He's Gone

I don't have anything to add to what Will said, except, "Well goddamn."

Blogtrip

She's right, you know.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1911-2004

One day when we're older, he will die, and there will be a great funeral with a flag-draped coffin and a riderless horse with the boots turned backward...

It wouldn't be sad. I could even imagine it as jolly. He would die with his boots on, "having known not... bitterness nor defeat." He would have just turned one hundred the day he was thrown from the horse that was bit by the snake as they paused in a gallop through the brush to watch the sun disappear behind the hills...

--Peggy Noonan, from "What I Saw At The Revolution"

It didn't quite happen that way, and contrary to the above, it is sad, despite the inevitability of Reagan's illness and the blessed release he's been granted today after a decade of suffering and loss. But since I don't have the words at the moment, I've borrowed a few of Noonan's.

I've also posted links to a selection of Reagan's own words at my site.

Photoblogging

Colorado Springs reader Brian Perry got lots of pictures at today's Welcome Home parade for 6,000 Ft. Carson soldiers.

Prostitution = Carbohydrates

So says Eden, and she's not kidding. Well worth reading.

Size Matters

Or at least height does, anyway.

Videoblogging

Any landing you walk away from, they say, is a good landing. Except for this one.

(Hat tip to Th' Inkwell.)

Heh, He Said "Big Boned"

Michael Moore is a big, fat liar:

Rep. Mark Kennedy has unhappy memories of his filmed encounter with leftist moviemaker Michael Moore, an encounter featured Thursday in a trailer for the upcoming U.S. release of the film "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"I was walking back to my office after casting a vote, and all of a sudden some oversized guy puts a mike in my face and a camera in my face," said the Minnesota Republican. "He starts asking if I can help him recruit more people from families of members of Congress to participate in the war on terror."

Kennedy said he told Moore that he has two nephews in the military, one who has just been deployed in the Army National Guard.

But to Kennedy's annoyance, his response to Moore was cut from the trailer (and from the film, according to a spokeswoman for the movie).

"The interesting thing is that they used my image, but not my words," Kennedy said. "It's representative of the fact that Michael Moore doesn't always give the whole story, and he's a master of the misleading."

A spokeswoman for the film, which has found a U.S. distributor after the Walt Disney Co. refused to release it, said she had no comment.

Maybe I went a little overboard with the lead-in. Moore is really just big boned.

Required Reading

Andrew Olmsted discusses getting his battalion ready for deployment to Iraq, and demonstrates the can-do spirit which even our "lowly" cadre units have in spades:

I should note, however, that regardless of how successful or unsuccessful I am, we'll find a way to make these ranges work. While my unit is hardly highly regarded (not unjustifiably; we're a cadre unit, not a combat unit), it is well-stocked with highly professional NCOs who are masters of solving problems by hook or by crook. The 116th will get quality training from us, one way or another.

Godspeed, Major.

Get'em While the Getting Is Good

Smokin':

U.S. employers added an unexpectedly large 248,000 jobs in May, according to a government report on Friday that confirmed a strengthening economy likely to soon bring higher interest rates.

The May tally exceeded Wall Street expectations for 216,000 new jobs and followed an upwardly revised total of 346,000 jobs in April and 353,000 in March. The 947,000 jobs created in the March-May period made it the strongest for any three months in four years.

Of course, this can't go on indefinitely:

The cascading evidence of accelerating economic activity is certain to reinforce expectations that Federal Reserve policymakers will ratchet U.S. interest rates up from current 46-year lows when they meet June 29-30 and may prove a boon to election-bound President Bush.

Get that re-fi now, kids.

Let's Read the Time Warp

James Joyner has a roundup of Official Punditry's reactions to the George Tenet resignation.

There's a bit of a time warp feeling reading this stuff. As in, "if Tenet's resigned, it must be September 13, 2001."

Photoblogging

Charles Sakai has a few pictures up from last week's Blogger Bash.

And, yes, I was too drunk to look at the right camera.

UPDATE: Part II here.

UPDATE: I've purposely broken the links, but only until one posted-without-permission pic is removed.

YES, ANOTHER DAMN UPDATE: The links work again. Apparently, Howard Dean is still a little press shy, and didn't want to be seen in the company of a bunch of disreputable journalists and bloggers.

