All the Sports Unfit to Report

There's a sports program on ESPN called Mike & Mike. I guess it's on radio, too. I rarely watch it because....well....who would watch a sports talk show on tv? I occasionally go to a particular pizza-sandwich shop for lunch near where I work. Pretty good Phillie steak sandwiches.
While I waited for my sandwich, Mike & Mike were on the house tv.

It was unbelievable!

We're in the middle of the NHL hockey playoffs, well into the NBA baxabaw playoffs (if anybody's noticed) and well into the big league beisbol season. Mike & Mike aren't talking about any of this. They're talking about foopbaw. And they're not really talking about foopbaw, they're talking about.....get this.....Brett Farve's locker. I'm not sure who Brett Farve is, but I know who Brett Favre is.

They weren't talking about Brett Favre, but somebody named Brett Farve. Well, they were talking about Brett Favre, but sometime in Favre's ancestry, somebody started mispronouncing the name and, being from Mississippi, no one had the intelligence to correct him.

Back to the point. Mike & Mike weren't talking about Brett Favre, but about Brett Favre's locker up there in the dungeons under Lambeau Field's grandstand.

Those two sports dorks spent at least fifteen minutes arguing over whether or not Brett Favre's locker should be retired as a shrine!!

For my part, as very little as I care about it, I think it's a stupid idea, since there have been numerous foopbaw players of Favre's stature in the Packers over the length of the team's history. They'd have to move the players to a nearby barn to dress--all of the lockers in the dressing room would be shrines.

But, even that's not important. What I don;t understand is how a pretty good sports tv network can give dopes like these a tv show when there are so many hockey, lacrosse, rugby and pistol target matches going untelevised.

Well, this entry is a mite outside of my usual area of discussion, so I'll leave it there.

Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled rants.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Highjacking At T-Shirt Point

First, allow me to suggest that all of this airport security is really a scam to put in place a system by which all prospective travelers must be cleared by government to leave their current location. Additionally, it gives them the information as to just where they're going. The Third Reich did just this sort of thing--in a much lower-tech fashion as befitted the time--in Germany during the period leading up to WWII. Looking at the way the US federal government (and others) is arranging things, it parallels the German model fairly well.

Although, as we all know, the whole of what is sniggeringly called "Homeland Security" is dressed in the trappings of keeping Americans safe from terrorists.

First it was guns. Then it was knives. Then it was anything that could be remotely imagined to be able to break the skin--such as pen knives, nail clippers and--I kid you not--knitting needles. I haven't yet heard whether they confiscate blind folks' canes. Then, they started inspecting shoes. May their hands all develop athletes' foot. They started confiscating bottles of shampoo and tubes of toothpaste. They started feeling up people's genitals and women's breasts. Checking out pregnant women's abdomens.

I remember when the airport people would open the door. They'd check each passenger's ticket and let them walk out to a portable stairway that led to the door, where a stewardess would take a look at your ticket and give directions to your seat. Ah! Those were the days. The only federal sloths at the airport were safely confined to the tower, and were rarely seen.

'Tis true that the airlines, who have a true, rational interest in keeping dangerous individuals from interfering with the plane's flight to its destination, were very lax concerning their responsibilities along those lines. Several highjackings to Cuba should have lit a bulb somewhere, but didn't. I suspect there were federal restrictions as to what could be done, that interfered with the airlines' best interest.

Making a long entry even longer, I have to refer you all to the most moronic (not by far, but still, pretty dumb) event along these lines. It happened at London's Heathrow (where else?) and has cause groans of derision and peals of laughter all round the civilized world. As reported in Thisislondon.co.uk, a young man was refused boarding on an airliner and threatened with arrest for wearing a t-shirt with the image of a Transformer!! A Transformer that has some sort of machine gun for an arm.

Let's pause for a moment to allow ourselves to get up off the floor and recompose.

During a day in which there were at least a two teen-agers killed in knife attacks reported 'pon that same news page, whose murderers (if caught) face no more than a couple of years in stir, Heathrow officials are worried about a bloody (to use local vernacular) t-shirt!

This in a country in which self defense is illegal.

Englishmen! Englishwomen! Run, don't walk off that island, where insanity rules.

V, where are you when we need you?

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Half a Vote Is Better Than Following the Rules

The Democrat Party, rather than being seen as "disenfranchising" the voters in Florida and Michigan, are going with the same kind of compromise used by the attendees of the first Constitutional Convention in the 1780's, as the delegates from the Original Thirteen tried to cobble together a document that would replace the Articles of Confederation. Because the southern states had relatively sparse populations, it was thought that they'd get the short shrift regarding the number of Representatives they could seat in the House.

Since black slaves weren't thought of, back then, as citizens--or even as fully human by some--they weren't counted. And since a great percentage of the populations of the southern states were slaves, it was finally decided to call each slave 3/5ths of a person for apportionment purposes.

In that light, since most southerners were Democrats back prior to the suffrage and integration of blacks into the full society, one wonders why the delegates of Florida and Michigan aren't given 3/5ths of a vote at the Democrat Convention, rather than half a vote. It seems like a sort of aesthetic consistency, doesn't it?

I don't know how it came about that the Democrats required no state (with exceptions) to have its Primary election prior to Super Tuesday, but they did. I don't know why the officials of Florida and Michigan decided to blow the ruling off and have their Primary early, but they did.

