A Perfect Jerry Jones Cowboy

Meet Dez Bryant. He is a professional football player, an up and coming star receiver drafted in the frist round last year by the Dallas Cowboys. He showed signs of brilliance in his rookie season, which was unfortunately marred by being injured a lot. I think he played less than half a season.

Dez was one of the premier receivers in the 2010 draft, but slipped down to where the Cowboys could get to him. You see, he had been suspended for his entire senior year at Oklahoma State University, because he lied to the NCAA about having contact with Deion Sanders during his junior year. There was apparently nothing wrong with the contact itself, Dez just lied about it because he'd get in trouble - and he did.

Anyway, he came to Dallas with high hopes, and pledges to run the straight and narrow.

Oops ... the wheels have fallen off.

A couple of weeks ago, Bryant got in trouble at a local upscale mall. He and some of his homies were hanging around. A couple of security guards asked him to pull his pants up or leave - you see, he was acting like a juvie gang member, with his pants down around his knees and ass hanging out. He got very vocal and belligerent, and was issued a citation and banned from the mall. Crap ensued, cries of racism from local black leaders, and poof - he is no longer banned, and the mall has to issue an apology.

As this played out, it came to light that Bryant is being sued by multiple people. The owners of a house he stayed in for a year at OSU sought $3500 for unpaid rent and damages in a suit filed in January of 2010. (That is in itself quite a statement - if he had been a normal student rather than football star, he would have been kicked out of the house after the first month of missed rent!)

Bryant allegedly bought $203,500 worth of jewelry during 2009, while at OSU, on credit against his future contract. He has allegedly not paid for it, and is being sued.

Bryant allegedly bought almost $600,000 worth of jewelry and sports tickets from someone else, also on credit against his future earnings, also not paid for, and also being sued for non-payment.

Sources with knowledge claim that Bryant was fined almost $100,000 for being late to multiple meetings in his first year with the Cowboys. He has been assigned a driver to get him from his home to the practice facility on time.

Bryant makes millions of dollars, most of it guaranteed, a year, for playing a game. From what I have read, he had a hard upbringing, but I really don't think that is an excuse for acting this way. If he wasn't a big football star, I bet these would be criminal theft complaints against him, not civil lawsuits just seeking payment.

Someone on the Cowboys better slap some sense into this guy, or he will end up being another lost cause. Someone in his family, or his friends, better shake him out of this, or he's going to be one big train wreck.

Just another overpaid, physically talented, brain dead idiot. He will end up like most NFL players in his category - broke and deadbeat after receiving millions of dollars and pissing it all away.

Tea Party Posers

The White House blamed disguised Tea Party members for staging an obvious anti-Obama propaganda photo.

"We know that everyone in the Muslim world loves the Messiah ... uh, I mean President Obama. How could they not love him, with all he's done to suck up to ... uh, I mean open up to them? This is just another example of Tea Party racist hate speech generated by Sarah Palin. I mean, look closely ... isn't that Limbaugh in Arab drag off to the right side of the photo?" a high ranking Obama Administration official gleefully blurted out, speaking anonomously because His Highness hadn't granted him permission to speak.

Photo Credit - AP

Demise of the American Auto Parts Store

I am a dinosaur, I know.

I still change the oil in my own vehicles, and do what maintenance on them I can.

When I started doing stuff like this, decades ago, Mom and Pop Auto Parts Stores were all over the place. In fact, my grandfather made his fortune running an independent Auto Parts Store that carried his name. I remember the sights and sounds of that store, experienced on my visits to see my grandparents.

Stores like that have pretty much disappeared. They've been replaced by big chain stores, like O'Reilly, Auto Zone, etc. Chains come and go, they go out of business or are bought out. However, I have noticed something disturbing over the past decade or so. I realized it with clarity this past weekend. The chain stores are going away.

Having to travel to 4 different stores to find the oil and filters I needed for my vehicles (none of which are rare or exotic) was exasperating. The experience was summed up in one store. Not seeing the oil brand and weight I wanted, I asked about it. "Oh, we have that brand" was the reply. We walked over to the shelves. They did have that brand - exactly one variety and one weight of that brand's oil. I guess that is all they needed in order to claim they carried it. He offered to order me some of what I needed, or to sell me his house brand, which was "just as good".

Unbelievable.

