Spring is here and baseball is about to start ... and this looks strange

Johnny Damon in a Detroit Tiger uniform ... gotta admit, it looks kinda strange ...

Define an act of terrorism

In the case of the guy who flew his private plane today into the building in Austin which housed the IRS, and did it to get BACK at the IRS (after burning down his house down ...which doesn't make sense but that's another story), the government (or the White House and Homeland Security) has declared it is NOT an act of terrorism.
But not end of story. I ask this in all due respect: if someone targets the government or a particular agency with an act of destruction, resulting in death/injury, and did it willfully (premeditated) ,,, isn't THAT an act of ... terrorism?
... OR can terrorism ONLY be perpetrated by a foreign national?
My answer? Yes, it IS an act of terrorism, regardless of that person's address or homeland. Angry white guys are just as capable of such heinous acts as Arabic-speaking people.
And when you do it in such a calculated way, meaning to do harm, THAT IS TERRORISM!

Hey Toyota, it COULD happen

There could come a time when EVERY car Toyota has made in the past 5-7 YEARS is subject to a recall - either voluntary (won't happen because Toyota and Chairman Toyoda are TOO fucking stubborn and proud) or by government dictate.

Right now, no Toyotas are being sold OR made; plants are closed and no one knows when they are reopening, including Ricky Perry's "private" investment in the San Antonio site.
And the term "Toyota quality" will soon become a David Letterman joke.
I'm waiting for YouTube video of a Toyota that finds its wheels coming off on the highway.
Never say never. It could happen.

Supremacy Clause trumps Tea Partiers

Hate to break it to all those faithful Tea Party followers (can you be a member to a non-organized group?), but no one seems to know a damn thing about "states’ nullification," which is a delusionary figment of the right-wing’s imagination.

There is a Supremacy Clause in the Constitution, written by the same "founding fathers" these wingnuts love to quote (but a document they obviously have NEVER read), which simply states that federal law trumps all … and I don't mean Donald Trump. In fact, it was written BEFORE the vaunted (but misunderstood) 10th amendment.
Here it is:

Article VI, Clause 2

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Damn ... seems clear as a bell unless you are blind like Medina and the "others." (A little LOST reference). THAT is what the founding fathers had in mind and to keep attacking it with a contrarian viewpoint is wrong.
But being factually wrong has never been an impediment to attacking the truth.

There's got to be a morning after ...

More photos of the Great DFW Snowfallicane of 2010:

Is it too late for Santa to come back?

The beauty of snow

What most Texans do NOT understand is that snow ... is beautiful. Not just to build snowmen, snow fortresses or for sledding (no skiing except near Mount Pleasant, I guess), but it has a calming effect when things go right.

For 24 hours, it has been perfect in Dallas and Plano. The snow fell straight down, not with the thrust of a blue nothern (or Dairy Queen) blizzard, but as if Mother Nature decided to lay a blanket upon North Texas, as if she was making a bed for a guest.

The light from the moon shines off the snow, illuminating everything and covering UP the darkness. And it instills a sense of quiet - a hush has fallen across the landscape.

When I was in college at the University of Michigan, and when such evenings brought this kind of winter wonderland, it was the very best place to be - to walk along State Street and hear the crunching of the snow beneath your boots or golashes (Texans know zilch about them). As flakes fell, the street lights would make each flake appear to be a summertime firefly.

As I peer out my front door onto my street, it looks just like that - all lawns, roofs, houses and cars are under that blanket.

And it feels just fine to me.

The great blizzard of 2010

It's been snowing here in suburban Dallas (Plano), TEXAS, since around midnight and is forecast to snow until midnight tonight/early Friday AM. Expected to see 8-9 inches of white stuff, although it hasn't started to freeze ... YET. That will take place later when the sun and temperatures go down.
The morning commute could be dicey but I imagine much of the icy roads willclear by afternoon when the sun comes back out and it gets above freezing. It will melt in 48 hours and that's OK by me.
HOWEVER, the place is going nutso. One TV station has been on the air with a constant news report about ... SNOW since noon.
Still, I gotta admit, it's quite a sight watching REAL snow fall here (not enough in VANCOUVER, though). Steady, big flakes, and hard. It's a sight for these poor old Michigander eyes!

Funny thing, up North (where I originated), there would have already been an army of snow shovelers for hire (I was among them at 12 years of age), but no one - not one young male-type person - is that enterprising here in Plano. I guess parents pay better than actual WORK!
And for you climate change doubters who think making "how's this for global warming? Ha! Ha!" jokes is really funny, it's BECAUSE of climate change that El Nino is the cause of these wicked storms all over the place. You dial up the temperature of the oceans, and stir up MORE moisture into the atmosphere and alter the flow of El Nino and ... bing! bang! boom! ... you get these freakish snow storms on the East Coast and in TEXAS, and mudslides in Southern California due to torrential, unending downpours.
Trust me, to many people, it ain't funny!

Not only is she stupid, she's dangerous

Not only is Sarah Palin a stupid "hairhead," strictly in politics for the money, honey, but she borders on dangerous. In her Sunday "interview" with Fox News Sunday, this dolt actually advocated attacking Iran and sending troops to defend Israel (all part of her uber-fundamentalist religious mindspeak that endangers the very fabric of the nation), saying it would be in President Obama's FAVOR to proceed along those lines.

Really? Is she THAT ignorant? Perhaps, but she IS that dense.

Anyone who has to give a speech with "cheat sheet" notes written on her palm, and then has the audacity to attack someone for delivering a complex speech with a teleprompter deserves nothing but spite hurled at her.

Sadly, she has a following of like-minded dolts, simpletons who want to regress this nation to its former days of ignorance (including the destruction of actual science in favor of dogmatic nonsense) and segregation (out with all the non-white people).