Florida's and Michigan's delegates should not be counted at all. To do otherwise is to change the rules in the middle of the game. Any school child will tell you that changing the rules in the middle of the game isn't fair.

Democrats, as we all know, aren't concerned over what is or is not fair. Democrats live in the world of emotions, not of reason. It doesn't feel right that the voters of Florida and Michigan, and the delegates for whom they voted, shouldn't count.

Well, why can't the Dodgers, finding themselves on the short end of a 9-1 score in the third inning, declare that for the rest of the game, each Dodger run counts as three. It doesn't feel right that a great team like the Dodgers should be that far behind.

Well, as dubious a distinction as it's turning out to be, we all, including Floridans and Michiganers do get to vote for the unprecedentedly poor choice of candidates for the most powerful office in the world this November. The most powerful office except, one might assert, that of the Pope. A lot of very good Roman Catholics don't get to vote for Pope.

My suggestion is that the Democrat voters of Florida and Michigan turn their ire toward the individuals who decided to flout the rules of the Democrat National Committee and hold their Primaries earlier than the Democrats' rules allowed.

Or, they can call each delegate 3/5ths of a person.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Gang Problems In The Barrio? Let's Patrol the Amusement Parks!

We are all aware (except for the Chief of Police of El Pueblo de Los Angeles) that there are numerous gangs, who are at each others' throats over both race and turf. They battle, almost exclusively, within the poor neighborhoods--their own or those of their rivals. We rarely hear of much gang activity in Holmby Hills or Palos Verdes.

Imagine my ironic chuckle as I read this story in today's Los Angeles Daily News. The headline, "CityWalk In Cops' Spotlight," in which a large bit of our law enforcement dollar will apparently be spent.

"In an effort to stop a gang problem before it starts, police who patrol Universal CityWalk are getting extra help over the next month to keep the San Fernando Valley hilltop tourist attraction safe as the popular summer season heats up.

"For years, the restaurant, entertainment and shopping strip bordering Universal Studios has been the kind of place Los Angeles-area gang members have brought their girlfriends - but not their guns, police say."

So, in an effort to fight gangs, say police, money is being set aside to patrol CityWalk, to patrol what is essentially a very nice, Disney-like, restaurant and souvenir shop row adjacent to the Universal City Studios theme park.

Never mind that Universal City has private security that rivals that of Disneyland. Never mind that, while gangsters frequent the place, gang crime within the CityWalk environs is quite rare. Rather than put our police out where the crime is, to combat that element of society which is a danger to us all, for which they're paid handsomely. Don't believe the propaganda that police are underpaid--Los Angeles police, if you consider their retirement and a long list of other benefits that are part of their remuneration, are paid quite well.

So, I'm sure that hard core gangsters are relieved that, as long as they avoid Universal CityWalk, they can pretty much do as they please. They can carry arsenals under their baggy clothes while honest individuals can be prosecuted for carrying a handgun to be able, one hopes, to do for themselves that which the police are not available to do.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Teddy's Dilemma

Much as I'm (snif) upset about Senator Kennedy's illness, and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy (wait! he is one of America's worst enemies), I just have to ask.......

To which of the countries that offer universal health care will Senator Kennedy go for care and therapy in his current health crisis?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

In Search of Clean Air

The first time I visited El Pueblo de Los Angeles was in 1961, which happened to be the same year I graduated High school. I had just finished boot camp in San Diego and came to LA to visit my grandparents, who had moved here several years earlier.

Gramp took me downtown one day, sightseeing. We also cruised through Hollywood and Beverly Hills. One of the most memorable things was the foulness of the air. It was a hot day, and it seemed like it was foggy. It wasn't fog. The smog was a palpable thing. It smelled, made my eyes water and caused occasional coughing jags.

Five years later, my new bride and I drove into LA on a rainy September day, to better our lives. A mere few days later, after the unseasonable rain cleared out and it became hot and sunny, the smog closed in once again.

I eventually got used to it, though from time to time it became too obvious to ignore. The sun was dull in the sky. From a window fourteen or so stories up, the ground couldn't be seen. Buildings looked like they grew out of fog. It wasn't fog. Once, I flew into LAX on a hot, sunny day. LA looked like a sea of fog with several dozen of its taller buildings sticking out.

Over the years since, the state has created many thousands of laws designed to fight smog. Most of them merely served to help impoverish the less well off in California, but some of them actually worked. The state faltered, stumbled and spent billions, most of it wasted, but in the past ten years the smog has been lessened to a degree that it isn't so much noticed anymore.

Oh, I won't say the air's clean. Not exactly. There's still noticeable smog, occasionally, in the east at the San Bernardino foothills, but nothing like it was.

One could say that we ought to stand pat. The free market (if it were allowed to work) would supply us with a cheap, clean replacement for the gasoline-powered engine, eventually.

The point of this little history lesson? Several years ago, in spite of the rational arguments of many, the evil and stupid California Air Resources Board (CARB), decided that raw gasoline, evaporating into the atmosphere, was a major cause of smog--the same smog that was even then a diminishing problem. After much experimentation, testing, bribery of CARB officials and state legislators, the state was divided into zones. One zone was the San Diego, LA, western San Bernardino and Riverside counties and the San Francisco area. The other, the rest of the state.

The urban areas were to use a very expensive fueling nozzle that picked up all the fuel vapors during pumping and stored them in the underground fuel tank. It was called a vapor recovery system. Fuel delivery trucks also had a complex, expensive dual-hose system that returned the vapors to the truck tank as the underground tank was filled.

