June 30, 2002

SEE? I'm not the only

SEE? I'm not the only one convinced that OSAMA IS DEAD. Mark Steyn thinks so, too, for a lot of the same reasons I've been posting about for months now.

Yep, that's right. GUT RUMBLES stays ahead of the curve.

My favorite NEOCON GODDESS Ann

My favorite NEOCON GODDESS Ann Coulter has a nice rant about the Supreme Court's decision ruling that dumb people don't deserve the death penalty.

Six years ago, Eric Nesbitt, a U.S. airman assigned to Langley Air Force Base, was brutally murdered by Daryl Renard Atkins, a repeat violent criminal. It was a heinous and pointless murder: Atkins already had Nesbitt's money and car when he unloaded his gun into the defenseless airman. According to a cellmate, Atkins later laughed about the murder.

Atkins was sentenced to death, but that verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court's decision. Is Atkins a complete retard who didn't understand what he was doing when he cold-bloodedly murdered the young airman?

No, He's just dumb – not an uncommon trait among violent criminals. As far back as 1914, criminologist H.H. Goddard concluded that "25 percent to 50 percent of the people in our prisons are mentally defective and incapable of managing their affairs with ordinary prudence." Crimes of violence in particular – murder, rape and assault – are all correlated with low IQs.

Thus, the Supreme Court has now prohibited the death penalty for precisely those people who are most likely to commit death-penalty level crimes.

This decision is foolish enough to make me wonder about the IQ scores of the judges who made it.

I don't know if this

I don't know if this stuff is true, but it makes for interesting reading:

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

* Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.

*Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children-last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it-hence the saying, "Don't>throw the baby out with the bath water."

*Houses had thatched roofs - thick straw - piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof-hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

*There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

*The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway, hence, a "thresh hold."

*In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and>then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite awhile - hence the rhyme, "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

*Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

*Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. (I know that people around that time believed that tomaotes were poisonous--ed)

*Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Often trenchers were made from stale bread which was so old and hard that they could be used for quite some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mold got into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy, moldy trenchers, one would get "trench mouth."

*Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper>crust."

*Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

*England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside, and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

There is just enough truth in this to make it believable, which convinces me the whole thing is bullshit. But I don't know. Anybody got a clue?

A guy named Fred sent

A guy named Fred sent me an e-mail telling me what a pathetic wimp I am. He included his blog address, so I wimped my way there. I found THIS ARTICLE, which I thought LONG-HAIRED COUNTRY BOY might enjoy, so I borrowed it. From that hard-ass, two-fisted tough guy FRED.

Somebody go call HIM a wimp in his "comments."

Look like I'm not the

Look like I'm not the only one who had a... GUT RUMBLE over the GOING BRIDAL site. SUGARMAMA found it frightening, too.

Sugarmama is from Alabama. I'm putting her on my blogroll.

ANDY put a link to

ANDY put a link to me on his WORLD WIDE RANT blog, so he automatically assumes a place of honor and distinction on my blogroll. Thanks, Andy.

Senator Bob Torricelli is as

Senator Bob Torricelli is as crooked as Quasimodo's spine, and the CORRUPT SLIMEBALL should be run from the Senate straight to a prison cell.

The New Jersey Democrat, having escaped a federal investigation, has gone to court to keep secret the details of his chief accuser's cooperation.

This has little to do with any challenge to his own truthfulness, Torricelli insists.

Yeah, and pigs fly, too.

Al Gore probably adopted HIS

Al Gore probably adopted HIS LATEST PERSONA after a focus group told him that he could resonate with the American People if he said he didn't listen to focus groups anymore. Part of his new strategy is to declare that he's not concentrating so much on strategy anymore.

"If I had to do it all over again, I'd just let it rip. To hell with the pollsters, the consultants and all the rest," donors said they were told at the beginning of a daylong strategy session at The Peabody.

A strategy session to declare that "We don't need no stinking strategy." Sounds like Al Gore to me.

UPDATE: Gore is IN TRAINING!

SUNDAY STUMPERS 1) Describe your

SUNDAY STUMPERS

1) Describe your ideal breakfast.
I like the Waffle House, but the best breakfast in the world is cooked by my mama. Eggs over easy, sausage AND bacon, grits, home-made biscuits and gravy. The biscuits and gravy are what makes it really special. I don't know if it's really that good or it's good to me because I grew up eating it. Naw... it's REALLY that good.

2) When was the last time you said "I love you" to a parent, sibling, child, best friend?
Every time I see my son or my mama.

3) If you were witness to a celebrity's bad behavior and had it on film, would you sell it to a tabloid for quick cash?
That would depend on the celebrity. If I had film of Hillary Clinton screwing a goat, I would GIVE it away to every media outlet I could find. If I had naked pictures of that sanctimonious gnome Joe Lieberman, I might try to sell those, although I don't know who would want to buy them. But if the celebrity was someone I liked, I wouldn't let anyone else know. I am loyal to my friends.

4) When confronted by total rudeness how do you respond?
Usually, I ignore it, but occasionally I will respond in kind when my cage is rattled hard enough. I believe good manners are the lubricant that eases the squeak and friction of society's machine. Well-raised Southerners usually have good manners. They were slapped into our behavior by well-raised mamas and daddys as we grew up. Too many people today missed those lessons.

5) Sugar daddies/mommas......acceptable or not?
HELL, YEAH! I either want to BE one, or I want to buy at least TWO for myself.

--

June 29, 2002

Wow! Check my comments a

Wow! Check my comments a few posts down. I believe I got a hit from England for crying out loud. Bejus! This poor bastard must have less of a life than I do.

After ENRON and WORLDCOM and

After ENRON and WORLDCOM and ARTHUR ANDERSON all proved to be using corrupt accounting practices, along comes XEROX doing the same thing. How do we fix it? We let CONGRESS take over!

