The Peaceful, Tolerant Left

National Guardsman Brutally Attacked

PARKLAND, Wash. -- The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is searching for five people who allegedly attacked a uniformed National Guardsmen walking along 138th Street in Parkland Tuesday afternoon.
The soldier was walking to a convenience store when a sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside him and the driver asked if he was in the military and if he had been in any action.
The driver then got out of the vehicle, displayed a gun and shouted insults at the victim. Four other suspects exited the vehicle and knocked the soldier down, punching and kicking him.
“And during the assault the suspects called him a baby killer. At that point they got into the car and drove off and left him on the side of the road,” Detective Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.
The suspects were driving a black Chevy Suburban-type SUV.
“This is something new for us, we have not had military people assaulted because they were in the military or somebody's opposition to a war or whatever,” Troyer said.
The driver is described as a white male, 25-30 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, heavy build, short blond hair, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and armed with a handgun.
The vehicle's passengers are described as white males, 20-25 years old. Some of the suspects wore red baseball hats and red sweatshirts during the attack.

Christ. Helping Geeks get laid for Centuries

We have another story of a creepy guy using religion to justify his behavior. As if the church didn't have enough problems. Warren Steed Jeffs got caught in, of all places, Las Vegas. So much for that "what happens in Vegas" slogan.
Take a look at Jeff.
Do you think this guy could get laid any other way?
What should REALLY curl your toes, is that he has 10,000 followers. There are no pictures of Warren's father, from whom Warren inherited the mantle of chump-shepherd.

"Mmmmm...I'm a creepy-serial-killer-looking-guy. How about I proclaim myself a prophet and sucker in rubes with access to 16 year old chicks?"

One of the telling details of this scam is this quote:

"Young men and boys are often forced out to ensure a supply of young brides for male elders."

This is a first-rate, sicko Ponzi scheme. The men join up for a continuos supply of teen tail, in exchange for giving up their own daughters to the pyramid.

At least we know he's not gay. That's would be a sin.

Dieting

I hate dieting. I generally eat crappy food and drink too much, on a regular basis. The only thing that prevents me from blowing up like a balloon, is that I burn it off.
Now that my disk has slipped, I can't do that. It sucks. Mrs Schwartz and I got into a spat yesterday because I wanted to do some yardwork. Nothing strenuous, mind you. Just something to get out of the house. She got all weepy.
So I was stuck laying around like a slug all weekend. Blah! Now I feel like I swallowed a basketball.
I realized this morning, that I'm going to have to go on a stupid diet, since I won't be able to work out very well for a while.
I left the chili at home, and brought chicken with rice for lunch.

It also kills me that I'm paying for a gym membership that I can't use.

Shawn Mullins and Ghosts

Shawn Mullins gave a free concert on the Lawrenceville Square last night. (Trivia Note: Larry Flynt was shot through the spine as he walked out of this old town hall. We don't cotton to that Hustler smut around these parts.)
As with all things Gwinnett, it gets packed with people with their kids. I swear this county is the breeding capital of the world.
Anyway. Since the main lawn of the square fills up pretty quickly, we sat across the street on one of those brick pedestals, that wrought iron fences are secured by. The top of it was slanted to keep people from comfortably doing that, so we had to hug each other to keep from tipping off. (Sweet). We only listened for about an hour, but I could feel it taking a toll on my back, so we decided to walk around the square. We wound up on a secluded bench at one corner of it. Just then, we heard a girl with the worst fake, southern, antebellum accent giving a ghost tour of the Lawerenceville square. She was directly behind us, talking to about six morbidly obese old people. One old woman was in a wheelchair.
The tourguide was wearing a black goth "southern belle" dress, with a top hat. She was going on about the building behind us having a confederate soldier ghost, named 'Bo', who would appear in mirror reflections. It was awful. If you've ever seen the SNL skit of Colonal Ingus, the girl sounded exactly like Rachel Dratch, trying to sound like Scarlett O'Hara. Mrs Schwartz would not stop cracking up. Our bench was right next to the cross walk, so after the girl finished about Bo, she attempted to lead the group across the street.
But there was a bump that the woman in the wheelchair could not get over, even with her husband pushing her. They struggled for a minute, when suddenly the woman jumped to her feet and easily walked across the street.
As soon as she stood up, I couldn't help myself, I said "It's a Miracle!"
Mrs Schwartz spit out her wine the way people only do it in movies. You know, that spray that forms a four foot cloud. Then she started laughing so hard, she fell off the bench and on to the sidewalk. It was hilarious! The tour was still in the crosswalk when all this happened, and they were stuck directly across the street from us, as the girl babbled about the ghost in that building. All the while, Mrs Schwartz lay on the ground, laughing.