All was again right with the world.

The rest of the state eventually was required to implement a fuel recovery system as well, but it remains far less ponderous and expensive than its urban counterpart.

CARB officials and state legislators were wearing Ace bandages on their wrists and elbows for months, from slapping each other on the back.

So, the war on smog is over, right? Not, as they say in Boulder City, Nevada, by a damsite.

As long as there is one molecule of a substance that can be called a pollutant, hovering over any part of the state of California, Sacramento will keep giving CARB tens (at least) of millions of dollars a year to chase it.

Meanwhile, they're ignoring the fact that their precious vapor recovery system doesn't work. It's worse than the old way--putting the bare hose nozzle into an open fuel tank and letting the vapors go where they will. Now, instead of a little vapor escaping into the air, the high-priced, overly-complex nozzles spit out the best part of a pint of liquid gasoline all over the rear of your car, and on the pavement underneath, where it's free to evaporate over the following few minutes. This, of course, is a pint of the four-dollar-a gallon gas that you pay for. They do this, just about invariably, when the stream clicks off as your tank fills. At times, the nozzle actually pops out of your car, falling 'pon the pavement and spilling even more liquid gasoline under the rear of your car.

CARB won't do anything about this, because to them, it's a done job. To them, no more gasoline vapor is escaping into the air. And so it goes.

You can't trust any air you can't see.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Training People to Act Like Sheep

A number of people are sitting and standing in a large room. It might be a bank, or maybe the waiting room of an airport. It might even be a store. Suddenly, as Snoopy often writes in the Charlie Brown strip, a shot rings out.

A man falls to the floor, motionless. Everyone else runs, screaming, in every direction, looking for the cover of something under which to cower, quivering in fear, awaiting further shooting.

Today on the KCAL evening news, they showed video of the above scene as part of a Homeland Security drill.

What was wrong with the scene? Why, of course! People were hiding under tables and behind partitions, waiting for death. Nobody had a gun.

Has ten to twenty percent of these trainees been carrying mockup handguns in their holsters or purses, they could've had a real drill in which the trainees could simulate shooting or arresting the mock killer before he could cause any further mock damage.

Sadly, it isn't within the psychological makeup of the jackbooted thugs of Homeland Security who formulate such drills, to put together a scenario in which the prospective victims could actually defend themselves. Yet, a populace capable if its own self defense is by far the best way to deal with the "terrorism" with which we're supposedly warring.

It leads me to suspect (as I've written several times) that the entire "war on terror" is nothing more than a plan to more rapidly put an end to the freedom we all own as sentient beings and which the people who regard themselves our leaders wish to see ended.

The actors in the drill were clearly depicted as helpless, and simply waiting to die, or perhaps be rescued by the armored and anonymous police squads upon which we're being taught to depend. I Find the entire notion both disgusting and offensive.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Turning the US Over To the Control of the UN

It's long been the opinion of a large minority of Americans that the United Nations is an anti-American organization. Many actions of the UN in recent years proves this--they are very fond of disproportionately criticizing the US while simultaneously requiring the US to shoulder a huge degree of financial responsibility for its operation.

There's a deliberate effort to subjugate the US federal government to the UN, undoubtedly due to extreme envy of our wealth by governments of other nations. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that these governments wish to sap the economic strength of the US to place the US at (or below) a par with the socialist nations of Europe.

Toward this end, the traitorous B Hussein Obama has authored and submitted to the Senate a bill (SB 2433) which, besides committing a hefty chunk of our tax dollars to the world's most savage dictatorships, filtered though the thieving, grasping hands of the leaders of the UN, but it cancels debts of these so far unidentified dictatorships owed the World Bank--at US expense). Read the text of the bill here.

This, of course, means that it'll leave the dictators of these countries with money to purchase more arms and enlarge their armies to better repress their people and, perhaps, to help train and arm groups that would harm the US.

As noted by Alex Jones, of Infowars.com, the bill requires the President to sign on to the UN's Millennium Declaration, which, according to Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media:

.....[A]after cutting through all of the honorable-sounding goals in the plan, the bottom line is that the legislation would mandate the 0.7 percent of the U.S. GNP as "official development assistance."

"In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that (U.N.) declaration commits nations to banning ’small arms and light weapons’ and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child," he said.

The bill invests the power for enactment of its provisions in the President, which could be B Hussein Obama by the time the bill becomes law. Now, in my own head, this commitment sounds like handing over the sovereignty of each and every one of the United States to an anti-American organization. I have no doubt that is what the multicultural Senator Obama intends.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill!

Ok, so I'm a hot rodder. I like old cars; I like fast cars. I'm also a fan of NHRA drag racing and, to a lesser extent, other kinds of auto racing.

Fast cars need a lot of gas. America has, contrary to what the algorians will have you believe, plenty of oil available within the areas US oil companies can search. More than we'll ever need--because we will, in spite of all the wheel spinning with stupid and costly stuff like highlt subsidized ethanol from corn and those idiotic, unsightly and expensive windmills we see here and there (but not in the Kennedys' back yard).

We've had a number of "oil crises" over the past thirty or so years, each one seemingly more serious than those previous. These past five or six years, we've been in a continual oil crisis, largely because of the disingenuously-named "War on Terror." And our own politicians' propensity toward following suicidal policies.

