…is killing us.

After President Ronald Reagan won the Cold War for us and the Soviet Union went Chapter 11, rather than let them fester in their resulting economic ruin (and these were people who for decades had been aiming nuclear missiles at us while spreading the antithesis of democracy around the world), we poured gazillions in U.S. taxpayers’ money into helping them get back on their feet, sans the communist bit.

Years later, along came Vladimir Putin’s regime. I say regime rather than administration because the man is cut more in the mold of a Soviet strongman than any kind of democratic leader.

Despite all the diplomatic triple speak and related drama, he is not any sort of friend of the U.S. Russia has gotten back on its feet, and obviously Putin figures he doesn’t need us anymore. He certainly hasn’t proven to be any kind of ally of America, and has opposed us on a number of issues at the U.N. He is a better friend of the Iranian government, an enemy of the U.S. and indeed an enemy of freedom, than he is of ours.

President Vladimir Putin cautioned Tuesday that Russia would increase the combat-readiness of its strategic nuclear forces to ensure a “swift and adequate response to any aggressor.”

Putin also said that Russia’s will be pulling out of a key arms control treaty, which he calls a necessary response to NATO “muscle-flexing” near its frontiers.

The statements, which come amid simmering tensions between Moscow and the West, reflect the Kremlin’s assertive posture less than two weeks before Russia’s Dec. 2 parliamentary elections.

So first he pretty much threatens us with nukes lest we attack his country, which makes little if any sense since he should know that we entertain no malevolence toward Russia, then he withdraws his country from the CFE Treaty.

His reason?

The missile defense plan we wish to implement in proximity to his sovereign bailiwick, the one that would have been a perpetual tragedy had it not been for our largesse (that means me & you — I don’t know if the dog named Boo has paid any taxes, so I’ll exclude him — and our hard-earned tax liability).

The 1990 CFE treaty, which originally set limits on weapons of NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, was revised in 1999. Russia says the old version has lost relevance since former Soviet satellites have joined NATO.

Russia ratified the updated treaty in 2004, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to follow suit, saying Moscow first must fulfill obligations to withdraw forces from Georgia and from Moldova’s separatist Trans-Dniester region.

As a counterproposal to the U.S. missile defense plans, Putin earlier this year offered the United States joint use of a Soviet-built, Russian-operated radar in Azerbaijan. Washington said it was studying the proposal, but U.S. officials said the radar couldn’t be considered as a replacement for the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.

“Regrettably, Russian proposals about the creation of a joint missile defense system with equal access for all its participants have remained unanswered,” Putin said Tuesday.

Right, Vlad proposes that we intertwine our defense venues with aparatus owned and operated by his government and on his turf. That sounds like something Bill Clinton might have agreed to, as long as he had a permission slip from China.

Putin bears watching very closely, he might well be the originator of another Cold War, this one infinitely more dangerous than the last as there is now an Islamofascist third party in the equation of global political and security concerns, and there are elements of same in a few former Soviet republics.

If I were the DCI in the E. Howard Hunt era, I’d probably instruct my Deputy Director, Operations to “take him out, make it look like Chechen separatists did it.”

…or something like that.

It seems that whenever I foresee a surplus of free time up ahead, something comes up that relegates it to the realm of the “almost”. Pardon my not-quite-serious sounding demeanor, but at present I’m listening to a song called Bamboo Town (the Tom Tom Club), the Tina Weymouth presiding. It is so basic, amusing — fun, and… and…Caribbean, and never fails to drape me in a whimsical mood.

So I had planned to post on a couple of things a couple of days ago, and it didn’t get to occur.

Al Gore’s prize was one of them, as I ran across an interesting item of a very definitive nature that hasn’t yet been censored by the Government Scientific Research Grants Police or whomever, yet nonetheless shows up the thankfully former Veep and his Inconvenient Myth rather well.

If you can spare the time, it will be worth it to take the 8 minutes and change to watch the video linked from the article. What Gore says, what the climatologists’ observations are.

Their findings that C02 increases have followed planetary warming trends by periods of decades, I’d say, relegate the ingenius, Nobel Prize winning buffoonery of the Algore critter to the cart before the horse category.

He blinded them with “science”.

Moving right along, there has been a proposal put forth by environmentalists that we change our culinary indulgences. I wonder what A.A. Milne would say if he learned that Kanga and Roo would be available for consumption at tomorrow’s Sunday brunch buffet.

