An Open Letter to the Republican Party

Maybe the Republican party leaders are starting to realize, after Mississippi, that they are about to be spanked.  Bad.  I suspect they still can't figure out why, though.

In You Want Reasons, Kim du Toit writes a blog entry that could very well serve as an open letter to the Republican party.  An excerpt:

Conservatives are not the Republican Party’s “base”, no matter what the smart boys and consultants tell you. We are not the same as the Democrat Party’s Black voters or union leaders, who will vote for the party without regard to what they do, or how many times they compromise their principles.

We are conservatives. We don’t like change, especially the kinds of change which can undermine the principles and Constitution of this country. We don’t like “compromise” when the people on the other side of the negotiation get almost everything they want, and we get almost nothing.

We do not march in the streets with placards and puppets. We do not write hysterical screeds to the newspapers. We do not say ugly things about our country to foreigners and strangers.

We vote. We vote either with our ballots, or, if the choices are that unpalatable, we vote with our feet and stay away.

You think we have nowhere else to go? I have news for you. We have plenty of places to go, on Election Day. We can go to the library, we can go to the bar, and we can go to the shooting range, to name just a few.

You have precisely three months to come up with a plan, a roadmap to the future, which will not compromise our country’s future, and which will not undermine the Constitution any more than you have done already. Conservatives are not your base; they are your foundation. And unless you start reaffirming your commitment to those principles which have made this country great, you will find out, like you just have in Mississippi, that you have no foundation left.

Here’s your blueprint. Get back to these bedrock principles, and you’ll win everything.

The Constitution, strictly interpreted

Smaller government

Lower taxes

Armed citizens

Frugal spending

Robust foreign policy

Law and order

Conservative judges.

Now you know.

Posted 5/15/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

There goes the (old) neighborhood

There has been a run of armed robberies lately not too far from where we used to live in Reidland, a southside suburb of Paducah, KY.  In one case the robber displayed a knife and got the clerk at a convenience store to hand him the cash drawer.  Amazing.  One of these days a clerk, or even better... a customer, failing to be properly impressed with a little knife, is going to pull out a gun and end someone's career in crime for good.

One arrest was made yesterday of a suspect in two of the robberies.  The guy's address was just around the corner from where we used to live.

We believe we sold our house in the nick of time.  We've been back to the neighborhood a few times since then and it's really going down.  Several houses in the neighborhood have become junkyards.  The house next door to our old place has been mentioned on this blog a few times; the original owner and his "foster" kid and barking dogs, the subsequent owner, her barking dogs and lack of maintenance, the renters that followed her move (she kept the place and rented it out) and their unruly kids, barking dogs, yard litter, and utter unfamiliarity with lawn mowers.  Now the current occupants have the place looking like a suburban redneck version of Sanford and Son's, complete with a litter of barking dogs in the fenced-in back yard.  The owner of that place must have that as a requirement in the renter contract.  Another neighbor's house was broken into and some things taken.  Turned out to be some local yoots getting an early start on their lives of crime.  Damn dangerous activity that... breaking into a man's home.

No, we don't miss the place one bit.  If anything, I feel sorry for the older couple that bought our old house.  We got an excellent price for it and I'm afraid it will never see that again.  Not even close.  And now the locals are starting to rob nearby businesses.

After nearly three years at the House in the Woods ©, I still almost daily find myself marveling at the fact we live where we now live; twenty wooded (mostly) acres bordered by over 300 more acres of TVA owned forest, small blacktop road that ends at the lake without a bunch of waterfront lots, good (and very few) neighbors who all own large tracts of land and feel the same way about the place as I do.  God is indeed good, and I hope I never take His blessings for granted.

Posted 5/15/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

From the Inbox to the Blog

Reproduced exactly as it arrived (with names removed):

Date:  Tue, 13 May 2008 07:28:53 -0700 (PDT) From:  [snipped] To:  mail@[snipped] Subject:  Iam intersest in join Homeschool group    I have   six children that i want in enroll . Could you tell me how much will that cost?   For this school-year coming up,    I am only  one sure of he is going 10Th grade . the  other not sure ,  but ages are 14 ,12, 10, 7 ,5   We are live in [snipped] KY  Area.     Do have workshops, or  activity they can do with other children? Do  have testing? Do you have help for parents to help their children? thanks for you time ,   [snipped] and  [snipped]

Posted 5/13/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Eight Months Later...

