See you next year!

To both of my loyal readers: I've decided to shut down operations here at the Chronicles for the Holidays. It's best for me to "pull away" from all things political during Christmas, I find that it clears my mind and allows me to enjoy watching the kids squirm while they wait for Santa. I intend to do some cooking, and to spend time with the horses, in short, I just want to enjoy this time. My daughter will be having some surgery the week after Christmas, (again) and I need to be fully focused on that as well. My daughter has been trying out her blogger legs of late, and she may post an entry or two (the last post was hers). I'll ask that if you wander by, encourage her by leaving a comment if you have a minute. (It's likely that some of you will eventually wind up working for her one day, think of it as getting the jump on sucking up)
I wish everyone a safe and happy Holiday Season, I hope it finds you enjoying the company of family and friends.

Silly, silly, Sarcastro

Most people know that our dog, Chip, occassionally browses through area blogs, and particularly likes N.I.T. because he knows Brittney is way cool about animals. So when I heard him laughing his furry little ass off, (howling, you could say) I ran into my office to find him pointing at the monitor and making less than flaterring remarks about Sarcastro's "Hypno-dog." Now, personally, I'm not one to make disparaging comments about people's beloved pets, and really, she's not THAT ugly, but Chip just wouldn't stop having fun at her expense. He said something positive though, called her a "DILF." (anybody?) He thought putting that mutt on the web was a poor choice by Sarcastro...

He also demonstrated an easy defense against being hynotized into buying used appliances...
(see above)

Who's got the hook up?

I need a solid used computer. Laptop or desktop. I want a decent processor, lots of memory, but I don't need more than 60 gigs of space. It should have a network card, or whatever thingie I need to put together a wireless web connect together for my brats. It should have a CD burner, but I don't need a DVD burner. Some basic software is okay, but one of the reasons I don't just buy a new one is I spend days removing all the bullsh*t that comes pre-installed. Oh, a decent video and sound card, non-integrated would be ideal. Ok, so did I get all the jargon right?

I see you, John H, and raise

See, John, I can do it in just ten....

1. The Vonage commercial theme song
2. Sarcastro's old clothing
3. That cracking sound you hear when 12 yr old scotch hits the ice
4. Jeb Bartlett
5. "green butter" cookies
6. puppy breath
7. dada
8. Glenn Beck
9. women with slight overbites
10 Tequila drenched meat-ups.

Barack Obama on MNF

Whether he runs or not, whether he wins or not, this guy promises to shape the debate.

In the busom of the Mothership

It's official. I'm a complete idiot. I brought my trusty 35mm camera to the Meat-up, thinking I could develop the film, and post some pics of the bash here at the Chronicles. Right. These kids with their fancy booklearnin and digital devices had photos up on their blogs before I made it home. I might as well have brought an 8 track player to the party. Aside from being the obvious techno dinosuar, I had a great time. I managed to move around freely, despite having Ivy clamped to my leg most of the night, and I got to meet a spicy young lady named Ginger, (sorry) and of course, the highlight for me was going mano a mano with the mammoth-sized Glen Dean. Dude, remember that when I refer to you as a brain dead Dittohead, I mean it lovingly, I swear. Actually, it was cool to meet Glen, we even shared a Christmas (thats right, not Holiday) drink together. Very easygoing, I'm happy to learn. Our host was quite accomodating, and did a fine job of making sure Milo (a very cool guy) kept the buffet table full of that delicious BBQ. (Where do you get those perfectly round rolls, anyway?) The night held some surprises, Lisa Z showed up with donations for that poor family that lost everything in a fire, and it was great to see her. Kat Coble is lovely, and I didn't feel intimidated by her at all, at least in person. To my knowledge, the boob freckle never made an appearance, though I think Aunt B offered to flash me a peek of something, I can't say for sure. I got to meet the butcher! Worth the price of admission right there. Other than the fact that it was a tad disconcerting to be slamming shots of tequila in front of our (probable) future mayor, I had a great time, and, oh, one of my favorite moments was watching Sarcastro do his Kevin Pollok imitation. Hilarious. Thanks for the invite, y'all, lets do it again sometime.