This last item is hat-tipped to “News You Can Use”, courtesy of James Taranto.

In the Liberals Gone Wild Department, well, you know, there are a few big differences between the political left and the political right in this country that stand out big time.

Our conduct on the starboard side, our demeanor, our sense of civility, our consideration and respect for others’ property are evident. Our mature behavior.

When we conservatives stage a demonstration, what you see for the most part is a bunch of folks showing up in orderly numbers, most of us holding up signs.

When liberals stage a demonstration, it more often than not involves disruptive behavior, bags of feces, graffiti, property damage, vulgarity…

Having made that point, I refer you to a great column by Melanie Morgan that not only describes some of the above portside conduct, but also more than adequately describes the left’s complete lack of respect for those who lay their lives on the line to perpetuate the freedom liberals exploit in order to attempt to deprive us (headscratch here, them too) of it.

Oh, I did mention bags of feces, right?

************ GORE/NOBEL UPDATE ************

I enjoyed some good chuckles at some of the statements quoted in this article.

While supporters of Al Gore and his stance on global warming celebrated the former vice president’s win of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, skeptics of man-made climate change dismissed the award as another example of the Nobel committee naming someone “Liberal of the Year.”

“Al Gore should probably get a prize for most travel in a private jet, but not the Peace Prize,” said Myron Ebell, director of global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). He also called the award, which was shared with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “a sad day for the Nobel legacy.”

Giving Gore the annual prize was “an unfortunate and misguided move by the Nobel committee,” Ebell said, because “the energy-rationing policies he espouses would perpetuate the poverty and human misery associated with political instability and conflict.”

Timothy Ball, a retired climatologist who leads the National Resources Stewardship Project, told Cybercast News Service that Friday’s award “just makes a travesty of the whole concept of Nobel Prizes.”

“This tells me everything I need to know about Nobel Prize winners,” he said. “I notice they just gave one to the guy who discovered holes in the ozone layer - but there are no holes in the ozone.”

Heh….

…what happened was, I received an email from a year-ago client about three weeks ago, one of those “we should have listened to you to begin with” kinds of things — I won’t go any further than that in the interests of professional/proprietary considerations, but let’s just say that the project has blossomed from the week it might have required me a year ago to a period of weeks today.

More interruption of my much needed semi-retirement, but I sometimes feel emptily bored not having something challenging to my career skills around, anyway…

I don’t always have a lot of trouble balancing professional and other concerns, but for the last couple of weeks or so, I’ve been practically living this project, which has involved a few one-day out of town trips and a lot of other factors that have consumed my time and as a result, I haven’t had any time to post more than two articles since Labor Day, and I’ve had the same paucity of time where visiting other blogs has been concerned.

Luckily, the project’s about completed, and FedEx will be hearing from me presently.

This doesn’t mean that I’ve been ignoring the news, and I have to laugh at this one…

Certain portside “journalists” have turned the Sally Fields awards incident into a possible dastardly right-wing FOX censorship of the Flying Some, But Not Much’s First Amendment rights. Others who also list sharply to port suggest that not only Sally, but other Hollywood types whose profanities were omitted or bleeped over, were also being persecuted ala deprivation of their freedom of speech.

The whole kerfuffle stems from Fields making a comment that if mothers were in charge, there would be no “g’damd” war. The censors cut off the last two words for the expletive, and I suppose these lefties, always grasping at any straw to villify some conservative or some conservative institution, equate the missing non-swear word with some great and profound political revelation.

It wasn’t even an original line, in fact it’s adorned many a bumper sticker in years gone by.

These folks can get really, really pedestrian. It’s beginning to sound a lot like the kind of stuff you’d have found in Pravda “back in the day”.

Racial bigotry conjuring, parasite exploiters of their fellow blacks comedy team Sharpton & Jackson are back in action on the Louisiana front, looking to milk some political capital out of events in Jena.

On the Israeli front…

Speculations abound surrounding the Israeli air strikes on Syria.

The speculation of Bret Stephens, author of the linked OpEd makes the most sense among the theories brought up, and speaking of Israel, my favorite all time Democrat and a former mayor of my hometown Ed Koch has written another column that’s worth reading.

Last but most definitely not least, and whether you believe that there exists a North American Union (NAU) agenda behind the Security & Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) or you don’t, this is exactly the kind of thing — the only thing, hopefully — needed to beat back advances of that stealth agenda.

