November 2006

Everyone wants peace. Peace is a GOOD THING. Peace means that you can go about your day not worrying about getting shot at or blown up by some crazy ne’erdowells who hate your guts just because you exist, or worship the wrong god, or eat the wrong food or dress funny on Sunday afternoons and watch reruns of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and afterward run around the neighborhood practicing your silly walk while yelling “Dinsdale!” and pointing out all of the larch trees.

Oh wait… that’s just me. Did I say that out loud?

Well, it seems there are two ways we can be sure to achieve peace in our lifetime. One has a lot of dodgy new-age ’science’ behind it and one has been determined to definitely work by looking at emperical evidence and world conflicts for the last couple of hundred years. Of the two, the first sounds a lot more fun, even if you’ll laugh while doing it.

So, with no further ado, I give you:

The Global Orgasm

and…

an article about free trade.

I know what I’ll be doing December 22nd. How about you?

I’ve been meaning to write an update about Tucker Cat for a few days now and I realized today would be a good day to do that. I came to this conclusion after dropping Tucker off at the vet. You see, today is the day that Tucker got neutered.

It’s now been 2 months and a couple of days since we brought Tucker home and I can honestly say that the reign of terror really has continued unabated. He is an intensely energetic cat, who finds any excuse to play with just about anything. Actually, he really doesn’t need an excuse. Playing is in his nature, it is the Essence of Tucker. At this point, you’re picturing a cute furball cutely batting about a ball or some string. Let me disavow you of that image right off the bat.

Tucker has claws. Very sharp claws.

Tucker had no problem using those claws for just about anything and all of us here at the Bixby household have the scars to prove it. So when Tucker is playing, he doesn’t have any sort of internal throttle that keeps him from going balls to the wall and USING those claws. He doesn’t stop to think, “Hey, I’m just playing here. I should really sheath these bad boys. My humans will really appreciate that.” Nope, Tucker is like that really intense jock you knew in High School who would run around all loud and obnoxious, high on testosterone, and say things like, “No Pain, No Gain!” or “Feel the burn!” and not care that he was blundering down the halls like a bull in a china shop because the rest of us aren’t as INTENSE as he is. So when Tucker swats at something, the claws are fully extended. Tucker swats at EVERYTHING, your fingers, paper, the space under the couch (seriously, he gets into these moods and will claw his way around the edge of the couch lying on his side. It drives the Fetching Mrs. Bixby absolutely nuts). Sometimes if he’s really kind of tired, he’ll do a swat at one quarter speed, giving you plenty of time to see those fully extended blades, just to keep his hand in, telling you he could swat if he wanted to, but not right now, his show is on.

I’ve had Tucker claw his way up my leg to see what I was making/eating/doing and it if was something that he should have/be involved in. Luckily he’s only ever done it when I was wearing jeans so I only felt the tips of his claws. Although once he got one claw into my lovehandles above the jeans themselves. That was the day Tucker learned to fly. Tucker sure likes to be in the middle of things, which usually means clawing his way up a chair, or my exposed back.

Did I mention he’s getting declawed today as well? Double Whammy!

Nevertheless, that perpetual kitty testosterone high Tucker was on is endearing and we would watch with laughter as he bounced around the house chasing invisible mice and pouncing on invisible string. Certainly it’s better to have a 5 pound cat bounce around your house than a high school jock.

A somewhat funny Tucker story: Tucker has become fascinated with the toilet. If he sees you going in for some private business or if he hears the sound of water, he will rush in and pull himself up the edge of the bowl to see what’s what. The other day, I walked into the bathroom to make water and from literally down the hall and the bottom of the stairs he rushes in and leaps onto the edge of the toilet bowl JUST as I feel the urge of release, that slight tug when you begin to answer Nature’s Call. If I did not have the Will of Apollo, the Strength of Hecules, and the Klegle muscles of John Holmes, that would have been one wet cat, and not in a good way, if you know what I mean.

Still, you gotta love an animal that will give you love with the same intensity that he would rip your flesh. When Tucker gets in the mood to cuddle with you and he’s decided at that time that YOU are the one to receive his attentions, nothing stops the boy. He turns on his motor full throttle, he has the Harley-Davidson of purr engines, and he gets up into your face, licks the tip of your nose and rubs his head against you with as much force and effort as his 8 pound body can generate. Then he leans against you with every inch of his body and lays down in your arms with a look of pure contentment, secure in the knowledge that you are his and you WILL pet him.

So, here’s to Tucker’s balls, may they rest in peace.

The staff at the Starbucks in my building are all wearing red holiday tshirts today. I promptly gave them a good-natured ration of shit for that. I really hate how the Christmas holiday ’season’ starts earlier and earlier each year. Thanksgiving, still a good two weeks away, is being overcome by the Christmas marketing and retailing onslaught. At this rate Holloween will be swallowed up by 2008.