Update: A couple of noteworthy additions, thanks to the dignified and indeed quiet Chris Wage for bringing items to donate to the family that suffered a devastating fire, and I should have mentioned that Britt is beautiful and friendly, and Rex L. Camino and his lovely wife were fun to hang with. (except, dude, were you even alive in the seventies?) Sorry if I have failed to acknowledge anyone else, this is all my addled brain can recall this morning....

Falsifying Information?

Today's City Paper contains an LTE from the good Sheriff of Mecklenburg County, N.C. (Charlotte) He accuses me of "falsifying" information. To my knowledge, I didn't present any information. I echoed concerns that the local (Charlotte) advocates have about the application of the 287(g) program. Since I am doubtful that the City Paper will print my reply, I am posting it here for both of my readers to digest:

The Sheriff from Charlotte accidentally omitted a few points that would have shed a bit more light on his 287(g) program. Like Nashville, the Sheriff in Charlotte does not perform front line policing. Therefore, he is correct to say that the program does not affect anyone not arrested and brought to his jail. What he did not say is that he or his deputies have virtually no control over who may end up in custody. The statistics I have (provided by the training officers) indicate that over half of the NTA's issued resulted from traffic stops. A traffic stop can occur over the heinous crime of a broken tail-light. Couple that with the fact that the Mecklenburg County Jail's policy is that everyone who is processed through the program receives an NTA, regardless of the nature of the crime he or she is accused of committing. The result is that someone like Gustavo Reyes would be treated the same as someone like Claudia Nunez. I have to ask, is this the purpose of this program? Is our community better off with this mother of two being sent back to El Salvador, while the truly dangerous simply move to an adjacent county that does not possess the same access to the ICE database? It is the Police Dept who will be exercising most of the discretion. It should be said that the deputies in Mecklenburg County, and particularly Sgt. Stansell, were completely transparent, helpful and indeed professional while I was their guest. It should be said that my reservations about this program have nothing to do with any lack of confidence in the ethics or abilities of the personnel in Charlotte, or Nashville. However, the suspension of the Driving Certificate Program here in Tennessee makes those in our community already living in the shadows the most vulnerable to arrest for petty traffic violations. The end result will be tremendous pain and suffering as families are separated indefinitely, often times with the added tragedy of the sole breadwinner being incarcerated and deported. Meanwhile, some myopic elected officials will point to their statistics as proof that they are making their communities safer. Every immigrant advocate that I know wants to see the removal of criminals in every community, and, if the 287(g) program is applied judiciously, it can be a tremendous tool for Sheriff Hall and Chief Serpas. That doesn't mean that the potential for abuse should go unmentioned.

Then vs. Now

I wandered over to newscoma's site this morning, and her post reminded me that my father enlisted in the Army and fought the Japanese during WWII. He wasn't even a citizen. My mother, another non-citizen, worked in factories producing spare parts for various types of vehicles used in the war. When I was young, I placed little value on the stories they told of this time in their lives. They rarely spoke of the hardships, rather, they spoke almost fondly of a time when virtually every American participated in some way in the war effort. People rationed supplies, and didn't complain. The odds were that you knew someone on your street that had lost a son, or husband, or brother, and there was a shared experience of loss, but also a shared experience of purpose. How different the American war experience is today. The men and women who volunteer to serve and fight love this country as much as their grandparents did, and this war will produce it's share of heros. But the uncomfortable truth is that the rest of us may be different. It should be said that I do not believe that our young should be in Iraq, but the fact is that they are indeed there, and I have to wonder how many of us would gladly absorb a tax increase or ration gas if it meant our troops had all that they needed. Anyway, I too will join in Newscoma's call to President Bush to bring our soldiers home, so that we can begin the shared experience of healing.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

