisiana, but I managed, and as I sit in my motel room wiggling my bare feet, I see that we have two hospitals reporting births between April 2 and April 19. That’s a total of 89 new babies, and 41 of them popped out before the parents did that silly archaic marraige thing, Heck, eight of them were born to mommies who seem to have memory problems, because there wasn’t a baby daddy name listed.

We’re gonna lead off with the folks whoseem to find names they like, but they’re either not sure how to spell thme, or they just think taht the old spelling doesn’t make the new baby unique, like everybody else…

The first name on the list makes me wonder… I personally am proud of my Cajun heritage, and I have a name traceable back to the original immigrants in the original Acadia, now Nova Scotia, in Canada in the 1600’s. But these folks DON’T HAVE A Cajun name. They have a good, relatively common English name. Patrick and Janet H. have a new son and they named him Barrington Jed Fontneaux. Yep, a triple. And “Barrington”. And that last name, well, any Cajun KNOWS it’s spelled incorrectly. It’s supposed to be spelled “Fontenot”, and I know becuse that’s Mom’s maiden name. But I suppose that if you’re into “looks like” and “sounds like”, then a little thing like correct spelling is no problem.

Jason C. & Cherie S. have a new daughter named Kailyn Nikol. Now, since “Kailyn” is one of those cutesy modern contrived names, you get to spell it any way you want, but Nicole, well, just why?

Russel K. & Susan G. Have a new daughter, too, little Cadince Victoria. Since “Cadence” is a real word with a meaning entirely alien to naming a baby girl, you have to goof around with the spelling to turn it into a name with no meaning but cutesie sounds.

Next we’ll look at those fine folks who pulled names out of thin air, or whatever…

Michael & Yessinia R. have twin boys. Check these out: Izyac Matt and Izyah Matthew. And foretelling the future, little kid comes creaming through the door. Momma says, “Izyah?” Little kid, “No, Momma, I Izyak.”

Morris W. & Tarwanda D. present their baby girl, little Moriyah Larae.

Miss Shawanda J. has a new baby girl, little Aneighya LaShay. She don’t have aname in the “Baby Daddy” blank on the birht announcement.

Stephanie M. & Jamar B. have a new son, little DeMarion Jordan.

Alecia C. & Jerald F. have a new daughter, little JaMyri Ginee.

Deshawna B. & Antonio M. have a new son, little Jamone Akoya. “Antonio, you gonna be aroun’ afta de baby’s born?” “Yeah. Akoya!”

J’Lynn K. & Michael R. have a new daughter, little Makenzie DeSarae. Note the classy use of a misspelled last name for a first name and an extra capital letter in the contrived and misspelled middle name.

And yes, we do have a couple more triples, babies so special that they needed an extra name.

Erica C. & Freddie M. present their new son, little Matthew Joseph Isaac.

Angela N. presents us with her baby girl, little Chrystal Ivy Ruth. She had extra room on the birth announcement since she wasn’t posting the daddy’s name.

Lastly, we have the folks who find that twenty-six letters of the alphabet are too restrictive, so they bring in a bit of punctuation.

Miss Rochelle R. has a new daughter, little A’Myree Renee. The baby daddy seems to be absent.

Christopher C. & Jessie T. show us their baby girl, little Chrisly’nn Joyce.

Miss Justina L. has a new daughter, too, little Zy-Lasha Necole.

Paul A. & Shade H. present their new daughter, Aurianna A’Liece.

So I guess that if I have to come up with the name of the week, It’d have to be Miss Shawanda J’, new baby girl, little Aneighya LaShay.

And with that, I bid you good evening…

General

Theory vs. reality

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I subscribe to a theory I read somewhere concerning the propagation of the common cold.  That theory opines that in a given group, subtle variations of the cold virus occur, and once you’ve gotten the strain of cold particular to your group, you’re safe.

Well, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been outside my normal little tribe.  Last week the very capable and personable engineer I worked with, well, he had some kind of cold-like bug. He’s from Missouri.  Not my tribe.  I got the disease.

I feel worse than home-made sin riding on a crippled spider.  I’m all alone by myself with nobody around to minister whatever kindness and sympathies one would normally expect from a loved one, not that I expect much.  Wife #2 was a nurse who worked a lot in ICU with terminal patients and she KNEW what sick people looked like.  A plump Cajun with aches and a low-grade fever wasn’t on her list.  Sympathy from her was something you’d find in the dictionary between sh*t and syphilis.