Cudos to folks on both sides of the aisle for foiling the Mexican Truckers From Hell debacle.

The Amendment was sponsored by Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), and passed by a whopping 74-24 margin. Since the amendment contains language already included in a House-funding bill, it will likely survive the conference committee and stop the program. Susan Tully of the Federation for American Immigration Reform says the Senate vote is a real blow to the Bush Administration.

“It’s a real big deal stopping the Mexican trucks from coming. President Bush signed the agreement with Mexico and Canada for the Security Prosperity Partnership across the borders and through that partnership without any agreement or any oversight on the part of Congress,” says Tully.

She says there is great concern that the Mexican trucks have lower safety standards, and could facilitate the smuggling of drugs, terrorists, and illegal aliens. However, Tully says that perhaps the greater concern is that the Mexican truck pilot plan is just one step in the overall agenda of bringing about a North American Union. According to Tully, one can go to SPP.gov and find all of the documents pertaining to this pilot program and see exactly what is taking place.

This also makes the score U.S. 3, “La Raza” 1 (and this by outright cheating on the part of the Democrats, imagine tampering with the scoreboard at Wrigley Field or Fenway Pahk!) in recent Congressional actions.

I was reading someplace that Mexican Prez Calderon is furious about this setback to his U.S. invasion plans, and said something in a speech to the effect that Mexico is a country that extends beyond its borders.

Oooops!

Sounds to me like the little shit needs to have a professional slapper-arounder in his entourage to tend to him when he blurts such boneheaded blurtings.

**************** UPDATE ****************

This article contributes some amount of creedence to Bret Stephens’ theory in his above linked OpEd.

…in large part, the success of the left in having infected such a large quantity of voters with disinformation sickness is, in many ways, the fault of the right-thinking side of the equation, yet this is, at the same time, somewhat excusable from an adult’s point of view.

After all, if anything at all has become cornucopially evident, it is that the Democrats have become, since Bush beat Gore, blatantly irresponsible in their anti-administration {and anti anything else that doesn’t glorify their own political agendas} rhetoric. Everything from comparing Camp Delta with the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime to attempting to smear the reputation of a great and patriotic general in order to achieve purely partisan political ends.

So here we have half a Hill full of Republican senators and representatives who are accustomed to addressing their professional affairs in a dignified and mature manner, as one would expect of folks we’ve elected to lead the country, beset by aggressively sub-adolescent attacks whose opposition would require playing in the same Romper Room environment that the Democrats play in. Being a conservative myself, I can understand where a fellow conservative might be at a loss to respond to such attacks, other than to offer up a mature reply, and at the same time feel reluctant, out of sheer self respect, to respond on the same level on which the attack-in-question was delivered.

Envision, for example, someone like John Bolton being forced to have a lengthy political debate with the likes of a Cindy Sheehan.

My point is that we conservatives tend to value our dignity, and the farther left you travel, the less value is placed on that very concept. As a result, those politicians who represent us are civilized men and women who would need to regress, drastically, in every way in order to remain on the same page as today’s Democrats.

Too many of them obviously don’t know what to do, I know that I’d be pretty nonplussed if a bunch of colleagues started questioning my integrity without any kind of evidence to support their innuendos, or blurted idiotic, platitude-related non-realities at me, expecting me to respond on an adult level.

The silver lining (for We, the People) I perceive here is that today’s Democrats are completely obtuse when it comes to reading the disposition of the American people. The problem, for them, is that they suck up the campaign financing offered up by ultra-leftists and other wingnuts on that end of the political divide, and then have to sing for their supper. This means that even against the sensibilities of We, the Voters, they are forced to pursue the agendas, no matter how unpopular among the majority of Americans, of those paying their freight — or lose a lot of campaign funding. We’ve seen how desperate Democrats are to garner, even at the sacrifice of their very morality, campaign contributions, even welcoming them from fleeing felons and others who run “bundling” schemes.

I don’t think the Republican Party will have as much difficulty as the media wants us to believe, in 2008, regaining a majority in Congress and another right-thinking President in the White House.

The Democrats have supped with the devil, and now he owns them. Hmmm, I seem to recall an old New York deli restaurant called Lox, Stock & Bagel. Now what made me think of that?

********

On another and totally unrelated thought, I wonder how Muslims felt about the first day of Ramadan being sandwiched in between Patriots’ Day (9/11) the day before and the first day of Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) the day after.

