A local flight of the condor....

Oh man, how I hate it when the Post & Courier scoops me when I’m backlogged on writing blogs.
(http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/jan/05/air_force_hires_russian_jets26735/)
I’ve been trying to write this blog for over a week in my limited spare time, and then on Saturday they go & scoop me with a front-page article!!! Damn!
Anyways, I’m still going to post my blog.

I understand that everyone and everything has their limits. I also understand that the hectic tempo of flight demands into and out of both Iraq and Afghanistan puts a lot of strain on the Air Force’s fleet of C-17 and C-5 cargo jets. These are complex pieces of equipment that need maintenance after a certain amount of flight time, which takes airframes out of the flight rotations. Occasionally, some routine cargo flights to the war zones may need to be farmed out to civilian cargo companies on a contract basis.

I also understand that in certain cases, the need to expedite and hurry the delivery of certain equipment may mean that Air Force aircraft may not always be available to carry combat vehicles to the front lines and that again, contract aircraft must be used. But just because I understand it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Especially when the contractors and aircraft in question are from a country that as of late hasn’t exactly been buddy-buddy with our country.

Huh?

One of the big contractors that’s been delivering our supplies to both war zones is a company called Volga-Dneper Cargo, a Russian company that is the world leader in shipping oversized bulky cargo around the globe, such as aircraft parts and engines, satellites, rocket boosters, offshore oil rig gear, and even armored vehicles and helicopters. The company uses Russian crews, including pilots. They are able to accommodate such loads by using a fleet of the massive Antonov-124 Condor, a rough equivalent to our own C-5 Galaxy heavy-lift transport. The other company is Polet Cargo Airlines, another supplier of Condors. Both are subcontracted through American-flag carriers Atlas Air and Lynden Air Cargo as part of the military's Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet.

I see Atlas’ 747’s come in and out of Charleston all the time. As of late, several times a month I’ve looked in the Charleston skies and seen the massive white and blue Condors with the Russian flags on the tails as they fly in to pick up the MRAP vehicles. I know the demand for MRAP’s is high to help protect our troops from IED’s, and that the need dictates that we fly as many over there as fast as possible, and it’s rather expensive to fly them over at 2-4 vehicles per trip. A ship loaded with 240 MRAPs left Charleston for Iraq last month, taking over three weeks to get there, a better bargain but a longer wait for desperately needed vehicles.

What rankles me is that we have foreign crews from a country that’s not exactly been buddy-buddy with us as of late, with nuclear-capable bomber flights and vague saber-rattling by President (read: neo-dictator) Putin, flying our newest piece of military technology around. Say what you want, but you’ll never convince me that unless we have armed guards on these flights to keep the crews under watch, that there isn’t a full-scale bum-rush of intelligence-gathering going on during that 18-hour flight to the Sandbox. The FSB (spelled: KGB) is most likely the supplier of these trusted & valued employees, and I’m sure they’d love to dissect our gear first-hand and get all the intelligence possible to clone the technology for themselves.

It’s not only MRAP’s that get sent overseas on Condors, and Iraq isn’t always the destination. In April of last year, the Air Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing had some of their HH-60G Pave Hawk search & rescue helicopters flown to Afghanistan by Russian Condors. The Pave Hawk is a highly modified version of the Army Black Hawk helicopter which features an upgraded communications and navigation suite that includes integrated inertial navigation/global positioning/Doppler navigation systems, satellite communications, secure voice, and Have Quick frequency-hopping radio gear to defeat jamming. All HH-60Gs have an automatic flight control system, night vision, and forward looking infrared systems that greatly enhance night low-level operations. Additionally, Pave Hawks have color weather radar and an engine/rotor blade anti-ice system that gives the HH-60G an adverse weather capability. Gee, you think that the Russians might want a peek? Maybe so. And sure, there were a couple airmen from the 129th on the aircraft and as a general rule the helicopters get a form of shrink-wrapping, but I’m still uncomfortable with the situation.