Accordingly, I will minister to myself with over the counter medications purchased at the corner drugstore and hope that I don’t keel over…

Humor

A little late for Tax Day

But you’ll like it anyway…

The IRS decides to audit Ray & summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor is not surprised when Ray shows up with his attorney.

The auditor says, “Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle & no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I’m not sure the IRS finds that believable.”

“I’m a great gambler & I can prove it,” says Ray. “How about a demonstration?”

The auditor thinks for a moment & said, “Okay. Go ahead.”

Ray says, “I’ll bet you a $1,000 that I can bite my own eye.”

The auditor thinks a moment & says, “No way! It’s a bet.”

Ray removes his glass eye & bites it.

The auditor’s jaw drops. Ray says, “Now, I’ll bet you $2,000 that I can bite my other eye.”

Now the auditor can tell Ray isn’t blind, so he takes the bet.

Ray removes his dentures and bites his good eye.

The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered & lost 3 grand, with Ray’s attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.

“Want to go double or nothing?” Ray asks “I’ll bet you $6,000 that I can stand on one side of your desk & pee into that wastebasket on the other side & never get a drop anywhere in between.”

The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully & decides there’s no way this guy can manage that stunt, so he agrees again.

Ray stands beside the desk & unzips his pants,but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side,so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor’s desk.

The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Ray’s attorney moans & puts his head in his hands.

“Are you okay?” the auditor asks.

“Not really,” says the attorney. “This morning, when Ray told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me $20,000 that he could come in here & piss all over your desk & that you’d be happy about it.”

(From an eamil from my much older sister)

Current events - national

Da*ned George Bush

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…and his failed economic policies!

The Dow Jones has passed the 13,000 mark for the first time in history, powered by strong corporate results.

“But Cajun, that’s those big corporations and their fat-cat board members!” If you believe that’s the only people who benefit from this news, you apparently have a logon with MoveOn.Org. AS I’ve stated previously, the success of the stock market is what underpins everything from retirement plans to your personal IRA, mutual funds and many privately-backed retirement programs.

Business, not government, makes America work. Businesses produce. Government absorbs.

Stock market up = good thing!

General, Humor, Wheels of Industry

Story of the Nonconformist Sparrow

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Once upon a time, there was a nonconformist sparrow who decided to not fly south for the winter. However, soon the weather had turned so cold that he reluctantly decided to fly south. In a short time, ice began to form on his wings, and he fell to earth nearly frozen solid, landing in a barnyard.

A cow passed by where the sparrow had fallen and crapped on the little bird. The sparrow thought it was the end, but the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings! Warm and happy and able to breath, the sparrow started to sing and flap its wings. Just then, a large cat came by and heard the chirping. The cat cleared away the manure, found the chirping bird, and promptly ate him.

There are three FIVE morals to this story:

  1. Being a non-conformist often leaves you out in the cold.

  2. Failing and crashing is not necessarily the end.

  3. Everyone who gets you in the shit is not necessarily your enemy.

  4. Everyone who gets you out of shit is not necessarily your friend.

  5. And if you’re warm and happy in the shit, don’t make a song and dance about it.

Current events - national, General, Politics

This cartoon is probably a lie…

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The cartoon is from Michael Ramirez.

Why do I say it’s probably a lie?

Because I cannot think of a single one of this bunch of “celebrities” who come out speaking for environmental causes who actually practices the words he preaches.

Ms. Crowe suggests we save trees by using single sheets of toilet paper. I gotta admit, that’s about the goofiest statement I’ve heard for a while, and if she was a comedienne, then I’d think she was spoofing us. But this prominent bimbo is dead serious.

You know, they made a big deal in the French Revolution about Marie Antoinette supposedly hearing about the shortage of bread among the peasants, and she replied, “let them eat cake.” These limousine liberals make Marie Antoinette sound like a woman of the people with their statements and suggestions.

Al Gore can come talk to me when he’s living in 1200 square feet and walking between engagements, and Ms. Crowe will be believable when she drives between engagements in a Honda Fit with three members of her retinue in the same car. And if she’s following her own advice, then I don’t think I want to shake her hand…

Current events - national, General

Now that’s a darned good question!

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You leave the dorm for class, your mind wandering between last night’s pursuit of the Great Bearded Clam, the possibility of a pop quiz in today’s class, and the decision to look for a party tonight or to actually study. A freakish twist of fate has a crazed killer walk into your building, and as you’re hiding under your desk, your life is snuffed out, along with thirty-one others.

