On my way home tonight, I was listening to NPR, which is quite rare. They reported on Bush's nomination of Pennsylvania Judge Smith being confirmed by a "narrow" margin; 64-35. I realize that this is the closest vote to date on one of his nominations, but I'd hardly call that a "narrow" margin. Sixty four votes means that at least 14 democrats, 28%, crossed party lines to vote for this "controversial" nomination.

During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) decided it needed a ballpoint pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of about $1,000,000(US).

The pen worked well and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on Earth.

The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil

The state of Ohio was finally able to convert my Georgia title over, so I was able to get my Ohio license plates yesterday. They insisted on giving me two of them, even though I told them I had only one car. I put the extra one in the closet in case I get that Corvette I've had my eye on.

Oddly, once I put the Ohio plates on my car, it seemed to run about 10 mph slower and pull to the left.

Another reality show is on the way. Liza Minnelli and her husband will have their own show where the cameras will follow them around everywhere, except no cameras in the bedroom - because the cameramen refused to go in there. -- Conan O'Brien, July 26, 2002

Congratulations to Lance Armstrong on his fourth Tour de France victory! He rolled into France without stopping, for the fourth time. Hey, the Germans were only able to do that twice. -- Jay Leno, July 29, 2002

This article by the Independent Women's Forum should be required reading for all women. It makes several interesting points about women and firearms.

- Less than 5% of 911 calls dispatched to police are early enough to actually prevent a crime.
- Police and government organizations have no legal obligation to protect you as an individual.
- Firearms proficiency can take only a few hours of practice.
- While martial arts training may "equalize" the disparity between a woman and an attacker, multiple attackers have an advantage.
- Firearms proficiency can make ANY woman strong enough to fend off attackers, regardless of their size or strength.
- In more than 92% of "defensive gun uses" simply brandishing a firearm, or firing a warning shot is enough.

"[The FBI and IRS] can go fuck themselves," - Former Rep. James Traficant D-Ohio, in a telephone interview with Don Imus.

"it's in the dictionary." - Former Rep. James Traficant D-Ohio, in response to Imus' warning that he couldn't say "fuck" on the air.

In later interviews, Traficant predicted that he would be the first prisoner to be elected to congress.

This morning's Mancow segment of Fox and Friends has to be the funniest I've ever seen. You can catch the replay of the July 30th segment by clicking below.

Fox News                      Video Link

Thanks to "Pretty Girl" for her suggestions to increase the size of the font.

Senate puts off vote on security - Washington Time, July 30, 2002.

Congress Targets Tax Havens - Washington Post, July 30, 2002.

It is nice to know that Congress thinks tax evasion is more serious than terrorism.

115 people were arrested in Atlanta for participating in or watching live sex acts. According to the AJC, undercover cops watched the sex acts, which included a woman having sex with 10 different men, for three hours.

It was not reported how many of the 10 men were policemen. It was also not stated why it took three hours of "analysis" before police could make an arrest.

What was really disturbing is that most of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct, and cited for "purchasing alcohol from an establishment without a license". Apparently when you purchase a beer in Atlanta, you have to ask them for their license, not the other way around.

Along that same path, leftists at PSU's student newspaper think that even the cops shouldn't be allowed to have guns. Perhaps now, some of these FOP organizations will think twice before siding with the gun grabbers.

Has college changed that much? When I was in school I had two firearms, even while I lived on campus. Costing just $5 for shells and $4 for pigeons, shooting skeet was one of the cheapest activities in which we could partake.

Gun crimes shock Europeans

Gun crimes in Europe? How can this be possible? I thought guns were illegal in Europe.

The gun ban shoulda wiped out violent crime, just like it did in Detroit, Chicago, and Washington DC.

I don't know if the bull is back or not, but my portfolio climbed over 11.5% today. My company stock alone climbed a whopping 26.83%. Too bad I'm not allowed to invest any of my social security money. I guess the principle of "buy low, sell high" is lost on congress.

Speaking of time travel, I purchased the Time Machine (2002) DVD this weekend and watched it. I had not seen it before, hadn't read any reviews about it, nor had I read the book by H.G. Wells. This brief review may contain some *SPOILERS* so if you haven't seen it, and don't want to ruin the movie (any more than the writers did) don't read it.

