Drafting closer to home

Me and the boys had our baseball draft tonight.

For some reason, only 6 people signed up (at least 3 more were interested and never did).

Anyways, here's my draft order:

StPattyFingeredMe:
1. Johan Santana, SP (6)
2. Derek Lee, 1B (7)
3. Ichiro Suzuki, OF (18)
4. Roy Oswalt, SP (19)
5. Aramis Ramirez, 3B (30)
6. Jeff Kent, 2B (31)
7. Derek Jeter, SS (42)^*
8. Chone Figgins, 2B (43)
9. Billy Wagner, RP (54)
10. Joe Nathan, RP (55)
11. Chad Codero, RP (66)
12. Andy Pettitte, SP (67)
13. Adam Dunn, OF (78)
14. Mark Buehrle, SP (79)
15. Scott Podsednik, OF (90)
16. Chipper Jones, 3B (91)
17. C.C. Sabathia, SP (102)
18. Kenji Johjima, C (103)
19. Keith Foulke, RP (114)
20. Coco Crisp, OF (115)
21. Jhonny Peralta, SS (126)
22. Cliff Floyd, OF (127)
23. Scot Shields, RP (138)
24. Jose Contreras, SP (139)

^*Another nice number

The shame of 6 people. However, the real danger comes from the stat categories:
Hitters: Runs, Home Runs, RBIs, Stolen Bases, Assists, OPS
Pitchers: Wins, Saves, Strikeouts, ERA, WHIP, K/BB

We shall see.....

---

So why does CBS.Sportsline have baseball fantasy drafts that don't start until April 20th? I mean, Yahoo lets you draft within the hour... you usually see a team fill up quick like that.

Weird.

Shouldn't there be a beginning trade deadline?

The drafts for various baseball pools was yesterday afternoon and already I received a trade proposal. Naturally I turned around and offered a couple in response.

Of course, this was the trade: Gary Sheffield and Travis Hoffman for Vladamir Guerrero and Fransisco Rodriguez.

Er, I don't think so! Sheffield was actually better than Guerrero last season in fantasy stats, but that doesn't mean he's expected to actually continue that. And Hoffman is a definite downgrade from K-Rod, who had 2 fewer saves with 40 fewer strikeouts.

A retrospective on irony and numerics

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Well of course he's a fudge packer!

"Shocking" news today that the pacifist nutbar who's last name keeps looking like "Looney" when I see it in the headlines bites on pillows like there's no tomorrow.

Although the constitution reverted back to the original 1969 document when Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in 2003, the status of gay and lesbian rights remain unclear in the war-torn country.

So, uh, they treat the homos pretty bad in Iraq, huh? The lives of those who engage in sodomy in Iraq are forfeit, huh? The regime that the United States and her allies defeated in battle were fighting amoungst other things to continue the right to kill sapphists. Interesting... aren't the other more noble aims of the Confederate Army swept under the rug when the "issue" of slavery can be bandied about to promote self-hatred south of the Mason-Dixon line? Yet the "peace activist" and his own family acknowledge now that if the Iraqis were aware of how effeminate this arse bandit was his life would be in grave danger. [I thought that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's or General Rick Hillier's tough talk in Afghanistan was going to make the lives of Canadians grave danger already, so what difference does it make? -ed]

So doesn't that mean that the American Armed Forces, with their "hateful" policy about asking and telling, and their "neandrethal" attitudes towards women in combat scenarios, was in fact on the side of light, trying to change and enlighten a culture that in the past has been shown to be highly misogynist and homophobic into a 21st century nation celebrating its diversity? Do you think the poofter and his poofter partner are going to mention any of this? Of course not! That would be silly!

While we've seen upteen thousand pictures of James Loney, his equally-epicene partner Dan Hunt has so far remained out of the Google archives: I'm not 100% sure, but I believe I rectify (tee hee... rectify) the situation by linking to this photo here. Dr. Dan Hunt from Sault Ste. Marie, the Looney's home town, is on the right (he sure looks like a uranist doesn't he? Another photo of him looking slightly less uranian is here)

I can only shamefully admit to my lack of knowledge on this subject because I haven't actually cared much to follow this story. I haven't been glued to CBC-TV to catch the details of his teary press conference, where I likely would have figured out that he was a complete bugger. Had I seen this pederast earlier, I would have been able to break the story on this blog all investigative reporterish. Then I would have endured criticism about being judgemental (damn, and probably some hits). And then I'd have been proven right. Ahh, what might have been.

I wonder if Mr. Loney is interested in going back and doing more "peace activisting" over in Iraq. (What exactly do they do over there anyways? Sing "We Shall Not Be Moved" and hold pride parades?) I wonder if his recently-paraded flamerity will place other "Christian Peace Activists" in greater jeopardy..."Hey Akhmed, not only is that man an American and a believer in a religion other than that spoken by the Prophet Muhammed, but he also knows the words to every Melissa Ethridge song ever written." "Derka Derka, he's going down"...

Bonus Link: James Loney, born May 7 1984 in Houston Texas: you can collect his rookie card if you like.

Why Men and women will never be happy

I'd heard of this sort of thing before, but when somebody showed me an example a couple days ago I was in shock. Well, today I was sent an even bigger example.

Example of what, you may ask? To be precise, women's condescending attitude on dating sites. We all heard of the massive potential: meet people for easy over the internet. Talk about relationship goals, sexual goals, entertainment goals, etc. in an easy to handle environment. Think she's gorgeous? Tell her, its way easier in text form. Want to ride his penis until you forget your middle name? Just tell him. Don't like giving oral sex, but have no qualms about joining her at the local Marxist-Leninist club? You can easily and openly discuss it all, with no hangups.

Well, surprise surprise, women have found a way to introduce hangups. I think this is a good time to show an example of what I mean:

LITTLESTAR
"Can You Make Me Sparkle?

OK

New set of rules:

1 - If you are a SINGLE male (LET ME REALLY emphasize this point)
2 - Over 35 or Under 24
3 - A Smoker (light, casual, whatever, I don't care)
4 - Looking for a quick get together
5 - Hoping for a onenight stand
6 - Going to be unable to hold an actual, intelligent conversation when or if anything between us proceeds from emails to chat, or, a meeting (sorry, I am venting)

Save your messages/chats/smiles/backstages/whatever - well it may work on some girls, I'm not one of them - sorry. This means I will NOT reply to your IM's or Emails or Winks. I don't care how 'hot' your body is, or, how well endowed you are. Unless you look like Vin Diesel's twin brother, I WON'T reply to single guys.

So, before you bombard me with more IM's & smiles guys, stop, go to a mirror. Look at yourself. Have you ever been stopped in a mall by someone looking for your autogrpah because they thought you were Vin Diesel - no huh? Then, do not bother to try to contact me if you are a single guy.

One more time, as apparently SINGLE MEN can NOT read - do not try to contact me if you are a single male, please, it wastes both our time.

Otherwise, onto the good stuff. If you can read below, you have a sense of who I am, a real tiny sense, but, a sense none the less. What am I looking for - fun times, BUT only after we get to know one another. To me, Intimacy starts in the mind, not in your pants.

Now, what am I looking for - a couple. Let me be clear about that, by a couple I mean a man AND a woman. Not a man that has a wife/girlfriend/partner that doesn't know what you are doing, or, who you hope to surprise by bringing me home to - if she doesn't know what you are up to, do us both a favor and don't waste my time or your own. I am continuing to come into contact with some apsects of my sexuality, and, am looking to expand my horizons....I would have said sexpand, but, the subtlety of that would likely be wasted on many.

XO
Star

What a demure and polite and wonderful girl. Compare this with the typical male profile which I asked for in comparison (photo not listed):

FUNTIME1313
"love to have fun"

looking for online fun and maybe to meet in person...nothing too serious...just wanting to kick back and have some fun

Notice a difference between these two styles? The woman is already starting out incredibly picky, and demanding, and downright hostile to anybody that might dare start out talking to her without meeting the laundry list of requirements she has assembled. Apparently other women's have been even worse.

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but this is exactly what's wrong with women today: the sexual revolution and the feminist revolution and the spice girls revolution have all assembled themselves together to create a generation of women who demand everything and are prepared to give up nothing in return. I mean seriously...