Perhaps I’m just being an alarmist. Perhaps I’m just being paranoid. Perhaps the shock of the US Air Force needing to spend 300 million dollars to have other countries fly our sensitive equipment to a war zone has me in Cold War Mode again. According to Army Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Rice, Public Affairs Officer for the US Transportation Command, the contracting of aircraft does not mean that the military lacks the ability to do the job with its own aircraft. He said the Russian aircraft frees C-17s and C-5s to fly other missions. "As we continue on a daily basis to support operations, we still want to move troops, bullets and beans," Rice said. That’s fine, sir. But why can’t we let our planes fly the sensitive gear and let the subcontractors fly the troops and sundries like ammunition, bottled water, toilet paper, and Ramen noodles?

Enquiring minds wanna know.

The Horror.....The Horror....

I have seen the Pit of Doom, and its name is LAUNDROMAT.

Back on October 26, 1858, a patent for a clothes washer was issued to a fellow named Hamilton Smith. And on June 7, 1892 a patent for a clothes dryer was granted to George T. Sampson. Here we are, over a century later, and we honestly take these home appliances for granted. Seldom do we give them a second thought. That is, until one of them craps out on you.

I have a washer & dryer, like most people. In fact, I checked with the Energy Information Administration and they claimed that 95% of American single-family homes have a washer and 90% have a dryer. However in multi-family homes (ie: apartments) it’s only 32% and 27% respectively, and in mobile homes it was 85% and 76% respectively. My dryer is fairly new, only two years old, but the heater element died this week and needs to be replaced. Not a catastrophe but still a pain in the ass. I had planned to just go to Ace Hardware, get a new element, and replace it myself, but the nice folks we bought it from said it was still under warranty and that they’d call their contracted repair guy to come out, warning us that admittedly he was a bit backlogged.

Okay, that was 4 days ago. And with no dryer the only recourse available was to wash the clothes at the house and then head to a laundromat with bags of wet clothes. Not what you really want to do on a Saturday night, but options were limited and the clothes needed to get done. And since nothing is ever as easy or as simple in the Execution Phase as they are in the Planning Phase, you know it couldn’t be an easy operation, right?

We have four ‘mats here in Walterboro, and the best logical choice was the one we knew for sure was open 24/7. Heading off to Option 1, I was a bit surprised to find it empty except for one person, who completely ignored us like we were invisible when we walked in. This place doesn’t use the usual quarters in the machines; instead you purchase a card that works like an ATM card, sliding into a card reader slot in the washers and dryers. This ensures that no one can just walk in and use a change machine to get quarters and just leave. You’re stuck with this card that works nowhere else in the known universe, making you a hostage to this establishment. The reason why this place was deserted? No cards. That’s right, kids. Both of the card dispenser-vending thingies had hand-scribbled signs that said “Out Of Cards”. A Saturday night, a weekend, when people do laundry, and they let this place run dry? Morons. Well, shit oh dear, we’re buggered. Now where to go? Off to Option 2.

Option 2 was looking pretty dark inside. Uh-oh; bad juju. Option 2 was closed and had been for about 2 and half hours. Off to Option 3, which was even darker, as it looked like it went outta business sometime about the mid-1880’s. This left us Option 4, the one Crys said was in a slightly unsavory location and a bit run-down. Great. Of course, this was provided that Option 4 was even open.

Lo and behold, the last place we wanted to go was the only place open. From the outside it looked as if we were pulling up to a bunker in downtown Beirut, a dimly-lit block structure surrounded by dilapidated old houses, none of which were lit up at all. Not even streetlights worked here. Oh, man, this was gonna be fun. We walked in to recon the place & see if anything worked. I felt like I was stepping into early 1970, with old beat up machines, cracked floor tiles, moldy ceiling tiles, rust stains on the walls, and this old guy with no teeth watching boxing on a small TV mounted in a wooden box from the ceiling. A second TV a few feet away was showing Ultimate Fighting Challenge cage matches. The two shows were competing with each other volume-wise, making for a confusing cacophony heard overtop the tumbling dryers.