Maybe you had to be there.

Don't Marry a Career Woman!

Forbes has a tete-a-tete going because one of its columnists wrote an article about how a bunch of studies indicate that marriages are statistically more likely to fail if the woman has a career outside the home.
Probably to avoid all the flack, Forbes has a counterpoint article, written by a woman.
Reading over the two articles is a study in different argument styles. The anti-career-woman article references the studies and states, over and over again, that the conclusions are based on the statistical likelihod. "Odds are this, etc"
The woman's response is all based on HER marriage, which she brags is about to hit its 18th anniversary. That's all well and good, but it's still anecdotal.
When you don't have the facts on your side, you can always fall back on an anecdote.

You say 'More innocent peoples' lives are saved by guns, than are taken by criminals with guns?', well, I know a little boy who was shot by his brother!

Personally, I tend to side with the man on this. Generally, two careers, especially with kids, devolves into two people living together, who barely know each other. There's more stress, less time together, and more growing apart.

So read both articles. Decide for yourself.

Atlanta Drivers

PICK a FUCKING SPEED already! What compels these idiots to speed up, then slow down, then speed up? It forces me to pass them, then they pass me and slow down. WTF?

Don't tailgate the fuck out of me, and then NOT pass me when I move over. It makes me want to shoot you!

My biggest pet peeve: IF you are entering the interstate. You DO NOT have the right of way! You are merging into traffic. YOUR lane is ending. Show a little forsight. Don't just run to the end of the on-ramp and follow the fucking line into my lane without looking. Plan ahead and adjust your speed to merge between the cars. I will work with you. Don't be a dick, because that makes me WANT to teach you a lesson. And ya know what? Sometimes, I have a car to the left of me and can't dodge your stupidity so easily. That's me, blasting my horn at you as you drive on the shoulder, looking all scared, angry, and confused. You fucking dolt!

I'll be leaving my heart in SF

I booked my tickets for San Francisco. In what I consider a brilliant move, I'm getting my company to pay for most of the trip. I have to be there for three days of work, but my nights are free. Mrs Schwartz has never been to San Francisco, and she can't get time off of work. Finally, San Francisco is the best free-Wi-Fi city in America.
While I go to my work stuff, she can work either from the hotel, or from just about anywhere in the city. At night, we can go out.
We are going to stay until the following tuesday, so we can enjoy the weekend.
Of course, I will have to change hotels after my work is done, since I don't want to pay the exhorbitant price for a downtown hotel, but that's no biggy. We might be ready for a change by then anyway.
The trip isn't until the end of September, which is perfect because SF will be just getting chilly by then.

Liveblogging Pain

Update 11:25 AM Wednesday:
God bless the maker of Percocet. I don't get high or drowsy off them. The pain just goes away. Sweeet!


Update 8:25 AM Tuesday:
I'm back at work. The drive sucked, since my percocet hasn't kicked in yet, so every time I had to push the clutch, I got pain.
Poor Mrs Schwartz. She was so freaked out by my pain, that she apparently drank more than I did on Sunday, and she's not a hard liquor drinker. She was SO hungover yesterday. There I was, actually feeling much better with the drugs, while she spent the DAY throwing up. All day and into the evening. I think the first thing she was able to keep down were some peaches at about 7pm. Even today, she's a mess. Her throat burns from all the puking. She's weak as a kitten. We're quite a pair.
She pointed out something to me yesterday. There I was, screaming bloody murder in my driveway for 30 minutes, on a Sunday afternoon, and not ONE of my neighbors came over or called the cops. Bastards. Especially the ones I've helped so many times in the past.

Update 11:15 Monday:
We just got back from the doctor. He said I have a herniated disk in my spine. He gave me two shots in the ass: a painkiller and an anti-inflammatory. He also gave me a prescription for Percocet and an anti-inflammatory. He gave me a pamphlet with some stretching exercises and said to do them as soon as I feel up to it. I'm supposed to go back to him in 7 days to check my progress. He said the exercises should help work the disk back in. If not, we'll have to try something more aggressive.