The first place you notice this is the bar: girls get free cover, drink specials, theme nights, and spend them dressed up to be as alluring as they possibly can be. Then, when they arrive at the bar, they delight in shutting men down. Guys who talk to them are pushed away, guys who buy them drinks gain 5 minutes of coversation before being pushed away, and guys who don't get pushed away gain the thrill of talking about completely banal subjects for hours and plying often hundreds of dollars on drinks only to be pushed away at the end of the night or given a phone number that isn't even real [or four phone numbers from the same girl, each of them "hers" and each of them false -ed]. Meanwhile, any undue attention from guys they don't find attractive enough to play around with like a cat with a ball of string can expect a flurry of insults about their appearance that would result in crying if they were ever received. You look at their attractive attributes and you are also yelled at for the crime of looking at the body parts they spent so much time making plainly visible!

In the old days, of course, men were aware of this danger and set out a serious of cultural norms and rules that kept everything in check. Men had full control over all property. Men and men alone exercised political rights. Men controlled the family name and laid down the rules. Women controlled the sex.

And there was balance.

The problem is that if you give women equal control over property, suffrage, and family while leaving them with the control over sex, you are creating a very dangerous world. I don't think the high level of violence common in young men is entirely removed from the fact that average men will find themselves shot down by below-average women while above-average women milk their appearance for all their worth. [on the bright side, time heals all wounds and also rights all wrongs: women grow up to be old Bridget Bardot crones, while men grow into the grisled sex symbols of Sean Connery or Harrison Ford or Patrick Stewart -ed]

When above-average women find themselves constantly desperate for a wild night of passion and discover that even men whose leagues they should be completely out of are totally disinterested in them and are willing to turn down blatent offers of intimate liasons, when a guy with his shirt unbuttoned can be propositioned by every woman on the sidewalk, and when males at the bar can get in with no cover and be given free drinks and offered free dinners and movies and backrubs in return for the smallest amount of attention delivered to beautiful women who cannot help but fawn over them...only than shall we the Male Species (Homo Sapiens -- rational man) truely be free as God intended for us.


No sexual taxation without sexual representation!

Baseball Pool Draft Results:

Well, as of today I'm going to stop promoting my baseball pool due to lack of interest. I had up to 6 people interested, but alas not quite enough.

I did however have three Yahoo Public Leagues draft. Here are the results for each round, which player I picked up and where they were overall:

Alberta Mariners:
1. Derek Lee, 1B (8)
2. Jason Bay, OF (17)
3. Rich Harden, SP (32)
4. Rafael Furcal, SS (41)
5. Felix Hernandez, SP (56)
6. Francisco Rodríguez, RP (65)
7. Brett Myers, SP (80)
8. Eric Gagne, RP (89)
9. Rickie Weeks, 2B (104)
10. Jason Varitek, C (113)
11. Willy Taveras, OF (128)
12. Aaron Rowand, OF (137)^*
13. Jeff Francoeur, OF (152)
14. Garrett Atkins, 3B (161)
15. Justin Morneau, 1B (176)
16. Scot Shields, RP (185)
17. Rich Aurilia, 3B/SS (200)
18. Jason Marquis, SP (209)
19. Bronson Arroyo, SP (224)
20. Austin Kearns, OF (233)
21. Dmitri Young, 1B/OF (248)

^*nice number

Edmonton Separatists:
1. Vladamir Guerrero, OF (3)
2. Chone Figgins, 2B/3B (22)
3. Victor Martinez, C (27)
4. Francisco Rodríguez, RP (46)
5. Morgan Ensberg, 3B (51)
6. Andy Pettitte, SP (70)
7. Mark Buehrle, SP (75)
8. Julio Lugo, SS (94)
9. C.C. Sabathia, SP (99)^*
10. Edgar Renteria^†, SS (118)
11. Brian Giles, OF (123)
12. Livan Hernandez, SP (142)
13. Willy Taveras, OF (147)
14. Nick Swisher, 1B (166)
15. Torii Hunter, OF (171)
16. Scott Linebrink, RP (190)
17. A.J. Pierzynski, C (195)
18. Dustin Hermanson, RP (214)
19. Craig Counsell, 2B (219)
20. Juan Rincon, RP (238)
21. Jose Vidro, 2B (243)

^*Wayne Gretzsky he ain't
^†I dare you to listen to this song and not use these lyrics

Royal Alberta Navy:
1. Manny Ramirez, OF (4)
2. Pedro Martinez, SP (21)
3. Chase Utley, 2B (28)
4. Marcus Giles, SS (45)
5. Scott Podsednik, OF (52)
6. Chipper Jones, 2B (69)
7. Billy Wagner, RF (76)
8. Chad Cordero, RP (93)
9. Coco Crisp, OF (100)
10. Edgar Renteria^*, SS (117)
11. Jose Cortreras, SP (124)
12. Lilian Hernandez, SP (141)
13. Bobby Crosby, SP (148)
14. Brad Radke, RP (165)
15. Brady Clark, OF (172)
16. Jeff Weaver, SP (189)
17. Garrett Atkins, 3B (196)
18. J.D. Drew, OF (213)
19. Esteban Loaiza, SP (220)
20. Jamie Moyer, SP (237)
21. Jason Kendall, C (244)

^*Halfway down this page somebody else has some lyrics

Fun military links

The side effect of 2 days of researching military hardware is that its addictive.

So here are some of the fun links I stumbled across during my research:

An aircraft carrier made entirely out of LEGO

Miss Rusian Army, a campaign to feature pretty women in the Russian military. A photo of 2005 winner can be seen here...the contest was once Miss Red Army but obviously that wouldn't work these days. Well, except in Canada. Har har.

Norwegian mothers are warning their daughters that they have to be married before they turn 30, or the military will draft them. I wonder how many slutty 29 year olds lucky Norkse men have trapped with this system?

...the Soviets abandoned the base to the Ukrainian army in 1995, but the top brass weren't sure what to do with it. "It's a bit of a national joke. Ukraine has one sub, and the battery's gone. It costs something like $1.25m to buy a new battery, and they haven't got it."

Trapped behind enemy lines in 1942, the Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen covered herself in tree branches and slowly sailed past the Japanese Navy. Didn't I see that on Down Periscope?

The venerable AEGIS cruiser seems to be a thing of the past. The article is from 18 months ago, so it makes sense that the CG-21 Cruiser had not yet been announced.

Now about the north....

The two posts below were, of course, making an assumption that a few people had trouble with:

Alberta would continue to run between 49°N and 60°N latitude, same as before. Only now instead of the eastern border being at 110°W, it would be at 99°W. And the western border would run along the Pacific Ocean (except for the State of Alaska) rather than ending at 120°W or along the Rocky Mountains that existed today. (Bear in mind this map should technically be showing Ontario and beyond, I just needed to crib this map for the purpose of demonstration... of course, ignoring Ontario is a fun side effect of this sort of map making).


So the question arises: what happens if Alberta goes beyond simply taking over Saskatchewan and British Columbia?

Well, the map at the right shows you what it would look like if Yukon and the NWT were absobed into Canada. But what difference(s) would it make?

Well, the obvious one is the air force: covering that extra territory would be a serious drain on the airforce I mentioned in this post. Likewise the armed forces will have to be expanded slightly, with some additional armoured vehicles that are designed for the use in frigid northern climes. Finally, the Royal Alberta Navy would definitely require icebreaker warships such as the kind Stephen Harper has recently discussed -- not to mention additional nuclear submarines. The Marine Corps should be unaffected.

Changes to the Air Force:

• Rather than 18-23 CTOL F-35A fighters, an even 25 F-35s.
• An additional fleet of 15 F-16U (F-16 C/D Block 50/52 Plus, similar to the warplanes used by the Danish Air Force. In a simulated battle over Hans Island last year, I read that Canada's CF-18 fleet barely had the range to make it to Hans Island, but also noted that the F-16 has shown itself to be a superior plane in northern operations (typically ground operations, but also low-altitude northern flights). These would be handy to have around. On the other hand, 15 MiG-35s might do the trick instead, but that depends on their cold-weather reliability
• 25 RQ-1 Predator drones
• Two additional Raytheon Sentinels
• One additional A330 refuelling plane
• A total of 6 H-92 choppers instead of 3-4
• 12-15 Chinook H3s instead of 8-12

Changes to the Navy:

• Two Arktika-class icebreakers, both of which would need to be modified to carry an armament package, including deck guns, surface-to-surface missiles, and SAMS
• Three additional icebreakers, with a small armament package (SAMs only) with helicopter-support capabilites. The Healy, Endurance, or Aurora Australis are models of the sort of ship that would be required (and might require building ourselves)
• 5 additional Norwegian Ula-class diesel subs for Arctic patrol
• Three extra Virginia-class subs for a total of 8

Changes to the Army:

• 25-30 FV 432s instead of 20-25
• 15 M6 Bradleys instead of 5, and 15 M2A3s instead of 10
• 30 Patria XA-360s: the Finns developed this vehicle for work up north and we should be prepared to follow suit
• 20 "Stridsfordon 90" light tanks. CV9030 model seems like a wise idea

So this is the variation if Alberta takes control of the north. The diamonds and the Artic Ocean are included.