Overall, I thought the movie was pretty dumb. It starts off very nice, in late 19th century New York City, and has our hero suffering a great tragedy. He spends the next 4 years engrossed in his work and dwelling on the past. After a failed attempt to rewrite the past and undo the death of his fiance, he decides to head off into the future to find out why the past cannot be changed. After a brief stop in 2030 and 2037, he bumps his head and wakes up 800,000 years in the future. According to the story, the post-apocalyptic human race has evolved into both a group of grizzly hunters called Morlocks, and a welfare-state of lazy, do-nothings called Eloi, that are young, nubile, and beautiful.

Thanks to some amazing archeology by the Eloi, they have managed to dig up some old Manhattan street signs and teach themselves the English language; something most Manhattan-ites of today have yet to master. As smart as they may sound, the beautiful young Eloi, an obvious pandering to pre-pubescent teens, are completely unwilling to fend off attacks by the evil and very ugly Morlock. After one such attack, the Eloi simply shrug their shoulders and go back to lazing around like it's a Sunday afternoon. Witnessing this, our nerdy workaholic inventor suddenly takes his shirt off, sprouts muscles, and transforms into a bona fide last action hero. Yes, our 19th century professor who has never spent a day in the gym, single handedly out-runs, out-climbs, out-fights, and out-smarts thousands of years of evolution to save the day.

While I found the special effects to be excellent, it just wasn't enough to carry the movie. If I had a time machine, I'd take my ninety-six minutes back.

Einstein proved that time-travel is theoretically possible. Even though, they will probably never achieve it in our lifetime, you may still have the opportunity. A Time Travel Fund has been setup that will pay for your future "retrieval" should time-travel be invented. With a mere $10 investment, the group promises to continue operations hundreds of years into the future, living off the compound interest. Once time travel is feasible, they will travel back in time and retrieve you.

While this is probably a complete waste of money (as if the lottery isn't), I have to say it is much more intriguing than something like cryogenics. Why pay $100,000 to keep your body frozen until they find a cure to whatever ailed you, when you can simply pay people in the future to come back and get you, or to push you out of the way of that bus. Just think, you could choose to be taken immediately, and "disappear" right after you join.

For those of you that have been desperately afraid of alien abductions, fear no more. For a mere $35, you can make a helmet to protect you from alien mind control. It looks like it'd be rather hot to wear around in the summer, but the instructions say that you can punch some holes into it and not affect the functionality too much. Just make sure you take it off your head first.

Cigar Dave is going to be doing his radio show in Detroit on Saturday, August 2nd, and I'm thinking about driving up there to see him. If anyone wishes to go with me, let me know.

This Fox News story reports that the city of St. Paul puts pictures of prostitutes online in the hope of shaming them into giving up the profession. To me this sounds more like one-stop shopping for Johns. You'd think that guys would use the website to pick out their favorite girl, and then go locate her on the strip. It would also seem to lend a bit of reassurance to the guy that she isn't a female cop setting a trap.

But hey, what would I know about it?

According to this Fox News (AP) report, several congressmen, riding on a wave of big money contributions from entertainment companies, are proposing legislation that would let those companies secretly hack your computer in an effort to protect their copyrights. Their proposal would also lift civil and criminal penalties against those companies, as well as take away your right to sue them.

"A user wrongly attacked could sue only if he suffered more than $250 in economic losses and obtained permission to file a lawsuit from the U.S. attorney general" claims the AP. They also state that Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., sponser of the legislation has received at least $186,891 from entertainment companies this election cycle.

Check out this Fox News editorial. Apparently some congressmen in Washington want to classify bottled water and glow sticks as drug paraphernalia. I may be in trouble, as I've got a whole refrigerator full of it.

For a trip down memory lane, check out the Boombox Museum. Keep an eye out for the model with a built in turntable. (Turntables were like CD players, only much larger)

Boombox Museum

"Hershey's Ordered To Pay Obese Americans $135 Billion" - The Onion - 8/3/2000

"Ailing, Obese Man Sues Fast Food Companies" - Fox News - 7/24/2002

I got my Ohio license yesterday. I missed the test question on snow tires. I find it interesting that Ohio gives you 6 points on your license for "homicide by vehicle". It takes 12 points before they suspend your license.

