Just when I thought this site was working again …

Update: Saturday, 2:50, and the site is still doing its disappearing act. I can still access the net, so I’m reading blogs from other people’s blogrolls.

Encouraged by New York City’s proposed regulations that would prohibit restaurants from cooking with oils that contain trans fats, Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of San Francisco announced today that he will propose a regulation that would prohibit the sale of meat, poultry and fish in all the city’s restaurants.

When asked by reporters why poultry and fish would be included in the ban, as such foods are often thought to be less deleterious than red meat, Newsom responded, “None of that stuff is good for you. You can get all the protein you need from beans.” He continued, “If it has a face, you can’t eat it here in San Francisco (causing several female reporters to noticeably blush).

Starshine Sequoia, the proprietress of the Hummus Palace, was positively giddy upon hearing the news. “That is so groovy! My astrologer said this year would be far out, and she was right!” In order to kick-start what Ms. Sequoia believes will be a large increase in sales, she announced that every Hummus Palace customer wearing a bandanna “or a really awesome crystal” will receive a ten percent discount.

Jon Corzine, New Jersey’s Governor, was asked if any New Jersey municipalities are considering similar regulations. He stated that he has not heard of any such efforts, but that “We will be instituting a state-wide surcharge of fifty percent on all meat dishes served in restaurants. We believe that New Jersey citizens who can afford to order meat in a restaurant are clearly among the state’s wealthy and, therefore can afford the additional tax.”

Now you don’t.

You may have noticed that this site has been appearing and disappearing (mostly disappearing) over the past two days. Mysterious stuff — way beyond my ken.

Maybe I botched something.

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
This is not the first time this rat bastard has pulled this crap. He did it Congress in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam… .

He was at it again last year during an interview with Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, when he said:

[T]here is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the–of–the historical customs, religious customs.

I agree with the sentiment expressed by the author of The Colossus, a longtime Massachusetts resident, when he states:

John Kerry is a disgrace, and though it may not mean much, should he ever enter a room, I will leave it; should he ever come to my town for a visit, I will not go see him; and should I ever have need of the constituent services of my Senator, I will not call upon him, for I would rather die than endure the shame of ever having to ask this man — this kind of man — for anything. I shall never shake his hand, or extend it to him in help in any way; nor shall I ever be moved to vote for him, or anyone he endorses.

He claims, with a straight face that his latest slander of people serving in the military was merely was a “botched” joke.

It seems to me that John Kerry is his parents’ botched attempt to produce a human being at least worth the sweat from the average GI’s ass.

Feh!

Reeling as I am from watching and listening to the non-stop barrage of candidates lobbing shit bombs at one another (implying, perhaps accurately, that most of the electorate is too stupid to consider meaningful issues), I was happy to see that one of the main democrat party house organs is experiencing plunging circulation and, better yet, it’s not the only one.

I’m too gottdamned crabby to write anything else at the moment.

Dear air travelers, how does this grab ya?

The Star Ledger reported:

Screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport failed 20 of 22 security tests conducted by undercover U.S. agents last week, missing an array of concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the hub’s three terminals, federal security officials familiar with the results said.

So, had this been a high school quiz, the screeners collectively received a score of 9%. That’s not just an “F”, but it also would warrant a note home.

In one of the more elegant examples of spin (and proving that he has spent lots of time with consultants), Mark Hatfield Jr., Newark Airport’s federal security director, stated about the results of the test:

“We can do better, and training is the path to improved performance. … Test results are not a grade or a scorecard; they are a road map to perpetual improvement; any other characterization is simply misleading. We have to challenge ourselves to do better every day and be relentless in that pursuit.”

This is hardly an academic matter, because, after all, it was at Newark Airport where the September 11th hijackers boarded Flight 93, which ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania before it could hit its intended target.

I don’t know about you, but this loosens my bowels, and provides me with yet another reason to try to plan flights out of Newark when the airport bars are open.

My buddy Brian, the Air Force Vet sent me these a while ago. Neither he nor I know whether any of these are true, but they managed to make me laugh on this coldish, rainy, dreary Saturday afternoon. I am a bit embarassed to admit that I laughed out loud at Number 3.

1. A man comes into the ER and yells, “My wife’s going to have her baby in the cab!” I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady’s dress and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs -and I was in the wrong one.
Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Antonio, TX.

2. At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient’s anterior chest wall. “Big breaths,” I instructed. “Yes, they used to be,” replied the patient.

Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes, Seattle, WA

3. One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a “massive internal fart.”

Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg, Manitoba, Canada

4. During a patient’s two week follow-up appointment with his Cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his medications. “Which one?” I asked. “The patch. The nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I’m running out of places to put it!” I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn’t see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.

Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk, VA

5. While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked, “How long have you been bedridden?” After a look of complete confusion she answered…”Why, not for about twenty years – when my husband was alive.”

Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson, Corvallis, OR

6. I was caring for a woman and asked, “So how’s your breakfast this morning?” “It’s very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can’t seem to get used to the taste” the patient replied. I then asked to see the jelly and the woman produced a foil packet labeled “KY Jelly.”

Submitted by Dr. Leonard Kransdorf, Detroit, MI

7. A nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room, when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, “Keep off the grass.” Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient’s dressing, which said, “Sorry, had to mow the lawn.”

Submitted by RN no name

AND FINALLY!!!…………….

8. As a new, young MD doing his residency in OB, I was quite embarrassed when performing female pelvic exams. To cover my embarrassment I had unconsciously formed a habit of whistling softly. The middle-aged lady upon whom I was performing this exam suddenly burst out laughing and further embarrassing me. I looked up from my work and sheepishly said, “I’m sorry. Was I tickling you?” She replied, “No doctor, but the song you were whistling was, “I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Wiener”.

Dr. Wouldn’t submit his name

During our recent drive to and from Tennessee, I was taken by the number of self-propelled homes I saw. (Ken told me that the proper term for these things is “motor coaches”.) Most of them have a car in tow (so that when you finally stop and hook the thing up to electricity and stuff you don’t have to unhook everything to go into town for a quart of milk). We don’t see too many of them in Jersey. Maybe it’s because the Garden State doesn’t host any NASCAR races?

Anyway, I was intrigued by the size of some of these behemoths and I wondered what the price tag would be on such a unit. Well, I have since done a bit of internet surfing.

Check out this bad boy (and once there, click on “showroom” to take a look at a typical interior). This one comes to you for a starting price of $523,000.00. Of course, I also wondered how much it would cost for fuel for that rolling yacht, but I suppose if you can afford to drop a half a mill on the item, the cost of gas is, as they say, “chicken feed”.

I don’t think that people who pull into a campground in one of these can seriously call themselves “campers”, so I don’t know quite what to make of it.

I do know that with a few of these babies the Usual Suspects could take the show on the road in some serious style.

Of course, one of us would have to haul the refreshment trailer.

Check out how Eric described this morning on his deck.

Pretty amazing, no? He grabs the moment with a vice-like grip and only lets go once he’s squeezed every bit of beauty out of it.

If I had written the piece, it would have looked something like this:

Yo! I’m freezing my stindeens off out here. Farookin’ boids! They annoy the dogshit outta me.

I need a goddamned drink.

I can’t write like Eric, but I wish I could.