So this will require an additional base of operations. Paulatuk seems like the best choice, but Tuktoyaktuk is another useful choice. Tuktoyaktuk is an interesting choice seeing how the DEW line is positioned there. The Beaufort Sea is frozen much of the year, so the naval capacities are reduced. However, a sub pen built there with underwater access would be a handy thing: if its possible. Sub pen information is fairly sketchy: there was one hollowed out of a mountain in Sevastopol, Ukraine; the Americans had one in Florida. Other than them, nothing much about submarine docking ports is known: the potential to build one in the far north is questionable, but definitely worth it.

A Convention is an excellent time to promote the Royal Alberta Navy

Courtesy of ABFreedom:

The Calgary Congress: Restoring Responsible Government put on by the Citizen's Centre for Freedom and Democracy.

Tempting to go, but it is $300 you know. That's a lot of money.

Moving onto Alberta's Army and Marine Corps

(this is part two of the discussion which started here.

The Royal Alberta Ground Forces (RAGF)

1. Tanks are really starting to become a 20th century creation, but still are handy to have, along with proper defenses. 12 of these or so should provide an adequate fleet of main battle tanks.
2. 20-25 FV 432s sound like a nice touch for pure infantry transport
3. The Canadian Coyote APC is nice, but the M2/M3 Bradley is a more all-round vehicle. 25 M3A3s, 10 M2A3s, and 5 M6s for air defense
4. Since the Bradley is a tracked machine, there will also be need for wheeled mid-level offensive platforms: 25-30 Mowag Pirahnas seem suitable for the task (the Coyote is derived from it)
5. Artillery is still applicable in our modern times: no less than 40 PzH2000 German Panzers (partially because you can't go wrong with German Panzers)
6. 10 G6 Howitzers are also handy to have around
7. 20 Ukrainian BTR-94 APCs sound like a beautiful idea, they are a little more versatile than the American equivalent, the old LVT-7
8. The Israeilis make a lovely armoured D9 "battle-dozer", and buying 5 or so of them seems like a wise investment (well, technically we buy a "D9 armour kit" and then attach it to an existing D9)
9. With a mere 10 Apache attack helicopters planned, air support on the battlefield will be primarily a reconaissance aim (hence all the unmanned vehicles). As a result, a dedicated anti-tank ground weapon will be required in addition to the artillery. May I suggest 25 NM-142 Norwegian tank-killers? Norway is in general a good model for study militarily, as they have the same climate we do (none of this Aussie-following).
10. Finally a fleet of fast-transport vehicle will be required: The French-made Sarajevo-taxi seems a good fit. I'd suggest 60 "VBL TOURELLE FERMEE", an additional 30 "VBL (à flancs redressés) CANON", with 10 "VBL TOW"s and 5 "VBL ALBI-MISTRAL"s
11. Finally, a fleet of approximately 400 HMMWVs is appropriate, with the vast majority of them variants of the M1145.

Ground Force Operations would be centred at the primary base of operations of the Royal Albertan Ground Forces (Alberta Army, or RAGF), located at Suffield, Alberta. Additional bases would be at Kamloops and Saskatoon.


The Royal Alberta Marine Corps (RAMC)
The Royal Alberta Marine Corps would not be a traditional marine outfit as 20th century terminology would understand it. The RAMC would encompass emergent-technology warfare, special forces operations, and skunkworks. Sort of SAS-meets-SEALs-meets-JTF2-meets-DeltaForce.

Vehicle-wise, there wouldn't be much to the RAMC, but what would be included would be:
1. 25 NH90 helicopters, 15 of them NFH versions with 10 of the TTH versions.
2. 40 French-made VABs will provide for the urban warfare division.
3. Three C2 Greyhounds for paratrooping missions
4. 20 RQ-1 Predator drones, with 5 RQ-1 Mariners, and 15 RQ-4 Global Hawks
5. Approximately 8 Skjold-class Norwegian cutters for traditional marine purposes
6. Also for traditional purposes, 10 LCAC hovercraft that can be deployed from Albertan Navy mobile docking platforms
7. One British Bay-class landing dock ship as well, for dedicated LCAC missions
8. 10 LCU Mark 10 amphibious assault craft
9. Two modified Astute-class British attack subs: one rigged with a diving team delivery system (similar to what the USS Polk underwent in the Richard Henrck novel Attack On the Queen; the other rigged for ELINT (electronic warfare and signal aquisition)
10. 6 Ka-50 Russian gunship helicopters

Again, much of the potential of the RAMC is going to be in its technological tools and devices: specialized rifles and other such weaponry will be key, is will be the ability to deploy well-trained teams quickly into a situation. For this department, the training, not the equipment, is key.

Royal Albertan Marine Corps would be trained solely at their training facility in Canoe Lake, Alberta. Their base of operations would be located there as well, with air resources stored at Cold Lake and naval resources stored at Vancouver.

Update, October 28 2006 4:56pm: I never did add on here that the math for the Navy/Airforce/Army/Specialforces has been redone assuming Alberta annexes much of the NWT and Yukon

Thinking ahead to the Royal Alberta Navy (and RAAF, and RAMC, and RAGF)

The Royal Alberta Navy (RAN)

1. One of these
2. At least four, maybe six of these.
3. Two of these.
4. five or six of these with one of these.
5. At least 5 of these
6. This means we will have to buy about 45 STOVL F-35B Joint Strike Fighters and at least two C2 Greyhound cargo planes.
7. I'm not sure if we should go for a Halifax classed frigate or not: the Italian-French designed FREMM frigate seems much better suited to Alberta's naval needs: three or four of them would be wonderful. A pair of Horizon-class frigates seem a good additional boost of firepower. Six cruisers seems a sensible size for Alberta's Navy.
8. One of these, maybe two
9. Between 15 and 20 of these

With no territorial claims over the north, (its tempting, but I would say no) there is no need for smaller aircraft carriers and the like. But damn I want that DD(X) fast-response warship.

We likely would find the DD(X) class ship would replace the need for corvettes and destroyer escorts. This means that the DD(X) and CG(X) ships could be split: half of each type serving as a battlegroup to go with our aircraft carrier, the other half to be available for task forces with the frigates.

In a support vessel role, the Spanish Patino-class seems a good fit. Its modern, but a little slow. A single Supply-class American ship might be a good additional purchase.

As for naval bases, that almost goes without saying. The main naval base will be located in Equimalt, Alberta. A second naval base will be located in the Prince Rupert, Alberta/Port Edward, Alberta region. A third and smaller naval base will be operated in West Vancouver.

Additionally there will be three inland naval reservist stations: Edmonton, Alberta; Calgary, Alberta; and Saskatoon, Alberta.


The Royal Alberta Air Force (RAAF)

1. It makes sense to have another 18-23 CTOL F-35A Joint Strike Fighters for deployment at ground bases.
2. In addition, another 3-4 Sikorsky H-92 lift choppers (ground-deploy variant) would be handy. These two designs would fit well in the context of integrated airforce/navy supply.
3. 10 AH-64D Apaches
4. A single B1-B long range bomber
5. Five A400M strategic airlifts.
6. Three Raytheon Sentinel ASTOR command and control aircraft with AWACS capability
7. Two A330 refuelling planes
8. 8-12 Chinook HC.3 troop transport choppers
9. Ten RQ-4B Global Hawk unmanned drones, and an additional 5 RQ-8 Fire Scout unmanned choppers and 3 British Corax UAVs

Cold Lake, Alberta will be the primary airforce base in the Independent Republic of Alberta. Additional "2nd-tier" airforce bases will be in Prince Rupert, Edmonton, Fort Chipewyan, Wollaston Lake (shown here on Google Maps, Regina, and Kamloops. Finally, RAAF reservist bases will be additionally set up in Vancouver, Prince George, Calgary, Grande Prairie, and Saskatoon.