Today I came across this site that mentioned a letter from Owensboro Bishop John McRaith concerning the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (remember that?).  It originated apparently from the West Kentucky Catholic, the monthly diocesan "newspaper", but since we no longer get those I didn't see it.  I don't know the date of the letter but the blog post is dated August 5.

An excerpt:

I would like to express to you my commitment to carry out the wishes of the Holy Father in making the Tridentine Rite Latin Mass available to those who desire it in our diocese, providing that all of the guidelines of the Apostolic Letter are followed. This is a call that I take seriously, as does the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The USCCB subcommittee, the Committee on the Liturgy, has already begun to address many of the issues surrounding the carrying out of the Holy Father’s wishes in this regard.

Please know that I, in conjunction with our diocesan Office of Worship and in consultation with the Bishop’s Committee on the Liturgy, will continue to work toward addressing these issues to carry out the Holy Father’s desire to make the Tridentine Rite Latin Mass more accessible to the People of God.

I've become so disconnected from this God-forsaken diocese that I can't even get angry about it anymore.  All I can muster is a contempt filled snort of disgust.  I haven't been to what passes for a Mass in this diocese in years and I don't intend to any time soon.  It'll take more than a Latin Mass to clean up the rot that McRaith has festered.

Posted 5/12/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Memo to NBC News

When you show Navy ships while reporting that the Navy is standing by to provide relief to Myanmar, you might want to show a video of a ship that is still active.  The USS Saipan (LHA-2) was decommissioned in April, 2007, yet there it was, with the giant "2" showing on the superstructure, sailing right along while you reported about the US Navy standing by to provide relief.  Also, showing a Cobra attack helicopter landing on the flight deck might not fit in with the whole "relief" theme, if you know what I mean.

Posted 5/9/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

More stupid chicken pictures

If you want to see what six week old chickens look like... here ya are.

From the "Old People are Funny" files

Yesterday while we were out for a Sunday afternoon drive, burning that sweet, sweet gas, we went against our usual principled Sunday habits and stopped by Kroger to pick up a little ice cream before heading home.  A gallon of ice cream, two loaves of bread, three boxes of tissue, two frozen pizzas, some Hot Pockets for work, and a dozen eggs later we got in line... the express "15 items or less" line marked with the big hanging sign above the aisle... behind an old lady with a shopping cart packed full of stuff.  None of us really cared.  I have a lot of pity for old people when they do things like this mainly because I'll probably be just like that in the not too distant future.  And, you never know if the cashier actually called the person over to that line because there was no one in it.  It only got weird when the cashier was busily packing the old lady's goods into the sacks and I was putting our things on the conveyor when the lady leans over to my wife and whispers something about it being terrible these days when you have to wait so long in lines just to buy food.  Janet was speechless.

Posted 5/5/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Flashbacks

All this week we've spent the evenings in front of the TV watching Carrier on KET.  It's exhausting in a way because we hardly ever watch television.  I was initially intrigued because the documentary was produced by Mel Gibson's Icon Productions.  I was hooked after the first hour.

Although I was in the Navy (Hospital Corpsman) for eight years, I only spent a total of about seven months aboard two separate ships, both Tarawa class LHAs.  The first time was while I was stationed with the marines and we spent a month or so on the USS Belleau Wood practicing beach landings off the coast of Camp Pendleton.  The second was during my second enlistment; I was in charge of a bunch of hapless junior corpsmen on a surgical support team attached to the USS Saipan during "Northern Wedding '86".  That one lasted for about six months.  Being kind of like a smaller version of an aircraft carrier with an additional "well deck" for launching beach landing craft, the Saipan was plenty big and crowded.  Watching the junior enlisted people on the documentary bitching about everything brought the memories of that deployment back to the front for a few days this week.  It was the same complaining from twenty-two years ago, just different faces.  Being a mid-level NCO, I not only had to deal with the small but significant percentage of lazy whiners and babies with attitude problems but it seemed like, and I didn't see this on the series, we had a few arrogant and obnoxious officers and at least one senior enlisted who seemed to actually enjoy giving grief to people lower in rank.  Did I hate every minute of it?  Naw.  Would I do it again?  Hell, no!  In fact, it was probably being stuck on that particular team while I was supposed to be on shore duty that soured my whole attitude towards the navy and kept me from re-enlisting a second time.  Well, that, and I met a girl...