Oh. My. God.

Certain Star Wars geeks will vote for Kerry in November, just because of this.

Amazing

TV reporters actually like Rather Biased.

Weekend at Roger's

Happy humping cocktails, Batman! Has Roger L. Simon got a treat for you. . .

Keen

Andy needs advice on buying a good knife for his kitchen.

Click on over and confuse him with well-meaning-but-contradictory advice.

Here's what I told him. . .

Required Linking

If you're pressed for time, just read the first and last sections of today's Bleat. But who is so pressed for time that they can't read an entire Bleat?

Lileks can be a real shit sometimes*, which is why we love him so.

*Not to us, silly -- to them.**

**I wrote that sentence after today's even-handed hand-wringing over Kerry and Bush? Why, yes, I did.

Road Rage

Holy crap.

Brutal Truths

John Kerry, the candidate, has President Bush beat hands down on one vital issue:

In his most extensive remarks on the future of the American military, Sen. John F. Kerry said here Thursday that he would increase the active-duty Army by 40,000 soldiers, including a doubling of U.S. Special Forces; speed development of new technologies and equipment to meet threats posed by terrorist networks; and better integrate the National Guard into the nation's homeland security strategy.

A few observations.

It's true that Kerry says he'd pay for part of the manpower increases by scaling back on missile defense spending. And you know what? That's fine by me. Missiles come with a return address -- anyone launching one at us would become radioactive dust some 30 minutes to 30 hours later. (The time difference depending on whether we decided to return the favor via missile or B-2 bomber.) Missiles are not currently our worst threat, and we only have so much money. Priorities, people -- I know missile defense is a big deal for Republicans, but I'm a pretty piss-poor excuse for a Republican.

What Kerry proposes requires sacrifice – the sacrifice of higher taxes, of more young men and women serving in uniform, and probably serving longer. And that's what bothers me about the way Bush is running this war. We have been asked to sacrifice. . . nothing. Wartime sacrifice would bind us together in a common goal, and to force us -- because who likes to sacrifice, right? -- to demand the swiftest possible end to this Terror War. In this regard, Bush reminds me of Lyndon Johnson, who told us we could win in Vietnam without calling up the Reserves, while also paying for massive new additions to the Welfare State. Bush hasn't been shy about calling up the Reserves, but he also hasn't been shy about dramatically increasing non-war spending.

NOTE: As our Armed Forces are currently structured, it's well-nigh impossible to go to war without the Reserves, so Bush ought not to get a pass on that part of the LBJ comparison.

What Kerry proposes is just plain responsible. We've been asking too much of an Army which is just too small. There's room for argument here, of course. I don't know that we can double the size of Special Forces, as Kerry claims to desire. Those forces are special because the people able to do such work are hard to find, harder to train, and oftentimes impossible to keep. I'd argue that the bulk of the increases ought to go to supply and support -- and making those vital people better armed and better protected. But unlike Bush, at least Kerry is willing to talk about the much-needed manpower problem.

My last observation will bring you red-meat Republicans back to my side. Whether our Army numbers ten divisions as it does now, twelve as Kerry proposes, or nothing more than a single under-funded brigade capable of doing little more than putting on a parade. . .

. . . well, I still don't think I'd trust John Kerry to command them.

The Countdown Begins

T-minus 17 days, and counting.

Friday Recipe

This one is a rerun, kids – but no less delicious for being so. Besides, I've tweaked so it's slightly better now. Get out the grill, because this weekend we're all having

Steve's Gourmet Burgers

You'll need:

2-3 oz of hamburger meat per burger.
2-3 oz of ground elk per burger.
(Get a pound of each, should make 6-8 burgers. Any patties you don't use, put in individual freezer bags and thaw whenever needed.)
1 teaspoon dry mustard per burger.
1 teaspoon minced red onion per burger.
1 teaspoon Jane's Crazy Mixed-Up Salt per burger.
Some Worcestershire sauce.
Large Kaiser roll buns.
Bacon, fried.
That really thin, "deli style" Swiss cheese – two slices per burger. Thinner the better.

Haul out the Kitchen Aid mixer for this one. You can mix everything together by hand, but it can be a little gross and if the meat is cold, you'll freeze your fingers off.