She reflects the absolute worse in all of us and why so many people cannot stand politics anymore. It's all about her instead of being all about us.

If you honestly support Sarah Palin, you seriously need to sit down and examine your inner beliefs as to why.

She's a boob with boobs and neither are all that goddamn impressive!

Quick Super Bowl analysis - DAT WHO!

My analysis of Super Bowl 45 is simple: fate deemed that New Orleans would win. Why? Because every break went the way of the Saints.

While most people would write that the Tracy Porter interception was THE play of the game, I will disagree. That sealed the win but it wasn’t the turnaround play of the night.
There were two – the second-half onside kick (a gutsy call from Sean Payton, the man who SHOULD have been the Cowboys’ coach) and a challenge flag with less than six minutes to play.
New Orleans did not do a great job in the first half stopping Indianapolis’ offense so getting the first possession of the second half, after making adjustments, would have proven crucial to the Colts, leading 10-6.
But the successful deception turned that momentum around instantly. The Colts did methodically march right down the field to score and take the lead, but they did so while trailing instead of leading. It then became a game that appeared to be one decided by final possession.
Perhaps MORE important was the challenge call on the Saints’ final go-ahead score late in the fourth quarter. Had the ruling on the field NOT been overturned, it would have been a five-point game which meant Indy could have settled for two field goals (requiring LESS yardage to gain) for a one-point win. Making Indy score a touchdown offered a more difficult challenge, which proved too much for the Colts to overcome.
So once again, a Colts team, favored to win in Miami, lost a Super Bowl to an underdog, beloved by much of the nation … ala 1969 against the Joe Namath Jets.
Who dat? The upstart Saints are already etching a pose for Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year. Dat who!

Run, Sarah, run ... PLEASE!

The most rock solid prediction that can be made in advance is this: President Obama will be guaranteed (repeat, lead pipe lock) a second term if the Republicans nominate Sarah Palin as its candidate for president in 2012. In fact, it should be the Democrats funding her campaign war chest to see such an occurence happens.
She is the single most dunderheaded dolt EVER to emerge on the national political stage. She tries to substitute the folksy "You betcha" attitude for knowledge, of which she possesses nothing between her ears.
If a single person, with an iota of intelligence, believes her Saturday speech to the so-called Tea Party (is that Lipton or Tetley?) will launch her star, they are either blind or stupid. Sorry, but es la verdad (it's the truth) as they say closer to Brownsville, Texas.
She knows nothing, talks about nothing except to toss a few poorly worded barbs in front of right-wing, white-wing meateaters who think it's cute to incorrectly use words like "socialism," "communism" and "dictator" when speaking about the Obama administration.
Her most quoted portion of the speech came concerning the arrest of the Detroit underwear bomber (was that Jcokey or Fruit of the Loom ... er.... LOON), who has been made to be THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN WHO EVER LIVED instead of a screwed-up student who couldn't thread a needle if he tried. Sarah wanted him flogged and tortured (that could have been accomplished by forcing the guy to listen to hear for 36 hours straight). However, the Justice Department, following the EXACT legal procedure used by the previous administration when Richard Reed, the shoebomber, was stopped trying to do the same damn thing.
In fact, the Republican indignation is laughable. Not a WORD, not one fucking syllable, was uttered back then when he was caught, read his rights and tried in court.
But short memories and politics seem to wipe away congent thoughts.
As for her "hotness???" Puh-lese, Betty White looked better in the Snickers commercial last night. Sarah Palin is a media whore - she takes money to be seen and perform. She should be introduced to the sea chanty, "Pay Me My Money Now."
And how WAS that tanning bed installed in the Alaska capital for her use? She's as white trash as it comes and is attracting the same, drooling crowd where men judge her on their own MILF factor instead of actual leadership.
She's a dollar sniffer and does ANYTHING she can to get it, including selling out her home state by quitting the governership in order to cash in on her 15-minutes of fame.
Only the Republicans will stretch that until 2012. Good luck. Democrats are smiling at the prospect.

Choke of this

You know who is really choking on Toyota today? All them damn ass GOP Southern Senators, like Shelby and Sessions and John Cornyn, states with major Toyota plants, who voted AGAINST the US automaker bailout because of parochial self-interests. They WANTED Detroit to fail miserably in order to improve the status of their non-union plants in the South .... the same ones NOW shut down because of Toyota's horrid PR problem.
Ford MIGHT pass GM and Toyota for no. 1, which would be stunning since it did not take the money, did not cut away brand names and did not fire its executive leadership. Yet another reason to buy American and restore some semblance of order in this world.

While the Prius problem seems systematic to hybrids (the delay between energy conversion and the damn brakes working), Toyota did its level best to HIDE that from customers. This is a well-worn plot to many a TV show and movies. It's cheaper to keep silent and settle lawsuits than to replace and fix the problem. The fact that Toyota doesn't know HOW to fix the problem is astonishing, yet KNEW there was a problem for some time.
It's all about Japanese corporate mentality v. U.S. openness society. We want to know when and why things fuck up; Japan doesn't.

Bye, bye Toyota????

You might well be seeing the crumbling and potential death of a major automaker ... and it's NOT an American firm.
It would NOT shock me to hear of the suicide of the Toyota chairman in Japan. Apparently, the company didn't want to cooperate, knowing what it would mean in the end.

And now the vaunted Prius is under investigation... and yet ... Toyota doesn't KNOW how the fix the problem (it's guessing) but swears it's not the electrical system. When you toss that ball SO high, you are actually pointing to the problem. Toyota seems to be TOO eager to point out what it ISN'T.
Apparently Ford sees the opening and is seizing the time (as we used to say back in the day).