---

As for the Royal Alberta Marine Cops (RAMC) and the Royal Alberta Ground Forces (RAGF), I'll write more about those tomorrow. Its bedtime for me. (This post took the better part of an hour)

Update, 3:56pm: The rundown of army and marine (read: special forces) equipment has been completed.
Update, October 28 2006 4:54pm: I never did add on here that the math for the Navy/Airforce/Army/Specialforces has been redone assuming Alberta annexes much of the NWT and Yukon

Perhaps Lyle Oberg should take up drinking

Remember that before Klein sobered up he was a much better premier than he is now. The occasional drunken outburst wasn't anything particularly catastrophic, and it kept him from throwing things at Pages.

But with the turfing of Lyle Oberg this week, we see Klein is getting into one of his Chretien moods. That's never a good sign. When he starts thinking like Trudeau, feeling like Chretien, and acting like Martin its time to have an ice cold beer.

Which comes to my decision: the next candidate for Premier should be a drinker. Not a louse or anything, but a good hardcore Churchill-style drinker. An outright alcoholic is probably a bad thing, but he definitely should toe the line a little bit. A drinker in the job would show we have a real man for the position: one who isn't afraid to lay in bed drinking a Guinness at 3:30am watching Yes, Minister on DVD after finishing a blog post. A guy who's willing to take all the bullshit stress that comes with such a high position and then slam some Jack Daniels on his downtime to leave him emotionally ready to do the job again the next morning. A Premier of the Province of Alberta who can hang around at a pub working out the issues of the day until eventually stumbling on the brilliant clarity that such sessions typically bring (such as "why don't we make health care entirely 100% private and user pay and make grocery stores nationalized and free" or "if she's gonna wear a tube top and miniskirt to Filthy Freakin' McNasty's then I should be allowed to just walk up and squeeze her ass with no possible legal consequence" or "if we changed the lyrics to the Skynard song just a little, Sweet Home Alberta would be a kick-ass national anthem").

So how about it Lyle? Do you like the sauce? Do you guzzle copicuous amounts of Romulan Ale at diplomatic functions? Do you take messages from the Scotch Ambassador in the communications room in Arab nations? If not, then sorry, I cannot endorse you as Premier.

If Oberg/Norris/Morton/Stelmach are all casual drinkers or something, then we may have a problem. I might have to join the campaign to run this province prematurely. I had hoped for a Norris/Morton soft separatist in power first just to let things build up, but as I guzzle my 2nd AGD in 45 minutes and ponder a couple shots of Jagermeister before bedtime, I am left concerned that we might not have time to dilly-dally. The next Premier of Alberta has to be some sort of drunkard. Or we're all in trouble.

This comes to light just in time for the announcement (and of course sudden controversy) that Costco is planning to build a liquor store in Sherwood Park, a quick drive away from my humble abode. Time to get a membership! $50/year to receive Kokanee Gold at $5.95/case sounds like a wise investment. Alberta Liquor Store Association President John Szumlas says "we are leery that Costco and other large-format retailers will move to radically change how we retail adult beverages in this province." Well duh! That's the idea, bozo. Perhaps this is the needed pressure to get the provincial government out of the liquor wholesaling business as well. The article also mentions "Government control of supply and warehousing helps to prevent the sale of smuggled liquor, which happens in other jurisdictions, he said." This is of course in relation to court action underway this week in Washington State where Costco is trying to force the State Government out of the booze business. Good luck Costco: may you bring the light and wisdom to our little fiefdom soon as well.

You Might be a Global Warming Skeptic If....

1. ...Your father can tell you how the prairies started warming up when he was younger -- only to have some of the worst winters on record a few years later
2. ...Your letter to the editor in the Edmonton SUN asking if global warming can be real when its August 8th and we haven't had a single day over 28 Celcius yet gets a half dozen retorts that you can't use isolated incidents to comment on global warming
3. ...The same people who wrote those retorts write letters to the Edmonton Journal six months later claiming that a brown Christmas or a warm spell in early February is proof non grata that humanity is destroying the globe
4. ...You link to this page
5. ...You read about Leif Erikson and the Medieval Climate Optimum even though you secretly believe that Greenland was named as a cruel joke and/or an advertising gimmick
6. ...You aren't making plans for the Northwest Passage anytime soon
7. ...You link to this trackback
8. You make a comment on this Western Standard Shotgun blog entry
9. ...You still don't hold out much hope for Grande Prairie to be a valuable warm-water port
10. ...It makes you giggle to learn that forests may contribute to global warming
11. ...You're convinced "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow" is one of the greatest South Park episodes ever
12. ...You bought a lot of aerosol cans and an old fuel guzzling diesel 1-ton truck "just in case nature needs a boost"
13. ...You note that Edmonton International Airport temperatures don't always match readings at sites in the surrounding area, making the temperature claims dubious at best

Unsubstantiated dirt is good dirt

Highlights from Usenet gossip groups:

Name-Alexanda Wentworth
Dirt-cheapskate, returned flower arrangements to florist after wedding for full refund; married to the nelly acting George Stephanopoulos
More dirt-allows husband to have gay affairs

Name-Kristanna Loken
Dirt-Likes drugs especially extasy; got her role in T3 by sleeping with one of the producers; went to Ireland with a group of lesbian friends on a horse-back riding/sex trip; was into voodoo worship and drinks blood; gave ex boyfriend Justin Whalin (Jimmy Olson on tv's Lois and Clark) genital herpes; aborted his child because she was using accutane at the time, met and moved in with Justin Whalin when she was 15 (he was 20)

Name-Jeff Probst
Dirt-loves meeting trannies via internet; sends them his pix and then suggests 'meeting

Name-Farley Granger
Dirt-he was fired from OLTL( a soap) in the 70's for attempting to coerce an underage fellow actor to perform oral sex in his dressing room. Pfft, one day he's playing Dr.Will Vernon-the next he's standing online for unemployment benefits. He was (is) a nasty piece of work.

Name-Fiona Apple
Dirt-dumped Paul Thomas Anderson after she caught him fucking Estella Warren

Name-Cybill Shepherd
Dirt-behaves like a raving bitch to any co-stars she perceives as outshining her; hated by most of the cast, crew and writing staff of her last tv show; mean cunt
More dirt-Cybill has a bad reputation among personal assistant recruiters; she refused to pay one after her personal assistant quit after three days - she had given the person a huge list of things that it would be impossible to do in one day - coupled with her raving bitchiness, the unsuspecting assistant ran away; Cybill has done this all over town; she hated co-star Christine Baranski; behaves like a raving bitch to co-star she perceives as outshining her; horrible person to work with; hated by most former co-stars of her last tv show; Cybill used to count the lines in her scripts given both to her and to Christine Baranski; she was on British tv bragging out the delights of oral sex with Elvis Presly; treated the creator of the tv show Moonlighting even nastier than she treated Bruce Willis

Name-Jordan Knight
Dirt-noted by groupies for having crabs; bi-sexual; girlfriend Evelyn told his mother that she was pregnant before telling Jordan so that he couldn't pressure her into getting an abortion


And the grand daddy of all:
Name-Alyssa Milano
Dirt-as actually eaten shit; on one movie set in Canada, she infuriated a propmaster and after bitching him out, she ordered him to get her something off the craft services table (food bar). He got her a hot dog, but before giving it to her, shoved his shit in it using a pen's inkwell

If you miss Sir Humphrey the character and Sir Humphrey the cat try Sir Humphrey the blog

Yes, Sir Humphrey's name is immortalized^* in blog form.

Not a whole lot of the Mr. Appleby flavour, to be fair. The "real" Sir Humphrey would never make such an opinionated comment on Islam as "There are not enought good experiences of Islam out there to negate the bad Cartoon experience", and he never would have uttered or written the phrase "Go Moss go! I was blowing at the TV set hoping that would help. I guess you had to be there."

Sir Humphrey likewise wouldn't say this on the subject of copyright law (though to be fair, "Bernard Wolley" made this post, and it does seem similar to some Bernard lines).

Still, its not a half-bad site to keep in mind.

Curious factoid: Neither Yes, Minister nor Yes, Prime Minister ever actually utter the word "Canada".

Youtube girlz (cont.)

Dancing with a mirror and Cyndi Lauper

Brits and Cyndi Lauper doing the "photos with video" thing that a mere five years ago was an expensive undertaking and when I tried the tactic in 1995 was damned near impossible.

A nightmare of a calisthetics routine

Apparently valuable video space is best used at game showing the crowd

The classic "horsey-ride

Does " Jeepney girlz" mean anything? At least these girls are young enough to make this acceptable

Catfight that sounds like the talking people do on "The Sims 2"

Women are disgusting

Finally, Are we men really sure we're big on the idea of having daughters these days?

Married...by Children

3 15 year old girls "slap the behinds of my loving ones" in a ceremony best described as disturbing.