Put the hamburger, elk, dry mustard, red onion, and Crazy Salt in the mixer. Start it mixing on the slowest speed, and gradually work your way up to the second-slowest speed. No faster – trust me. When everything has come together, take the mixture out and make hamburger patties. Put a dash of Worcestershire on each, and maybe a little fresh cracked pepper.

Also feel free to add capers. Mmm, capers. Also, have some sliced red onion, some Romaine lettuce, ketchup, a couple-three kinds of mustard, and tomato slices handy. Never know what people will want to add to their burgers.

Now fire up the grill and then fry some bacon.

Grill the burgers just like you normally would. But there's a catch. When you flip them, put a slice of the very thin Swiss on top. Then add the bacon. Then add another slice of cheese. Three reasons:

1. The second slice helps keep the bacon anchored to the burger – no embarrassing bacon mishaps.

2. Hey, more cheese.

3. Science has proven that when bacon is completely wrapped in melted cheese, it's better for you.

When the burgers are done, toast the Kaiser rolls on the grill for 20-30 seconds, and you're done.

Serve with French fries and your best local beer.

Mail Bag

This item is a couple days old, but it's still worth reading. A self-declared liberal and Iraq War-critic -- The Functional Amivilent -- takes Reggie Rivers to task for his slave talk last weekend.

We Have Met the Enemy, and He Does Nice Cabinetry

Yesterday, Green Point Mortgage managed, just barely, to get our cash wired to the title company before 5pm. Really, just barely.

I got the call at 4:24. I was out the door at 4:28. The title company is ten minutes from here -- assuming no traffic. Rush hour had started. I got there in nine minutes. Picked up the check, and raced to the bank (a 12 minute trip with light traffic) in another nine minutes.

Melissa met me there on her way home from work -- thank Whomever for cell phones -- and we endorsed and deposited the check.

We've been instructed by our general contractor to immediately start removing the old (and hideously pink) tile from around the old downstairs wet bar.

So if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy a bigger hammer and get to work.

We Have Met the Enemy, but We Already Knew He Was Us

Progress in -- brace yourself -- Saudi Arabia in the Terror War:

The Saudi government yesterday outlined plans to dismantle all international charity organizations operating in the kingdom and place their holdings under a new commission in what officials said is an effort to stop the flow of funds to terrorist groups. The charities to be dissolved include the al Haramain Islamic Foundation, one of the largest and most influential Saudi charities, whose chairman is the Saudi minister of Islamic affairs.

At a joint news conference with Saudi officials, the U.S. Treasury Department also announced that it had designated the longtime chief of al Haramain as a financier of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

As all us chickenhawks have known for a couple years at least, international Saudi "charitable" groups have long been a source of terrordollars. If the Saudis are serious about cracking down on those organizations (which remains to be seen), then that's a victory on par with Libya's decision late last year to dismantle its WMD programs.

If recent reports are true that al Qaeda's new strategy is to target the economies of the West, by targeting the Saudi oil industry, then their attacks just might have backfired.

While I doubt the Haus of Sod will ever be a real partner in the Terror War, there's a chance now that at least we're both on the same side.

We Have Met the Enemy, and Have Developed a Wet, Hacking Cough

The California Yankee (a species so rare, he belongs on the endangered list), notes the latest silliness from John Kerry:

Kerry, the only Senator not to vote for the Project BioShield Act, spent today telling anyone who would listen (i.e. the mainstream media) that the U.S. is not adequately prepared for Bioterrorism.

More here.

We Have Met the Enemy and, Hey, Nice Shoes

Fascinating article by Shmuel Bar in the new issue of Policy Review. In it, he details how radical Islasmism came to be politically dominate in much of the Islamic world, and – as this excerpt shows – why moderate Muslims have been so powerless to fight it:

Facing the radical Weltanschauung, the moderate but orthodox Muslim has to grapple with two main dilemmas: the difficulty of refuting the legal-religious arguments of the radical interpretation and the aversion to — or even prohibition of — inciting an Islamic Kulturkampf which would split the ranks of the ummah.