I'm relunctant to call attention to this woman or her website, as most of the time I find her amusing in a sad sort of way. Lately, though, she has begun to morph from pitiful to somewhat dangerous, mostly because she lacks the intellectual heft to distinguish between legitimate concerns regarding immigration, and mindless nativism. I say dangerous because she has this curious fascination with guns, and I think she considers herself some sort of Super Patriot, doing all she can to sound the alarm over the advancing brown invasion. Her post today poses the question "is illegal immigration more of a threat to "us" than terror"? To support this idiotic claim, she points to some rather dubious statistics, then as source she links to this sorry excuse for an elected official. He doesn't even bother to attempt to link to credible sources to support his shrill assertions. She asks her readers to "do the math." According to Rep King, 13 people a day are killed by drunk drivers who happen to lack documention to be here legally. So, I multiplied that number by 365, (cuz, you know, we never take a day off from our devious plan to wage a war of attrition on our nation's highways), and came up with 4,745 deaths. Her logic tells her that since 4745 is higher than the number killed fighting terror, drunk undocumented people are ipso facto more of a threat. Let's run with that a minute...According to what is arguably the oldest drunk driver watchdog group in the world, MADD, the total number of alcohol related traffic fatalities in 2005 was 16,881. Of that number, drivers between the ages of 15-20 removed 6,409 souls from the planet, and male drivers mowed down an alarming 9,988. In addition, between Thanksgiving and New Years, we lost 3,511. So, in doing my math, I have concluded that male drivers, young drivers, and the Holiday Season are all more of a threat than "the war on terror." Who knew? I should add the disclaimer that I am using only American dead,(as she is) but I'm pretty sure that the tens of thousands of Iraqi families that have lost members to this farce of a war would take issue with this construct.

I suppose I should point out to her the big red herring here, that a person's legal status has absolutely ZERO to do with their inclination to commit crime. I said this months ago, when the nativists were all pointing to Gustavo Reyes as the poster child for immigration failure, when in fact, it was a failure of our courts to imprison this man well before he amassed his lengthy criminal record. But, after reading her website, I'm pretty sure the logic would be lost on her. I can't bring myself to get into the whole gun/penis envy thingy...

Gotta say this, I really do

I hate word verification. Most of the time, I have trouble distinguishing the letters, i's and l's, for example, so inevitably I get it wrong, and have to start all over. So, I started wondering, how many people just don't bother to get into the "settings" of their blogger account to turn this decidedly inconvenient feature off? Surely most bloggers don't get enough traffic to warrant having this extra security feature, do they? I mean, I like Chris Wages's word verification model, if I had to pick one. My browser remembers it for me, and since it never changes, it barely slows me down. As I discover more and more good blogs, and, as I feel that it is polite to comment when someone posts something heartfelt, I waste a fair amount of time proving I'm not a spammer, or whatever. Anybody else find this annoying, or even a tad pretentious?

Own a piece of Sarcastro

I like Sarcastro. Aside from our kids, though, we have little in common. I think he's a damaged, bullying corporate apologist, he thinks I'm a whiny goody goody that reads pop political authors. Fair enough, I say, we don't have to see eye to eye to be friends. So it has been a mixed bag for me to watch his cyber yard sale unfold. I actually plunked down a few bucks for a sportcoat that would make Herb Tarlek blush. The washer and dryer set were nice, and I considered bidding on them, but I would have had to convert them from gas to propane, and I didn't feel like it. Still, they are fine appliances. Right after they went on the block, it started getting a tad surreal for me. Who offers a kayak for sale, then photographs it upside down? Is this to let the potential buyer know that perhaps it is wise to perfect the "roll"? And its BLACK, for heavens sake. Then he offers up what has to be the ugliest damn chiminea I have ever laid eyes on, it's gaping maw made it look like something from a Tim Burton movie. Shudder. I was ok with the various pieces of Americana, which he labeled bric a brac, I actually thought some of it was kinda cool. Then came the kicker. A framed poster from the HBO miniseries, The Brotherhood. He explained that his new wife (thankfully) put her foot down because it didn't go with any of "her stuff." He must have lobbied hard to get to keep his poster from Black Hawk Down. But here is where the admiration kicks in. He priced it, unflinchingly, at 200 dollars. American. Cash and goddam carry, baby. No OBO, thats my price, and you will pay it to own this piece of my life. Ballsy, and possibly brilliant. In fact, I am willing to deliver the damn thing to whomever buys it, cause I really want to meet THAT GUY. So, wander over, browse at your leisure, and load up the PayPal account, you won't want to miss out on this. Yes, I purposely didn't bring up the couch...theres no way he was serious, really.