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Drooling on the Pillow

Friday, August 26, 2005

Ave Atque, Wally 

This week has been one of the unfunnier episodes of Home Improvement, but I got most of what I wanted to get done done and Tim Taylor will tell you that's staying ahead of the game.

I've got the carpet to finish today and then moving three rooms of furniture back into place, cleaning up, packing and then get us on the road for the Poconos by noon tomorrow.

Har.

So I'll put the lights out now and see you a week from Tuesday or Wednesday.

Please don't forget to go see PDC Ryan at If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawn-mower on Sunday as he will be the exclusive purveyor of Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers goodness. Volume 15.
Posted by: Sluggo / 9:57 AM
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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Go Fighting Sioux! 

Now that the NCAA has rescinded it's ban on Florida State's use of the nickname Seminoles, I can return to my natural state of hating them and the war pony they rode in on. There will be no more painful Go Seminole! posts.

The issue is still a live one, though, and that is that the NCAA has no right, or should have no right, to dictate mascots and nicknames to it's members based upon their own delicate sensibilities and sensitivities. As I said before, if a school wants to name its team the Wehrmacht or the MichaelMoores they will get what they deserve, but the notion that it's up to these bozos to instruct colleges and universities on the heritage of their areas and the ideals they want to personify is positively ludicrous.

With Florida State out of the way, the heavyweights in this fight now are the universities of Illinois and Utah. I haven't seen anything that says these schools are in litigation over this. Utah expects to retain their name, as did Florida State, based upon their relationship with the Ute nation. That's nice, but unhelpful, since it establishes the principle that teams have to justify themselves before the NCAA pinheads. Illinois has a different problem as there never was a tribe named the Illini. I really hope they get jiggy with the NCAA.

Moving forward, I was looking over the banned nickname list looking for a replacement team to root for in this fight and noticed my mother's alma mater, the Catawba College Indians. Catawba's problem is that the school is named after a tribe so to qualify for the Florida State exemption they would have to rename themselves the Catawba Catawbas.

I'm going to go with the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:45 AM
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Fatwa From a Fathead 

Well, if anyone on the left was having a tough time making a Taliban = Christian Right argument, Pat Robertson makes things simple. When you put Jerry Falwell in the position of 'Voice of Reason' you've really earned your Crazy Aunt in the Attic status.
I understand where he's coming from," explained Jerry
Falwell, long a supporter of Robertson and his 700 Club,
"But there's probably some room for negotiation here as well.
When Jehovah of the Old Testament saw Israel threatened,
he didn't hesitate to assassinate thousands in his good name.
But we aren't quite gods, and we don't carry the same authority.
To be perfectly clear, the Christian Right is made up in the main of God fearing folk who live blameless lives and do love their enemies. The vast majority of them know much more about Islam and are much more interested in true ecumenism than your mainline churchgoer. There is, however, from time to time, a leadership problem and Mr. Robertson is the exemplar.

I'm not a Christian, but I'm happy to live in a Christian nation, where the call for the murder of anyone is met with the scorn and derision it deserves.

Thanks, Pat. Jackass.

UPDATE: And a long pair of ears for yours truly who failed to notice that the Falwell quotation above is a slick piece of satire from The Bentinal.
Posted by: Sluggo / 6:36 PM
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Monday, August 22, 2005

Public Display of Devotion 

I'd love to have a penalty called on any player, baseball, football, soccer, hockey, who does something good and then touches his chest, looks into the sky and then points up at a private devotional object up there. Don't care if it's their mother who scrubbed floors to get them into college or Jebus himself. And anyone who takes a moment to pray in the endzone after a touchdown should be thrown out of the game. And then locked into a confessional with Father Lance.

What happened to the separation of church and football?
Posted by: Sluggo / 8:16 PM
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Politics Ain't Bean Bags 

We should think long and hard about the fact that about half the country takes Cindy Sheehan seriously. All of the left, and I don't mean the hard left or the looney left, but just about everyone who didn't vote for George Bush seems perfectly willing sign on, or at least pretend to sign on, to the Mother Sheehan/Camp Casey fantasy. If there are Democrats who have asked for a pause in the sanctification of the poor woman, I haven't heard of them.

That fantasy was spelled out, predictably, in an Op Ed in the Times on Sunday by the polemicist Frank Rich. He called the process of the right defending itself "Swift Boating".

Brilliant. With the Roberts nomination and the term "Borking" in the air, it's time to come up with a short hand term for the brutish behavior of Republicans.

In Mr. Rich's world, of course, the Swift Boat Vets were the bad guys. Fair enough. But slandering dozens of veterans who raise questions about the very hinky war record of one veteran doesn't seem fair. He expands the term to include other military opponents of Bush who have been "smeared": John McCain and Max Cleland. McCain was smeared in the course of a political campaign, whether by the President's people or people who thought they were acting in the interests of the President is not clear. In any event, McCain wasn't disturbed enough not to campaign vigorously for the President in 2004. It's nice that Frank is still worried about him.

Max Cleland was not smeared and the notion that his patriotism was questioned during the 2000 Senate campaign is one of the fondest fantasies of the left. He was spectacularly out of step with his constituency and when someone finally stepped up and said so, he and all his friends began to whine about fairness. Ever since Cleland went down in flames it has been almost impossible to engage a Democrat on the issues without being accused of questioning their patriotism. Enough already. What we need is a shorthand for "You're very patriotic. You're also an idiot."

Another 'victim' is Joe Wilson, described, ludicrously, as a whistle blower. Wilson is known for blowing his own horn. He's also known as a liar. Am I smearing? Am I Swift Boating? Is the fact that he is a liar relevant at all?

You get the idea. What you are reading here is the far right noise machine. What you hear from Sheehan and Cleland and Wilson is courage wrapped in righteousness surrounded by victimology. Republicans who defend themselves are engaging in hate speech. "This country is not worth dying for" cannot be challenged because the first amendment says Democrats can't be challenged. Or something.

The fact that main stream Democrats are unwilling or unable to look at Cindy Sheehan and see a woman with very little idea of what's going on around her says more about them than her. What she has to offer is her grief, but, like Camus said, suffering does not give you rights. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't. The things that come out of Ms. Sheehan's mouth, you've heard them, speak for themselves. That Democrats are willing to allow her to speak for them, I think is disgusting.
Posted by: Sluggo / 2:48 PM
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Now I Have A Very Smooth And Even Crappy Floor 

Well, I'm on vacation, but I originally thought that would leave me more time for blogging, at least the first week while I'm working at home. Sluggo's Postulate, however, states that any home project will cost twice as much and take three times as long as you plan. At a minimum.

Yesterday's floor sanding jape was a disaster. Some genius had left a wood colored laminate on the floor and then painted over it. I could have sanded with #16 all week long and not gotten it all up. I'm only down $100 or so on that, though. So now I'm thinking carpets. I have more experience with finishing floors than carpeting them. But how hard could it be?

Ames Depot, the god of home projects, is chortling.

So anyway, I'll be in and out all week before we leave for the Poconos on Saturday and I get completely blacked out.
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:39 PM
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