********

Speaking of which,

to my fellow Jews, Shana Tova!

…one that, for me, proved to be a bit more eventful than I’d originally planned, so much so that I fell sort of behind — things I’d intended to do on or by Friday and Saturday need to get done today.

One thing I had planned to do “no matter what” was listen to the blog radio interview in which Always On Watch and WC conversed, for an hour, with Robert Spencer.

I missed it, dagnabbit! Luckily, however, it is archived and can be listened to (scroll down) in its entirety here.

I listened to it on Tuesday morning and it was excellent, well worth the time. A lot of knowledge was imparted, things I didn’t know and a lot of ground was covered — it is a very full hour. I would highly recommend sharing it with anyone you know who believes that Islam is a benign religion or that it is not a grave threat to western civilization.

Someone needs to share it with George Bush and Condoleeza Rice.

A thought: Our beloved (yeah, right!) political left considers a minute of silent prayer in school, a statue of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse or G-d’s name in the Pledge of Allegiance to signify an oppressive, ironclad merger between church and state, yet they see nothing wrong with the immigration, societal inundation and voting rights of members of a civilization that believes emphatically in a state being run strictly according to the freedom-stifling tenets of Koranic scripture.

To move along, I’m just now emerging from an unexpectedly festive Labor Day Weekend mode and feel compelled to resurface in the Land of the Living and get on with things…

There are a bunch of stops I need to make today. One is the Lincoln Quality Meat Market, whose praises I simply cannot sing enough of. Yay!

Another is at the only Peet’s Coffee & Tea location in Chicago (there’s one more someplace in the suburbs) and the only one I’ve seen outside of California. I came to buy all my coffee at Peet’s when I lived in San Francisco, they are the best of the best.

Unfortunately, I have developed an expensive “addiction” — for the last couple of months, the only coffee I’ve been buying for home consumption has been Peet’s Kona. Once you drink that for awhile, it seems, all other coffees become downright boring, and I am a major coffee drinker. Even Jamaican Blue Mountain pales almost to insignificance beside this stuff…

On another topic, I was reading an article the other day (infinitely less appealing than a discussion on great coffees) concerning Mayor Jim Naugle of Ft. Lauderdale, a Democrat, no less, and his empissening of his gay constituents by seeking the elimination of homosexual whoopie-making in public toilets.

The bit that got me was this:

The reaction was brutal. The local South Florida Sun-Sentinel ran a piece effectively accusing Naugle of gay-bashing. Predictably, the “gay community” came out of the woodwork, attacking the mayor as “homophobic,” “bigoted” and full of “hate.” Critics said Naugle was undermining Broward County’s carefully cultivated reputation as a “gay-friendly” vacation destination.

I keep reading and hearing all this GLBT (Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender) stuff about “seeking equality”, but… but… all the straight people I know who take vacations stay in hotels rather than commode stalls, and confine their intimate activities to same. I understand that it’s cheaper (unless one gets caught by the vice squad or whomever) to conduct ones affairs in a stall amid the combined odors of disinfectant cleaners and stale urine than it is to pay for a nice, clean hotel room, but c’mon!

It’s absolutely ghastly that these people can demand “equality” on one hand and their right to engage in sex in public toilets on the other, and make an issue of it. Doesn’t it strike any of them that such behavior can demean their entire cause, such as it is? I mean, who thinks it will further their quest for “equality” to be known as “the people who stand for cheap sex in public toilets”?

I’m so glad — oh, have I said this before? — that I’m over 50 years old. I really, truly don’t want to be around to see the long-term effects of the liberal permeated society we live in today.

As it is, society as a whole seems to have gone, in my lifetime to date, from an entity that once made sense to some kind of bizarre cartoon…

Those of us who dwell in large cities know that when we climb into a taxi cab, the odds are better than 90% that the driver will be a Muslim (American born cab drivers seem to be either retiring, being beamed up by Scotty or moving to the suburbs for one reason and another while few others enter the cabbie business) or at least someone from a Muslim country. North and Central Africans and Southwest Asians have been gradually taking over the front end of that industry.

One thing I’ve observed is that the vast majority of these cabbies seem to spend their entire shifts gabbling away in Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Berber or whatever on cell phones. Of course, most now wear those things you hang from your ear to conduct hands-free conversations (while I own a cell phone, I only do so for emergencies and for when I travel — I hate talking on the damn thing, and Verizon gets no OT from me, I use at most about 30-40 of the 400 minutes I pay for per month — I would never walk around with one of those headsets on, they make people look like mobile high tech communications centers or the evil mastermind in last year’s season of ‘24′. Some even make them look like they’re about to start singing “Like A Virgin”).

