Aloha Dump

What is the truest definition of Globalization? Answer: Princess Diana's death. Question: Why? Answer: An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whisky, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles; treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines. This is posted on a American blog, using Bill Gates's technology, and you're probably reading this on your computer, that is filled with Taiwanese chips, and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian lorry-drivers, hijacked by Indonesians , unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked to you by Mexican illegals..... That, my friends, is Globalization.

Friday, July 28, a smoking ban went into effect in my home state of Arkansas. In fact, the Monday morning Log Cabin Democrat paper (all 8 pages of it, not including classifieds) remarked that the moratorium, a word I associate, for some reason, with mortuaries and cemeteries, said the ban "went into effect without a hitch." Most people wouldn’t associate that sentiment with anything negative but it is a positive statement considering all the negative stereotypes associated with my Southern home state. Seeing states fall one-by-one to the smoking ban should come as no surprise. Many states have adopted this non-smoking workplace policy : Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. Many states also have county laws with further restrictions. There are debates that the nanny effect of banning smoking in public places, although they allegedly protect the health of the patrons, might actually be hu...

I am in my hometown in central Arkansas visiting family and it seems that no matter how long I am away there are some things that never change- the Southern hospitality, deer in the backyard, and hot, muggy summers. I was looking forward to a nice 2 weeks of resting my brain and not having to worry about politics, blogging, or work- in that order. But, something caught my eye on the Log Cabin Democrat, the local newspaper which I read despite the name, and saw 3 opinions just below the fold (Tuesday, July 25, 2006). It seems that clueless locals in Hawaii have not cornered the market on 'stupid'. These front page opinions were varied but easily leaned to the left. They were printed inside a box that showed 3 Israeli soldiers atop a Stryker praying over the loss of their comrades. Here are the opinions of 3 random people the paper decided to put on the front page. Larry Thompson said: My understanding, from what I've gathered from the news, is that Hezbollah started it. That...

Today I had the distinct honor of expanding my patriarchy when my lovely wife had our second child this morning. Maggie came into this world at 8:14 a.m. and something struck me about that time as the nurse called it out while I watched the rest of my first little girl (actually, the first girl on my side of the family) slide into the doctor's hands. A baseball analogy crept in to my mind and I actually thought, "SAFE!" At first I thought 8:14 was the time Pearl Harbor was attacked but then I remembered it happened before colors (raising of the American flag on all US Naval ships, subs, and bases at precisely 0800). I Googled that moment in time and came up with the time the shuttle landed last week and the time Flight 175 took off that fateful morning on September 11, 2001. OK, so much for having something really cool to relate to my daughter's birth hour. I won't go into the details about the delivery because people just don't want to hear that, unless of co...

You could always assess the command climate by the amount and the content of writing on the enlisted shitter walls. I recorded a few gems of insight and compiled th em into a list in no particular order. - Hey ass, kiss my XO! - WESTPAC = DEATHTRIP - How do you say, "He's the Captain" in Chinese? - ALP-513 broken {check mark} Sanitary Pump broken {check mark} Liberty in San Diego SONAR broken {check mark} Evaporator broken {check mark} - Random boogers smeared on the shit paper stored on the walls of the shitter stalls - Shit smeared on the rolls of shit paper (saw this once and the COB initiated a witch hunt including threats of DNA testing)

By Dennis Prager The Middle East conflict is difficult to solve, but it is among the simplest conflicts in history to understand. The Arab and other Muslim enemies of Israel (for the easily confused, this does not mean every Arab or every Muslim) want Israel destroyed. That is why there is a Middle East conflict. Everything else is commentary. Those who deny this and ascribe the conflict to other reasons, such as "Israeli occupation," "Jewish settlements," a "cycle of violence," "the Zionist lobby" and the like, do so despite the fact that Israel's enemies regularly announce the reason for the conflict. The Iranian regime, Hizbollah, Hamas and the Palestinians — in their public opinion polls, in their anti-Semitic school curricula and media, in their election of Hamas, in their support for terror against Israeli civilians in pre-1967 borders — as well as their Muslim supporters around the world, all want the Jewish state annihilated. In 1947-...

No, it's not a story about some active sonar allegedly killing marine life but an actual live ordinance firing event. I read about this on the message boards at work but I didn't know if I was going to be able to disclose the information. When I saw the article in the local paper I knew it would be ok. About a week ago the USS Belleau Wood and USS Mauna Kea were sunk off the coast of the Hawaiian islands by allied forces participating in this year's Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC). Ships and P-3 aircraft got in on the fun by pummeling both ships with missiles and bombs. Suprisingly, the Belleau Wood put up a good fight, a testament to her resilience under fire. Of course, she is 833 feet long and displaces 39,300 tons so I would assume she was going to take a while to sink. "They are going to keep shooting at them until we run out of whatever ordnance we brought," said Capt. Jill Votaw, a Rimpac spokeswoman. The spokeswoman also said there was a submarine in the are...