Leftist environmentalism, or algorianism, is deliberately designed to destroy capitalism and individual freedom--not to mention the free world's industrial and technological capabilities. Algorians don't actually care a whit about the environment except as it serves their agenda.

Ten years ago roughly, the question of drilling for the oil under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) became a political football. It had been a question for a long while before, but oil from OPEC member nations became more problematical and a few sensible voices suggested that the federal government get out of the way of American petroleum production. Screams from the left were both shrill and without any rational arguments at all.

The arguments ranged from unprovable fears of destruction of animal habitat to the arguable notion that it would take ten years until any meaningful production would come from ANWR.

A very few brave advocates even suggested that exploring and drilling be authorized in offshore areas in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. They were again shouted down by emotion-laden voices that claimed unavoidable environmental damage. Baloney.

Planet Earth is self-cleaning. Whatever happened to the millions of gallons of oil spilled from the ships of the world's navies and merchant fleets destroyed during WWII? Microcritters ate it. Same with the oft whined about Exxon Valdez spill. One might be able to find traces of that oil today, but he'd have to search. A few years along, even that won't be possible.

Well, ten years have passed. Had we begun working the ANWR oil pools ten years ago, we'd be able to tell the Mideast countries to pump their oil where the sun don't shine. The crisis would be over for decades to come, giving entrepreneurs time to develop personal nuclear generators for the home, the factory and for personal aircars.

But that's not what the algorians want. They want to see us looking under rocks for bugs to eat. They want us killing each other for food.

And I would happily give up my hot rod for my own aircar, if there were no worries about tree huggers bringing back another Dark Age.

We've seen the enemy and he is Algore.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Ghoulish Algore Revels in Burma Destruction

It certainly was predictable. He's been telegraphing his intentions for some time--claiming that global warming will cause more and more hurricanes in the southern and eastern states. I can imagine that he was tearing his hair out, waiting for the high-body-count disasters that would help regenerate flagging interest in his nefarious agenda.

Finally, huzzah, a cyclone! Algore's jelly belly is just quivering with glee! Tens of thousands killed or missing. More to die from disease and unavailability of medical care over the upcoming weeks.

On the very day following the end of the storm, Algore finds a microphone and trumpets his "I told you so" as expected (and probably scheduled. As told in this story in the Business and Media Institute website, Algore leaprd to the NPR microphone to shout his mantra, "the cyclone is a consequence of global warming!" Truth be known, he has probably been sitting in front of that mike for weeks, waiting for something, anything, to happen that he could use.

Myanmar, traditionally known as Burma, having been renamed by an agency of one of its recent dictators-for-life is, and as a socialist republic will remain, a third world dictatorship, awash in squalor whenever it's not awash in flood waters. Philosopher Tibor Machan has recently written a short article on the reasons why, here.

Now, any event like that which happened in Burma is saddening beyond words, for the (mostly needless) loss of life. I say "mostly needless" because the socialist dictatorship in Burma has squelched technological advancement and left the country's millions vulnerable to the elements.

These are the kind of living conditions the algorians idealize for all the peoples of the world. This is the sort of world to which Algore's policies will ultimately lead us. Several algorians, past and present (most recently the evil and stupid Ted Turner), suggest that the ideal human population of planet Earth should be a few million naked savages, surviving as cannibals.

What more do you need?

Let them freeze to death in the dark.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

El Pueblo de Los Angeles Promotes Gang Violence With Big Payouts

Antonio Vinaigrette, el Alcalde del Pueblo de Los Angeles, is in the process of taking over all of the city's anti-gang programs. As an ex gangster himself, he obviously knows what he's doing. After all, he's also attempting to take over the entire city children's prison system. An obvious rationale? Put gangsters in front of the classes to teach children how to better conduct the War on Productivity in Los Angeles. Given his background and personal philosophy it, as Science Officer Spock used to say, is logical.

Meanwhile, these efforts are being carried out mostly by the City Council.

There is an expose on LA's local Fox News affiliate KTTV, of the effort of one City Councilwoman, Janice Hahn. Seems she's been paying gangsters big bucks to mitigate gang violence in the city. She's been getting gangsters who are arrested of violent crimes, released from incarceration so they can continue their work. See Chris Blatchford's expose video, as shown on KTTV, here, along with other related stories.

Apparently the money, fairly large sums. is given with no strings attached. One gangster is quoted as saying he didn't know what he was supposed to do, for the money. Another took his homies to the Raging Waters amusement park for the day.

Ms Hahn who, along with her father and brother have inhabited offices in City Hall for decades, gets very defensive when asked for specific answers about her programs. She cuts off interviews she deems hostile, much as does El Alcalde himself.

Arrogant as many of the Los Angeles City Council members are, they still have to stand for election every four years. Angry as LA residents are at the high local taxes and foolish spending, these parasites keep getting reelected.

One must suspect some Chicago-style hanky panky at the polls. And, of course, this is Hollywood, with all the celebrity-driven socialist propaganda being brought to bear at every election.

Like MS Hahn's insane notion that paying gangsters off will make them nice.

Meanwhile, the murder of someone (anyone) is the cost of initiation to many gangs and the murder of a member of another gang is even better. As might be suspected in a part of the country in which victims are disarmed by law, there are many murders in El Pueblo, of both the guilty and the innocent, and these murders apparently occur with the blessing of el alcalde and the rest of the City Council. Only occasionally are they prosecuted and they're almost never prosecuted severely.