There were two customers, a young fellow quietly folding his clothes who helped us with operating instructions for the dryers, and his friend, who never spoke except into his phone. Looking around, I half expected Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now to surface from inside a washer. That’s how dark & dank this place was. Where was Colonel Kilgore to tell me the smell of mildew and Tide in the morning smelled like Victory? At one point I looked down and had to grab Crys’ sleeve to tug her out of the way of a massive palmetto bug that looked like it owned the place. Uber-Roach exploded with a mighty pop as my shoe showed him who was higher up the food chain. Cruel? Maybe, but I’ll risk the Karma damage to not share my immediate environment with a pestilence the size of a house cat. For the rest of the time we were there, Crys was so skeeved out by the roach incident that she kept checking her flip-flop-clad feet for visitors.

I had to remind myself that I was not in an inner-city Greyhound station at 3AM. Fewer people and no stench of urine, though for amusement I nudged the bathroom door open at Crys' request and peered into a Third World hell that under NO circumstances would I ever use. Not even amoebic dysentery or the Marburg virus would have put me near that toilet. Sadly, poor Crys needed to go, and nothing short of a rupture of her internal organs was gonna even get her near the door.

An hour later and five bucks in quarters poorer, we took our clothes and went home. I was left hoping that the repair guy comes soon so as to avoid this again, and was also left thinking a new element is no more than 20 bucks and I can install it myself. If I have to make another trip here to this place, that’ll be 10 bucks gone, plus gas, so it’s not saving me any money waiting on the factory guy. Is it worth voiding my 3-year/36,000 load warranty to do it myself? Quite likely.

For those of you who have to use the laundromat every week, I feel your pain. Readers, don’t ever take your laundry appliances for granted. You too may one day witness The Horror….The Horror…

Playing ice hockey in the snow & ice? How clever!

It had all the makings of a memorable New Year’s Day sporting event. Yesterday in Buffalo, some 72,217 fans braved sleet, snow, and a wind chill in the low 20’s to fill Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Buffalo Bills football team. Some of the players wore toques under their helmets for some extra warmth. The announcers were all bundled in heavy coats and constant meteorological updates were provided by an on-scene weather reporter. All in all it was a great day to play hockey.

Hockey? Outside? In a football stadium? Damn skippy!!!

Yesterday was the game everyone in my social circle has been talking about for the past 4 months. The 2008 Amp Energy NHL Winter Classic (say that 3 times fast) had the Buffalo Sabres hosting the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first-ever regular-season hockey game to be played outdoors in the United States. Back on November 22, 2003 the Edmonton Oilers hosted the Montreal Canadiens at Commonwealth Stadium (home of the Edmonton Eskimos football team) in front of 57, 167 brave souls who endured wind chills of -22 (yeah, MINUS 22) to see the game.

The first ever outdoors NHL game was an exhibition pre-season game between the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers, held in 1991 outside Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, not exactly a hardship for the players or the fans.

This year’s game broke the all-time attendance record for an NHL hockey game hands-down, especially considering the league average is about 18,000 per game in the stands at most hockey arenas. It took nine days for crews to build the rink in the middle of the football stadium, and the hardy fans showed up hours in advance to tailgate and party. The game itself had been sold out for weeks, with some tickets going for over a thousand dollars.

But isn’t it crazy to play a hockey game outdoors? No way!

Most of the players grew up playing outside, on frozen lakes and ponds, or on home-made rinks in flooded back yards. This was a nostalgic trip down memory lane for these guys, and many were quoted as saying they felt like a little kid again. The temperatures weren’t that bad for most of the players, as they work up a good sweat skating around. The goalies however were mostly stationary and had to worry about muscles going cold. To their credit and benefit, both starting goalies had prior experience with outdoor games, Ty Conklin of the Pittsburgh Penguins played for the Oilers in the 2003 Heritage Classic game, and Sabres netminder Ryan Miller played for the Michigan State University Spartans against the University of Michigan Wolverines in the game that started the trend, the “Cold War” game on October 6, 2001in front of 74,544 at the Michigan State football stadium. The stadium was filled to 103.4% of capacity.

