Atlanta Pride

Mrs Schwartz and I went to Atlanta's gay pride festival at Piedmont Park. We loaded up two plastic bottles with gin and juice and headed out. Fortunately, we brought umbrellas with us, since it poured rain the entire time.
Lesbians are drawn to her like moths to a flame. She offered to share her umbrella with a girl that looked like Spanky from the Little Rascals. In no time, she had four more, all huddling under her umbrella.

Domestic Violence

In honor of the upcoming V-Day(actually Until the Violence Stops Day), I thought I'd post a little balance to the Man-Hating Propaganda that is sure to inundate us once more.

The journal of Family Psychology has just released a study on Domestic Violence. The interesting part is summarized in this table:It turns out that women are roughly twice as physically violent as men!

The study was based on interviews of 1615 co-habitating couples. In each case, both participants were interviewed alone (in case you feminists feel that the women were scared to say anything).

SS Exador

We took the canoe out on Lake Lanier yesterday. It was much better than going down the Chattahoochee. The water is cleaner; there are no bugs; it's fun to ride the wake of passing speedboats.
Since I had planned on only being out for an hour or so, I figured, no sunblock, I should get a bit of color, no big deal.
Mrs Schwartz nagged me and nagged me. "Put sunblock on or you're going to burn."
The setting had caused my Captain Bligh to surface, "Silence Woman! Enough, with your harpy warbling!"
We were out for an hour and a half, and of course, I got fried.
She's been lording it over me ever since.
My shoulders are pretty red. I was freezing all last night. Mrs Schwartz wants MORE sex. (The woman is insatiable.)

Soldier's Burden

Bizarro Headlines of the Day

A former handyman has won more than $400,000 in a lawsuit over a penile implant that gave him a 10-year erection.

Thief Steals Toddler's Prosthetic Legs.

Shelter Takes in 1000 Rats.

Illegal Alien Rapes Puppy

K-Fed: Save the Penny!

Some folks just need a beating

Like this moron. I can't remember a better example of someone who needs to be beaten within an inch of death.

A crowd gathered to watch a group of elk.

"He continued to take his 6-year-old grandchild and push her to the elk to where she was six to eight feet from the elk,"

"The elk got extremely agitated because it did have a calf - reared up in a very defensive manner. The child was screaming and trying to run. Mr. Wellsted grabbed the child and pushed her back in front of the elk to get a picture,"

Wellsted became angry when witnesses shouted at him to get the little girl away from the elk.
"Mr. Wellsted got upset, approached one couple, struck one lady with an open hand knocking her back and then struck an elderly gentleman - age 82 - knocking him off his walker."

As Wellsted fled the scene witnesses took pictures of his car which police traced to his daughter's home in Greeley. Police arrested Wellsted Saturday morning,

"Once in the booking room he assaulted our booking officer, so he's also being charged with second degree assault on a police officer."

Wellsted, of Calimesa, California, also had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear on child abuse and assault charges in 2001.

Hopefully, one of his fellow inmates will help Harold with some schoolin'.

Does anyone watch ABC news?

Unbelievably, ABC "news" is sending out a request for people to write in with their stories of how "Global Warming is Affecting your Life".

Have you noticed changes in your own backyard or hometown?
— altered blooming schedules, unusual animals that have arrived in your community, higher water levels encroaching on your property.

Even if you buy into global warming, it represents a global rise in temperature of 1.1 degrees over the twentieth century.

Do you think that's something that one would notice? Have the oceans begun to flood your house?

So, look for this incredibly unscientific piece of propaganda to be hitting your ABC station.

And they wonder why everyone is leaving the "big three" behind.

Grizzly Doofus

Moments before death (just kidding)

We watched Grizzly Man tonight, based on a recommendation by Sarcastro.
Basically, the movie is made up of footage that this wingnut compiled after spending every summer for 13 years hanging around wild Grizzly bears in Kodiak, Alaska.
The sad part is that he convinced his girlfriend to go with him for the last two summers. Spoiler warning: They die. The moron hangs around until late September. The salmon have stopped running. The bears are getting hungry and wanting to stock up for winter. You do the math.