A recently, one of Ms Hahn's paid gangsters was murdered by a member of a rival gang. She attended the funeral and hugged the deceased thug's mother. One must wonder if he was killed by a gangster with a gun purchased with Ms Hahn's money.

People should never be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Continuing Self Destruction of the Libertarian Party.....Continued

If I get all this correctly, it all started with a Resolution, one version of which can be found here, to be put to a vote during the National Convention, which calls on the federal government--the FBI, specifically--to ante up more resources for fighting child pornography--by spending less on adult victimless crimes. Sounds ok.....if you're stupid. While I might write out my reasons for saying so at some point, Reason Number One is: Never ask the federal government to increase spending on anything. They'll spend more money all right, and the result will be more child pornography.

The LP national office then sent out a press release, which can be found here. One candidate , Mary Ruwart, apparently expressed something negative about the wisdom of enjoining such a fringe issue (I think all rational individuals can agree to detest child pornography), and was called to task by Mark Schreiber, campaign manager for another candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, who apparently implied that Ms Ruwart was not opposed to child pornography. Writes Ms Ruwart:

Consequently, you can understand my shock when Mark Schreiber, "quoted" me as saying that "pedophilia is OK" in my book, Short Answers to the Tough Questions, this weekend at the Indiana LP Convention. Mr. Scribner is the campaign manager for LP presidential hopeful Wayne Allyn Root.

You can find her full comment here.

Now, you see why I continue to think the Libertarian Party is coming apart at the seams. LP has always held that its most important function is to try to educate the electorate that we'd all be better off with less government, not more; with more freedom and personal responsibility, not less. Running candidates is, rationally, more to allow the candidates to reach cameras and microphones that would otherwise be denied, to the purpose of letting the candidates make the case for smaller government to a larger audience than would otherwise be possible.

No rational person ever really thought that LP would elect a President. A few candidates for local offices have been elected, and that's great, but a President of the United States? C'mon!

All that aside, the detestable charge allegedly levelled by Mr Schreiber at Ms Ruwart, and his boss' failure to both apologize and sanction Schreiber, is just the kind of filthy politics we don't need in the LP. I guess my reaction will be to state that I will not vote for Mr Root, and that I will not return to the LP as long as either Mr Root or Mr Schreiber are involved.

I suggest that LP not nominate Mr Root for President, or for any other office.

There are liars, damned liars, and politicians.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Continuing Self-Destruction of the Libertarian Party

For starters, I'll have to admit to a degree of ignorance regarding the recent events within my party of choice for these past thirty-five years. Though I've almost always voted for LP candidates come election day, I haven't belonged, nor been particularly active in the Party since after Roger MacBride's candidacy in 1976. Neither did I have the time and money to go chasing around the country to attend meetings and conventions, nor did ol' career builder me have the inclination to do so.

Standing at a long arm's length from the Party for these past many years, I often read of such things as political infighting, rule breaking and financial abuses in the upper offices. There were a number of embarrassing fiascoes highlighted by the attempted Presidential candidacy of radio talker Howard Stern, and the virtual "food fight" that was that year's nomination convention.

I was always a fan of the "Pledge," the signing of which was a a requirement for many years. It's also been controversial for almost as many years. many so-called libertarians in the Party wanted to do away with the Pledge, to make the Party more inclusive.

It was a deal breaker for me. If a prospective member can't honestly take that Pledge, then he's no libertarian. Period. Having recently thought of recommitting myself to the Party, I've heard that they, in fact, have withdrawn the requirement to sign the Pledge. Until that decision is reconsidered, I won't be involving myself.

I will still, however, continue to vote for LP candidates I find significantly more palatable than those of the two branches of the Boot On Your Neck Party.

A recent event has come to my attention, though, which will require some study and thought. Seems one of the candidates for the nomination for President has allegedly made some snide distortions of a statement of another candidate, regarding child pornography. This, we cannot have.

Candidates vying for the right to run for any office under the label, "Libertarian Party" must argue their differences honestly and honorably. When I find whether or not this candidate has distorted the truth, I'll make it public in a subsequent post. Anyone who will stoop that low to secure the party's nomination belongs with the Democrats or Republicans, where that sort of thing is normal.

Politics, when there's money to be stolen, is the home of thieves.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Chicago! Not My Kind of Town!

First, so we aren't accused of calling the kettle black, I have to stipulate that the rules for keeping and bearing arms in El Pueblo de Los Angeles are not only stupid, but unConstitutional, too. In LA, one can own a gun, but he must go through a maze of federal, state, and local city laws regarding purchasing, owning, transporting, carrying and shooting a gun contain a labyrinth of potholes and mindless pitfalls, every one of which is designed to keep the victim, particularly the poor victim, disarmed.

If one has avoided legal entanglements and if one has been nice to his spouse/significant other throughout one's life, he can legally own a handgun in Los Angeles--but that's just the first major hurdle. The legal LA gun owner cannot carry a handgun either concealed or openly without a permit, and no permits are issued to "little people." None. Rosie O'Dozie can get permits for her bodyguards, but yours truly, who has over forty years of shooting experience and several handguns, none of which has ever killed or injured anyone while in my possession, can't. Even if I had police combat pistol training (which I'll get sooner instead of later--read: while I still can!), I couldn't get a permit.

The dopey gang children, who never have problem getting guns, have been killing each other for years, with the not-too-rare killing of an innocent, seem to be above the law.