What's worse is the fourth store, the one I found what I needed at, was Walmart. Yes ... Wally World had a bigger selection of motor oil and filters than three different dedicated auto parts supply stores.

Somehow, there is a liberal plot underneath this ... I just can't figure out what it is yet.

Will Biden Impeach Obama?

Behold, a MSNBC clip of then Senator Biden threatening to impeach President Bush if he attacked Iran without Congressional approval. Listen to his words carefully, and read Obama's own words carefully. Substitute Libya for Iran. What you have is a huge two faced, politically motivated double standard.

Biden threatened to impeach Bush over a hypothetical situation. Biden praises Obama for his courage in actually pulling the trigger. C'mon Joe ... make up your mind!

Disgusting.

AOL Goes To Hell ... Part Deaux

A strike is being carried out by Huffington Post writers/contributors. They are pissed off that they haven't been paid, in the wake of the AOL buyout. I've read conflicting info, some folks are pissed because they weren't paid for contributions and work they had performed for pay, others (volunteer contributors) are pissed that they didn't receive anything from the buyout.

Huffington herself pocketed a huge wad of cash in the deal, 18-20 million, and is pulling a 4 million annual salary from AOL.

The goobers who wrote the vile crap that filled her blog's pages are now upset they didn't get rich as well.

This deal exposed Huffington as the fraud she is. Supposed to be a champion of progressive causes, leader of the fight 'for the everyday person', staunch anti-Wall St. - hard core liberal through and through. But, how does that jive with pocketing a fotrune based upon the work of others? How does she reconcile the fact that she didn't sign all that money over to poor people to help even the gap between those who have and those who don't?

This strike exposes the goobers for what they are - greedy capitalists. God, how they must hate that. All this socialist equality, money means nothing, everyone should be equal, government should provide everything rhetoric they have been spewing for her flies in the face of their real nature - they are greedy and want some money.

It's a good lesson for all of us on the nature of liberalism and its leadership here in this country. The liberal elites are just capitalists (hard core capitalists) who spit out a bunch of lies to get the common man to give them their loyalty and money.

This is good ... I needed a laugh today!

The Economy Is Doing Great!!!!

The Economy is on the rebound.

Jobs are being created.

The recession is over.

We're moving forward.

It's all due to Democrat policies.


Get ready to be bombarded with crap like this. From this summer through next year's elections, we will be subjected to a constant flow of lies from Democrats about how great things are. Why?

Think back to 2003/2004. The economy was in pretty decent shape, considering the hit we took on 9/11. President Bush's tax cuts really helped head off a major decline. The recession we were in, which had started in 1999 under Clinton, had bottomed out, and there was real progress being made. Things really weren't bad.

In step the Democrats. They need a message. So, the economy is all gloom and doom. They spend the next two years talking the economy into the toilet. It works, and they win both houses of Congress in 2006. They continue the blast of crap. Even though they control Congress and how money is spent by the government, they still talk down the economy, it's all Bush's fault, and we end up with Obama in 2008.

Problem is, the economy by that time really is in the toilet, due in no small part to their constant bashing. They figure that once Obama is in office, it will instantly turn around just because they are now in charge of everything.

It doesn't. Things get worse, much worse. Now it is due to actual Democrat policies, not just their trash talk. They try to reverse their speaking, try to talk their way out of the recession. Doesn't work.

Now Obama and his minions own this economy. No matter how much they try to continue to blame Bush, the majority of folks who actually vote know the truth. This scares the crap out of them. They got pasted in the mid-term elections, and they know they will lose further. They will probably lose the White House in 2012 unless the economy turns around quickly.

Now, they begin a campaign to convince voters that everything is getting better. All we have to do is give them some more time in office, in control, and we'll be back in utopia in no time.

They are manipulating facts and figures. Remember that the jobless rate fell to 9.8% last month. Well, no one is falling for that. How can the jobless rate fall when jobs are still being lost by the hundreds of thousand each month? How can it fall when job losses far outpace jobs created? Because they monkey with the numbers.

It was just announced that they number of those folks filing for unemployment benefits fell last month. It was spread all over the mainstream meda as great news - Obama's plans were working! Never mind that it was really very bad news - all it meant that the number of first time filers had dropped slightly - there were still several hundred thousand jobs lost, it just wasn't quite as many as the month before. Is that a recovery? Not really ...

Dem talking heads have stated that Obama needs unemployment to be at 8.00% in order to assure reelection.