After being led onto the ice by bagpipes, and a flyover by US Army Blackhawk helicopters (a common sight at baseball & football events but not at hockey games) the action got underway amidst falling snow and slushy ice conditions. The game crew had to constantly clear and repair the ice, which was described by one player as like “playing in mud”, but by all accounts the players and the fans absolutely loved the party-like atmosphere. The teams both wore “throwback” uniforms, vintage jersey designs as a nod to nostalgia, with Buffalo wearing the white, blue and gold jerseys last used regularly during the 1995-96 season with the galloping buffalo logo. The Penguins wore powder blue and black uniforms dating to their teams of the 1970s.At the end of regulation play, the score was tied at 1-1, and when overtime didn’t settle the match, the game went to a sudden death shootout, always a dramatic and exciting conclusion to a game.

In the end it was a perfect Hollywood finish, with the game-winning goal scored by Sidney Crosby, the 20-year old captain of the Penguins. “Sid the Kid” is hailed by most as the new torch-bearer of Wayne Gretzky’s legacy. If anyone can carry on where The Great One left off, The Next One can.

There are tentative plans to have another outdoor game featuring Boston College, Boston University, Michigan and Michigan State held at Fenway Park, but with all the renovations being done at Fenway, chances of that are iffy. Talks are also underway to determine whether a game at Yankee Stadium between the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders would be possible. Michigan and Michigan State have discussed an outdoor rematch at Michigan Stadium and the Detroit Red Wings have looked into hosting a game at Detroit's Ford Field. I personally think that an outdoor game between Boston University and the University of Maine, my alma mater, would be amazing.

Rumors have also circulated of a possible outdoor game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers to take place at Penn State's Beaver Stadium in the '08-'09 season and possibly annually thereafter. Beaver Stadium's seating capacity of over 100,000 will likely lead to broken attendance records for all outdoor hockey games.

All of this exposure is great for hockey. It brings awareness and publicity to an awesome sport that has sufferred in recent years from chronic underexposure. I for one look forward to the possibility of annual outdoor games. I recorded the game on my DVR and watched it again this afternoon after work to savor the event again. I’ll trade 32 college football bowl games for one Winter Classic any day!

You’d have to watch 32 bowl games to equal the nutrition found in one Total Cereal bowl game…

Tis the season for umpteen million college football bowl games. Blah blah blah blah blah…..


When I was younger, I remember the Rose Bowl, and maybe a couple others, like the Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. Nowadays there are no fewer than 32 bowl games to further pander to the masses who clamor for more and more mediocre teams to make a post-season appearance. In days gone by, only the teams with the best records went to bowl games; now it seems that anyone with at least a 6-6 record who might draw a tv audience is invited to a bowl.

The bowls simply serve now as a means for teams to get TV exposure one last time before the NFL scouts and more importantly serve as 4-hour commercials for the bowl’s sponsors. Oh, yes, there will be sponsors. You have the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. There’s the Chik-Fil-A Bowl, which used to be the Peach Bowl. The Humanitarian Bowl started as the Blockbuster Bowl in 1990 to publicize the Blockbuster Video chain. Carquest Auto Parts then took over sponsorship and renamed it, of course, the Carquest Bowl. It's became the MicronPC.com Bowl after being the Crucial.com/MPC Computers Bowl but has now morphed into the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl. Nothing says “humanitarian” like corporate sponsorship.

The Gator Bowl is more properly known as the Konica Minolta Gator Bowl, as it is no longer the Toyota Gator Bowl or the Outback Gator Bowl, or even the Mazda Gator Bowl. Outback now sponsors its own bowl game, having usurped the old Hall of Fame Bowl. There’s still a Sugar Bowl, but it’s now the Allstate Sugar Bowl, after having recently been the Nokia Sugar Bowl. The Orange Bowl is now the Fed-Ex Orange Bowl. What would the Fiesta Bowl be without a sponsorship from Tostitos? Add salsa and all our gridiron dreams come true.