Watching both sailors and marines on the documentary I was reminded also of my three year experience with the First Marine Division.  Looking back, I think I actually preferred being in the company of marines.

Anyway, as an ex-navy guy, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Carrier this past week.  Very, very accurate portrayal of life aboard ship.  Janet listened to me reminisce for ten hours, we chuckled at the grumbling, watched wide-eyed as the planes landed during the stormy seas, rolled our eyes and groaned at the pentecostals, and jeered loudly when we finally met Tanya at the end of the series.

Chicken Update

I really need to take a picture.  They're getting huge.  Been living in the coop for several weeks now.  We locked them all inside the coop for a few days to make sure they knew where "home" was, then let them out to free range.  They're very entertaining to watch.  We still don't know who, if any, the roosters are.  There are a couple suspects that are larger than the others, with very thick legs and somewhat more aggressive behavior.  I figure I should be able to tell for sure soon.

Posted 5/2/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Want even more chicken pictures?

I added a couple pages to the Mugshots section.  It's almost not worth the trouble anymore.  I have to resize the pictures from "huge" to viewable on a webpage.  This resizing is done incrementally with some doctoring done to keep the images sharp.  Then, I have to upload the whole mess of photos to Photobucket which seems to take forever on our hillbilly dialup connection, especially when the Photobucket uploader utility seems to just stop after the first picture requiring a complete page reload and reattempt.  I know... waah.  Anyway, there they are.

Posted 4/23/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Banished from the house

Outside with the whole lot of 'em.  They quickly outgrew the giant Gateway box and the coop is done, the weather is nice, so at 3-1/2 weeks of age they are going out.  They won't be allowed to free range just yet.  I made a small portable run for them to hang out in during the day and at night we'll put them in the coop with a temporary nesting area, a little heat for the chilly nights, food, and water.

The finished coop.  All I have to do is buy and install some better latches for the doors.

Posted 4/20/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

"I feel the earth move under my feet..."

"Are you doing that," I asked Janet as the bed shook.  "No, it's Max (the dog at the foot of the bed)."  No, the dog was out cold.  Then we noticed the windows rattling.

"I think we're having an earthquake!"

Wow, that was exciting.  It woke up everyone in the house.  I turned on the scanner to hear a deputy say, "Did anyone else feel that?"  I guess that confirmed it for us.  We got online and... yep, I guess someone else did feel it.

Posted 4/18/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Oh Dear

As someone who will judge a mealtime fare by how well it goes with Tabasco sauce, this is pure heaven.  Especially the Habanero sauce. Yes, gallon jugs of Tabasco actually exist and you can buy them here.  I guess I know what I'm putting on this year's Christmas list.  Alison gave me a 4-pack Super Hot Sauce set from Dave's this last Christmas and I'm still enjoying every eye-watering drop.

Posted 4/16/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Got into another drag race this morning

Waiting to pull out of our dead-end road to the other road that takes me 6-1/2 miles to the two-lane highway that goes into town, I stopped for a few extra seconds to let a car go by before pulling out.  Usually the ones I don't wait for (that are off in the distance) want to drive like maniacs and end up on my bumper for the whole trip to the main highway and the ones I do wait for are the ones I end up being stuck behind.  I don't know how that works but it's like that almost every time.  Anyway...

I didn't mind.  I patiently followed at a safe distance, listening to the radio.  We both turned onto the main highway toward Murray.  We were cruising along on a fairly wide and straight highway at about 47mph until, on a straightaway, the solid yellow strip turned into the first clear passing zone of the journey.  I swung out and accelerated to pass.

You know what the old guy did next?

He sped up.  A lot.

People have a lot of bad driving habits but this is one of the most irritating.  They're almost always old men.  I'm sure they don't do it consciously but it's pretty frustrating when you finally get a chance to pass someone doing 10 below the speed limit and they speed up to 5 above the speed limit as soon as they hit a straight stretch.  If you don't manage to get around them, you coast back down to a mopey forty-five as soon as the yellow stripe turns solid... or as soon as an oncoming vehicle approaches.  Your only alternative to this is to just floor it.  I swear this morning I was doing 80 by the time I got back into the right lane and barely made it before an oncoming car rounded the curve just ahead.  I coasted back down to the speed limit hoping this wouldn't be the moment that a deputy, or worse, a state trooper topped the hill with his radar on.