I have never been a big fan of chick flicks or soap operas. They show an unrealistic and unhealthy (to those who take them seriously) relationship benchmark for people to attain. I found this article by author J. Courtney Sullivan and I have posted snipets that say so eloquently what I have been pointing out to my wife for years. Ladies, if you won't act like porn stars for us, don't expect us to act like sappy soap opera actors for you. ------------------------------------------------------------- Only in Hollywood J. Courtney Sullivan A lot of lip service has been paid to the idea that violence in films causes men to be violent in real life. Why isn’t anyone calling for warning labels for movies that cause otherwise reasonable women to act like emotional psychopaths? Hollywood’s take on love leaves us dissatisfied with the relationships we have, and hungry for the sort of romance that simply never occurs in nature. Still, it’s helpful to at least try to separate fact from f...

I have to brag a little about my younger sister. I received an email from her yesterday with some pictures and I instantly became green with envy. SHe got to go up for a 45 minute flight in the backseat of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels F-18 jet. Dana is the co-host of a Pensacola morning radio show on 98.7 FM Cat Country , so I assume this was her connection with this once in a lifetime event. I have been in the Navy for almost 19 years now and have never been able to even sit in one let alone go for a joy ride. Here is the ride in her own words: I experienced 7.5 g's and broke the sound barrier in an FA-18 Hornet. According to the screen we were at 700 knots at one time. We did about 5 air show and tactical maneuvers including the Diamond Roll and the Corkscrew maneuver where the jet flies straight up doing rolls creating a corkscrew with the smoke. It was unbelievable! I made it through the whole 45 minute flight without having to utilize the barf bag and only blacked out one time ...

I was flipping through the radio stations today on my portable music player and came across some talk radio, specifically, Michael Medved's show. A caller named Lynn was going to explain why the attacks on September 11 were an inside job, ie. an attack orchestrated by Americans to kill Americans. Unfortunately, I had to wait through a 50 minute commercial break before the segment started back up. But I was killing that elliptical so I didn't mind. Medved asked some very pointed questions, all of which were dodged for an opportunity for Lynn to try and plug a few websites and her agenda. For example, when asked who, specifically, was involved with the attacks, if not Arab extremists, she gave a laundry list of organizations such as the Bush administration and other military people. When pressed to give just one name she tried to plug the website. Michael Medved had a friend who was on Flight 93 and wanted to know what happened to him then if nobody was actually on the plane? Lyn...

Gilad Shalit , a 19 year old Israeli soldier , was kidnapped some time ago by a group of Palestinians who have refused to give him up despite the attacks from Israel . There was some speculation that Gilad was alive but I have my doubts. I believe he is already dead and this is why the Palestinians refuse to cooperate with Israel. Well, that and Hamas is comprised of insane sadists bent on killing their own people, including children, to push Israel into the sea. I came across this post on Cox & Forum and the subsequent cartoon and write-up boiled my blood. The sad thing about this cartoon is that it speaks volumes of the Palestinian’s willingness to destroy their own future. Their blind hatred of Israel is so strong that they use brainwashed children and teenagers to provide cover for the militants who continue to shoot indiscriminately at Israeli military and civilians. Little Green Footballs has a really disturbing entry that shows some kids standing behind the AK-47 and RP...

I stumbled across this blog from The Moderate Voice and felt that it deserved mention here. Meryl Yourish maintains a site that is pro Israel/Jew/Zionist. The subject of the post that got my attention is This is a Zionist Site: End of discussion and Meryl proceeds to lay it out: I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that Israel is a racist state. I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that Israel has no “right” to exist. I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that the Jews of Israel are a bunch of European colonials who “stole” the land from the “indigenous” population. She gives a lot of ammo to anti-Israel leftists to argue but the wonderful thing about her blog is that she will have none of it appear in her comment sections. She disects commenters who tout the First Amendment, who Zionists really are and if concerned readers 'qualify' and, at great length, defend her position of why she does not allow negative Jew h...

It seems the second most famous Sheehan is at it again- forcing her horseface onto my television, this time, by going on a Gitmo-style hunger strike until August 1. Witty author Doug TenNapel has a great write up that echos my feelings on the whole thing so I will let him do all the work and give him a trackback. I am all for his counter hunger strike. In fact, I will start right now with somoe of that left over posole.

We went to the Pearl Harbor Block Party yesterday and had a pretty good time. We got there early and when we left, just after 5 p.m., the crowds had just started to pour in. We stayed just long enough to get af glimpse of Dawg, the bounty hunter, and his family whom we watched quite frequently on A&E because he gets people in our neck of the woods off the streets. The first thing we walked past was a mini car show. I really admire and appreciate the old classics and the restoration involved. What I don't appreciate are the tards who spend $14k on a Scion and then put $10k off acccessories in them and call that Car Show worthy. To me, that is the equivalent of putting attaching streamers to the handle bars and attaching old playing cards to the spokes with clothes pins to a POS bicycle. Instead of trying to find a small piece of real estate to call our own and watch the fireworks on base we decided to head up to Tripler and watch form there. It turned out to be a great idea sinc...