And of course, there’s the “grand daddy of them all”, the venerable Rose Bowl. The original bowl game, held since 1902 in conjunction with the Tournament of Roses and the eponymous parade, the traditional New Year’s Day game is now brought to you courtesy of the fine folks at Citi Bank after previous sponsorships by corporate entities like Sony’s Playstation 2 and AT&T, who now brings you what used to simply be the Cotton Bowl.

In the future we’re sure to see the Halliburton Filthy Excess Bowl, the Pepto Bismol Toilet Bowl, Red Bull Tapeworm Bowl, and Ambien Hallucination Bowl. In a rare inter-sport show of camaraderie, Major League Baseball will also sponsor it’s own college football bowl game, to be called the MLB Steroid Scandal Asterisk Bowl.

Then again, I guess I should also in all fairness point out that today’s phenomenal outdoor hockey game played in freezing snow at Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson Stadium in front of 72,217 fans was officially the AMP Energy NHL Winter Classic. No one’s immune from sponsorship it seems, so hey, corporate America…this here blog is a perfect place for your advertising dollars.

All is quiet on New Year's Day

“All is quiet on New Year’s Day.
A world in white gets underway.
Though I want to be with you, be with you night and day,
Nothing changes on New Year’s Day……on New Year’s Day…”

And with that, I have fulfilled my standard New Year’s tradition of listening to the
U2 song “New Year’s Day as one of the first songs I listen to on New Year ’s Day…the other tradition is being taken care of right now as I listen to my favorite song in the known universe, Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence”, which I heard for the first time on New Year’s Eve, December 31st, 1989 in Joe Clipp’s living room in Eislingen, Germany while watching a TV special on German cable.

Okay, that takes care of my traditions. They aren’t steeped in superstition, as so many other traditions are. Sure, I could say that unless I listen to these two songs that I’ll have bad luck all year or that a family member will die in 3 months, but I’m not an overly superstitious sort. The Depeche Mode song is just my favorite song, and playing it every year commemorates a great time in my life that coincided with New Year's. The U2 track is just me being pretentious about the title, since the song itself doesn’t really have anything to do with the holiday; it’s about the violence in Northern Ireland, where the band grew up.

Other people have their own New Year’s traditions, a bit deeper-rooted in superstition than my own. Some folks believe that by not washing your hair and by wearing red festive clothing you’ll have good luck. Children born on New Year's Day bring great fortune and prosperity to the entire household, except for the parents of the child who now have to buy twice as many presents in a one-week span to cover Christmas and the birthday. It’s pretty common here in South Carolina to believe that eating Hoppin’ John or black-eyed peas brings good luck and that the eating of collard greens brings wealth. Some people believe that you shouldn’t eat poultry or beef on New Year’s, because a chicken or turkey scratches backwards, a cow stands still to eat, and a pig roots forward for food, and thusly pork is lucky because pigs think forward and those who dine on pork will move forward in the new year. Yeah, okay. I guess it wasn’t so lucky for the pig itself, now was it?

The Scots celebrate New Year’s as Hogmany, derived from a Gaelic phrase meaning “new morning”. The ancient Scots were as superstitious in their pagan beliefs as anyone, and as America is heavily populated by those of us of Scots descent, many of the beliefs have survived since they fled the “auld sod” for the New World. According to some Scottish superstitions, the first person to enter your home after the stroke of midnight will influence the year you're about to have. Ideally, he should be dark-haired, tall, and good-looking, and it would be even better if he came bearing certain small gifts such as a lump of coal, a silver coin, a bit of bread, a sprig of evergreen, and some salt. (I myself would prefer that he bring a 12-pack of Samuel Adams or some single-malt Scotch in addition to some coins, and a couple pizzas are always welcomed too.) Blonde and redhead first footers bring bad luck, and female first footers should be shooed away as they are considered bad luck before they bring disaster down on the household. (Damn those pesky wimminz). The squint-eyed, the flat-footed, or men with eyebrows that meet in the middle bring bad luck if they are first-footers. But a man with a high instep, or one who comes on a horse, is considered particularly lucky. The first footer should knock and be let in rather than just using a key. After greeting those in the house and dropping off whatever small tokens of luck he has brought with him, he should make his way through the house and leave by a different door than the one through which he entered. No one should leave the premises before the first footer arrives; the first traffic across the threshold must be headed in rather than striking out.