I gave one of the Percocet to Mrs Schwartz. She needed it.

Self-medicating with gin was definitely a bad idea. Not only did I wake up with a hangover AND the pain, I woke up at about 3 AM to throw up. Let me tell you, THAT was not fun.

********************************************
Original Post Sunday afternoon:
I was working on the yard. I was transferring the monkey grass, that was flourishing behind the back deck, to the front walkway.
My lower back started feeling like it was tightening up more and more. I thought, "this is wierd. I felt like the heat was helping my back."
The pain and tightness suddenly ramped up. I squatted down to try and stretch my back. Mrs Schwartz came out front to see what I was doing.
The pain suddenly got so bad that I dropped to my hands and knees, yelling in pain.
Mrs Schwartz said that she heard a HUGE CRUNCH. I heard nothing. I dropped to the pavement in pain, my lower back killing me.

I laid on my back in the driveway. Every minute or so, pain would start in my lower back and escalate until I was screaming.

(Side note: I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. I've had fingers broken, until I was was looking at the bone poking out. I've received one really good ass-whooping. I've cut and broken myself more times than I can count. No problemo)

I was SCREAMING in pain in my driveway.

I could not get up. No matter which way I tried, any movement caused excruciating pain. I laid in the driveway for 30 minutes. Mrs Schwartz said that I either had to figure out a way to get into the house, or she was going to call an ambulance. I very slowly made my way into the house.

I had her cut off my shirt and strip me down. I took a shower (she bathed me). Then I walked, with two canes, to the couch, where I remain. She got me food. The poor girl; she gets freaked out by me being in pain, so she's about at the end of HER rope too.
I can barely move without excruciating pain. She gave me three Demoral, and I've been drinking gin like it's judgement day. The pain hasn't reduced but I'm getting loaded.

We're #1 !

Georgia has the fastest growing illegal immigration population in the country, more than doubling in the past 5 years.

We have roughly 470,000 illegals. Anecdotally, I can vouch for that. I see them every day.

There's a section of town, near my work, called Little Mexico. You would swear you're in Tijuana. All the stores and signs are in spanish. There's plenty of advertising for money transfer services and immigration lawyers.
Norcross has a section just like it.


Update: Here's a picture from the AP on illegals 'rushing the border'. Notice in the description, that this illegal has Polio. Think of that the next time you go out to a restaurant, who's kitchen staff is almost certainly made up of illegals.

A Great Link on Illegal Immigration.

I can not verify the accuracy of the data, but check out this LINK.

It's a list of live counters, adding up data such as

'How many illegal Aliens are in this country.'
'How much money is wired to Mexico.'
'The Cost of Social Services for Illegal Immigrants.'
'Cost of Illegal Immigrants to Public Schools.'
'Number of Illegal Immigrants in Jail.'
'Cost of Jailing Illegal Immigrants.'

Atlanta Drivers

I saw a woman weaving around I-985 this morning. When I passed her, I could see that she was trying to dry her long, curly hair by hanging it out the window and combing her fingers through it.

A Warning to Others

Ruth Driscoll Dunn, 24, is facing two counts of aggravated assault for striking two women in a McDonald's parking lot with her car.

It seems that Ruth was waiting in line for breakfast, and I'm guessing her first cup of coffee. When a new register opened up, Linda Ann Thomas, 51, and her uniquely named daughter Melinda Ann Thomas, 34, (17 years old when she had little Melinda. That's good stock!) jumped to the front of that line, rather than having the courtesy to allow Ruth, whom I presume was in front of them in line, to go to the front of the new line. Judging by what a couple of backwoods rubes they are, this shouldn't have been surprising.

I hate it when people do that.

OK, not enough to run them over in the parking lot, but still. I don't condone what Ruth did, but I know where she's coming from. Ruth waited for them in the parking lot. When they came out, she hit them "with the passenger side of her jeep". Not sure how you do that, unless you pull a fancy fishtail move. Niether of the morons (yes, I'm still siding with Ruth) was badly injured. I'd be willing to bet, she lunged the jeep in front of them and they bumped into it. Big whoop.