Apparently a big asteroid is going to hit the earth on Feb 1, 2019. That is the day before Kenny's birthday (and groundhog day). I'm sure he's gonna ask me to give him his gift early that year, but I'm gonna wait. Why spend the money if I don't have to, right?

Foxnews

Kenny's cousin Christine signed my guestbook this morning, but I think she flubbed the email address. That is unless they routinely use spaces in their email addresses in France.

Christine, it was quite a surprise to hear from you, and I wish you greetings from the USA. If I'm ever over in Europe again, I'll take you out for a beer. Do they drink beer in France? Ok, wine then.

Exerpt from WSJ Best of the Web today:

The Ames (Iowa) Tribune reports local police put signs up on the doors of banks: "Due to a number of recent robberies within our community and to help ensure the safety of all concerned the Ames Police Department is requesting that you remove your hat and sunglasses before entering this financial institution."

"It's not mandatory," explains Cmdr. Jim Ronbinson, "but if a customer enters and leaves their sunglasses or hat on, what it might do would draw the bank employee's attention to this individual."

My flight from Cincinnati to Columbus this weekend was interesting to say the least. First of all, it is such a short hop that ATC never let us fly above 10,000 feet. We had a great view of the state as we cruised along at 10,000 feet probably doing 300 knots or better. Secondly, after we landed the pilot informed us that we had just landed automatically. He explained that they have to test the automated landing computers once per month and that they had decided to use our flight to test it. I'm unsure if this had anything to do with our low cruising altitude or not, but you'd never have known it otherwise. I didn't even know that the aging MD-88s were equipped with such a device.

I moved from my spacious four bedroom home into this dinky one bedroom apartment. I may look for a house for rent when my lease is up, or I may decide to live meagerly while building up my investments and cash balance.

Over the last 6 months, people have been asking me why I move around so much. My simple answer has always been "You gotta go where the money is."

To further illustrate my point, consider this fact about my company's presence in Atlanta. We used to have 4 buildings as part of our main campus. We also had several floors of people in satellite offices scattered throughout the city. I'd estimate our peak presence in Atlanta to be somewhere between 3000 and 5000 employees. After the next consolidation, all Atlanta employees who aren't home-based will be consolidated into one wing of the remaining building, which only consists of two or three floors.

For those of you that want to "turn to the dark side" but aren't quite sure how..

http://www.darksites.com/souls/horror/evilguide/

The International Dark Sky Association (IDA) thinks you should turn out your lights by 9 PM, and "activists" in Loudoun County, Virginia want the goverment to enforce it. Its one thing to push for people to voluntarily turn off their lights at night, but enforcing it at the point of a gun is a bit different.

http://www.drbukk.com/reparations/redneckreparations.html

I pulled this from the Best of the Web on Friday:

Eighteen state attorneys general, including six Democrats, have signed a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft offering their "wholehearted support" for the Justice Department's view that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to keep and bear arms (link in PDF format). The letter adds:

As the chief law enforcement officers of our respective states, we wish to make one final point that is outside the scope of constitutional analysis. Simply put, your position on the Second Amendment is a sound public policy decision. There is an increasing amount of data available to support the claim that private gun ownership deters crime.

I'm going to the Beach this weekend to visit the 'rents. If anyone is in town, you know how to look me up.

"I can run. I can operate and function as effectively as any member of Congress from behind bars." -- Rep. James Traficant-D, on his plans to seek re-election in the fall.

Best O' Traficant Quotes

Proving that AOLTW is desperate for cash, CNN is charging to watch video over the internet. I'm not sure when they started this, as I switched to Foxnews quite some time ago, but I noticed today that they are asking for $40 to watch their news feeds over the web. When I spoke to someone at AOLTW about this, they were not even aware of the change.

ravnwood: HAHAHA.. you guys must be fucking crazy if you think I'm gonna pay to watch CNN on the net!
Anonymous AOL Representative: what???
ravnwood: You guys want $40 to watch news feeds from CNN.com
AOL: a month?
ravnwood: $40 per year or $5 per month
ravnwood: check it out
AOL: gdamn
AOL: that is a little nuts

Hopefully, I'll be able to buy one of these soon. The '58 model is over $40,000, but the '61 model is only $29,500, because it has a '64 engine.