The guy's camera was running when the bear killed him and his girlfriend, but the lenscap was on. His crazy ex-girlfriend has possesion of the audio. The guy who made the film listens to it, but me-the-guy-who-rented-this-movie doesn't get to hear anything. He listens and tells the girlfriend that she "must never listen to this". I'm assuming there's a lot of screaming and crunching.

Overall, the movie is a little like watching "Best in Show", except the wacky interviews are for real.

I think my favorite part is where one of the locals says, "I think the only reason he lasted as long as he did is because the bears thought there was something wrong with him".

The only redeeming value is as a drinking game.
One drink for every time Tim the Wingnut says:

"I'm here to protect the bears"
"I'm a gentle warrior"
"I would die for these bears"
"Gay"

Add in whatever others you feel are appropriate, but I warn you that you'll get pretty loaded from just these.

Nissan DIYS

My tail light went out on my truck. So I go and buy tail light bulbs. There I am, last night, staring at the back of my truck, owner's manual in hand. The fuckers don't say how to change out the tail light.
Fortunately, the internet saved me. I found a forum for Nissans and got instructions

When I got the light assembly out, I looked in it and there was the bulb, rolling around.

It hadn't burned out. It had just come unplugged. I plugged it back in. Everything works, and now I have two spare bulbs.

I've been a miserable dick

My back is actually worse than when I originally hurt it. Poor Mrs Schwartz, I was a miserable dick yesterday. There's nothing like being in pain and not being able to do anything about it. After a few hours of that, I was pretty short tempered. The worst part is that I was so looking forward to feeling better, only to have the rug yanked out from beneath me.
It looks like today will be more of the same, but at least I've moved to the "acceptance" phase.

Dogs feel guilt

Zachary has been sucking up, ever since crippling me this morning. Pictures don't lie.

The Dixie Chicks find new ways to lose fans.

From an article in the Telegraph:

"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism," Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."

There can be no rational explanation of how Maines's remark came to drive a red-hot poker into America's divided soul"

I planned on making a bunch of comments about Queen Elizabeth, to help you understand patriotism, but I chose not to, since so many of your (better) countrymen are our allies. I assume they have to deal with moonbat morons, like yourself, just as we do.

We got pissed because you went to another country and badmouthed the commander-in-chief during a war, thereby, providing propaganda for our enemies and hurting our brothers in combat.

Not only does the country disgree with you, Natalie, but, more importantly, your demographic disagrees with you.
Sell your cds in NY and LA. Don't wander around Nashville. You may be justifiably spit upon, by your 'fans'.

Maybe that's why your interviews are only with The Telegraph.

!@#$%&*

My back was feeling better, as of yesterday. I was looking forward to some sex today. I've been rejecting Mrs Schwartz all week. A thrown-out back is not conducive to such activity.
We woke up and decided to go to the farmer's market first thing. We took Zachary, since he doesn't get out much.
After buying some nice flowers and pickles, we let Zachary out of the truck for a little walk about. When he jumped out of the truck, his bad back leg gave out and he collapsed awkwardly on the pavement. There was no way he was going to be able to jump back in.
Since I was feeling better, I lifted him back into the truck and immediately felt my back going right back to the day I hurt it. FUCK!
She found a muscle relaxer and made me breakfast. I'm couch bound for the time being.
I feel like fucking Sisyphus, and my rock is my back.

Update: 11:15
I'm so fucking pissed off. TV sucks. I don't want to fucking sit around, being worthless. I want to get shit done. I want to get laid.
God damn it!

The Myth of leftist media bias

Today worthless rag of a newspaper had as their big story,

Kerney Loves to Fly

It's about how Falcons DE Patrick Kerney loves to fly his plane. There was even a popup picture gallery.

Oh, by the way, buried in the back pages:

Papers Show Gloomy State of Insurgency

Papers captured just prior to Zarquawi's death show:

The insurgency in Iraq is weakening.