This calls to mind the new story on The Onion: "Pedophile Less Interested The More He Views 13-Year-Old's MySpace Profile" which includes such gems as "According to Sanderson, the most discouraging revelation came when he viewed Courtneee's "More Pics" section, in which she reportedly looks "way older" than she does in her featured front-page photo."

Two things come to mind. The first is who do they get to pose in these Onion articles anyways. Who's the unlucky stiff who ends up in this picture broadcasting his face to the world as a pedophile. Must be an out of work actor or something desperate for a gig.

The second thing coming to mind is that if you don't hate detest and/or fear women then youtube might just be the next best thing to change your mind. Womenfolk have always been a strange lot, but the sexual revolution has just gone and made things overly messy. Women now can openly extort and taunt men with no social or legal recourse, and men are paralyzed by both the law of man and the biological law of nature from taking action against it. I'd rant more on this, but it would get me all worked up.

Bonus link: Gemini_diva may have deleted her profile on Blackplanet.com, but this guy was her friend once

"O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!"

Those French 'student' riots of late? 10,000 books dating back to the Middle Ages have just been burned to ashes as a result of the rioting.

Sorry for a third posting whose title is a quote, but I felt it necessary. The Harvard Crimson gives a backgrounder to the riots and this article explains why student protests result in the nighttime fire bombing that the first link rightly blames on Muslims.

(it turns out the riots can be blamed on the "progressive" legislation to bring about a 35 hour workweek)

Bonus link: A reminder that in Europe there are no right-wingers as sensible North Americans would describe them.

"Some television stations have halted broadcasting altogether, for reasons not immediately understood."

Hat-tipped to Careful Thought:

Rotation Of Earth Plunges Entire North American Continent Into Darkness

Bonus Link: A Christian perspective on Capitalism

"The entity that western separatists most enjoy separating from is each other"

I was over browsing at the Project Alberta website and checking out some of the pro-separatist blogs available therein:

ABFreedom, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).

Albertanicus, last updated Tuesday, February 28, 2006.

Alberta Alliance Opposition, last updated Friday, March 03, 2006.

Bald as you wanna be, last updated Monday, September 12, 2005.

Black Kettle, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).

Bumfonline, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).

Cannuckistan Chronicles, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).

Crittermusings, last updated Tuesday, March 21, 2006.

Cyrano's Steel, last updated Sunday, March 12, 2006.

Exposed Agenda, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).

FreeAlberta, last updated Monday, February 06, 2006.

The Hell Bent Separatist, last updated Friday, March 17, 2006

Rants from a Moderate Separatist, last updated Wednesday, March 22, 2006.

Dispatches from the Western Alien Nation, last updated Wednesday, September 21, 2005.

The Reformer's Firebrand, last updated Thursday, March 02, 2006.

Robot_Guy, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).

Standing Up for What is Right, last updated Tuesday, February 07, 2006.

Waking Up on Planet X, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).

West Must Separate, last updated Friday, March 24, 2006 (today).


So, out of the 19 blogs linked from the Project Alberta website, 7 updated today. But only 2 blogs posted at some other point in the past week. 4 other sites which have posted in the month of March (two barely so), and two of them haven't even posted in 2006!

This post's title comes from an old Alberta Report where Paul Bunner or somebody notes that Alberta Separatits seem to really enjoy splintering off. In the blogosphere there's an even bigger problem: fast tracking yourself to irrelevancy. To have to stop posting is one thing: late May until mid-June I won't be on this continent and probably won't have a chance to blog (baseball pool comes first) if I do get internet access. But at least warn visitors, don't just suddenly stop posting with no warning.

I don't care if the postings aren't in general about Alberta Independence [when was your last separatist-themed entry there tough guy? this post made on February 16th? -ed] but at least give potential readers something. I mean, look at all the stuff I've given readers in less than 4 months. Sure none of you have actually read it, but hey, it's there!

Sciencey stuff worth reading when nursing a severe injury:

Thanks of course to slashdot for presenting all of these:

Falcon 1's rocket was destroyed

A new revolution in Adaptive Supercomputing

A "gravitomagnetic" field may provide a taste of artificial gravity and push General Relativity to capactiy (why the hell is the word "magnetic" in there, I ask?)

IBM has created a 5-stage ring oscillator using nanotubes

Ashley MacIssac, Liberal Saviour (cont.)

If you visit Mike Jenkinson's Newsroom and scroll down to "UPDATE: Feb. 19, 1:40 p.m. Guess I lost this guy's vote!" (geesh Mike, permalinks are your friend), you'll see a very angry letter over a joke column about the Liberal (formerly Canadian) Leadership "race".


So I wonder how Lee Stowell feels about Ashley MacIssac, a man who enjoys being urinated on and engaging in illegal sodomy with minors. Proud of your Liberal Party now there Lee? Big fan of the admitted fetish act?

I've said before: the attack ads with this kid write themselves. "Ashely fiddles while Canada burns", "If you thought Ottawa pissed on the little guy before", etc.

Ask and ye shall youtubereceive

Well, forgetting the trouble with Married With Children Season 5 on DVD, what do I find here?

My favourite episode, Season 8's (1993) "Luck of the Bundys", is now on youtube.com. Hot damn. "You know whats worse than a Bundy having good luck?...A Bundy admitting he's having good luck because that's when the bad luck starts!"

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Hey, don't forget to sign up for my baseball pool! Spaces filling up fast.

Not sure why it was a good idea to let them vote

Gack.

Liberal lawnsign fun: Part 4

I know Kate's sign generator is out of date, but its worth it for another kick at the can (whatever the hell that means):

I am not bound to please thee with my answer

The topic of the day at work tonight was a simple question:
Which is your favourite of Shakespeare's plays?

I do believe that the answer you give to this question may tell a lot as to your measure of a man. As the learn-ed amoungst you may have guessed, my favourite is The Merchant of Venice. Not only does it have some of Shakespeare's most oft-quoted verses: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" or "But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit" or "A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off
Nearest the merchant's heart"; but the quotes from the play are very unlikely to be recalled as Shakespeare's works themselves.

As for the play itself its themes include the concept of revenge and mercy, the Christian concept of self-sacrifice, and that women are even more deceitful than the Jews (ha!). (Bear in mind that the Wikipedia article on the play indicates that the work is extremely popular in Israel with Shylock being a sympathetic character.

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Other popular choices of play was Othello (the choice of warmongers and loners), A Midsummer Night's Dream (romantic dreamers and followers of the occult), and MacBath (violent incenstians with delusions of grandeur).

Plays that never got mentioned, which I found odd, include Hamlet (which was one person's runner-up to MacBeth), Romeo and Juliet (arguably the Bard's most famous... in North America probably the most read), and any of the Henry plays.

Plays I never expected to hear that top my list include Julius Caesar and Troilus and Cressida. I'm a big fan of The Illiad, and when I was a kid loved The Odyssey. Strange, really: when I was younger it was Odyssey for Homer and Lion Witch and the Wardrobe for The Inklings group. As I've aged and matured [you sure about that last bit? -ed] its flipped around to Illiad and Lord of the Rings (which I read as a kid but never fully appreciated).

If I had been into Shakespeare as a 12 year old I probably would have fallen into the Hamlet/MacBeth camp as well. I prefer Hamlet over MacBeth mostly I think because the former is a Dane. I also enjoy Othello and King Lear (less so if/when I become a father, I imagine).

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So anyways, I think its time to put this question to the blog-reading public. The guestbook is standing by ready to accept posts. Which Shakespeare play(s) do you like the most? What do you think being a fan of Play X (X not necessarily equal to your own choice) says about that person?

Philosophical questions aren't my forte, but feel free to make suggestions. I think this might be an interesting discussion.

Bonus link #1: The movies on film and screen which have been adapted from Shakespeare's works. Some are false starts: Shakespeare didn't write "Black Adder" or "Je rentre à la maison", but it does give a fairly wide range of available films. For example, you could try to track down the 1912 film Cardinal Wolsey, a retelling of Henry VIII starring Clara Kimball Young who's only 3 Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon.

Bonus link #2: If you think your workplace and circle of friends aren't meeting your intellectual capacity (and I know mine isn't), you might enjoy this article on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

What Tolkien did was help Lewis see how the two sides, reason and imagination, could be integrated. During the two men's night conversation on the Addison Walk in the grounds of Magdalen College, Tolkien showed Lewis how the two sides could be reconciled in the Gospel narratives. The Gospels had all the qualities of great human storytelling. But they portrayed a true event—God the storyteller entered his own story, in the flesh, and brought a joyous conclusion from a tragic situation. Suddenly Lewis could see that the nourishment he had always received from great myths and fantasy stories was a taste of that greatest, truest story—of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

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Don't forget to join my baseball pool! Link on the right.