The first dilemma is not uniquely Islamic. It is characteristic of revelation-based religions that the less observant or less orthodox will hesitate to challenge fundamental dogmas out of fear of being branded slack or lapsed in their faith. They will prefer to pay their dues to the religious establishment, hoping that by doing so they are also buying their own freedom from coercion. On a deeper level, many believers who are not strict in observance may see their own lifestyle as a matter of convenience and not principle, while the extreme orthodox is the true believer to whom they defer.

Indeed, it's difficult not to feel for the moderate Muslim trapped in Saudi Arabia, or in a Cairo slum dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. But is there a way we can help ourselves in our struggle with Radical Islam, by helping the moderate Muslim in his struggle with it? That's where Bar and I part ways.

His solution, essentially, is to promote religious tolerance by promoting religious intolerance. Read Bar's own words:

A strategy to cope with radical Islamic ideology cannot take shape without a reinterpretation of Western concepts of the boundaries of the freedoms of religion and speech, definitions of religious incitement, and criminal culpability of religious leaders for the acts of their flock as a result of their spiritual influence. Such a reinterpretation impinges on basic principles of Western civilization and law. Under the circumstances, it is the lesser evil.

As an Israeli Jew, Bar should understand that becoming like your enemy is never a lesser evil. Even Pogo knew that.

Eyes on the Prize

An American wasn't the first in space -- but an American company might just be the first to put a(n American) man in space without a government program:

A privately developed manned rocket will attempt to reach space this month, its builders said Wednesday. It would be the first non-governmental flight to leave Earth's atmosphere.

SpaceShipOne, created by aviation designer Burt Rutan and funded by billionaire Paul Allen, will attempt to reach an altitude of 62 miles on a suborbital flight over the Mojave Desert on June 21.

The rocket plane reached an altitude of about 40 miles during a test flight May 13.

Suborbital flights are essentially up and down. The craft does not reach speeds fast enough go into orbit around the Earth.

If the attempt is successful, SpaceShipOne will compete for the Ansari X Prize, a competition in which $10 million goes to the first reusable rocket able to carry three people into space on a suborbital flight, return them safely to Earth, and repeat the feat within two weeks with the same vehicle.

What I want to know is, who will be piloting SpaceShipOne, and will I ever get a chance to shake his hand?

Alcohol Wisdom

It ain't a martini, but it'll do.

"Kill People and Break Things"

Ralph Peters, once again, writes a deep-think piece for the Army War College. Here's a taste:

Precision weapons unquestionably have value, but they are expensive and do not cause adequate destruction to impress a hardened enemy. The first time a guided bomb hits the deputy’s desk, it will get his chief’s attention, but if precision weaponry fails both to annihilate the enemy’s leadership and to somehow convince the army and population it has been defeated, it leaves the job to the soldier once again. Those who live in the technological clouds simply do not grasp the importance of graphic, extensive destruction in convincing an opponent of his defeat.

Focus on killing the enemy. With fires. With maneuver. With sticks and stones and polyunsaturated fats. In a disciplined military, aggressive leaders and troops can always be restrained. But it’s difficult to persuade leaders schooled in caution that their mission is not to keep an entire corps’ tanks on line, but to rip the enemy’s heart out. We have made great progress from the ballet of Desert Storm—“spoiled” only by then-Major General Barry McCaffrey’s insistence on breaking out of the chorus line and kicking the enemy instead of thin air—to the close-with-the-enemy spirit of last year’s race to Baghdad.

You'll find the whole thing here, at Parameters. Read it, then come back and re-read this prescient post from last November.

UPDATE: If you don't have the time to get through Peters's entire essay, then at least read one more excerpt:

Ultimately, the key advantage of a superpower is super power. Faced with implacable enemies who would kill every man, woman, and child in our country and call the killing good (the ultimate war of attrition), we must be willing to use that power wisely, but remorselessly.

We are, militarily and nationally, in a transition phase. Even after 9/11, we do not fully appreciate the cruelty and determination of our enemies. We will learn our lesson, painfully, because the terrorists will not quit. The only solution is to kill them and keep on killing them: a war of attrition. But a war of attrition fought on our terms, not theirs.

Of course, we shall hear no end of fatuous arguments to the effect that we can’t kill our way out of the problem. Well, until a better methodology is discovered, killing every terrorist we can find is a good interim solution. The truth is that even if you can’t kill yourself out of the problem, you can make the problem a great deal smaller by effective targeting.