So the other day I was in a cab and in the mood for some amusement, and I interrupted one such driver’s never-ending conversation to ask him, “Do you know about assimilation?”

“Asseemeelation, what eez dees?” He inquired.

“You know, when you move to a new country, adopting its way of life as your own, that kind of thing.”

“I leev like American.” He said.

“That’s why I’m curious.” I told him. “I’ve always been told that manhood is important to guys from your part of the world, yet you seem to spend all day talking on your cell phones. Here in America, real men don’t spend hours and hours on the phone unless it’s part of their job. Here in America, only women do this.”

Which ticked him off to some extent, as he didn’t talk to me again.

He also stayed off the phone for the duration of the trip…

I honestly don’t know why I can’t get into what is considered Rock these days. Maybe it’s the lack of art in the music, or the lyrics that seem to reflect the narcissism of today’s youth, or the obnoxiousness…or something.

This evening I decided to stay home, catching up on work that was delayed thanks to the computer virus problem I had earlier in the week, and listen to some stuff from my teens, of which I have quite a lot, and work my way into my twenties, via a long playlist from the library in my computer.

I started with the Jefferson Airplane, staying away from the more familiar singles like White Rabbit and Somebody To Love, sticking to material like She Has Funny Cars, My Best Friend and DCBA 25 from Surrealistic Pillow, Last Wall Of The Castle and Rejoyce from After Bathing At Baxter’s, the 2400 Fulton Street version of Won’t You Try/Saturday Afternoon and Wooden Ships, and a few of their ballads.

It was pretty refreshing, I must say. There was something really clean in their sound that you just don’t hear much anymore, a certain instrumental and vocal clarity, despite the exponentially advanced audio technology available today.

And the music and lyrics were completely original, not derivatives of past recordings by other people or imitations of other musicians’ styles.

Perhaps that’s the problem with today’s Rock – maybe everything’s been said, and there’s nothing left to do but reiterate…

G-d, I hope not.

Dinner break included a bunch of ravioli (stuffed with both beef and ground Italian sausage) a food friend made this afternoon and, thoughtfully, brought some over to impress me. She did, it was awesome. I ate it with some Napa Valley Bistro roasted garlic sauce “with fresh herbs & Napa Valley pinot noir”. For a change of pace, well: last week, said food friend and I were reminiscing on the cheaper wines we’d drank while teenagers, and out of pure nostalgia I ordered a couple of bottles of Yago sant’gria (remember that stuff?) on line and put them in the refrigerator when they arrived. I had a couple of glasses with dinner and it went well not only with the meal, but with the music as well.

Eric Clapton, CSNY, the Who, Marmalade, The Guess Who, The Doors, then…

Having listened to such guitar greats as Jorma Kaukonen and Eric Clapton, it seemed appropriate to listen to some Steve Howe (Yes and Asia) and some Jan Ackerman (Focus), while getting back to work.

Or so I thought, however: as the evening was getting rather long in the tooth, a neighbor stopped by on a break from his Saturday night bar hopping to repay a C-note I’d loaned him a few days ago, and I poured him a generous glass of my favorite tequila, Sauza Tres Generaciones.

I also fired up the cawfee pot, as this meant it was Kona and brandy time for me.

Both of us being about the same age and fans of Yes and Focus, the music was fortuitous – we ended up talking about the art of Roger Dean, who did a number of Yes album covers, such as Fragile, Tales from Topographic Oceans and Relayer among numerous other projects. Coincidentally, I am in the process of obtaining a copy of an old book of Roger Dean art, called Views.

The Relayer cover was a masterpiece.

Prior to Dean’s Yes covers, I’d considered the art on the cover of Santana’s Abraxas to be numero uno, ichiban, numbah one.

The Roger Dean album covers are legendary – when I lived in San Francisco, there was an art gallery on Geary Street that featured Yes cover Roger Dean art as about 90% of its inventory and seemed to be doing quite well.