The major problem I have with this is that I get someone come to my door perhaps once every 8 weeks or so. I may not receive a visitor till mid-February, and I don’t have 6-8 weeks to wait for any portents of luck to come my way. And also, with visitors to my domicile so few & far between, I can’t afford to be too choosy as to who deigns to visit me. Living out in the country comes with occasional disadvantages.

It is also thought weather plays a role in the day. If the wind blows from north, bad weather all year is in store; if it comes from the south, fine weather and prosperous times lie ahead; if it blows from the east, famine or some other calamity is on the way; if it blows from the west, the year will witness plentiful supplies of fish and milk but will also see the death of a very distinguished personage. If there is no wind at all, a joyful and prosperous year may be expected by all. If the wind blows in from the Gulf of Mexico, seek higher ground, call FEMA, and evacuate immediately.

I know folks who refuse to do laundry or even wash dishes on New Year’s, as this will lead to the death of a family member. To this end, an episode of Law & Order soon to be aired on NBC will feature a murder with clean dishes in a dish rack and neatly-folded laundry as evidence of pre-meditated murder. Since I had a couple days’ worth of dishes sitting in the sink due to hockey games the past two nights, I think I’ll risk the death of a loved one in order to save an outbreak of Ebola from growing in my sink today.

Judging from all the yadda-yadda superstitions and traditional beliefs associated with New Year’s Day, it seems to me that the safest course of action would be to clean the house the day after Christmas and drink yourself into an alcohol-induced coma until somewhere around January 3 so as to not befoul your home with evil misdeeds or inadvertently kill a family member. Pass the bottle, chum; I’ll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne.

My humble apologies, dear readers

Sorry that I haven't posted much as of late, guys. Work has been keeping me really busy, and sometimes I'm just a bit uninspired. And when I do come up with something to write about, by the time I pull together enough time to actually write about it, it's no longer blogworthy or some other crap comes up that pulls me away from the laptop.

I actually plan on writing a bunch of stuff over the next couple days though. Be patient, and thanks for reading!

Religion of Peace (and a stack of dead bodies)

It’s kinda been awhile since I truly snapped, went off the angry deep end, and did a blog full of venom. Today I snapped.

The Sunday morning news programs always get some talking head on camera claiming that Islam is a religion of peace. The next person who tells me that Islam is a religion of peace is gonna get a teddy bear named Mohamed shoved so far up his ass he’ll be spitting out stuffing. Each day it gets harder & harder to be accepting as I listen to the rhetoric about how peaceful Islam is, when their very tenets call for Jihad and holy war against non-believers of Islam.

When you get the prominent leader of a Muslim country claims he has no ill will towards America, yet a recent military parade through the streets of his capital featured missiles painted with “DEATH TO AMERICA” on them, I find it hard to be accepting. (Hey, Mahmoud, did you really think we wouldn’t have someone who could read Farsi watch the films?) Same-said leader also has stated in speeches that he intends to run all Jews into the sea and that Israel will burn in the fires of Islamic fury. Yeah, sounds pretty peaceful.

NOTE: Not for one second do I believe this bogus crap in the new National Intelligence Estimate that says Iran stopped trying to make a nuke bomb years ago. Uncle Mahmoud wants a bomb so bad he can taste it. Plus, the Israeli Mossad found nuclear material from North Korea in Syria, and Syria doesn’t fart unless Iran says so.

Uncle Mahmoud also says thee are no homosexuals in Iran…..perhaps maybe because you KILL THEM? And Islam as a whole has an abysmal history of treating women like housepets or worse. A Saudi woman who was abducted and gang-raped was sentenced to 200 lashes of the whip and six months in jail for speaking out about the case.