That is all.

Required Reading

Robert Samuelson explains what "reform" means in modern politics:

By casting their agendas as reforms, political advocates don't aim to stimulate debate and discussion. They aim to suppress it. They aim to stigmatize adversaries as nasty, wrongheaded, selfish or misinformed. If you're in a debate, you want to be the "reformer" and you want the other guy to be the "obstructionist." Once you've achieved that, you're halfway to victory. You've shifted the contest away from substance -- an argument over principles and practicality -- and toward symbolism, where your symbol is superior.

Go read the whole thing already.

How Do You Spell Victory?

The Baseball Crank has some thoughts on Iraq.

60 Years Later

Steven Den Beste has the speech President Bush ought to give at Normandy on Sunday, but won't.

Unhappy Customer

If you ever have a chance to do some business with Green Point Mortgage, don't.

I mean, don't simply not do business with them. Green Point Mortgage is so bad, just avoiding them isn't enough. You'll enjoy yourself more if you find a company which not only demands a higher rate and more closing fees than Green Point, but whose advertising promises you "a Nolan Ryan fastball to the crotch with every re-fi!" Actively seek out lenders whose names don't even sound like "Green Point." Sheen Joint Mortgage Company is right out, as far as I'm concerned.

As are Preen Loin, Teen Groin, and Wean Buoyant Mortgage, too.

So what happened? As I've mentioned once or twice before, Melissa and I needed a home equity line of credit in order to re-do the kitchen and put a proper wet bar in the basement. Or rather, to do both projects at once, instead of having to parcel out the various stages of each over the next couple of years.

We've now closed the deal with Green Point Mortgage four times. Yes, four times. The last closing was nine days ago, including an initial draw of $12,000 which was to have been presented to us as a cashier's check on Friday.

We still don't have the check. They tell us it will be here Wednesday. I'm not holding my breath. I'm not doing much of anything, really, other than seething. (On the plus side, seething is one of my few natural talents, so at least I've been able to put it to good use.)

Here's the story so far.

We walked out of the first closing, because Green Point Mortgage thought that an equity line of credit meant one big check.

After the second closing, we were told by one of Green Point's ever-so-helpful customer support reps that it would take at least a month to make any HELOC money available to us. So we insisted on re-closing again, this time with that above-mentioned initial draw. Turns out, the ever-so-helpful idiot was completely wrong, so there should never have been a third closing.

Before the third closing, our closer noticed that the date on one sheet of paper read May 14 instead of May 17. Being a conscientious closer, Diane called Green Point Mortgage, and asked would it be all right if she changed the date by hand and had us initial the change, or should they draw up a new sheet. She was told our initials would work the proper magic. You know what happened – Green Point changed their minds about the healing power of initials after the closing, necessitating a fourth closing.

Adding rudeness to incompetence, Green Point didn't tell us they'd cancelled the deal. We only found out four days later, when we went to the title company to pick up the check and were asked, "What check?"

Friday, the check which was to arrive before midday, instead arrived midafternoon. And for $1,200, rather than $12,000. They also refused to return phone calls from my broker, from the title company, and from myself. Late in the afternoon, Green Point – finally returning a call – promised our broker the money would be wired that evening, and available to us first thing Tuesday morning.

Of course, that didn't happen. "Why not?" you ask – because the title company hadn't yet wired the $1,200 back to Green Point. The title company hadn't done so, because they were still waiting for instructions from Green Point on what to do with the money – send it back, or keep it and wait for the remainder to be wired over. They were waiting for Godot's checkbook.

And did Green Point ever contact us, to let us know they hadn't delivered? Of course not. I found out Tuesday morning when I called the title company to find out if our check had been cut yet. For a company reportedly in the business of lending money, Green Point doesn't seem much interested in actually, you know, lending money.

Meanwhile, I have contractors breathing down my neck, wondering where the hell their money is.

Today, I was able to do what my broker hadn't – I got to talk to someone at Green Point with some authority. I also discovered something important: If you ask the operator, "Who do I have to sue to get my calls returned?" you'll quickly find yourself talking to a real person with actual power, and with hardly any hold music in between the question and the potential defendant.