North Korea's failed missile launches is all the news and the 3-5 missiles they have fueled and ready to go is making headlines world wide. Five short range Nodong missiles, appropriately named because they are the most limp-dicked missiles I have ever seen, crashed into the Sea of Japan after being in flight less than a minute. Japan, understandably, is freakin pissed- barring a North Korean ferry from docking in Tokyo among other things- and is now pursuing more sanctions against the maniacal leader, Kim Jong Il. Like Israel, I think we should let Japan reign fire down on its enemies. Sanctions aren't working and haven't in the past. The posterboy for "Panty Waste", Alan Colmes, was deriding the United States for not taking more interest in bilateral talks with N. Korea. What? Every time N.K. throws a tantrum we have responded by giving them a cookie from the jar on top of the refridgerator. It hasn't worked and no amount of 'time outs' are going to ...

What would I do if I a week went by without reading about the U.N. trying to impose some kind of restriction or rebuke on the United States? I laughed out loud (LOL for all you text and internet chat junkies) when I read this latest farce. It seems the U.N. is pushing for the U.S. to put stricter gun control laws in place. Hey, U.N., how many times are we going to have to tell you to fuck off? It isn’t surprising that a bunch of European sissies are screaming for us to get on the gun ban bandwagon. I wouldn’t want to come to the U .S. as a Frenchman when there are concealed weapon laws either. Robert Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, had this to say: "The U.S. Constitution guarantees the rights of our citizens to keep and bear arms, and there will be no infringement of those rights. The United States will not agree to any provisions restricting civilian possession, use or legal trade of firearms inconsistent with our laws and practi...

I watched with my breathe held, fingers crossed, and tears in my eyes as STS-121, also known as Shuttle Discovery, was launched just a few minutes ago. I remember all to well the disasters of previous years, the Challenger when I was in high school and Columbia 8 years ago. How appropriate that Discovery was launched on the 4th of July, a day set aside to celebrate our country and those who have sacrificed so much so that we can enjoy the freedoms that so many of us take for granted. Getting a man into space has always been the benchmark of our technology- "We can get a man in space but we can't figure out how to get these damn toilets from clogging?!"- and considering all the problems we are facing these days it is truly an accomplishment on an epic level. I was glad that my son could see a real live space ship being launched. When I was his age space ships were just something I saw on Bugs Bunny and the last rocket to the moon had been launched just mere months before m...

I took the fam to Kaneohe Marine Corps Base yesterday to experience one day of the big weekend long event going on. We got there soon after the gates opened (noon) and stayed for about 4 hours. I usually don't like going to stuff like that because the traffic, people (the base was opened to civilians to partake), and the way the locals work in the swap meet to every single event that happens on this island pisses me off. But, we hadn't done anything in a while so I decided to 'tough it out'. The whole afternoon was a blast. The only time I got pissed was when I spent 3 dollars trying to pop 3 baloons in a row and only shot 66.66% on all three attempts. A dude came up as I was contemplating if I should play and popped 3 ballons like it was nothing. The other time was when I paid $4 for a freakin deep friend Twinkie, a child hood favorite of mine growing up in the redneck state of Arkansas. The feeling of consumer rip off subsided as the tasty goodness of that deep fried ...

A pimped out H2 has nothing on this bad boy. These Marines were walking around doing schtick humor. They asked who had a birthday this month and I pointed out my unsuspecting wife. They all sang Happy Birthday to her in front of the whole place. There is an obsure law on the books that says you must ride the bumper cars at any said carnival or carnival like event.

Because I don't have a very large readership some good conversation gets lost because either I don't go back to the posts and keep the conversation going or my readers don't. I posted a good piece that had some commentary about Bush just to get some stuff off my chest. Some really good conversation followed but I neglected to go back and respond to one of the comments, not only Little Cicero's invitation to reciprocal links but also of my friend Andy. When talking of Bush and Gitmo, and the problems associated with that sovereign piece of U.S. on Cuban soil, Andy said this: I don't know what the solution is. But I do know who started the problem. And, as usual with Andy, I do agree with 50% of that comment. I don't know what the hell we are going to do either. Our legal system is so delicate. I equate the problem in Gitmo with that of what our law enforcement people deal with every day. A piece of crap is captured, we know he is a piece of crap, we know he has ...

A few weeks ago the Veterans Administration reported a laptop containing sensitive information of over 26 million people. The laptop was found and the FBI said that the information hadn't been accessed. That is a relief since my name is one of the 26 million. Just when people are starting to relax about that potential nightmare, it has been reported that the Red Cross is missing some laptops, three to be exact, which were taken from a locked closet. A laptop containing personal information from thousands of blood donors _ including Social Security numbers and medical information _ was stolen from a local office of the American Red Cross, but officials said the information was encrypted. WTF, over. The story also said there was no sign of forced entry. As if having your name and social security number compromised isn't enough, it appears that "...donors' sexual and disease histories" are among the data stored in the laptop. The enraging thing about the article is...