"time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance,"

the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the militants' financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks.

insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits.

It also appears to reinforce American and Iraqi arguments that al-Qaida in Iraq and its operatives are a group of imported extremists bent on killing innocent civilians.

Things are so bad, the leaders feel it's crucial that they "opening a new front" for the U.S. military and releasing some of the "pressure exerted on the resistance."

"We mean specifically attempting to escalate the tension between America and Iran, and American and the Shiite in Iraq," it quoted the documents as saying, especially among moderate followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq.
"Creating disputes between America and them could hinder the U.S. cooperation with them, and subsequently weaken this kind of alliance between Shiites and the Americans," it said, adding that "the best solution is to get America involved in a war against another country and this would bring benefits."

GA stupidity knows no bounds

Hat tip to Sarcastro.

This moron is running for Secretary of State of GA. Maybe I should give GA the benefit of the doubt. GA is only full of morons if she's elected. Here's why:

ANGELA at a GLANCE:

"I am a native Washingtonian (DC). I have strong southern roots.."

"My grand mother was an amazing woman and will forever be my shero. "

"As an educator and civil rights activist, she instilled these values in every child she ever touched."

"I am truly a blessed product of the fruits of my ancestors labor in there struggle for fairness and equality"

"Angela later went on to peruse a career as a medical professional, dedicating her life's work to Women's healthcare where she began to realize empathy for her fellow man, which embedded an agape love for all human life." (If only all woman showed an agape love. X)

Don't miss the Vote for Angela rap!

She doesn't know the meaning of the word, "disenfranchisement", despite it being a hotbutton issue in GA; however, I WOULD vote for her, if she would vow to end womens' suffrage.

A survey for the Ladies

I was at the gym after work, on a treadmill, amongst a lot of other treadmills and ellipticals.

Directly in front of this area is the leg curl machine. On this machine, you lie on your stomach with your ass slightly elevated, and bend your knees to work your hamstrings, like this:A woman, in shorts, got on this machine. Her shorts were short, and loose enough, that anybody on the dozens of machines could see some of her naughty bits.

So my survey is this:

Should I go tell this girl that she's flashing ten or twelve people?

Mrs Schwartz is of the opinion that I should not, and I'm a pervert for noticing. I feel it's like having your fly down; I'd want someone to tell me, if it was me.

FEMA Reparations

Can we finally put this reparations argument to bed?

Among the findings of the Government Accountability Office in a new report on the subject:

Over $1 billion in fraud and waste was found in the distribution of federal assistance after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That's billion with a "B."

The debit cards handed out were used to buy everything from diamond jewelry to a vacation in the Dominican Republic.

The displaced evacuees also bought a $200 bottle of champagne at a Hooters in San Antonio and $300 worth of Girls Gone Wild videos.

$1000 was spent on a divorce lawyer, $600 at a strip club and $400 on other adult products.

Reasons I don't live in Atlanta, # 562

Atlanta, others may vie for King papers

Sotheby's calls the collection, most of which had been stored for years in the basement of the home of King's widow, Coretta Scott King, "the most important American archive of the 20th century in private hands."
Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who is backing the creation of a civil rights museum in Atlanta, said housing the papers away from the city would "rob the city of its heritage."

"This is a cheap city if it does not come up with enough money to keep that heritage here," Young said.

Sotheby's announced last week that it hoped to fetch between $15 million and the collection's appraised value of $30 million.

If they're so precious, why didn't Coretta donate them to the city? Because that whole family has been sucking blood from that stone since the 60's. I don't want my tax dollars going to keeping Martin III in $1000 suits.