Meow, Minister

This is just about as bad as losing Sir Nigel Hawthorne...worse maybe, as I think the cat was heterosexual:

Sir Humphrey the 10 Downing Street cat has died.

Canada.com addresses the death with a bit less British assumptions (that is, they explain what 10 Downing Street is).

Just in time for Austrailian bureaucracy impeding Opposition attempts to learn the financial state of a Children's Hospital.

In fact it seems Sir Humphrey's spirit is alive and well:
"Ethical advice is no job for Sir Humphrey" screams The Guardian earlier in the month. The Immigration and Nationality Directorate "has 70 people handling correspondence with ministers and MPs, although even Sir Humphrey could not have devised 70 ways to say “I don’t know”." sniffs The Times. The Express and Star writes: "nstead, Mr Bradbourn said Advantage West Midlands came up with a Sir Humphrey-style reply "worthy of the worst excesses of Yes Minister." All he wanted to know was would The Public have to pay back all or some cash the European Commission gave to the West Bromwich project."

It seems "Sir Humphrey" is now a euphemism for bureaucracy. Not bad coming from the guy who directed My Cousin Vinny.

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Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are two other sitcoms; along with Corner Gas, Seinfeld and South Park which are exceedingly funny. Married With Children is another example, but like the BritComs was neglected in this post. With the exceptions of Seinfeld and South Park I am collecting [or have collected..."Yes, Minister" went off the air almost 20 years ago -ed] the rest on DVD. South Park eps are just too convenient to download, while Seinfeld I have (except for about 7 episodes) on DVD-ROM. I would love the series on DVD, but its a bit pricey: $318.33 for the first six seasons from Chapters.ca, or $140.76 for the first three seasons on box set, another $140.76 for Seasons 5&6, plus the $59.19 for Season 4 (total: $340.71! What a clever trick there Chapters!). And remember the 7-9th seasons are still in waiting.

Meanwhile there's still no word on the Fifth Season of MWC... though if you believe these people its no big loss anyways.

Professional Paradigm Shift?

Whilst I ponder the possibilities of moving onto gainful employment, I guess you people will have to listen to Beatallica.

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.

Professor Irwin Corey

And here's Ryan....uh...Spillberg!

One of the great things about baseball is that the spring training, where prospective players try out for the team, is televised. Its the sort of thing that makes Fantasy Baseball so much more enjoyable than other fantasy sports: hot prospects are quick to identify.

In baseball news, click the link to the right to join the Third Edge Baseball Pool.

Also, Alfonso Soriano has stopped being a baby. Plan on him to royally suck this season.

Al Leiter has retired. That should clear some Yankee payroll to meet the salary cap. Ha!

The new grass is being planted at Busch Stadium. Thick Kentucky bluegrass is being planted, which is fitting since Kentucky is next door to Missouri (really! I looked it up! God my mid-west American geography stinks). [could be worse, you could not realize that Kansas City isn't actually in Kansas -ed]

Finally in some non-baseball news, I recently made a new post at Slashdot.

Great leadership there Ed

Ed Stelmach today became the first person to jump through the hoops to replace Ralph as leader of the provincial PC party.

This would be the same Stelmach who, before he was Intergovernmental Relations Minister, was the Minister of Transportation who talked a tough game regarding the regulation of photo radar, but then when cities such as Edmonton violated the regulations (read: called his bluff) he took no action against them, and even permitted the expansion of photo radar programs to include red light cameras and green automated photo radar boxes. He also allowed the bullshit where it is now illegal to park in a legal stall that happens to be in front of a photo radar van.

So sorry Ed, but gutless ministers who let the police dictate terms to the government are not the kind of men we had in mind to be the Premier of Alberta.

Bonus Link #1: An Edmontonian tried to fight the ticket and EPS backed down before it could get to court.

Bonus Link #2: If we all took them to court, photo radar would be bankrupt. (Of course, if we all took them to court we'd get demerits)

Bonus Link #3: Edmonton media don't seem interested in dealing with daily photo radar abuses [or the other abuses of the Edmonton Police Services, such as handing out jaywalking tickets to people who are in the crosswalk while they are trying to make a turn in their police cruiser. -ed] except for when they can finger a big evil American corporation with the current ACS scandal.

Why a lemon?

If anybody has some spare time, feel free to search the 532,000 photos on Google to answer a pressing question:

Why are there about 30 pictures from Saturday night featuring a lemon? For some reason, one of the guys my buddy brought out to the bar insisted on having this f#%&@&ing slice of lemon in every picture we took. Usually blocking the subject of the shot. Why would somebody do this? What the hell was wrong with the kid? Inquiring minds want to know.

Wedding Card

A soon-to-be-ball-and-chained friend sent along one of my favourite jokes today. I've seen it, you've seen it, but it lets my injured right get a break whilst I cut and paste, so here it is:

"A Happy Man"
I was a very happy person. My wonderful girlfriend and I had been together for over a year, and so we decided to get married. There was only one thing bothering me...it was her beautiful younger sister. My prospective sister-in-law was twenty, wore very tight mini skirts, and generally was bra-less. She would regularly bend down when she was near me, and I always got more than a pleasant view.

One day "little sister" called and asked me to come over to check the wedding invitations. She was alone when I arrived, and she whispered to me that she had feelings and desires for me that she couldn't overcome. She told me that she wanted to make love to me just once before I got married and committed my life to her sister. Well, I was in total shock and couldn't say a word. She said, "I'm going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want one last wild fling, just come up." I was stunned and frozen in shock, as I watched her go up the stairs. I stood there for a moment, then turned and made a beeline straight to the front door, I opened the door, and headed straight toward my car.

Lo and behold, my entire future family was standing outside, all clapping! With tears in his eyes, my father in-law hugged me and said, We are very happy that you have passed our little test.... we couldn't ask for a better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family."

And the moral of this story is . . .
Always keep your condoms in your car.

Ahh, that one always cracks me up. And since I referred to a Corner Gas episode in the title I'll quote it as soon as I remind you all that there is now a mere 6 days to sign up for my baseball pool.

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HANK: Is knuckles legally binding?
KAREN: I don't understand that sentence.
- Episode 202 - "Wedding Card"

Reposting my SDA South Park episode guide

One of the problems with having a monsterous contraption on your writing hand (due to the discovery 3 days after a traumatic injury that it indeed fractured bones) is that it makes typing damn near impossible. I do about 75 WPM, 85 if I'm warmed up. Even corrected for errors I still have about a 53 AWPM (adjusted words per minute) average, which is damned good.

Anyways, I don't want to type much, so I'll repost my comment on the Small Dead Animal blog to this post by guest blogger PlanetX regarding South Park.

An advantage of this repost is I can fix a couple of typos, do some better formatting, and make a couple modications to the comment. The SDA post has my original comment and my second comment finishing one of the episodes I didn't complete before hitting "submit"

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Other South Park episodes right-wing bloggers may enjoy if they've never been properly introduced to the series -- warning, these are only 5th-9th season...many of the first 4 seasons have good material, but I don't have access to the DVDs and don't remember most of them:

502 - It Hits the Fan - A popular TV show breaks decades of censorship and the stifling of free speech when it finally dares to speak one of the words you can't say on TV on TV. The huge ratings can mean only one thing: its time to say the word twice. Those huge ratings can only mean one more thing: its time to say nothing but that word all the time. So why are these so many British knights coming alive and trying to stop it? Any coincidence that the Black Death comes to those who say the forbidden words on TV? Most importantly, though, it is proven once and for all that God has decreed Meekrob tastes like shit.

507 - Proper Condom Use - When is it too early to teach sex ed? When 6th grade becomes far too late for the apparent sexual activities of 4th graders, sex education is brought into the schools. Soon even kindergarten is a proper forum to discuss the Dirty Sanchez. Its too bad that the only people the children can learn from is somebody with a bad opinion of sex, somebody who knows nothing without it, and a complete pervert.

512 - Here Comes the Neighbourhood - Oprah, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, Snoop Dogg, Puffy Daddy, and Michael Jordan all move into South Park. The locals are upset: their white bread town can't possibly handle the arrival of "those" sort of people. And so begins the campaign to rid South Park of the rich. (Those polo playing laser printer owning orphan adopting Rembrant collecting expensive beer drinking cash-chuckers! T for time to leave!)