But let's focus 'pon Chicago. The Windy City, like New York and communist China, don't allow its inhabitants to own guns at all. Well, if you're well enough connected, there can be exceptions, but the average working stiff remains an unarmed target on the shooting gallery that is Chicago. Seems the evil Mayor Daley wants to see that only the dopey gang children are armed.

Apparently, Chicago had a particularly violent week, the one just past. Check out the MyWay News story available on Drudge. In it, the criminally deluded mayor says:

A fired-up Daley blasted the gun industry and called on parents and adults to do their part by intervening to help troubled youth and by working to keep others on the right path.

"I don't want people to wait for Mayor Daley to call a meeting. I want you to call a meeting in your home with your children and loved ones. I want you to go next door and talk to those children next door. I want the parents of the block to say 'This block will be free of violence,'" he said.

Well, how do you suppose the folks on the block are going to be free of violence if they've been disarmed while the thugs are bristling with firearms? Perhaps they ought to call in Macaulay Culkin (as Kevin McCallister in the movie "Home Alone") as their home defense expert. Only thing--then, the ever pro-criminal Mayor Daley will undoubtedly declare the use of ordinary household items and toys illegal to use in defense of one's home and family.

Because it's legal in Chicago to vote multiple times and for illegal aliens, non-residents and the recently deceased to vote, the evil Mayor will stay in office as long as he wants, and will then pick his son as his successor, self defense promises to be illegal in Chicago for a long time to come.

I think I'd have liked Chicago better in the 1930's. They had the same gangs (perhaps a bit more civilized), but the average guy could legally defend himself.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

What Will We Use For a Swastika Now That Swastikas Ain't Cool?

Swastikas are hated in the various United States, by most people. They won't play in the federal government as a symbol for our gestapo. It might cause a resistance to form. Americans would be very good at resistance if the heat in the proverbial pot were increased too quickly. The feds have been turning it up pretty quickly these past few years, and the portion of America that's not asleep with dreams of the security of a benevolent government, taking needed steps to protect us from an enemy that would destroy us all, are becoming increasingly aware that this is no longer the America of Thomas Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, et al.

In a practice run at setting up checkpoints at all rail stations in the country, the feds have been helping finance the New York City police department's quasi military control of the city's subways. You know, the famous subways of many a stage play, movie and anecdote, in which one can get to within a few blocks of just about anywhere in the city worth going for a nickel. Of course it, like everything else, is no longer a nickel.

Police started, somewhat over a year ago, checking random grocery bags and book totes for what....? Oh, yes! It was for bombs. Everyone in city government and the media said it wasn't a violation of one's Fourth Amendment rights. If one wanted to avoid the search, he could walk from Fifth and Broadway to Jones Beach. Carrying one's MP3 player, Speedos, a sandwich and a thermonuclear device.

No big deal. If you take the subway, we'll just take a peek in your daypack and you're on your way.

Well, as government takes away your rights in big bites, and missions creep along the baseboards, it didn't stop there. Magee Hickey, a reporter for WCBSTV News in New York, reports here that NYPD officers, clad in full armor and carrying MP5 submachine guns and M4 carbines, and accompanied by drug--I mean bomb sniffing dogs are now manning (and dogging) the various subway stations in the city.

The story also states that similar squads of storm troops have been stationed around the Empire State building, Wall Street and other New York landmarks for years. What a joy! I wonder if they were stationed around the World Trade Center prior to Sept 11th.

All this money being spent, when all that'd be needed is an armed populace! Armed on their own nickel and unpaid, happy to just consider themselves capable of their own defense.

Welcome to the brave new world.

This is, of course, just a trial balloon, to see if the most compliant of all Americans, New Yorkers, will rebel. They won't. As long as the heat isn't turned up too fast.

NYPD, the organization whose members like to find a poor foreigner in a doorway, brace him (in plain clothes), and when he reaches for his wallet with his id, shoot him over 50 times (only hitting him 16 times. I wonder how many times they reloaded), is in charge of this fiasco. My guess is, it'll be a relatively short time until several subway riders will be killed after these Jack-booted thugs open up the MP5's at some drunk who runs when they brace him, and bullet ricochets fill the train station. They probably won't hit the drunk.

Why do you think these New York's finest are taking the precaution to wear armor?

I mentioned in a previous entry, there's little more the members of the Boot On Your Neck Party (both sects A and B), want than to control Americans' ability to travel at will. They'd put it in a request to Santa Claus every year, except that hizzonner Mr Claus can't go to New York any more without his bag being searched.

So, if the Neocons and the leftists (but, I repeat myself) get their way, and there are checkpoints every few blocks on every street, manned by armored thugs with submachine guns, what will be the symbol emblazoned 'pon their helmets and shoulders?

A cross within a crescent, maybe?

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Stunning Insult to WWII Vets

In one of its more amazing efforts to carry algorian water in the advancement of the global warming hoax, Time magazine has reached a new low in its disregard for American veterans. An article by Jeff Poor on the Business and Media Institute website shows the cover of the current issue of Time magazine, which parodies the raising of the flag over Mount Surabachi (in which about 7000 Allied troops were killed and over 20,000 wounded) following the fierce and costly Battle of Iwo Jima.

We can say what we want about the discourse or lack of it by the Roosevelt Administration, in the opening moments that lead to the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese Navy, but the US Marines, as well as all the other soldiers, sailors and fliers involved in the war in the Pacific acted with extreme competence and valor throughout.