Fair warning to you all. You are going to hear more lies, spin, and twisted numbers in the next 18 months than at any time in our nation's history.

Libya - An Opportunity Lost?

Subtitle - how Obama's weak, do nothing, non-committal, don't want to upset our enemies, can't show any leadership, suck up Foreign Policy is dropping the ball.

The absolute incompetence being shown by our government on what is taking place in the Middle East is astounding. There hasn't been such a pathetic attempt at dealing with the world and current events since Jimmy Carter (and with the morons Clinton had as Secretaries of State, that is really saying something!).

A popular uprising against Ghaddaffi in Libya was what we've been hoping would happen for years. This uprising stood a very good chance of working, a good chance of running him out of the country or even killing him. However, it looks like it is losing steam, and the dictator and his forces appear to be winning.

The UN and European countries have been lamely discussing a no-fly zone for weeks now, one that would supposedly counter the dictator's advantage in the air. Wishy washy morons, it will take them weeks more to get around to getting close to thinking about implementing a preliminary study of a possible plan. Our esteemed Secretary of State has stated emphatically that the US will not lead any such effort, but that we will consider joining one if other countries commit to it first. How's that for Global Leadership? You've got Pentagon leadership publicly complaining about how difficult it would be for us to put up a no fly zone.

This was a golden opportunity to help cause the ousting of one of the biggest terrorist supporters in the world, a man who has arranged and sponsored the killing of Americans on numerous occasions. We could have gotten in good with the forces that would have taken over the country, perhaps gain an important ally in a country that is currently openly hostile towards our interests. Instead, we look down at our shoes, kick some dirt, and complain about how tough it is, how someone else needs to do it instead of us.

Don't get me wrong ... I know that intervening in the situations going on across the Middle East is not easy. We could very well end up on the wrong side of some of the outcomes. However, the way Obama is leading us will ensure that we are on the wrong side of EVERY outcome - because we chose not to take sides, not to help, not to use our strength and influence to guide events, leading everyone in that region to consider us weak and irrelevant.

Now, in Libya, the rebels are asking where we are. Why aren't we helping them? If they succeed in running Uncle Moh out of town, do you think they will have a good opinion of us? If Ghaddaffi wins, do you think he will think any better of us for not having intervened?

It's an amazing display of gutless, rudderless diplomacy.

3/17 Update - The Obama Administration is seeking UN approval to launch airstrikes against Ghaddaffy's forces. Some would consider this too little, too late. I consider it a massive attempt by Obama at CYA. They know that UN approval will take forever. They also know that, at least according to news reports, it is too late for any such strikes to turn the tide in favor of the rebels. I suspect that there is no intention by Obama to launch any strikes, that this is merely a diplomatic maneuver to try and shift the blame onto the UN for not supporting the rebels. I can see him standing in front of his teleprompter, telling the world that he wanted to help the rebels, but was prevented by UN (in)action.

3/21 Update - OK, we've fired a bunch of cruise missiles at Libyan Air Defence installations and other forces. The UN actually passed a resolution that said something. France and Britain stepped up. I may end up eating my words on this one - we'll see. It remains to be seen if this is actually a good moment for Obama and our country. So far, he still seems to want everyone/anyone else to take the lead and responsibility, and he's just in a yes-man support role. However, going this far has surprised me - I really didn't think he had it in him. I will keep an open mind on this for a while. Let's see if he follows through ...

Ding, Dong, The Duck Is Dead

Gilbert Gottfried, owner of the most hideously grating voice in the Western World, got himself into hot water after posting some very bad jokes about Japan after the tsunami hit.

Also known as the voice of the AFLAC Duck, Gottfried really pissed off his AFLAC employers, who get 75% of their business from Japan. They fired him.

You know, besides the fact that making jokes about the tragedy is in really bad taste, insulting the target market of one's employer isn't the brightest thing I've ever heard of.

I hope he's making a lot of money on those Comedy Central Roasts he keeps having bit parts on, 'cause his Duck gravy train just jumped off the tracks! Maybe he and the guy who used to do the Gecko's voice can get together for a redemption tour?

Obama's Nuclear Quandry

The unfolding disaster in Japan is going to have a profound effect on Mr. Obama. It is going to cause him political problems.

The apparent meltdown of 3 nuclear reactors in Japan is a catastrophe, in many ways. The future of nuclear energy in Japan, where anything 'nuclear' is a touchy subject, will certainly be called into question.