Yes, those same wonderful people who gave us Amtrak, the US Post Office and HUD are going to straighten those evil corporations out, once and for all, stop all the waste and punish the greedy. Of course they must do THIS, THIS and THIS first.

Who will ever stop THEM?

Hurrah! The PRESIDENTIAL COLON received

Hurrah! The PRESIDENTIAL COLON received a clean bill of health today after Bush survived his colonoscopy. Now he should be revived, reinvigorated and well-lubricated for what the Democrat Senate has been doing to him all along.

I lied about eating fresh

I lied about eating fresh vegetables tonight. I had a craving for oysters, so I drove the short trip to The Sea Grill, which is just down the road across the Effingham County line. The Sea Grill is in Chatham County, where a liquor license comes at a reasonable price. Where I live, the county commission agreed to allow demon rum into this highly religious community, but made serving it so expensive that nobody does. It's legal, but unaffordable.

So I, and all the Effingham County sinners like me, drive just down the road and spend our money in Chatham County. The Bible-thumping Baptists and the humorless Lutherans of Effingham are delighted with this arrangement, because they're setting a high moral standard for everyone to follow. Chatham County is delighted, too, because people who aren't Bible-thumping Baptists and humorless Lutherans leave Effingham and follow their personal moral standard right to the bars over the county line, where they spend money my county will never see again. I did that very thing this evening.

I had a dozen raw oysters and two Margaritas. The patio bar where I usually sit was almost empty, so I had plenty of time to flirt with Carla The Bartender and Kim The Waitress while I was there. Carla is pretty, and she makes a good drink, but she's one of those wispy blondes who have translucent skin, long, skinny fingers and a demeanor that suggests that she may drop dead on you from a hangnail.

Kim, on the other hand, is a zesty woman, as tall as I am and full-breasted beneath her tee-shirt. (I tried to buy two today, but they were sold out.) (No, not breasts! Tee-shirts!) I like the logo, "Eat With Us, Then Sleep With Our Neighbors." The Sea Grill is located right between a Comfort Inn and a Holiday Inn at the intersection of Highway 21 and I-95. I thought both Diana and PW might like one of those shirts. I have two on order.

I also like Kim. Unfortunately, she is not an item I can order from the menu. Take-out would have been delicious.

Some of my corn crop

Some of my corn crop is getting a brown beard on the tassels. I picked a few ears, and GUESS WHAT? That's looking like some damn fine corn! Even rows of cernals, all filled out well, and no worms devouring the end of the ear. My okra is going like gangbusters after all the rain, and my cucumbers are overcoming the wild blackberry vines that infest this sandhill I live on. I ran my lawn tractor over the squash today, because it's done for, but my tomatoes and peppers are still producing.

Okay, all you yay-hoos who left me snidely "comments" about my garden: "EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

I'm having fresh vegetables tonight.

I fixed everything that was

I fixed everything that was wrong with BLOGGER and my "Comments." I hopped aboard my lawn tractor, cut my grass, rode three times around my mailbox in a counter-clockwise direction, and sent exactly the proper vibrations through the ground to correct everything. I parked the lawn tractor in the garage when I was finished, checked my site, and everything was as it should be. I do damn good work.

Now, I'm going to talk more about weddings. I've been married twice and I'm single now, so just go figure how those worked out. I married my first wife in Ridgeland, South Carolina, which rivals Las Vegas as the shit-and-git wedding capitol of the US. A Justice of the Peace performed the dirty deed, and the entire affair cost $20. In retrospect, I realize that I was totally ripped off. That woman wasn't worth $20.

I was married in a formal church ceremony the second time by a Methodist minister named Bill Ford, who ran the Bethesda Boy's Home outside Savannah for more than twenty years. Bill was an orphan raised at Bethesda, and he remains one of the finest men I ever met.

My now-ex and I already had purchased a home together, and we decided to hold the reception there. We spent $300 on deli meats and bread, bought a case of champaigne and a keg of beer, and had my old band Call The Cops provide the live entertainment. It was one hell of a party, and we didn't have any complaints from the neighbors because they ALL CAME.

We honeymooned that night at the Magnolia Inn, a bed-and-breakfast place downtown that brags about George Washington sleeping there when he visited Savannah. We slept in the very same four-poster bed Washington slept in, and I found his wooden teeth still laying on the porcelan sink where he left them. (Okay, I made the wooden teeth thing up. But the rest is true.)

That was October 24, 1992. We had dinner at 1790, a GREAT restaurant, went back to the room, listened to the Atlanta Braves win in the bottom of the ninth inning in a playoff game on the radio, drank some champaigne, then connsumated our marriage with wild abandonment. The next morning, we ate the strawberries and crossants they served at the bed and breakfast, checked out before 10:00 and went straight to the Shoney's breakfast buffet for some real food. I have never been happier in my life.

I loved that woman then, and I have to admit that I still love her now, even after all the pain she's caused me. I don't believe I'll ever forget what she meant to me, because I don't believe I'll ever meet anyone else who will affect me the way she did. I realize now that the person I loved didn't really exist, as I learned the hard way, but she was real to me at the time.

We wrote our own wedding vows, and I kept mine simple. "(Her name), I love you with all of my heart. I want you to be my wife, because you already are my partner, my lover and my best friend. Will you marry me?"

Bejus. She said "yes."

And I'll spend the rest of my life digging her knife out of my back.

Okay... the posts I wrote

Okay... the posts I wrote this morning finally are published, but my "Comments" are all screwed up now. What is BLOGGER doing? How do I get my "Comments" back? Why don't I put my fist through the computer monitor and go to the Super Wal-Mart?

I'm going to cut my grass.