513 - Kenny Dies - Its one of the hardest things for a child to ever deal with: the death of a friend. Even adults aren't sure. Do you go to see him one last time? Do you stay away, knowing that you'll always be haunted by that last sickly image of someone you love? Do you start harvesting fetuses and coercing women to get abortions to force Congress to take the medical action to save him? It's a dilemna best agonized over a delicious Shakey's Pizza.

514 - Butters' Very Own Episode - When your sweet cherub son discovers that his father is freqenting gay bathhouses and movie theatres, what is a concerned parent to do? Luckily there's O.J. Simpson, the Ramseys, and Gary Condit to help you deal with the messy aftermath of your final solution.

609 - Free Hat - George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are destroying their own classic movies. Nobody can stop them, until the boys start a campaign that looks to have the momentum they need. Of coure, Hat McCormick is a bigger worry: he was framed by police for murdering 23 toddlers (in self-defense).

615 - The Death Camp of Tolerance - The boys old teacher returns to school to teach them, but his sadomasochistic homosexual teaching assistant is maybe just a little bit over the top. Wait! I dont' mean it! I don't mind anal insertions as a teaching tool, really! Whatever you do, don't misinterpret what I said as intolerance! I'll never servive the gulag which is....TOLERANCE CAMP.

806 - Goobacks - "Time Immigrants" are flooding South Park. Are they stealing jobs from modern-day Americans? Should they have to learn the English language, or should the schools and fast food restaurants adapt to meet their demands? And is it really the only way to keep American jobs for all the men in town to get naked in a giant pile?

807 - The Jeffersons - He's just coming to escape the L.A. scene in rural Colorado. So why are the parents freaked out by Mr. Jefferson's weird rapport with children? Is it really so wrong for a man whose childhood was stolen by fame to seek it later in life? And how far will the police go to frame African-Americans for crimes they didn't commit?

808 - Douche and Turd - School elections are a great time to teach kids about democracy. But what happens when a little boy is apathetic about the system? PETA, Rock the Vote, and Puff Daddy all aim to make sure that voting is understood as completely and utterly important: even if the only two choices you are given are a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich.

809 - Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes - A huge superstore has moved into town. Its low low bargains and easy employment quickly make it a huge hit amoungst the locals. But can South Park's other businesses survive their new competitor? What will happen to the townspeople? And how do you defeat a worldwide monolithic company who's buildings have come alive?

901 - Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina - What do you do when the townspeople have finally stopped harassing you about being gay as a fruitcake with a leather-clad slave as a teaching assistant? You take the next logical step and let them be freaked out by being trans-gendered. But its a slippery slope: should short Jewish boys be genetically altered into tall black men? Can a man really become half-dolphin? Do sports arenas have to give them their own bathroom? And what shall we do with the doctor who refuses to give the transvestite an abortion?

902 - Die Hippie, Die - The next generation of flower children are infesting South Park. Only one brave young boy knows how to stop them... and "The Man" has already put him in jail! Music can and will save the world, any day now, as soon as we finish this toke we'll change the world, pump up the good tunes man, what's with that freaky tunnelling vehicle with heavy metal stickers?

908 - Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow - One of the best South Parks of all time. The nearby town of Beaverton has been struck by catastrophe: flooding is crippling the town. The nation is immediately gripped by their story, and moves into immediate action: trying to figure out whether its FEMA, George Bush, or the townspeople themselves to blame for this catastrophe. But is there even time to assign blame? Global warming is coming! Yes, its real, and we just didn't listen. Due to strike the Day After Tomorrow -- or maybe a couple days before that -- no one in town can survive the harsh arctic winds that global warming will bring. But, er, will anybody ever get around to rescuing people from the flood? And how many bags of gold do Jews carry around their necks?

914 - Bloody Mary - We can all agree that alcoholism is a vicious disease, except for one poor South Park resident who refuses to believe he's an alcoholic just because he drove drunk once. However the disease of alcoholism is brutal and dangerous: once you're trapped in it you can never escape it. Never. Don't even try. The new pope might hold promise for your future, but thats only if you visit the blessed Virgin Mary statue before the disease of alcoholism seizes you forever.

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The episodes that are clearly missed in this review are/were "Trapped in the Closet", the episode that triggered the thread, any episode before Season 4 that I haven't got access to, and several funny episodes that don't really have right-wing messages: "Scott Tenorman Must Die", "Towelie", "Osama bin Laden has Farty Pants", "The Entity", "The Simpsons Already Did It", "Red-Hot Catholic Love" (though it does have the message that atheists are just talking shit), "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers", "The Biggest Douche in the Universe", "My Future Self N' Me", "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", "Grey Dawn", "Raisins", and "Free Wilzyx".

Another poster mentioned "All About Mormons". Like most of Season 7, the deal is that I don't actually have them. This also meant that "Red Man's Greed", "South Park is Gay", and "Christian Rock Hard" may be accidentally excluded, as I haven't even seen the episodes. Likewise the most right-ish appearing Season 4 episode: "Chef Goes Nanners".

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I'm tempted to deliver a few of the killer South Park quotes, but its like "reviewing the best scenes from Seinfeld"...you can spend hours and not get half done. So I'm off to watch the Corner Gas season finale.

So lets balance things out, and include a couple good quotes from each show:

Seinfeld:
GEORGE: Hey, what happened with Sandy. I forgot all about it. Did you call her?
JERRY: Yeah, I did. In fact I went over there.
GEORGE: So what happened? She throw you out? Eh?
JERRY: No actually, she took it pretty well.
GEORGE: So what happened?
JERRY: She's into it.
GEORGE: Into what?
JERRY: The manage. And not only that. She just called me and said she talked to the roommate and the roomate's into the menage too.
GEORGE: That's unbelievable.
JERRY: Oh, it's a scene man.
GEORGE: Do you ever just get down on your knees and thank god that you know me and have access to my dementia?
JERRY: What are you talking about? I'm not goin' to do it.
GEORGE: You're not goin to do it? What do you mean, You're not goin to do it?
JERRY: I can't. I'm not an orgy guy.
GEORGE: Are you crazy? This is like discovering Plutonium ... by accident!
- Episode #97 - "The Switch"

ELAINE: The two of you shouldn't have been looking at some fifteen year-old's cleavage anyway!
GEORGE: He poked me!
JERRY: There was cleavage in the area. That's a reflex ... cleavage-poke, cleavage-poke...
ELAINE: But she was fifteen.
JERRY: You don't consider age in the face of cleavage. This occurs on a molecular level, you can't control it!
- Episode #56 - "The Shoes"

South Park:
STAN: What's the matter with you?
BUTTERS: Well, mu mu mu girlfriend broke up with me.
HENRIETTA: Did she step on your heart with stiletto heels?
BUTTERS: Yeah. It sure does hurt.
GOTH KID #2: That's cool. I guess you can join up with us if you want.
GOTH KID #1: Yeah. We're gonna go to the graveyard and write poems about death and how pointless life is.
BUTTERS: Uh, uhm no thanks. I I love life.
STAN: Huh? But you just got dumped
BUTTERS: Wuh-ell yeah, and I'm sad, but at the same time I'm really happy that somethin' could make me feel that sad. It's like, ih ih, ih it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt somethin' really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I'm feelin' is like a, beautiful sadness. I guess that sounds stupid...
GOTH KID #1: Yeah.
STAN: No. No, Butters, that doesn't sound stupid at all.
BUTTERS: Well, thanks for offerin' to let me in your clique, guys, uh but, to be honest, I'd rather be a cryin' little pussy than a faggy Goth kid.
- Episode 714 - "Raisins"

DARRYL WEATHERS: Listen up, everybody! We've just received a reply from our congressman. "Dear intolerant rednecks, we sympathize with you all losing your jobs. However, we feel your solution of shooting everyone who crosses the time border is inhumane."
MAN #2: What? That's ridiculous!
MAN #3: They can't do that!
MAN #4: That was a good idea!
DARRYL WEATHERS: So it appears the government ain't gonna help us! Which means we gotta take matters into our own hands! The only way to stop people from the future is to stop the future from happening!
MAN #3: Hey that's right! If there is no future, then there'll be no people from the future to come back and take our jobs!
MAN #6: Take rjurbs
DARRYL WEATHERS: All right! So, any ideas how we can stop the future from happening? CHET: How about we cause more global warming, so that in the future, the polar ice caps melt, and and it ushers in a new ice age?
DARRYL WEATHERS: How the hell is global warming gonna cause an ice age?!
CHET: Well you know, the... global warming could bring on like a climate shift or somethin'?
DARRYL WEATHERS: Chet, you are a fuckin' retard, you know that?! Even if global warming were real, which all proven scientific data shows it isn't, it would take millions of years for a climate shift to happen! You think an ice age can just happen all of a sudden-like?
CHET: Well I was just tryin' to be helpful.
DARRYL WEATHERS: Well help yourself to a fuckin' science book, 'cause you're talkin' like a fuckin' retard!
- Episode 807 - "Goobacks"

