I love the A-10 Warthog. The double engines, set back on the tail; the old-school, non-swept wing; the pure freedom-defending rage of a 50-calibre, multiple barrel minigun: It’s the coolest looking, most bad-ass aircraft ever to take the skies.
That’s not really the best angle, but it’s the shot that inspired the post.
UPDATE: This is one of the unfinished drafts. Figured it didn’t need any relevance or timeliness, so here ya go.
I really dig this airplane.
I’ve been away for a while, I know. I popped in every once in a while, but my blogging quantity has been pretty low, and my blogging quality has been in the basement.
Hope all of you regular readers don’t hold a grudge, assuming there are any of you left.
But I’ve been kinda aimless since Thompson dropped out of the Presidential race. That’s weird, though, because I never really pictured myself becoming a political blogger. I just saw an opportunity — a blogburst event hoping to boost the Fred-ster back into the GOP primary — to get noticed a little bit.
And I did, I suppose, though it didn’t really net many readers. It did get my name on a list of other pro-Fred bloggers, including some favorites of mine (especially the oft-hilarious, moron-friendly Ace of Spaces HQ). But Fred’s dead, at least for this election cycle. And I’m pretty burned out on the elections, which appear to be entering their tenth year.
I think I’m swearing off politics as a blogging topic; I’ll probably retire the “Fred Thompson” category henceforth. It was only a ploy to get noticed by the aforementioned blogburst in the first place.
There have also been some missed opportunities for inspired, timely posts. Those are collected in limbo as unfinished drafts. If I find an opportunity to post them, maybe I will. They’re unfinished because the realities of life — job, kids, wife — consistently interrupt, usually during a creative peak.
And watch this! After lamenting the interruptions of life, as I was on the verge of swearing off interruptions to my writing, lo and behold, No. 1 Son has announced that he is hungry. And a cold Pop Tart isn’t gonna cut it anymore. So again, I find myself cut short before making my point.
Well, maybe I can just speed up the process. Hey guys! I’m gonna start writing again, on the regular. Cross my heart. That way the semi-regular stream of (literally) dozens of viewers will have something fresh to look at.
Because my blog stats say 48 people checked out the site yesterday, and I have no idea why. But I’d like them to have something worth checking out the next time they drift by.
More later.
Via LGF; another great William F. Buckley quotation.
“Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”
I haven’t gotten around to writing a tribute to William F. Buckley Jr., yet. I’ve enjoyed his columns from time to time, and his “Firing Line” show I remember from my childhood (it was the show that came on after one of my cartoon favorites … kinda like “Soul Train”).
But once I became interested in politics, it didn’t take long to discover his magnus opus, The National Review. There I found the eloquent presentation of my political gut instincts: That government should be little more than a set of ground-rules allowing individuals to make the choices that best suit them.
Media Blog on National Review Online
“I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and liberals at bay. And the nation free.” William F. Buckley Jr., in Up From Liberalism
Our country is stronger thanks in part to Buckley’s life and his work. I’m also proud to see that Buckley’s office bears a striking resemblance to my own – strewn with the messy leavings of a preoccupied mind.
UPDATE: forgot to add the picture that explains my last sentence. 
One day, I hope to have an office large enough to house such an unholy mess.
maybe it’s a subconscious response to my love of the Sarah Connor Chronicles on FOX, but ominous signs of the approaching Judgment Day seem to be cropping up with eerie regularity.
Automated killer robots threat to humanity: expert
The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.
It we are not careful, he said, that could change.
Military leaders “are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war,” he said.
Several countries, led by the United States, have already invested heavily in robot warriors developed for use on the battlefield.
If I could say one thing to the Department of Defense right now, it’d be this. Do not plug it into the Internet. Please. As cool as it is to visit death upon our enemies without spilling a drop of American blood, I’d rather lose a Marine or two than face the reality of Earth after the Rise of the Machines.
I’m just sayin.
It’s become apparent now that life’s forward march has destroyed the social networks of childhood and college, I can no longer avoid having a myspace page.
But i really don’t want one. I like the concept, but after blogging intermittently for a few years (though in obscurity), I find the myspace interface bewildering.Every time I want to search for a friend, I stumble about as name searches yeild thousands of “danny smith,” for instance; additional modifiers, though, yeild zero results.
It took me forever even to figure out what I was supposed to do with my profile page. I’m programmed by the journalism profession to produce coherent content: stuff with news value, or a coherent point, something.
I’ve only recently figured out myspace is more like a campaign poster for class president at Ridgemont High. Something to tell a little about yourself, has a list of all the folks who appear to like you and — for God’s sake — makes you look cool.