After three tequilas, my neighbor departed for another round of the bars and now it’s about a half hour later. The live version of Yes’ Awaken is about halfway through (it is 18 ½ minutes long, it is the only other track on the album side it shares with Wonderous Stories on Going For The One). Showcasing the keyboard brilliance of Rick Wakeman, it’s easily one of my favorite Yes pieces. On the studio version, recorded in Switzerland, Wakeman did most of his part in a church, miles away from the recording studio, because he liked the sound he got from the powerful organ therein, and to say the result was spectacular would be an understatement.

Yes has been around for nearly 30 years, and though Progressive (Art) Rock hasn’t been popular since the mid 1980s, they still sell out coliseums, stadiums and concert halls whenever they tour.

The key, I believe, to a band being a super-group on their level is there being no one or two lead musicians in the band, rather all members are equally the lead musicians, all are true masters of their respective instruments and there is utterly perfect team integrity, every member of the band flawlessly complements every other member.

If the Republicans in Congress worked that way, the Constitution would still count for something and the socialist Democrats across the aisle, along with the liberal media, would be as irrelevant as Chihuahuas yapping from behind a chain link fence.

It’s zero dark hundred hours and I, a night person as always, am listening to some Al Stewart, sipping cognac from my celebratory Sarkozy bottle of Courvoisier VSOP with Peet’s Italian Roast on the side. Yeah, there is a Peet’s Coffee here in Chicago, in a mall on West North in Old Town. I used to buy all my coffee at Peet’s when I lived in San Francisco, and was surprised — no — speechlessly delighted to run into one in the mall when I went there to get a couple of things at Best Buy. I hadn’t known Peet’s had any locations outside California. YAY!

At any rate, having considerably more freed up time, I’ve been able do something I profoundly enjoy doing: Spending more hours in the Blogosphere and more at my favorite blogs, following links to other blogs I’d never heard of… It’s a continuous series of discoveries and opportunities to pick up information that is all but unavailable in the mainstream media. That isn’t to say that the MSM is always innacurate, they do become quite informative when one of their components is describing, in as detailed an account as possible, any secret U.S. national security strategies or other secret projects that help prevent terrorist attacks against America and Americans, here and abroad, military or civilian. To act responsibly and patriotically would go against the fiber of their liberal sensibilities, and that will not change until the grim realities of today’s world arrive at the portals of their Utopian abodes and, unfortunately, the rest of our front doors as well. Rather than accept responsibility, they’ll follow standard proceedures and blame it all on George Bush. Hmmm, sort of like the refrain of the theme song to the film Ned Kelly, “Blame it on the Kellys, boys, blame it on the Kellys…”

Being a protection professional (semi-retired) and an eternal student in the area of identifying and decisively addressing security concerns, I tend to take a great interest in all informed opinions and statistical analyses related to my field that I run across, as I expect most people do in their own areas of interest, which is why this article that arrived in my inbox earlier, a bit lengthy but a recommended read, grabbed my full attention.

We receive occasional reports from the Department of Homeland Security and from the Bureau regarding terrorist cells operating in America. The reason the administration created DHS, purportedly, was to prevent terrorism on our soil, and to that end they were given authority over all of our federal security agencies, then bloated with responsible charge of non-related issues like disaster management.

According to the TRAC report, very few arrests, prosecutions and convictions of terrorism related suspects (less than the proverbial drop in the bucket) have been executed since DHS was formed, while the lion’s share, by far, of Homeland Security’s activity lay in immigration venues.

While the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of government and the MSM force feed WE, THE PEOPLE meaningless and inaccurate platitudes promoting copious illegal immigration, amnesty and their by-products, all of which pose potentially disasterous threats to the economy and quality of life in America, and I will presume somewhat by adding the future of this nation as we know it to the list of likely casualties telling bald faced lies in the name of Uncle Sam {remember him?} working hand-over-fist to secure our borders (mostly the southern one, go figure).

With decent personnel and logistics budgets and accessing a little old fashioned inter-agency cooperation, Immigration could have dealt with that. Why was it necessary to place them under a higher authority?

Immigration related crime: Again, interagency cooperation, a reasonable operating budget, the lead agencies varying between FBI, DEA, INS, the Coast Guard, etc… Why pull them all under the umbrella of one overstuffed, underfunded government beauracracy?

Disaster Management? How did Hurricane Katrina become the red-headed stepchild of DHS? They should have been restricted to protecting the country from terrorism, not to also be fed crow over the tragic events brought about by an unforeseeable, naturally generated disaster.