The second-to-last person I talked to today, promised me my money "sometime Wednesday." I told him "not good enough – nine AM at the latest." He wouldn't even commit to that little. Later, I talked to someone a bit higher up, who gave me the direct line of Scott Daniels, a general manager who has oversight of the Denver office.

Scott and I will talk first thing today. And I promise you: Heads.Will.Roll.

And if they don't, tomorrow we'll take our business across the street to Keen Anoint.

NOTE: If Google-bombing a rude and incompetent company sounds fun to you, link to this post with the phrase "Green Point Mortgage."

UPDATE: I'm told the wire transfer was supposed to go through at 2:30 this afternoon. It's now 3:17. No biggie, as -- no matter what you see in the movies -- wires don't go through immediately. (Nor do they go through a penny at a time, in an observable running total.)

Can Green Point get the money here by the end of business today? Wait (and wait and wait and wait) and see.

By the Numbers

My favorite gun-toting, right-of-center, gay Texan has some interesting poll numbers for you to ponder, pardner.

New Blogs

Turns out, one of my favorite Orkut members finally has herself a blog.

Check it out.

It's (Not) a Black Thing

Reader Eric Morisset forwarded this Denver Post column by former Broncos player Reggie Rivers:

Our military is one of the last bastions of slavery in the United States. At the moment, our slaves are stuck in a combat zone, getting killed and maimed, and there's nothing they can do about it except hunker down and pray.

Yes, our slaves signed up of their own free will, but most of them were as misled about their job as the rest of us were about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And I don't think "slave" is too strong a word to describe someone who is not permitted to quit his job no matter how dangerous it becomes or how much he hates it. For most of us, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and guaranteed that we have the right to withhold our labor.

Will anyone call Rivers out for slighting our soldiers by calling them slaves? Of course not -- Rivers is black (and apparently liberal), and therefore can say anything he likes about slavery.

Wonder what would have happened if (black and conservative columnist) Walter Williams had called Rivers' last contract with the Broncos "highly-paid slave labor"? After all, it's not like his contract allowed him to just walk away in the middle of a big game.

UPDATE: Ouch.

Blogger Bash Observations

What was supposed to be a typical weeknight blogging night instead turned into a three-martini Monopoly match with the Bride, the Brother-in-Law, and his Girlfriend.

The Girlfriend kicked all our asses. In my defense, I was the last one to drop. Early in the game, I'd traded her Park Place (she already had Boardwalk) for one of the purple properties and some cash. A stupid move? Think again. I had a monopoly on the cheap-to-develop purples, and she was down on cash holding the expensive-to-develop Boardwalk and Park Place Uber-Blues. What should have happened is, I should have had a nice steady stream of income with which to imrove my postition, while Desiree struggled just to put a house or two on her Blues.

Then she hit Free Parking twice while I was stuck with purples no one would land on. OK – Melissa and Rick landed on them just often enough to keep them from competing, and only Desiree failed to land on them at all. So our trade did little other than to ensure that I'd be sucking hind tit all night.

The good news? Dear god, man – aren't you paying attention? I already said I had three martinis during the game.

Speaking of overindulgence, I suppose I should say something, anything at all, about the Blogger Bash on Friday night. Except that Gary Farber already said it better. There are, however, a few details Gary left out:

1. Don't get between Jeff Goldstein and the tequila. It's not like he'd hurt you if you did, but we'd all miss out on the singing of the TV show themes.

2. Jeralyn Merritt is, in person, exactly what you'd expect after having watched her on Fox News – charming, witty, attractive, and not always completely in the know about the blogger people around her. Also, she bought me a martini.

3. Mr. Zomby Boy can hold his liquor. He could probably hold yours, too. He's the last guy I'd trust with the keys to my liquor cabinet. This I say with love.

4. Glenn Reynolds doesn't know the half of Jeff and my bad influence – which should make him doubly sorry he missed the party.

5. By the time I talked to any real-life press people, I was already into my third martini. If you don't know, one martini packs the wallop of three sissy-boy drinks, which means my chances of ever being picked up by the Denver Post or Rocky Mountain News are now buried under a small and very dry puddle of Absolut Citron.