The fallout (pardon the pun) will cause our country's eco-Nazis to freak out, and demand an end to all efforts at nuclear power. They have been successful at this for many years now. There have been no new nuclear power plants built in the US since 1966. These folks will scream for a permanent ban.

The problem for Obama is that he is very much pro-nuclear energy. It is a cornerstone of his clean energy policies, and absolutely critical to meeting his goal of having 80% of our energy produced 'cleanly' by 2035. Without an additional 120+ nuclear power plants coming on line, that goal is simply not obtainable.

So, Obama is stuck in a bad positon (for him). He pisses off the far left (his bread and butter base of support) even more if he stands behind nuclear energy for our future. If he ducks and runs from nukes, he's a flip-flopper, and he pisses off the far left by embracing evil oil and coal (which will be absolutely necessary to continue to power this country). The only way he pleases his base is to return us to the days of pre-combustion engine civilization. Don't know about you, but the propsect of that really has me feeling good about the future.

It will be interesting to see him walk a tightrope, trying very hard not to be pinned down to a specific positon prior to his reelection bid in 2012.

A Real Man's Car

I will preface this by saying I am a Ford man first, American car fan second, and foreign car 'who cares' a distant third. However, this is pretty cool ...

The 1970 Porsche 911S once owned by Steve McQueen will go up for auction this summer. The car was a movie star itself, appearing in the opening of 'Le Mans' (a very cool car movie that you should see). McQueen used the car as his personal transporation during the filming of the movie. He brought the car back to the States with him after the film was completed, but he was forced to sell it when his production company went bankrupt (largely due to the poor box office turned in by Le Mans).

The car is almost the same dark green color that adorned the 1968 fastback Mustang he drove during the movie Bullit.

The NADA street value for the car in very good condition is about $33K. How much higher it will go due to its pedigree, who knows?

Behold, The Face Of Evil

Meet Steven Lewayne Nelson, age 24 ....

Mr. Nelson is currently in jail here in North Texas.

Mr. Nelson pulled a knife on his girlfriend last May, choked her, and threatened to kill her. He was not jailed, instead being referred to a counseling program. On Jan' 25 of this year, his couselor wrote that Mr. Nelson had demonstrated changes in behavior and was progressing well, and in February released him from the program. Mr. Nelson has a criminal record that stretches well back into his juvenile days, stealing cars and breaking into houses.

Mr. Nelson is accused of murdering Clint Dobson on March 3. He pinned the 28 year old man down, put his head in a plastic bag, and suffocated him. Clint Dobson was pastor of the NorthPointe Baptist Church, and the attack took place in the church. Judy Elliott, 67, Clint's assistant, was badly beaten, and remains hospitalized.

Mr. Nelson and an accomplice stole some money and Mr. Dobson's car. They were caught on security cameras a couple of hours later at a mall, buying jewelry and clothes with Mr. Dobson's credit cards. According to the arrest warrant, the two had shown up at a friend's house, where they showed off their new jewelry, laughed and told jokes about the killing.

A good man, man who had devoted his life to God and service to his fellow man, is gone, killed by someone who has a long demonstrated history of having no regard for life whatsoever. There is a lot of evil in our world. Some of it is overseas, but a lot of it is right in our own backyards.

Update - In another shining example for our area, Sabra Leavy, age 76, died yesterday. She succumbed to injuries she sustained when a man in a pickup pulled up alongside her in a parking lot, grabbed her purse from his window, and then sped away. He dragged the woman for about 40 feet, until she fell away, only to be run over by the truck's back wheels. According to her daughter, Leavy couldn't have had more than a few dollars in her purse when it was taken.

Police havelocated the truck, and brought in its owner for questioning. As of today, the man had not been charged.

Killing for next to nothing is not new in our society. People stung out on substance abuse, or those brought up in an environment where life is held in such low regard, have been around for as long as I have. Doesn't make it any easier to stomach ...

If this was the guy that was behind the wheel of that truck, then I think proper punishment would be to drag him by his feet around a concrete parking lot, and then run over him a few times. If he survived, give the lady's relative a couple of baseball bats to finish the job. Is that uncivilized of me to say that? Perhaps ... but when dealing with uncivilized animals, I think they should be dealt with in a manner they understand.