Had I seen this happen, they'd have needed to call a coroner, not the police. I hate cats as much as the next guy, but there is no excuse for this kind of cruelty.

AJC

FoxNews backs me up again... this time with an actual "Man Bites Dog" story.

IMDB reveals that Hayden Christensen will don the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars Episdode III.

I find this very interesting, and troublesome. No offense to Hayden, but he is only 6' 1". David Prowse, who played the original Vader was an intimidating 6' 7". Perhaps they'll make him wear lifts, or stand on a box like they did in the old days of movie making. Regardless, if he is wearing a mask anyway, why not put a taller actor in there? I cannot imagine a Darth Vader shorter than I am!

That is how the AJC referred to the Megamillions lottery jackpot of $58 Million won by Erika Greene.

Sad thing is that it illustrates the stupidity of people that play the lottery. The same people that are throwing away $20 a week on lottery tickets will be living off of my tax dollars a few years from now. Those tax dollars are siezed at the point of a gun, by the way. Don't believe me about the "point of a gun"? Stop paying your taxes and find out.

Check out the site of Phillip Morris NaPier. He is an ex-con who is running for Governor of Maine. He claims that if elected, he'll pardon any and all felons who live in Maine, or move there from other states. The WSJ says it is unclear how he could pardon convicts from other states. Here is an exerpt from his site.

People who have been branded/labeled "FELON", and their families, are one the largest groups suffering at the hands of discrimination in America. Together, as organized citizens, we can reclaim our heritage as a free people, a nation of individuals, and take back our country from those few self serving individuals who have robbed us of our heritage, our individuality.

Why do celebrities continue to get special treatment by police? Do you think that the average Joe Citizen would be allowed to remain at home for a week rather than in jail, simply because his lawyer was on vacation? Where is the line drawn? What if his lawyer were on vacation for two weeks, or a month?

Warrants should be carried out promptly after they are issued, especially for violent crimes. The police are opening themselves up to the risk of a lawsuit if Iverson were to hurt anyone during this self-confinement.

I caught Robin Williams' HBO Comedy special last night. He really isn't very funny at all. His act was nothing but a series of cheap laughs, consisting mostly of current events jokes intermixed with potty humor. The current events jokes are really a shame, in that they seriously date his performance. Take a look at a Bill Cosby performance from the 60s, and it is still hilarious today. Cosby's act was based on the timelessness of the family unit, and not political subjects that are out of date after 6 months.

Also, Robin had a few problems with accuracy that really got on my nerves. First, he did a whole bit on golf and golf carts. Several times he made reference to pro golfers using golf carts, which they do not. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, a handicapped golfer had to sue the PGA (which he did, successfully) just to be allowed to use a golf cart. Second, I'm being very nitpicky, but he mistakenly attributed the Mars orbiter crash to an engineering mixup between feet and meters, when it was actually a mixup between newtons and kilograms.

I don't know which one of these pics I like better? Either way, Ann Coulter is something special.

How can you not love a chick who enjoys a good beer, while shooting varmints (or the neighbor's cat) off her back porch.

Back on June 1, I wrote about shark attacks being a dog bites man story. That is, they are not newsworthy. It is sheer sensationalist news, meant to scare people and sell newspapers. Yesterday, FoxNews backed me up. Statistics show that you are much more likely to be killed by bees, lightning, or even falling coconuts. More people are either injured by their own toilet, or die in their bathtubs every year, yet they never make front page news.

I added another gun to my arsenal this weekend. I picked up a Remington 597 rifle that shoots .22 win mag rimfire cartridges. I had the gunsmith put a scope on it, which should be good for either varmint hunting, or target shooting. The shopkeeper was flabbergasted that a guy born in Virginia, "living" in Georgia, and buying a firearm in Ohio could pass the instant background check so quickly.