But why, then, is there a DHS, anyway, instead of a well funded atmosphere of interagency cooperation? They sure as hell don’t seem to be producing any tangible results in the terrorism sector (acknowledging that there are operations and results that are necessarily kept secret, but given the tiny speck on the chart that represents anti-terrorist successes, it’s highly unlikely that the under-the-table stuff could have effected the statistics that voluminously).

I therefore find it somewhat alarming that such an entity as DHS even exists within our government. I would feel a bit more comfortable having our security agencies operating as individual organizations and, as I’ve said, cooperating.

Nope, not paranoia, just an observation, but one that could lead to quite a few scenarios, depending upon who is leading the nation, some of which we might not like…

Following the recent decision of my awesome blog friend(why don’t we get to meet more such people in person!!!?) Atheling2’s very good example, I’m taking a couple of days off…. from politics.

Things get so goldarned frustrating in these days of liberal political dominance that, well… I’m taking a couple of days off from it all. Tomorrow, I have a ton of stuff going on — actually, as it’s 1:16 AM, today is a bit more apt.

I have a red pasta sauce going in the kitchen, ground prime rib, chiante, ’shrooms (no, not that kind, Cheech!), peppers, lots of fresh garlic… I decided last night to go all out, and have much mellow ancient Jefferson Airplane music playing, stuff like DCBA 25, My Best Friend, Comin’ Back To me, How Do You Feel?, etc. C’mon, if you wanna hear a guy who can sing Rock without raising his voice, Marty Balin’s the one. (Of course I’m not ignoring Eric Clapton, gimme a break!) Yeah, yeah, I know it’s zero dark hundred hours, but I’m one of those folks for whom the time of day (or night) is relative to my own activities rather than the other way around.

Or something like that… Hell you know what I mean, I hope.

I’m getting ready to rent out my house while I am engaged in earning my daily bread elsewhere, and tomorrow will be the day all the cosmetic things need to be done, along with realtor stuff. I love this house and I’ve poured time, work and money into making it and the 1/3rd acre of property as a whole into what I can only call my ultimate ideal for a home, so I’m gonna be all but oppressively discerning as to whom I lease it out to.

The realty guy is all cash business, hardcore bottom line, etc, so he’s going to be at least a bit taken aback — I’m going to rent the property expensively furnished and with every appliance and amenity known to man — just bring clothes and a shower kit — and be prepared to pay the utilities and so forth, and a monthly rent that is high for this part of the country but well worth it.

If I’d already figured out how to put pics in my blog, I’d show you what I mean, but doing so would require stuff that for now would require time and attention I simply don’t have. So maybe later….

I finally just received a book I’ve been dying to read for awhile, Mark Steyn’s America Alone, but I even have to place that in the second slot because I’ve promised to read a new book (I’ve received and begun reading an advance copy) and review it on this blog, a book about the valiant U.S. Marines 3rd Infantry, 1st Battalion and their taking of Fellujah. I’ve begun reading the book and find it rivetting, and look forward to finishing it and writing my review. To tell the truth, I’m both humbled and honored that the publisher asked me; It’s the first time I’ve ever received a book in the mail that was “Advance Reading Copy…. Not For Sale”. Wow!

Wow, indeed, we’ve moved into the excellent track by Quarterflash, Harden My Heart. I really like things mellow and relaxing, though I know a lot of younger conservative bloggers are enamoured of the blasting, screaming, heavy metal stuff.

While a recording like For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her is among my favorites, however, I also enjoy groups like Veruca Salt and Lacuna Coil. Look that up in your Funk & Wagnall’s!

Am I drifting? Yeah, you’re right, I am.

In the manuscript I’m working on (a novel) Travis James, a retired CIA paramilitary type has just met with DEA SAC (Chicago) Elena Munoz to discuss his helping her office in nailing a major drug ring in DeWitt County, Illinois run by local officials, but… at the same time, he’s being called upon by the Agency to address a spectacular terrorist act destined(though there are no actual facts as to where at the time) to go down at and during a major global security conference (not attended by politicians, but by actual security experts) in a Nevada casino hotel… Needless to say, though it’s a lot of work, I’m having tons of fun with that. If I ever get published, Travis James will appear in future novels, as will lead character security consultant Eric Thomas. If not, well… Que Serra Serra, they’re enjoyable to work with….

In the meantime, I’ll keep my trap shut re further details, until and if my book plans reach fruition.

Gotta go deal with the sauce, talk at you later….