OR

You volunteered for your nation’s armed forces. You find yourself walking alongside the road in a foreign land. Some of the people smile at you, and you secretly pray that the smiles are sincere because there’s a significant segment of the population who’d just as soon see you dismembered in a spray of blood, bone and tissue from the explosive device they’ve buried beside the road. Despite the best cares of you and your buddies, you walk past an innocuous rock that hides a detonator for several buried artillery shells. A follower of a pedophile prophet triggers the shells, and your day ends right there.

For whom does the flag go to half-staff?

I do not denigrate the losses of those whose loved ones died in the shootings in Virginia, but seriously, folks, who’s the heroes in this picture? Well, I can see the flag being lowered for this guy, but what about the soldiers who made conscious choice to put themselves between us and those who would happily kill us? If a college student is cause for lowering the flag, then we ought to keep it a half-mast for the soldiers who live and die for us.

The fortunate thing is that those soldiers aren’t in it for the gain and the glory.

General

The Name Game XCIV

This Sunday morning was not the normal Sunday morning wherein I rise and ease into the day’s activities slowly, sipping coffee and reading the paper. No, it started with a 0530 wakeup call from the front desk of the motel where I was staying, and I was at the station before 7 AM, chasing loose ends on electrical system work.

I didn’t get a look at the paper until late. I find that one hospital has reported forty births from the period of March 28 to April 11. Of those forty, eighteen of the births were to parents who decided not to do the marriage thing before the birth thing. Five of the new mommies have trouble deciding who to tag as the baby daddy.

We have a couple of triples, folks who figured that a first name and a middle name wasn’t sufficient.

Miss Tija W. has a new son and she tagged him with DomiNic Ray Brad. She didn’t pick a name out for the baby daddy though. Oh, please DO note the innovative use of a capital letter in the middle of the first name!

Michael and Robin C. have a new son, Michael Dale James.

The rest of the names, well, I’m just too darned tired to get too deep into categorizing, so here goes:

Jason and Brandi (with an “i”) decided that their new daughter needed a last name for a first name so they tagged her with “Parker Catherine”.

Quardal B & Latoya S. decided to perpetuate some foolishness and named their son Quardale Troy.

Codrick R. & Marquia L. made up a name for their new daughter, little Aija Marie.

Michael and Sydney M. went the melodic route with their daughter, little Gabrielle Jolibelle.

Jason J. & Whitney M. have a new daughter, little Jazlyn Michelle.

Gary T. & Rachel A. overcame their plain ol’ mundane names and hung a good one on their new son little Bodhi Wayne.

Miss Megan T. has a new daughter, little Dasia Renae. “Megan! One a dese dasia gotta remember who de baby daddy be!”

Jonathon B. and Brandi (with an “i”) had a fixation with the letter “Y” and took it out on their new daughter, little Myli Payge.

Tramin S. & Monique F. have a new son and they gave him the name of Travon Tylor.

Scott & Magann A. had a thing for the letter “H” and gave an extra one to their new daughter, Lilahh Charlene.

Miss Previous (yes, that’s the name, “Previous”) J. has a new son, little Jashawn Jerrod. She don’t have a name to put in the “father” block on the birth certificate.

And that’s it for the week. I’m looking at a string of 12-hour days for the rest of the week, so posting may be spotty or sort of terse, but hang in there. May 1 we should have the first of three 3000 horsepower gas turbines on line and MY schedule will get back towards normal.

Wheels of Industry

Draggin’

Up at 0600 and out the door with a travel mug of the GOOD coffee, then drive an hour and a half to the station, arriving at 0800.  Spent the day doing odds and ends, straightenening out the charger for a bank of batteries that provide emergency power for the engine controls and emergency lighting for the station.  Each cell is a foot and a half tall, six inches thick and a foot wide, and there are sixty of them…  a hundred and 125 (nominal) volts of power.

Then we cranked up a rental generator, 125 KW, enough for several homes unless you’re Al Gore or John Edwards, and we energied our new motor control center for the first time, putting 480 volts all over the place.  I observed the construction electricians installing our ground grid and landing the control wiring that makes this station almost automatic, but at least easy to control from remote locations.

I answered a dozen “What do you think of THIS?” questions.  I filled out paperwork.  I ate a nice hamburger from a little joint up the road from the station.