Did anyone happen to catch this picture from Wimbledon? Do you wonder why no one cares if Anna Kournikova ever wins a tennis match?

I've spent the last several days converting the site over to Blogger Pro. This is a service that I'll use from now on to post blogs onto the site. It should keep me from having to use Frontpage or an HTML editor every time I want to post something. You will notice that the date is formatted a bit differently, and the archives are posted in a different place. Overall, the change is for the better. The old archived posts are still offline, but I should get them converted over to Blogger this weekend.

Feel free to leave me feedback or add to the guestbook.

From today's OJ:

"Letter D Pulls Sponsorship From Sesame Street: Noted Consonant Alienated by Controversial New Gay Muppet"--the Onion, May 1999

"Sesame Street to Introduce HIV-Positive Muppet"--Reuters, July 12, 2002

From today's OpinionJournal:

Speaking at the NAACP convention in Houston, Jesse Jackson calls President Bush "unliterate." Does he really think "unliterate" is a word, or is he just trying to be irreverend?

Proving that women cannot stand for more than two men to hang out by themselves, the NCWO feminist organization is trying to strong-arm the Augusta National Golf Club into admitting women. Augusta National is a private club with only 300 members. The women's group plans on following through on threats to contact sponsors of the Master's Golf Tournament. The only relation between Augusta National and the Master's is that it is held at their golf course.

Its hard to believe that these women have nothing better to bitch about than not being granted member status at Augusta National.

Washington Times

A note from today's OpinionJournal gave me a real belly laugh:

The number of new AIDS cases in America is rising, CNN claims, citing Ronald Valdiserri of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Of the estimated 1 million Americans with HIV/AIDS, about half are not receiving medical care, often because they don't know they're infected, Valdiserri said."

If they don't know they're infected, how does Valdiserri know?

Check out this picture of Cobb County firefighters who ran the Peachtree 10K in Atlanta yesterday.  Despite 90 degree heat, Met Clark, Scotty Pope and Johnny Buice, pictured, and Lt. Jeff Moss (not pictured) ran the entire race in full gear complete with empty oxygen tanks, toting a US Flag.  

I hear a lot of people bitching about Worldcom lately. Personally I am kicking myself for not having the money to take advantage of such an opportunity. On Monday I casually mentioned to someone I'd like to invest a few thousand dollars in Worldcom, because their stock had just plummeted to 6 cents a share. The guy thought I was crazy. "Fucking crazy" were his exact words. Had I purchased $5000 worth of Worldcom stock on Monday and sold it at today's closing price of 25 cents, I would have made over $15,000. Actually selling it at Wednesday's close of 29 cents would have made almost $20,000. If only I had had the cash to act on that hunch.

Interested in a Russian Mail Order Bride?

Or, perhaps you are into Kitty Porn?

Who says the web isn't educational? Here is a neat site showing how to create a Teddy-Borg. A Teddy-Borg is a cross between an ethernet switch and a teddy bear. It sounds like a good idea, until your daughter runs off with it and you can't get back online.

Because I am desperate to see how popular (or unpopular) this site is, I have added a guestbook.
Feel free to use it. If it ever gets too big, or too inane, I may choose to thin it out a bit.

Check out this report from the Opinion Journal today:

Dumb Criminal of the Day
A 57-year-old Greenfield, Wis., man who tried to rob a store at knifepoint wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. His target was a gun store! The owner shot and wounded him. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel describes the would-be robber as "the victim."

Fox News reports on several outrageous examples of Political Correctness. Among them are renaming of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and renaming "unsportsmanlike" conduct to "unsportslike" so as not to "offend" any female athletes. I guess that when female athletes are called for a foul, they want credit where credit is due.

Another fowl story has PETA complaining about chickens being forced to play Tic Tac Toe. They are upset because it is "demeaning" to the chicken. I have two thoughts on this. First, I would think it would be demeaning to the human opponent, especially if the chicken wins. Second, I think that even PETA would think it is less "demeaning" than serving up that chicken with a side of mashed taters and gravy.

All this chicken talk has made me hungry for some KFC. Thanks to PETA for the lunch idea.