Campbell arrives for sentencing

Former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell, is scheduled to be sentenced on three counts of tax evasion and one count of defrauding his mayoral re-election campaign.
Campbell's lawyers are hoping the two-term mayor will receive probation, while federal prosecutors are pushing for U. S. District Judge Richard Story to give Campbell the maximum prison time allowed under federal guidelines.
"The mayor deserves probation," said one of his lawyers, Jerry Froelich, who arrived at the courthouse about 8:15.
Campbell's trial lasted two months. When jurors announced their verdict in March, they acquitted him of racketeering charges and taking thousands of dollars in kickbacks and bribes.
Both sides claimed victory.
During the trial, the jury heard from more than 70 witnesses. Campbell's personal life was tarred by two former girlfriends who testified about romantic trips and gambling junkets around the world that Campbell, who is married, paid for with wads of cash.
Probation would be a huge victory for the defense and a shattering defeat for the U.S. attorney's office, which, during its six-year-probe, convicted 10 people, including some of Campbell's closest friends who subsequently testified against him.Whether Campbell gets probation or prison depends on whether Story believes what a jury did not: that Campbell was guilty of corruption and took more than $160,000 in payoffs that he did not report on his taxes.

Atlanta had to double their property taxes to prop up the civil war era sewer system, all the while Campbell got rich off his grifting.

UPDATE: At least he got 30 months in the pokey. He is appealing even this wristslap, and in all likelihood won't see the inside of a cell.

Franklin wants probe of city credit card use

Atlanta's mayor has asked the city auditor and city attorney to investigate why the credit card account she shares with a handful of city employees has been billed for late payment and charges over the limit.

The corruption continues.

Hobbling Once More

I'm a doofus. I was at the gym. At lunch, there are several old guys, who are apparently retired because they are happy to spend all day at the gym. One was doing the usual camping out on a back machine. I asked if I could cut in "while you're resting".
On this machine, you put your chest against a pad and pull the bar straight back.
Here's the doofus part: The pad was set way too far forward, and I was in too much of a hurry to adjust it back. When I pulled the weight, 200 lbs went to my lower back. I thought I could have handled it, but when I stood up, I felt a wierd little twinge in my lower back, that got progressively worse. Stupid stupid stupid

If history is a teacher, I'll be laid up for a week. Damn.

Beer Prevents Cancer

WooHoo! According to Fox news, A main ingredient in beer may help prevent prostate cancer and enlargement, according to a new study.

They go on to say that you have to drink at least 17 beers in order for a person to benefit. The news just gets better and better!

Pardon me, while I go drink to my health.

Call me Ricky

Mrs Schwartz and I went to a local mall today for random shopping, etc. Afterwards, we stopped at Maggiano's for some classy italian food. We were at one of the ritsy malls, and Maggiano's is a pretty ritsy restaurant.

We finish our meal. I ask for a box, to go. It's a ritsy enough place, where the waitor takes your leftovers away, boxes them up, and returns them in a neat little bag with a string handle. While I'm awaiting all this pomp and circumstance, Mrs Schwartz excuses herself to the powder room. I pay the bill and see her waving to me just outside. We walk to the car.

Just as we're getting into the car, she looks at my bag of leftovers and stops dead. She holds up her own string-handled bag.

It turns out, she left the stall in the bathroom, saw the fancy leftover bag on the bathroom counter, and somehow made the connection that it was hers.
Yes, she stole someone else's doggy bag.

I wish I could have been there when this poor woman came out of her stall and discovered that someone had stolen her bag.

We made a hasty escape. As we were pulling into the liquor store parking lot to stock up on booze for Sunday, she starts getting frisky and leans over to me for some smooching. After a few moments of passion, we both notice the overwhelming smell of garlic and clams.

She had, in her passion, stomped the hell out of my leftover linguini with garlic and clam sauce, pouring sauce over the $136 skirt and blouse set that she had JUST purchased.

As I type this, I'm eating store-bought potato salad.

I'm married to Lucille Ball.

Sage advice

This was in my mailbox this morning. Hey, mom didn't become a mother by having a dirty carpet.

Superman

Mrs Schwartz bought a DVD of classis cartoons for $5 at Walmart. Since today's Saturday morning cartoons suck, we watched it. I have a few questions.

Has anybody thought to stop by Metropolis Technical College and ask why they keep churning out mad scientists? Go to the source.