At 7 PM I got off work and drove over here to Abbeville, Louisiana and snagged myself a motel room, and my feet are killing me.  It’s 300 yards or better to walk from the offices to the actual site of the control room, engine room and motor control center I’m working on, and I made that trip several times today.

Tomorrow we get off early:  5 PM.

Humor, Politics

A Day at the Morgue

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Three dead bodies turn up at the mortuary, all with very big smiles on their faces. The coroner calls the police to tell them what has happened.

The Coroner tells the Inspector: “First body is a 72 year old Frenchman. He died of heart failure while with his mistress. Hence The enormous smile.”

“The second body is an Irishman, 25 years of age. He won a thousand dollars on the lottery and spent it all on whisky. Died of alcohol poisoning, hence the smile.”

The Inspector asked, “What of the third body?”

“Ah,” says the coroner, “This is the most unusual one. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, 66, struck by lightning.”

“Why is she smiling then?” inquires the Inspector.

“She thought she was having her picture taken.”

(From a post on CSP Gun Talk’s Political Page by “Clyde from deep in the heart of Texas”)

Blogging, Wheels of Industry

All Hands on Deck

That’s the word we received from the boss, and his boss, and the big boss:  our little project alluded to in this post has become THE priority.

Seems that there’s a particular need to flow gas in a different direction.  When the project kicked off several months ago, the idea of doing that was one of those “Oh, it’d be nice to have that option” sort of things.  Now, one of our major clients is going nuts in his need for gas, and the answer to his craving is for us to be able to push it through the pipe through the station we’re working on.  They want the first 3000 horsepower on line and pushing gas by May 1.

In order for this to happen,  we’re going on a twelve hour a day, seven days a week schedule for the next couple of weeks.  I will probably site myself closer to the station living in a motel room in order to save that hour and a half drive (one way).  That means that postings may be spotty, but just hang in there.  I’ll try to keep things rolling along.

Current events - national, General, Politics

One sheepdog, hundreds of sheep…

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In the shooting at Virginia Tech, one of those who died did not go cowering before his killer. Liviu Librescu, an Israeli engineer, was a MAN.

Liviu Librescu, an internationally respected aeronautics engineer who taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years, saved the lives of several students by barricading his classroom door before he was gunned down in the massacre, according to e-mail accounts sent by students to his wife.

While the anti-gun crowd wades through the blood of unarmed victims, one has to wonder at the rhetoric that has been spouted by their spokemen: cooperate, comply, give in, and hope that your peaceful, trusting demeanor will soothe the prospective killer into sparing your life.

Yes, there’s a segment of the population that sees no psychopaths. Everyone in their little wonderland of a world is rational and willing to sit down and talk about their feelings and if we just sit peacefully and have a dialog with the killer, he will see the logic of his temporary lapse of judgment and will lay down his weapons and join us in a chorus of “Kumbaya”.

Their criminals obey the law. The law says no guns, the the killer just goes home and sits in the dark, because he was thinking of using a gun for a crime, and guns are illegal where the crime was to be committed.

That’s what they think the problem is: we just haven’t passed the right laws and had the right people in charge. They, dear friend, live in a make-believe world where, as John Lennon the moonbat saint sang, “nothing to live or die for” is the way of life.

Professor Librescu apparently did not listen to Lennon enough, because it seems he saw a killer before him and innocents behind him, and he said “NO” with his actions. Apparently he saw innocent lives as something to die for.

I guess some of that comes form seeing what the REAL Hitler at work:

Librescu had known hardship since childhood.

When Romania joined forces with Nazi Germany in World War II, he was first interned in a labor camp in Transnistria and then deported along with his family and thousands of other Jews to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani, his son said. According to a report compiled by the Romanian government in 2004, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were killed by Romania’s Nazi-allied regime during the war.

I guess that comes from being Israeli, where Arab armies come screaming across the sands in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 to wipe Israel off the map, and he’s seen whacked followers of a pedophile prophet happily massacring school kids and pizza shop clients and other innocents.

I guess that comes from circumstances where “bravery” is defined as something more than going to school wearing a T-shirt with an annoying slogan.

And he was in a spot on April 16 where he could say “NO”.

That “No” came with the price that real men have paid throughout history to protect home, family, country and whatever innocents are in their charge. Blood was spilled. His. Lives were saved. The students he chose to defend.

There was this one MAN who wasn’t a prissy poodle, pampered in the parlors of hallowed academe.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”