It’ll come to me eventually; but I don’t expect to enjoy the process. It’s a necessary evil, I suppose, and I can’t imagine ever devoting the amount of creative energy pride terror anguish to a myspace page as I aim to on the casefiles.
But I see its utility. Now if I could just find that danny dude’s page. I left my jacket at his party and I was too trashed to remember where his house was.
It was a dark road, and I’m pretty sure there were some trees ….
UPDATE: Anguish! That was the emotion I was looking for! Oh, and by the way, it’s good to be back. I know everyone has missed me in this recent hiatus. Well, everyone that was here before. Which was, ya know, no one. Except you, Lulu!
While looking up the public information number at the Alabama Department of Public Safety, I noticed the coolest police car I’ve ever seen. In the early 70s, Alabama’s state troopers drove AMC Javelins.
Nobody likes to see the blue lights behind you, but if they’d put these back out on I-65, seeing it up close would make the ticket suck a little less. 
I’m pretty sure I went to elementary school with this guy.
And from my as-yet unpublished story:
Judging McDowell a flight risk and a danger to the community, Goggans set his bail at a total of $200,000. Had he faced the music for failing to appear in an earlier DUI case, McDowell’s punishment would have been fines and a couple nights in jail, at most.
But because he allegedly made two attempts on officers’ lives — first with a gun Jan. 25, then with his car at a U.S. 231 gas station Monday — McDowell now faces up to 99 years in jail for each of the two Class-A felonies.
McDowell was a passenger in the vehicle of 26-year-old Randall Osteen Jan. 25 when Elmore County deputies initiated a routine traffic stop on Alabama Highway 14 West.
When Osteen saw the flashing lights, he hit the accelerator, beginning a chase that involved eight law enforcement agencies, Ricky Lowery of the Sheriff’s Department said. The chase ended when Osteen crashed his car near the Page Hill Estates subdivision in Millbrook. As deputies moved to take Osteen into custody, McDowell ran toward the woods, shooting at a pursuing deputy as he fled.
The police lost him, but put out a BOLO — police slang for “Be On the Look-Out — for him. Three days later, an off-duty Wetumpka Police officer recognized McDowell at the Liberty Oil gas station near the county line on U.S. 231.
The officer attempted to block-in McDowell’s car with his, but the suspect tried to run the officer down as he exited his car. The officer fired one shot, Edwards said, as McDowell sped away.
These kinds of episodes are among the biggest rewards of working the crime beat in you hometown.
I just don’t think I want to support a candidate who craps on his supposed allies – conservatives – and sends flowers and fellatios to the In-the-Bag Media and democrats. Karl at Protein Wisdom sums up my McCain dichotomy of respect vs. irritation.
McCain Derangement Syndrome: A reply to Roger L. Simon [Karl]
On one level, I cannot help but respect McCain for not wanting to change his positions to align himself with the conservative base. It is undoubtedly the same defiant streak that got him through the hell of the Hanoi Hilton. On the other hand, many people wish that he would at least reserve his most harsh, sneering, morally arrogant and childish rhetoric for liberals, Democrats and their subset in the media, rather than for those with whom he purports to agree with most of the time.
I’ve never seriously considered a celebrity write-in for a major office — well, not since I voted Peter Parker in my 11th grade Spanish club election (there were so few in the club, Spider-man’s alter ego was in a three way tie for the presidency).
But Rush Limbaugh would be a legit write-in vote in my opinion. And there’s enough Dittoheads out there for a noticeable ripple, at least, if not an electoral splash.
Rush Does Not Concede, Vows to Fight On
We did not win. But we did not and we have not lost. I know of all these reports of campaign irregularities. It has been revealed and documented, ladies and gentlemen. My name was left off the ballots in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties, Broward County. (boos) My name was not to be found on the ballots in Orlando, Jacksonville, in Tampa, St. Pete. (boos) No, no, no, no. Elections are what they are, and one thing we know is there will always be another. This election might have been stolen from us, ladies and gentlemen, but let me assure you we will not — I repeat — we will not. We will not pull an Algore and sue anybody. (applause) We will not look at hanging chads, nor lawyers, no lawsuits. Thank you
Not that many people have noticed, but we Alabamians vote on Super Duper Terrific Tsunami Tuesday too (that was self-indulgent … forgive me).
Now all the candidates I could get behind have been left behind.
The Legislature did the hip thing last summer and moved up our primary “so Alabama’s vote would matter again.”
Maybe I’ll write in Rush Limbaugh, just for the conservative thrill of “throwing away” the first consequential primary vote of my life.
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