My only hope is that those two dopes maybe think next time, before cutting into line.

For god's sake people, show some common courtesy. Or maybe there's a Ruth Dunn waiting for YOU!

Mass Transit

Atlanta is not much of a mass transit kind of city. I could blindly guess that this is because Atlanta's big boom of growth happened after the interstate system was built. (Thanks, W)

For whatever reason, it's very difficult to get around here without a car, unless you live and work downtown. There's MARTA, but their rail system is basically a big "+". There's a north/south line and an east/west line. Unless you happen to need to go along that narrow rail you're out of luck. The southern line ends at the airport, which is it's only useful benefit. There are buses, but if you've done that, you know what a pain in the ass it is. It takes three hours to go where it would take you ten minutes in a car.

Personally, my commute is about 30 miles each way, but the nice part is that I work farther away from the city than I live, so I'm never stuck in traffic. Still, I'm loading miles on my truck like crazy. It's difficult to find a used car with low miles, although we bought Mrs Schwartz' Jeep from a yuppie couple that DID live and work downtown, so we did it.

As long as I've lived here, there's been screaming and nashing of teeth to build a light rail system for the commuters. One of the worst ideas I've heard is to build a rail line between Atlanta and Athens. I love Athens. I'd hate to see it poisoned by Atlanta. Part of the problem with mass transit is that it brings the masses TO you, as well. When they were looking at expanding MARTA into Cobb County, the Cobbians (?) all said 'hell, no'. They didn't want to be that well linked with Atlanta, thank you very much. They have history on their side. Lennox Mall used to be THE ritsy expensive mall around these parts. Then MARTA built a station right up against the back of the mall. In no time, the place went to hell. There was nothing but shiftless-looking thugs and homeless hanging around and not buying anything. In no time the rich white ladies that HAD been going there built another mall about a block away.

Compared to the rest of the world, our gas is pretty cheap. Everybody (me included) bitches about the high cost of it, but really, we have a lot of disposable income. Got cable TV? Got a cell phone? You can afford gas.

Where's McCarthy?

Just yesterday, ANSWER sponsored a pro-Hezbolla rally.

I've discussed this before, but I think it bears repeating that pretty much all of the anti-war protests are organized, funded, and attended by communist organizations.
Much like the devil, the smartest thing communists ever did was convince America that they don't exist.
International ANSWER is the biggest and the sneakiest, since they try to hide their agenda. At least the other groups come right out and say who they are.

For some reason, no major news outlets EVER mention this when they are covering the events. Actually, there is a reason. Many in the media are very sympathetic to communism.

Some Cubans enjoy comforts of communism.
Reporters Mourn Collapse of Communism
Fools for Communism

Spoiled Dog

Mrs Schwartz is smothering Zachary. Ever since the roadtrip, he's had less-than-firm experiences in the yard. We even had to leave the back door open on certain nights, in case he needed to go out. He's better than that now, but she's still a nut. She's been feeding him cooked rice. We were at Kroger this morning. She bought more rice for him, then asked me if we should buy him some beans "for protein". She finally decided to serve him slow-cooked rice with scrambled eggs and peas.

She's been nagging me to take him to the vet "just in case".

Ban All Carry-On Baggage

So, now you can't take gels and juices and whatnot on a plane. Let me be the first to say, Make those fuckers check everything!

It seems that EVERY time I take a flight, I'm stuck behind the asshole that's decided to take TWO carry-on bags that are each designed to skate the edge of breaking the size restriction. These numbskulls invariably don't have enough room for all their crap, so they end up putting one of their two wheel-it-ons (because nobody actually carries their carry-ons anymore) several seats behind them, and then fucks up the works of everybody trying to get off the plane, as they try to get back to their crap.

Well, I say ban ALL "carry-on" baggage. God, think of how much faster we'd be able to board and de-board from the plane!

McKinney's Antisemitic/Racist Thugs

Little Green Footballs has a Fox News video of Cynthia Mckinney's bodyguard/thugs, who are members of the 'New' Black Panthers, hurling racist and antisemitic slurs at reporters.

Fox Video

Bookin Pa Nub

Can I come live with you in Crawford?

I would be remiss in my blogger duties if I didn't give a hearty laugh at the loss of Georgia's embarrassment, Queen Lateetha, Aunt Jemima, EX-congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney.