And this is my pet peeve, I like Thanksgiving. I like the idea of the big meal the entire family sits down to eat, and eat, and eat, and afterward everyone staggers off to sit in a tryptophan-enduced coma for a few hours. I look forward to this every year and every year my bile rises a bit higher because Christmas is bullying Thanksgiving right out the way.

The last three months of the year are dreary and cold, but there was always a level of anticipation because at the beginning of each month, you knew you got something cool out of it at the end. October gives you Halloween and a sugar coma, November gives you Thankgiving and the tryptophan coma (a very good, mellow buzz, if you ask me, not at all electric like a sugar high), and December, the coldest month of all, gives you Christmas and the double whammy of large feasts AND material goods.

Each month has a distinct and unique flavor to it. October is dark and spooky, November is warm and cozy, and December is bright and cheery. Each month has its holiday. Each holiday should stay in its own month. This, to me, is the right of it, the way things have been and always should be. This way, you can enjoy each holiday for itself, savor the things that make each holiday unique.

Christmas is getting way too uppity to be showing its face on November 9th. We need to tell it to sit down and wait its turn. Thanksgiving has been waiting all year and deserves its moment in the spotlight. And, and at this rate, I really don’t want to be stringing christmas lights in July, do you?

More evidence that our military is highly educated and that the people got those degrees BEFORE joining the military.

A commenter from my previous post on this matter made the point that the military is one of few options for people who cannot afford to continue their education. I don’t disagree and feel strongly that the military, with the advanced training one can receive, is a very good way to go. In fact, I met with an Army recruiter my senior year of high school and was almost 50-50 on the matter. I went to college instead, but never finished my degree. Now I look back and wonder what my life would have been like had I enlisted, if I would have had a degree as a result of doing a stint. Getting a degree in the army was how they were selling it back then. Be all you can be.
Nevertheless, as the link to hughhewitt.com shows, there are a lot of the other group in the armed forces as well, those who went to college and THEN decided to serve their country.

The venerable blog Little Green Footballs has a shot of what Kerry would have said if he had stuck to his prepared statement in that fateful moment.

When Kerry says that he was making a joke at Bush’s expense, I believe him. Even Kerry isn’t so stupid as to deliberately shot himself in the foot as he did Monday night. Sometimes things get lost in translation when travelling from the brain to the mouth. Heaven knows I’ve made some really stupid and unintended statements that sounded better in my head. All of that is fine as far as it goes.

What isn’t fine is the damage control that has followed and the continuous bashing of the Republicans for taking Kerry to task for what he SAID, not for what he MEANT. Because what he SAID was despicable and inexcusable, pure and simple. And what Kerry should have done immediately afterward was to sincerely apologize to the men and women in our armed forces, and their families and stated what was in his prepared statement, instead of lashing out at people for being unable to read his mind. It certainly would not have made his actual joke any funnier or true, but it would have been par for the course with him. And Kerry wouldn’t be the big donkey with the target on his back.

I’ve been following with some interest the fallout from John Kerry’s latest flare up of Hoof in Mouth disease. I didn’t hear what he said about the military on the day he said it. I first found out about it from listening to Hugh Hewitt interviewing the head of ABC News, Mark Halperin, a day later. It wasn’t until the following day, yesterday, when I heard the clip. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been shocked or surprised that Kerry would say such a thing, but I must admit I was. It’s the kind of thing really stupid people with no mental safeguards say at parties and then wonder why everyone is shunning them.

Of course, the ‘apology’ Kerry offered up is just pathetic. No one of intelligence higher than my dog heard a ‘joke’. And the fact that every other democrat in the free world has to explain that it was, in fact, a joke just shows how completely morally corrupt the democrats are. Why would anyone defend such a statement? Here’s a newsflash for those of you too clueless to figure it out, if you have to explain that it’s a joke, it’s not a joke.

Further, if in fact Kerry was trying to make the joke at Bush’s expense, as he claims, why didn’t he reference Bush in ANY way in his words? Usually when you try to make such a joke, you say something oblique that references the person you’re trying to slam and that people hearing can reasonably infer was about that person.

This is a Freudian slip, pure and simple. Kerry let his true feelings about the military slip out yet again and doesn’t want to admit it. So Kerry continues to dig his hole deeper by refusing to apologise and Mark Halperin, presumably a pretty smart guy, otherwise he wouldn’t be head of a major news organization, further slams the military. The Karmic Boomerang, which so far has missed Mr. Kerry, looks poised to whack him on the head.

What a sad state of affairs. Do you really want these people running the country come November 8th?