Corner Gas:
HANK: I'm gonna fight this.
EMMA: It's her place, she can do what she wants with it.
HANK: Well, I got two words for you; boycott. I'm gonna put this place out of business.
BRENT: Hank, if you have the power to put companies out of business by just not being a customer, why am I still able to buy mouthwash?
WANDA: Yeah, and deodorant.
EMMA: Clean underwear.
BRENT: Books.
WANDA: Pants that fit.
EMMA: Nail clippers.
BRENT: Dandruff shampoo.
WANDA: Um... dental floss.
EMMA: Toilet paper.
OSCAR: Pick-up trucks.
BRENT: You don't know what we're doing, do you, Dad?
- Episode 101 - "Ruby Reborn"

BRENT: Well, let's say hypothetically my Dad can't find these sales records, what's the deal then, prison?
MARVIN DREY: Well, there's no tax prison in Canada, you don't have to worry about that.
BRENT: I wasn't worrying, I was suggesting.
- Episode 102 - "The Taxman"

KAREN: I can't believe you're sending me in without back-up.
DAVIS: It's just a fishing trip Karen.
KAREN: But it's with Hank, twelve hours, killing fish.
DAVIS: If it gets to you, you don't have to kill him, just throw him into the lake.
KAREN: I wasn't worried about the fish.
DAVIS: I wasn't talking about the fish.
- Episode 111 - "Hook, Line & Sinker"

Baseball writers less insightful than me?

Don't forget to sign onto my baseball pool. First link on the right.

Best St. Patty's Day bar quote

Upon discovering his digital camera had 185 pictures by the end of the weekend, a friend of mine declared "thats 185 more memories than we've ever had after a drinking weekend".

I fought the door and the door won

Well, the weekend predicted here didn't quite work out as planned on several levels.

The most pressing for Third Edge of the Sword blog readers is that I suffered an accident that has left my right hand virtually useless, possibly for a couple of months. With this post so far taking about 5 minutes with 1-2 typing errors per word, this blog may be out of commission for a while. Expect minimalist posting for the time being.

Warning: Impending disappearance predicted

As I mentioned casually in this post, tomorrow marks the start of two nights of heavy drinking. Add in two days of painful recovery, and one night of after-weekend working. Pretty soon the calculus of the matter is self-evident: I won't be posting again until at least Monday. Try to survive until then. I'm pulling for you, we're all in this together.

The details of the drinking fun have still yet to be determined. If O'Byrnes Irish Pub is in the plans, it will certainly be in the early hours of the afternoon: after that it shall be too late. One girl at work is getting off at midnight tomorrow and wants to go to O'Byrnes. Well, she looks like a porn star and will wear a tight miniskirt and push-up bra, so I imagine she'll be fine.

The drink of choice, of course is Guinness. I have 3 bottles of it in the fridge still, so some Irish priming is possible. Kilkenny is another choice...one of our friends has gone from a Guinness enthusiast to a Kilkenny enthusiast, though he finds that the hardest part of being a fan of Kilkenny in Edmonton (and Alberta in general, I imagine) is when he shouts over the din^* which beer he wants, the bartender almost always gives him a Kokanee instead. Female bartenders are still batting .000 when it comes to bringing the correct beer. It reminds me of the time in NYC when I was at a bar while a (male) bartender was trying to teach two new girls the perils of serving. Since they may be expected to get some of their own drinks on busy nights, he wanted to test them. So he offered me a free drink (ahhh, New York, where they can do that...I think I got about 8 free drinks over 7 days in NYC) if I would be so kind as to try something to stump them a little bit. Not feeling particularly imaginative, I believe I asked for a Jim Beam or Johnnie Walker. Naturally, the girls failed at having any idea what I was talking about. I think I at some point asked for a Crown Royal too, which I believe is what my free drink turned out to be. These bar stories would be a lot more impressive if I remembered them all. Damn you alcohol!

^* On a side note, why is there so much din anyways? Bars are constantly cranking the music louder and louder lest there be the sound of conversation filling the air. Mostly this is bars with dance floors that do this (Funky Buddha, Filthy McNasty's and Squires on Whyte coming to mind) even though places like Blues on Whyte don't seem to be worried. I know you think you need to justify the expense of this DJ mixing dance songs together (hey Squires, Blur's Song #2 is only 2 minutes and 0 seconds in length...I'm sure the kiddies in the bar have a long enough attention span to listen to the entire tune. They seem to handle Bon Jovi and Gwen Stefani songs at full agonizing length) rather than the old system of the bartender putting on a mix CD every 74 minutes. But please leave the sound volume alone. Of all the bars on Whyte, I think only The Attic and Billiards Club have this figured out. Thirsty Turtle needs to work on that, but first order of business might be closing the door whenever the temperature drops below -10.

Though the plans are not finalized (I've heard frightening rumours about Saturday), the itinerary certainly is: I'm driving to the airport at 9:45 in the morning. This means straight to bed after work tonight, which means no blogging. Which means that this is serious, after this post you're on your own.

Rather than give any straight-up links, I'll give you some basic browsing in my absence:

First off, don't forget about the baseball pool! 11 days left to sign on!

Fark.com. Also available in sports, entertainment, technology, political, and pornographic versions. I apologize for not making it to the Edmonton Fark Party on March 11 but it was freaking cold and snowy out there.

Slashdot (/.). There are tons of flavours of /. (and you have to check each of them to get all the stories) so I'm not even going to link to them here. I will link to the last /. post I've made to date which was ranked Score:0, was at the very bottom of the page, and is mostly off-topic.

Western Standard Shotgun blog updates fairly regularly. Right now the top article is where I cribbed the "Evil Americans"^TM posting from.

Small Dead Animals (SDA). Kate is on vacation so there are a variety of weird guest-bloggers. Multiple voices make blogs weak. Learn this. Learrrrrrnnnnnnnnn...

Finally, Colby Cosh. It's updated roughly daily (I wonder how his posting frequency matches up against mine? He has way more posts than I do though, dating back far further. Te matchup is mostly a curiosity thing. He also makes a post for each note rather than <HR>ing between notes. He also sometimes will reprint his previously-published works (since he, you know, actually has them) and this skews it all as well. Regardless, go read it.

What's the difference between a brunette and garbage? Every week, somebody takes the garbage out!

AB Freedom links to the funniest blonde joke in history. A little risque for even my tastes, so I won't post it on here.

An "Evil Americans"TM question that needs to be asked

I was reading this message board regarding this story that a Canadian hostage in Israel (Palestinian province) was let go upon discovery of the Maple Leaf on his passport.

A couple things stand out: St. Petersberg is in Canada, it seems; also Afghanistan is a mecca of oil and gas. Apparently only Bush/Cheney know anything about it, since its widely believed that the Soviets have drank much of Afghanistan dry. (No War for Oil! Brezhnev Lied, People Died!)

Most importantly in my mind is this post (or maybe another one, I thought I'd read something more vitrolic the first time, but I can't seem to find it) which seems to think that the U.S. is "meddling" in the Middle East. This is something I've thought of a couple of times, and haven't thought of or had anybody come up with a good answer.

What precisely did the U.S. do to earn this wrath in the Middle East? The "American imperialism is offending the Muslims" line is tossed around by the left a lot, but have they actually come up with some actual event that was the first example of American imperialism? Osama bin Laden apparently was bothered by the U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, forgetting that this was a case of defending one nation of Muslims from a larger more militaristic nation of Muslims. (The left also does some forgetting, saying there's no link between Iraq and al Qaida...which makes no sense from bin Laden's own biography). We hear all about American imperialism over Afghanistan and Iraq, but between two WTC attacks, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, the "Black Hawk Down" incident, and the like, there was a lot during the Clinton years that really went unimpeded. The U.S. didn't really initiate any of these conflicts. So the whole theory breaks down from the fact that the Muslims started it.

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The Western Standard Shotgun blog also addresses this point.

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Still time to sign up to the baseball pool! See link at right.