Ha Ha.

Election officials expect Jihad-Cindy to contest the results, despite the wide margin. During voting, she complained though the day through her attorneys and on her web site of voting irregularities, that ranged from her name not appearing on a ballot to malfunctioning machines.

While Mckinney has not made a statement, one of her compaign volunteers, who was answering the phone at her headquaters, said,

“I’m a voter and I know what happened to me,” she said, without offering specifics. “This was predetermined. Everybody knew what was going to happen. We got bomb threats up here – we got all types of threats.” She added the state’s electronic voting machines “are not valid.”
“The people of Georgia’s voice was not heard yesterday,” she said before walking away.

She made a ton of unfounded accusations of voter fraud the last time she lost, so look for more of the same.

Disability

Everybody (except bleeding heart liberals) bemoans the existence of welfare leeches. You know who I mean; the Katrina deadbeat, the brood mares, the losers that milk welfare and WIC and free lunch programs and every other government handout.

How many of you know somebody that knows somebody that is out of work on disability?

Annual disability expenditures exceed that of welfare, unemployment insurance, and The Earned Income Tax Credit COMBINED. At least one presumably pays into unemployment insurance, but don't get me started on that horseshit, take-money-from-Exador-to-pay-other-people-to-make-brats program.

From 1984 to 2000, the number of non-elderly adults receiving benefits from Disability Insurance and/or Supplemental Security Income programs more than doubled from 3.8 to 7.7 million people.

As of 2002, 5.3% of all adults between 25 and 64 receive either SSI, DI, or both.

In 1980, congress attempted to clamp down on potential fraud in the system, by increasing health reassessments. Over the next three years 40% of the cases reviewed had benefits terminated for no longer meeting the medical standards. In other words, the deadbeat got healthy, but preferred to sit on his ass, or he wasn't disabled to begin with. 40% !!!!

Unfortunately, this crackdown was happening during an economic recession, so the politicians were feeling pressure for being mean. Awwww! Mean old government won't let me be a leech!
The pussies in congress then changed the law in 1984 to expand benefits and essentially stop the review process completely. SSI awards doubled from 1982 to 1986. DI awards increased 38% over the same time. How many were on SSI for AIDS? AIDS is still a valid disability for SSI. How much of an irresponsible jackass does one have to be to NOT qualify? There's no limit, because there is no responsibility condition. There are no consequences for our stupidity.

The share of high school dropout receiving benefits more than doubled between 1984 and 1999.
I guess Lupus just suddenly started running rampant in this demographic.

Sure, there are some people with disabilities beyond their control, that society has chosen to care for. Fluctuations like these show that a significant portion of the "disabled" are deadbeats who "hurt their back" fifteen years ago and can't possibly go back to their roofing job, although they can still go on their ski boat.
Probably even more common, are the ones that do have some sort of ailment, but they could work. It's just easier to collect that check.

The Rock Stars say to be generous?

A new story in Britain's Daily Mail details how The Rolling Stones have paid just 1.6% in taxes on the 242 million pounds they've accumulated over the years. The Stones set up little front holding companies in Holland and the Caribbean, so as to avoid any taxes.

This story reminded me of one that came out in The Telegraph a few months ago. That one was about how Linda McCartney's lawers worked very hard in her final months to establish that she held residency in New York, despite her having lived in Britain for the past three decades. Their work paid off, because they were able to stash all of her 150 million pound estate in a "qualified domestic marital trust", essentially giving it all to Paul and avoiding Britain's death tax.

A short time after that, Paul McCartney took the stage at Live8 and told us all that we needed to give more. Right after he just finished avoiding paying more than LiveAid had taken in, the last time Africa needed bailing out!

Speaking of which, Bono was so impressed by The Stones tax avoidance, that U2 has hired on The Stones' Dutch financhial director to help them do the same.

Where's my checkbook?

Unbelievable Hypocrisy

Georgia's Embarassment actually had the gall to criticize her opponent by saying that he is beholding to special interests.

A check of Jihad-Cindy's donors shows a decidedly...uhhh...muslim flair. Also, the vast majority of her donations are coming from outside of the state.

At least she finally decided to show up to a debate, having missed the first two.

Also, this genius has decided to sue the Atlanta Newspaper for printing an editorial about her hitting the DC cop with her cell phone.