6. Ed Driscoll did indeed fly in from San Jose for the event, yet never once complained that his arms were tired. If that, for nothing else, I owe him a drink – and no sissy-boy drink, thankyouverymuch.

7. Goddamn, but I do look good in linen.

8. Gary Farber looks and sounds like my English 20GH teacher, David ("Don't Call Me 'Dave'") Cantwell back in 1987 at Mizzou. Or, Gimli after an appointment at a very 20th Century hairdresser. Either one, I mean it as quite the compliment.

9. By the time the evening was over, I had invited everyone present – including members of the Real Press, our bartender, some guy (or perhaps girl) on the street, and various lampposts, to our Independence Day Bash next month. If you were present, and I somehow failed to pass along the invitation to you, please understand it's only because, in all honesty, I don't want you coming anywhere near my house.

10. Chris (another accredited member of the Real Press) stole at least half of my little vanilla cigars. And when I say "stole," I mean, he took one every time I offered.

11. If you type "Gimli" into an untrained version of Microsoft Word, it will suggest "Gimlet" as a replacement – and there's not a damn thing wrong with that.

About Item Nine, I am, of course, kidding. If I failed to invite you to the party, it's only because my bride doesn't want you anywhere near our house.

OK, I'm still just joshing – but take a hint already, will you?

I also should (but won't) apologize to Kim. At least, I think her name was Kim – I was well into my fourth martini (that's 10-12 regular sissy-boy cocktails) before we were properly introduced. At some restaurant whose name I was never quite clear on – but I should have remembered, considering they were willing to serve up a perfect French Dip sandwich at 1am – Kim and I got into quite the heated debate. A debate, I'm not-really-sorry-to-say, I cut rudely short when the topic moved to Israel.

Kim: if after the last two-plus years, you still think that bulldozing an empty house is the same as walking into a Passover Seder wearing many pounds of plastic explosives, then I really, really, really don't have anything more to say to you on the matter. Didn't on Friday night, don't today, won't ever.

I'm sure, as an accredited member of the Real Press, that you simply can't understand the difference. And for that, you won't get an apology, but you do have my sympathies.

Some jobs come with, and require, a special sense of stupid – so I won't hold Kim accountable for her lack of accountability.

And that's my Blogger Bash roundup. I'd fill it full of useful hyperlinks, but I already mentioned playing Martini-opoly all night, and so linking just doesn't seem worth the effort right now.

Light blogging tomorrow, too. Our HELOC money is in the bank, so Tuesday I have to go write checks worth the next three months of my income to the kitchen guy, the landscaping guy, and the plumber guy.

Those chores will take up two-three hours of prime blogging time. On the other hand, they might just mean we get everything done before the Independence Day Bash which you aren't invited to, only, I swear, on accident.

Memorial

Abraham Lincoln, speaking at Gettysburg:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Some things just can't be improved on -- unless maybe they're read aloud by Johnny Cash.

Blogger Bash

In honor of tonight's hostilities -- er, festivities -- I started carbo-loading three hours ago. Do you have any idea how many martinis one can drink after sucking down 4,000 calories worth of pasta? With all that energy in my system, I could either take on an extra four or six lovely adult beverages, or run a marathon.

But people look at me funny when I try and smoke cigars during a marathon.

See you at sevenish or so.

If A Tree-Hugger Screams At NYU, But Nobody Covers It, Did It Really Happen?

It's interesting this morning to look around at the non-reaction to the frothing-at-the-mouth speech Al Gore gave yesterday. Flipping through the home pages of the Washington Post, New York Times, and LA Times, you'll see hardly a mention of the speech, in which Gore called for the resignations of virtually every Bush Administration cabinet secretary (the Post has a small blurb well below the main headlines; the others don't mention Gore on the front page at all).

Why the silence? We're talking about the last vice president of the United States, and a guy who was just 548 votes shy of being the president right now. This ought to be a big story, particularly for papers that had been very supportive of Gore in the past. Is he now considered irrelevant? Does the media think he's become a nutbag, and thus unworthy of coverage? Could they be embarrassed by Gore's descent into MoveOn.org moonbattery?

Heck if I know; maybe the answer is "all of the above," but the coverage of Gore's rant, or rather the lack therof, is more than a little curious.

UPDATE: Well, Gore isn't being ignored by everybody...