Survivors of the battle, and of the war wherever they fought, justifiably feel very insulted. Those of us who are sons and daughters of the veterans, and who've heard all the stories first hand, are equally so.

Global warming is going to be on the list of the world's greatest hoaxes, in future history books, and the generation now known as the "Baby Boom" in the US are going to be known as gullible, as well as a generation of spoiled brats. Time magazine, already on a downward slide because of an outrageously flawed editorial point of view, is on its way to insolvency.

“I think since I’ve been back at the magazine, I have felt that one of the things that’s needed in journalism is that you have to have a point of view about things,” [Time managing editor Richard] Stengel said. “You can’t always just say ‘on the one hand, on the other’ and you decide. People trust us to make decisions. We’re experts in what we do. So I thought, you know what, if we really feel strongly about something let's just say so.”

Well, Mr Stengel, no one will criticize you for having a point of view, unless it's stupid to the point of insult.

I think many mistakes were made at the political level during the period, but for which our involvement might have been far different, but nothing can be said to lessen the valor of the troops, once mobilized. Time magazine's cover should be taken as an insult, not only by the survivors of WWII, but by all veterans. There is no excuse for trivializing the loss of a great part of a generation by trying to equate it with a hot summer.

Last summer wasn't even particularly hot.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Keeping the Kids In a Soundproof, Padded Cell

As I sit in my car at a red light, I often look at the car beside me. Most of the time, if it's a woman, she's on the phone.....but that's not my point right now. I want to focus 'pon the back seat, 'pon which there's often a padded, plastic contraption into which a poor young child is strapped in, more securely than a condemned murderer is strapped into the electric chair.

Sometimes, the poor child's end is fairly similar--burned to death cruelly strapped into a padded coffin which requires someone else to remove to safety.

Proponents of these plastic maidens cite stats that indicate that a child is much safer hog tied in the back seat in the event of a collision or a rollover. I imagine that that is probably true, as far as it goes. On the other hand, when mom and dad are in the front seat arguing, or simply chatting....or when the driver is talking on a phone or driving 85 mph while trying to unwrap a burrito, the youngster strapped into his little cocoon is no safer than were he sitting, untethered, on the hood of the car.

Today's crowded streets and freeways, swarming with cars driven by young men and women who have no notion of the connection between actions and consequences, old folks whose physical and mental abilities have begun to diminish, foreign-born folks who learned to drive (to the extent that they can) very recently, and middle-aged working folk less concerned with getting there than with what they'll do when they arrive. In this venue, driving is a full-time job, for those of us who want to avoid crumpled metal (crumpled plastic, if you drive a foreign-made car), requiring all of one's attention.

To take the foolishness a step farther, I've observed on many more occasions than I like, seeing parents removing the youngster from the car, if he's a baby or a toddler, in his little suicide seat into the store or restaurant, placed it the shopping cart or on the chair or seat as a unit, keeping him immobile and fully bound--often gagged with a mouth plug, through dinner, the shopping trip, or whatever. One has to wonder if, when they get home, they just throw the Kiddie Kocoon into the corner, toddler and all, until bedtime.

So maybe, just maybe, in a certain kind of automotive mishap, a child might survive that otherwise might be killed or seriously injured.

What about the kids whose parents don't do the stupid stuff that causes (or fails to avoid) collisions? Why should they have to suffer, bound and gagged in the rearmost sections of the vehicle, kept in stasis while surging through a scary world that he can't see from his confinement.
Not having young children any more, I can only wonder how they ever grow up sane from their sensory deprivation capsules in the back of their mother's unarmed Armada.

When I was growing up, there were four of us. One of us (my little brother) lay in Mom's lap in front. The other three of us sat in the back. If it was a long drive, usually we'd take turns lying up in the back package shelf, looking at the following cars or up at the stars and moon. Going somewhere in the car was fun, and something to which to look forward.

If it wasn't too cold, we'd open the windows and stick our heads out, like dogs, or shape our hands into lift surfaces out in the wind. We'd wave at the truck drivers and look for out-of-state plates.

We were never involved in a collision.

When my kids were little, it was the same, except we all had seat belts. The key, of course, was to not crash into things with your car. With a couple of minor (no injury) exceptions, I've always been very good at that. I keep my phone in my pocket, and rarely (almost never) answer it until I park the car. "Leave a message, I'll get back to you."

There is, no doubt, reams of evidence indicating that childhood obesity is exacerbated by long periods of enforced immobility in their isolation chambers in the back of the car.

Soon, someone will invent the Kid-ee-muffler to wrap around his face so we won't have to listen to him, either.

Just until we can ship him off to the children's prison.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Never "Press 1 for English"

Private firms can do whatever they want (within limits), and have only to answer to their customers and clients. Most customers choose a firm for products and services based 'pon the quality of those goods, juxtaposed against their cost. That's as it should be.

One of the most annoying trends of our time is the practice of placing a recorded greeting on the answering machine, followed by a request to "Dial 1 for English." I refuse to "Dial--or Press--1 for English."

English has been the semi-official language of all of the various United States for almost all of our history. I'll give exception to the Hispanics native to the Southwestern states, since their ancestors may have lived in those areas when the land was a part of Mexico--although they should, and almost all do speak, read and write English now.

English is the language of technology, of commerce, and of tourism in most of the civilized world, and will likely remain so, if we can stop GW Bush from doing a Jimma Carter on the US Dollar.