Senseless Tragedy

Tragedies like this one test our faith to incredible lengths ...

This past Sunday, 6 young people died in a mobile home fire near Lake Granbury, here in North Texas. They, and a couple of others, had been celebrating the birthday of a young lady, who died in the fire. The fire, which appears to be accidental, happened after the group fell asleep after a night of drinking and partying. A couple of the young people got out, but 6 of them burned to death. The bodies were burned so badly that dental records had to be used for identification, and even today, 4 days after it happened, one of the victims still has not been positively identified. Authorities are theorizing that they were passed out and never woke up, or were too disoriented to find the way out.

At almost the same time, the sister of one of the dead lost control of her vehicle and drove into a tree. She had left the party and was on her way home. She is in the hospital in critical condition, prognosis unknown.

Six young lives snuffed out in the matter of a few minutes, another one hangs in the balance.

If you believe, please offer up a prayer for the families.

I Have Seen The Face Of Our Future ...

and it is Chinese.

I recently had a fascinating conversation with a 17 year old Chinese girl over a dinner of fajitas. She is an exchange student, over here for a year, staying with one of my cousins. We were at a family gathering, and she looked like she was a bit out of place, so I sat and ate with her. I am very glad I did, the resulting visit was a real eye opener.

The pretty young lady was very polite, and her English skills, while still a work in progress, were light years ahead of my Chinese (which is non-existant). She was here for the equivalent of our junior year of high school, and will return home after our school year ends.

Her purpose here is to polish her conversational and written English, and to study our culture. She is years ahead of her contemporaries in our schools in math and sciences. She is not here to learn our curriculum - she is here to learn us.

She spoke with great admiration for what she sees here. Our culture, our standard of living, our approach to life ... all alien to how she was raised. The only daughter of two college professors, she shares a two bedroom apartment on the third floor of a 12 story concrete apartment bulding, surrounded by identical apartment buildings. I listened in amazement as she described one of her best moments here - watching the sun rise and set from my cousin's back yard. With all the concrete and air pollution around her at home, she had never seen that sight before.

This girl was raised to succeed in work. She said she had never had 'fun' until being here in our country. Of course, there were times when she was happy and content at home, but that is not the same as having 'fun' - especially for a kid.

Her goal is to be a computer engineer, and is trying to decide what US engineering university she would attend. She is leaning towards CalTech, because California looked like it would be more 'fun' than MIT. Her plan is to learn 2 or 3 more languages by graduation.

Compare this with students in the US, who are lucky if they get an education that enables them to read and write ENGLISH by the time they graduate.

Having this conversation with her, while seeing my nieces and nephews with heads buired in their portable game machines, or tuning out the world with their iPods, or texting back and forth with their buds on their smart phones, and it was abundantly clear what the future holds for our country if we don't change something dramatically in our philosophy about educating our kids.

This cute, pleasant young lady (and the thousands just like her) is a greater threat to our way of life, our standard of living than all those massive Red Hordes you see charging over the hills in Korean War movies.

If we don't get our act together, China is going to own this country. Two decades from now, our kids will be eaking out a living serving hamburgers to their kids.

Democrats Think I'm A Reliable Source?????

For those of you who skip on over to the military side of this blog occasionally, you will remember my posting about the Alaska based F-22 that crashed back in November:

www.voodoowarrior.blogspot.com/2010/11/alaska-f-22-lost.html

Well, my posting became a reference for a couple of far left wing kook blogs, dailyKOS.com and huffingtonpost.com. Bloggers over there selectively used portions of my post to bolster their arguments that the crash was an environmental disaster rivaling the Exxon Valdez. Looking at their rants, you would have thought that the entire Alaskan countryside was a nuclear wasteland, and that every creature within 500 miles of the site was going to die a slow horrible death.

What horseshit.

In any case, imagine the surprise of their readers who clicked on the link to my blog, and they got dropped right into the middle of Conservative Hell. I hope they all caught the 'Ghost of Reagan' virus ...

I went through their blog postings that were applicable, and a lot of the responses their faithful spit back. I was curious. So much compassion for the little critters, so much concern over the wilderness ... yet absolutely no ... I repeat NO ... mention or condolences for the pilot who lost his life, or for the wife and two small children he left behind. These oxygen thieves held a mosquito in higher regard than a hero who gave his life for our country, and his family.

Says a lot about the values of the far left in our country, I think.