And then there’s the Great Teddy Bear Scandal of 2007. Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year old British woman who was in Sudan teaching English to kids, is the latest victim of Islam. Gibbons’ students decided as a class to name their class teddy bear Mohamed, which happens to be the most popular boys name in the world (due to the rise of Islam) and of course the most popular name among students in her class. It’s also the name of Islam’s prophet. Not the God, mind you, just the prophet. Well, someone heard about & got a bug up their ass, and Gibbons was arrested for insulting Islam, inciting hatred, and showing contempt for religious beliefs.

While held in jail, thousands of uneducated Third World asshat zealots with nothing more productive to do protested outside the jail, calling for her immediate execution. Facing six months in prison, 40 lashes, and a fine, Gibbons was eventually sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation back to England.

Hey, Sudan: you have a region of your country called DARFUR where a couple MILLION people have been left homeless and a couple hundred thousand slaughtered. You think maybe you could address THAT little problem first instead of protesting the name of a stuffed toy and calling for the death of a foreign woman who was trying to educate your children? If you’re going to act all butt-hurt over something, GENOCIDE within your own orders might be a better place to start.

Every day around the world, Islamic terrorists are killing people who either don’t believe in Islam, or just so happen to believe a different VERSION of Islam than they do. Half the people Muslims kill are other Muslims. Car bombs and rocket/mortar attacks often claim children as the victims. I borrowed the following statistics from www.thereligionofpeace.com, a watchdog organization:

12/9/2007 (Swat, Pakistan) - Children are among eight killed when a suicide car bomber rams a police checkpoint.
12/8/2007 (Farah, Afghanistan) - Eight local police are killed in two separate ambushes by religious militants.
12/8/2007 (Helmand, Afghanistan) - The Taliban hang a 12-year-old boy from a tree.
12/8/2007 (Wasit, Iraq) - Radical Sunnis are suspected in a rocket attack on a Shia house in which a family of four is killed.
12/8/2007 (Mahmudiya, Iraq) - Jihadis kill one child in a mortar attack.
12/8/2007 (Baiji, Iraq) - A female suicide bomber kills seven Iraqis.

The website’s Weekly Jihad Report for this past week listed 38 Jihad attacks with 205 killed and 218 critically injured. As their header states on the website: The religion of peace, and a big stack of dead bodies.

Rhino Turd Update!!!!

I just wanted to give everyone a last-minute update as to the current bids on the rhino turds on eBay. It's 1:00 PM on Sunday and the auctions end in about an hour and a half.

As it stands:

WHITE RHINO--$1,075.00
BLACK RHINO--$780.00
SUMATRAN RHINO--$690.00
INDIAN RHINO $660.00

The projected winner in the Great Turd Battle will be the white rhino. Hooray for white rhinos and white rhino turd lovers worldwide. This is some great shit, I tell ya'. I may have to gold-dip my own scat & sell it.

Last Minute Stocking Stuffer Idea!!!!

I have officially seen it all.

Wondering what to get this Christmas for that special someone who has everything? Try some endangered crap.

The International Rhino Foundation is auctioning on eBay four pieces of dung from the endangered species and will use the proceeds to fund conservation efforts. The pieces come from four of the five types of rhino: white, black, Indian (Greater One-Horned Rhino) and Sumatran; the Javan rhino is so rare that a sample could not be collected. Each turd is available separately.

Each piece is dried, mounted in a clear trophy case and marked with the type of rhino that produced it. The auction ends Sunday and as of Saturday afternoon bidding had been between 11 and 24 bids, depending on the turd in question. The current top bid as of 2:00 PM is for white rhino poop standing at $743.00. Sumatran dookie is next at $670.00, Indian rhino crap is right behind at $650.00, and the Black rhino spoor nugget was standing at $620.00. Shipping for each turd is $16.00.

Hurry, kids! Bidding ends tomorrow! There are only four turds for sale, and I hasten to mention there are only 17,500 rhinos left in the wild and only 1200 living in captivity.

At last, the Internet is being used for a constructive purpose.

Lining the Hamster Cage With Gossip Rags

OHMYGAWWWWD!!!!!

OHMYGAWWWWD!!!!!

Keira Knightley copied Katie Holmes’ bob haircut!

Is Britney pregnant again?

Is Britney adopting Chinese twins?