Most of the technological marvels we take for granted have been translated from English to other languages; eg automovil, aeroplano, telefono, aire condicionador, refrijerador (Spanish, because that happens to be a language with which I'm familiar). There are similar words for these things in many other languages. Why? Because they were invented, developed and/or most bought and used in English-speaking countries.

A non-English-speaking resident of the United States can almost always count on living a life doing menial work for low pay.

In recognition of these facts, this primitive, but unabashedly agenda-driven tune seems appropriate.

Buenas noches, y mucha buena suerte a todos!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

This Time, It's the Christians

Each year, at many of the government children's prisons, there are occasional special programs or times in which tradition is broken. Among them are Christmas programs, Easter egg hunts, Homecoming parades, the Prom and others.

Some are related to holidays and some mimic pagan seasonal rituals. Some are local in nature and some are related to sports and academic endeavors.

In my school, we had an annual operetta, conducted by the acting program and the school orchestra. We had Homecoming, related to the foopbaw team--we had a dance, a parade, and (of course) the foopbaw game. We had the Junior Prom. We had a Christmas program and the Senior Play. And, both the most bizarre and the most fun, we had the Sadie Hawkins Day Dance.

We all dressed as Li'l Abner characters in salute to, or parody of, Al Capp's comic strip that appeared daily in the Grand Forks Herald those many years ago. For you youngsters, Sadie Hawkins Day (according to Capp), was a day in which the women chased the men, and if a woman was able to catch one, he had to marry her. At GF Central, tradition was that the girls asked the boys to the dance, and everyone dressed in Capp's inimitable hillbilly style.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we got trouble. Right here in River City. Or, more accurately in this case, Reedsburg, Wisconsin. According to a story in MyWay:

Students at Pineview Elementary in Reedsburg had been dressing in costume all last week as part of an annual school tradition called Wacky Week. On Friday, students were encouraged to dress either as senior citizens or as members of the opposite sex.

No doubt there's a little PC involved in these choices. Wacky Week usually has some kind of theme, according to the story, and is chosen by the students. It sounds like a good diversion from the normal humdrum of children's prison life.

But, Wait! Jim Schneider, program director for the funny-mentalist Voice of Christian Youth America cries foul! "We believe it's the wrong message to send to elementary students," he says. "Our station is one that promotes traditional family values. It concerns us when a school district strikes at the heart and core of the Biblical values. To promote this to elementary-school students is a great error."

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out the error in having a bit of fun with age and gender. It doesn't sound as if anyone is trying to push other characteristics of age and gender 'pon these kids.

It's not the ACLU this time, nor is it the raging subhumans of fascist islam. It's funny-mentalist Christians!

I have no intention to paint Christians with a broad brush, but there are loons in every movement. It makes me wonder how many islamists are peaceful followers of the "religion of peace, and how many are bloodthirsty, crazed followers of a bloodthirsty child molester.

No idols.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Life In El Pueblo de Los Angeles

Today, I attempted to call the police. No emergency, but as a minor public safety person, I thought I should get this fellow some help before he got himself, or someone else, killed.

Seems this apparently drunken bum was prancing about (on foot) in the lanes of a very busy boulevard. He survived as long as he did mostly because afternoon traffic was beginning to get heavy and cars weren't going as fast as they otherwise would. There was a lot of horn honking and swerving.

He was carrying a cardboard sign 'pon which was written: "Please give me enough money to get enough whiskey to get so drunk I can't do this." I saw no one actually stop to give him anything.

Actually, I was too far away to see what the sign said, so the above is just a guess. Probably a pretty good guess.

I didn't have the phone number for the police, and I didn't think it was an emergency--enough to qualify as a 911 call. I dialed 411 (information) and got a robot. After following the instructions and asking for the Los Angeles police, the robot (tried to) connected me to a disconnected number.

I tried again.

This time I asked for the number, which I dialed myself.

This time, I was connected to another robot, identifying himself as Antonio Vinaigrette, el alcalde del Pueblo de Los Angeles. He thanked me for phoning the City of Los Angeles, and after a campaign ad for his reelection, then advised me that if this was a life-threatening emergency I should dial 911. Then, he repeated the entire message in Spanish! I should have been connected directly to a desk sergeant at a nearby substation but, alas, that would be too simple for this administration.

Just kidding about the campaign ad, but the fact that the voice of el alcalde answered the phone is actually kind of a campaign ad, isn't it?

To add insult to insanity, the next robot voice asked me to Dial One For English.

Well, mes enfants, I NEVER DIAL ONE FOR ENGLISH. Never.

There is no one I want to talk to badly enough to have to ask to speak the language of commerce, the language of technology, the language of America.

Those who don't speak English can dial one. Or uno. Or Ein. Or whatever. I'll dial one if I find myself needing assistance in Mexico--except, in Mexico, they don't ask you to dial one for English. In Mexico, if you don't speak Spanish, good luck. If the phones work.

What do you dial if you're an arab terrorist?

Only in Los Angeles.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Addendum:

I looked in the phone book to find the real phone number for the police, and learned that there isn't one(!). The only non-emergency way to get to the police department is to dial 311, which is a sort of Los Angeles information number.

There's no other way than going through that awful Antonio Vinaigrette sequence, then get asked to DIAL ONE FOR ENGLISH. Looks like the police have found a good way to eat their donuts uninterrupted.

I guess I'll follow the Duke's advice and just fire three shots into the air.