Maybe Superman should just knock down the ominous Mad-Scientist-Mountain that overlooks Metropolis, since that's where they always mount their death-rays, and have their evil labs.

Lois Lane is total bitch. What does Superman see in her? You're Superman. You could have anybody.

Cops should still carry Tommy guns with the drum magazine. That's cool.

Letter From Iraq

I try to provide a little balance. This is from Opinionjournal:

Here's an email we received from a U.S. military officer who asks us to withhold his name:

I am currently stationed here in Iraq and have been here for the past 11 months; I am an adviser to the Iraqis and meet them on a daily basis. I have been in many locations in the country and am involved on a daily basis together with the Iraqis fighting the insurgency.
The media manipulation by the insurgents is brilliant and extremely effective. The press has become a puppet for the insurgents; the insurgents know exactly what they are doing with these "massacres" (quoted here because the investigation has not been completed, nor have any charges been filed) and the political nightmare they will cause the current administration. Bodies are produced for film, and there is zero fact-checking by the media--the media eat up this "news" like there is no tomorrow. A couple of hundred bucks paid by the insurgents to a few guys/ladies in the town where this "massacre" occurred to make up some bad news and pine for the BBC's or CBS's or whoever's cameras is a nice month's salary for many and money well spent by the insurgency.
All the Arabs (Sunni and Shia), Kurds and Chaldeans I have come to know well here will tell you that Arabs are emotional people who tend to exaggerate. A lot. Experience has shown that "50 insurgents hiding out in XX location" is five, at most 10. "Three hundred dead" at the morgue is at most 40. "A huge cache with WMD" is 45-50 weapons. It is a cultural norm and is accepted over here as a norm. It is reported in the West as fact. With no fact-checking.
When we convoy, all in the town/village know when and where there is a bomb/IED/VBIED that is targeting coalition forces. This is not so true in Baghdad, but in the outlying towns all know. What is the culpability for those people in the village/town? Would the Marines be guilty in the U.S. under the same circumstances?
I do not know whether or not the Marines are guilty. A Marine's job is to "close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver," and I can guarantee its effectiveness. But the insurgents have the ear of the press. Hopefully the politics will be put aside for the investigation and the facts will be told, whatever they may be.

Home Office Update

It turns out that the free wireless router, that came with the new laptop, is a piece of crap. I spoke with our tech support people (benefit of working for a computer company) and they said that all of their wireless router calls involve a D-Link router. Mrs Schwartz tried surfing the web while we watched TV and it kept dropping out.
So I spent a good bit of the weekend running CAT-5 and telephone cable. We also installed Microsoft Office and set up the new printer. The good news is that everything is done. She can begin making money!

6/14 UPDATE: Ever since we installed Microsoft Office, the wireless router has been working flawlessly. Don't ask me why.

Jacob Myers

For Memorial Day, my town puts up crosses with the names of all the local men who've died in war. As you'd expect, most of the deaths are from WWII, followed by WWI. I just saw the first one that said IRAQ.
I'm intrigued by the one for Jacob Myers. He died in the civil war, although it may only say that because "War of Northern Aggression" wouldn't fit on the cross. Being in Georgia, you can bet Jacob was not fighting on the union side.

Yard Update

The yard is growing in quite well. There's still plenty of weeds, but hopefully, a second seeding in September and some pre-emergent in the spring will do the trick. At least it looks better than when I started.

Zachary, the porch-dog, is overseeing the progress.

Company Man

I wake up at night, thinking about work. How geeky is that?

The way my job has been going, I've got a million things to do, but it's not the sort of thing that works well with multi-tasking. There are millions of little details, and any one of them can completely screw things up.

So I wake up worrying about a detail.

Last night it was, "That clock line ended up being way too long. Did I screw up and route the furthest left clock source to the furthest right bridge circuit? God, if I did, we'll have to rip out half the board and re-lay it out."

I rushed in to work early to check it. No, I didn't screw up. Phew!