Pregnant Nicole Ritchie looks skinnier than ever!!!

Keifer Sutherland works in prison laundry room!

Did Lindsay Lohan screw a fellow patient in a stairwell at rehab?

The REAL reason Hulk Hogan & wife Linda split up!!!

We vote K-Fed for Father of the Year!!!!

Katherine Heigl says blockbuster movie “Knocked Up” was sexist but still cashes paycheck!!!!

Paris Eats a Rice Cake!!!

Teri Hatcher Gets Sued!!! Madonna Sues Co-Op!!!

Britney, Nicole, TomKat, and Brangelina all plan to star their babies in High School Musical 12, planned for summer 2015 release!!!!

Are the Spice Girls really friends?

Dirty old man Lance Armstrong screwing underfed waif Olsen twin!!!

Stupid Baby Names of the Stars!!!! Alabama Windstorm Dogfood Sir Crapsalot!!!

Michael Jackson to donate nose to Smithsonian!!!!

Jennifer Anniston talks to Brad’s mom!!!! It’s war, says Angelina!!!!!

Julia Roberts Furious!!! Finds out she’s really over-rated!!!!

Who’s had plastic surgery? Who needs plastic surgery? Whose boobs are real? What stars look like without makeup!!!! What stars eat!!! What stars eat so little they can no longer poo? Who kissed who? Who shagged who? Who was spotted EATING? Who hates who? Who secretly wants to be a garbage man? Who was spotted wearing the same outfits and who wore it better? Who’s gay? Who might be gay? Who’s NOT gay that we said was gay last week? What stars actually interact with their kids? What stars kiss in a movie being filmed now for a 2009 release that we’ll speculate are a couple just to ruin their marriages?

Who the hell really cares? Whose life is THAT empty that this shit actually matters? I’m so sick of the gossip rags these days that instead I end up reading the labels of chewing gum as I stand in line at the grocery store… I’m not saying that I don’t occasionally read one now & again, and I have a friend who reads them pretty regularly (though she knows they’re full of crap) but things are getting so over the top with minute by minute reports of Britney on TMZ and other such low-brow sources that it’s bordering on the ridiculous. It's gone from gossip to soap opera to just plain dumpster diving crapola.

I don’t care how many Third World babies Brad & Angelina bought this week to add to their menagerie. Their house is turning into the United Nations petting zoo. I don’t care anymore if Britney gets her kids back, or even gets her hair back for that matter. I knew her career was over years ago when she married K-Fed. I have never cared what stars wear since I consider most “high fashion” to be overpriced (and hideous) rags. I don’t care who sleeps with whom. I don’t care what pampered rehab they pretend to go to or what they do in jail for the 87 minutes they stay there, since that’s generally all staged PR crap to begin with. I stopped trying to figure out why these assholes burden their kids with imbecile names unfit for a house pet. The name Pilot Inspektor is unfit even for a Chia Pet. One week a star is too fat, the next too skinny. And I could give a shit less what star is gay. Sure, I really do love a good train wreck and occasionally blog about really HUGE celebrity screwups, but they aren’t the basis of my existence.

Any celebrity who enjoys a modicum of privacy is “reclusive and difficult”. Any celebrity who tells the paparazzi to back off “flew into a rage”. Any celebrity who eats more than a rice cake a day is fat, and then that causes them to go anorexic and likewise be ridiculed. And any time a star over the age of 60 goes to a doctor for anything, it’s reported that they’re circling the drain, on their deathbed making their last wishes, and here’s the story of their “tragic last days”, whether they died or not. Nothing like reading about your tragic last days and then recovering, I guess.

Maybe more people will read my blog if I become a prissy diva and dish spurious rumors about famous people? It worked for Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr. (oops, I mean Perez Hilton) Or I could just cry like a wounded seal on YouTube like Chris Crocker…

Nahhhhh… I’ll just print up some t-shirts and hats to look legit, grab my camcorder, and go around asking drunk neophytes on spring break to lift their shirts so I can sell the footage under the name “Stupid Chicks Unleashed”.Care to be one of my financial backers? I need startup capital.