Category Archives: Scribbles

Come home, Colt

No chance of that, of course, but we can wish. He won his second NFL start against (yipes) the defending champions New Orleans Saints. And he’s already the cautious talk of Cleveland fans and sportswriters:

“McCoy did exactly what was asked of him on Sunday by not turning the ball over and showing the same moxie that he showed a week earlier in Pittsburgh. What McCoy does is make you curious about what he can do next.”

Yep. We saw plenty of that and we sure do miss it. If Colt can just stay uninjured, he’ll go on making us all wish he was still eligible to be a Longhorn.

Early NASA effort

nasaLittle known outside of a select few Civil War buffs was the early Union space program designed to put an abolitionist on the streets of Richmond, if not the moon. Heck, they’d take either one. It was for sure their generals weren’t getting it done. Didn’t work, of course, or history would have recorded it. Uh, maybe.

One Picture Lies Better Than 1,000 Words

No, it’s not about Reuters in Lebanon. But it could be. It’s Israeli video satire on Pallywood, from Latma TV’s The Tribe.

That’s Palestinian Hollywood, the pictures the Palestinians and their fellow travelers stage every month to outrage you, the UN, Obamalot, etc.  against Israel.

(Read the English captions quickly if you won’t understand Hebrew.)

Via Monkey In The Middle.

Way to go, Rangers!

ron-washington1-e1287063781612Mrs. Charm had it right: “Who would have believed it?”

The Rangers (managed by the inimitable, minor-league veteran Ron Washington, at left) won the sixth game 6-1 over the Yankees, thanks to the strong pitching of starter Colby Lewis, and their usual hot bats.

They now advance to the World Series! Hot dog.

UPDATE:  Lifetime, dedicated Rangers fan Scott Chaffin at The Fat Guy has a good wrap of the season, especially on Ron “Wash” Washington:

“But, somehow, someway, it worked out, and I think we stats-focused nerds are seeing how bloody important it is to have someone who knows how to corral the egos in the fabled ‘room’ with something that isn’t measurable out to five significant digits. Because I don’t think you get here without the language-mangling, chicken-dancing, Winston-smoking Ron Washington.”

Ella’s and Duke’s Sophisticated Lady

The Ella Fitzgerald version of this 1932 Duke Ellington classic (lyrics by Mitchell Parish) keeps running through my head:

They say into your early life romance came
And in this heart of yours burned a flame
A flame that flickered one day and died away

Then, with disillusion deep in your eyes
You learned that fools in love soon grow wise
The years have changed you, somehow
I see you now

Smoking, drinking, never thinking of tomorrow, nonchalant,
Diamonds shining, dancing, dining with some man in a restaurant
Is that all you really want?

No, sophisticated lady,
I know, you miss the love you lost long ago
And when nobody is nigh you cry

Quite a song. Especially the tune itself, the lyrics, and the way Ella does them. (Ignore the Julie Andrews video at the link above. The song hardly fits her. Just listen to Ella’s voice and the words.)

Government greed

Creepy pols like the perpetually-disheveled Barney Frank of Massachusetts are always calling businessmen  “greedy.” Frank’s been on the government tit for more than thirty years, pushing high taxes:

“Income tax rates have been as high as 90 percent in the top brackets. Even after you have paid the taxes on your income and saved or invested part of what is left, the government comes back to take more of that same money, after you die, with estate taxes…The biggest beneficiaries are the politicians who get a larger amount of tax money to spend in ways that will increase their prospects of getting re-elected.”

Maybe this will be the year we cull some of the career hangers-on like Frank, who waddle when they walk they’ve been sucking up government pork for so long. Sure, they’ll just become lobbyists. But at least they won’t write the laws directly any more.


Land of the free?

First it was D.C. suing to stop Arizona from enforcing its federally-unenforced border with Mexico.  Now see the latest attack on a state by our federal overseers:

“Mr. Holder said in a letter Wednesday to nine former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs that the administration would continue to enforce federal law if California legalizes marijuana. The DEA chiefs had urged him to speak out on the matter.”

Gotta keep those prisons filled and taxes rising to pay for them, and all the door-busting drug cops in armor and automatic rifles. Obama haters will say this is  Obamalot. But it’s older than them and will outlast them. The feds rule.

UPDATE:  But LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) is still fighting for legalization with some unusual allies: “We can now stand shoulder to shoulder and work with the California NAACP and the National Black Police Officers Association on this issue.”

Probably because blacks often are arrested for small amounts of marijuana.