Say Anything Blog

If you don’t know who the Sabres are, then maybe now is your time to get acquainted with them.  The Sabres are currently the top team in the NHL with a record of 44-16-5 (where the 5 is overtime losses) for a total of 93 points.  They also have 251 goals (more than any other team) in the 65 games they’ve played this season.  The only other team in the NHL with that many points right now is Nashville (in the Western Conference) who has played two more games than Buffalo and tallied 231 goals.

22 February was an emotional day for Sabres fans.  They were playing Ottawa, who is also in the North East Division, and Chris Neil, #25, cheap shots Buffalo’s captain, Chris Drury, #23.  This cheap shot led to fights and more than 100 penalty minutes assessed.  I didn’t get to see the game (because I live in a part of Ohio where no one has heard of hockey and I was at work anyway), and it hurts me that I’ve only seen one Sabres game this year.

If you want to see some highlights from the exciting game, click here (I don’t know how long that link will be active).

Why am I writing about this now?  Because someone sent me this Adam Sandler Song/YouTube video.



You may notice that Adam mentions that it’s Buffalo’s injured squad on the ice.  That was (and is) correct.  Buffalo has been playing with a lot of members from their AHL team, the Rochester Americans.

TORONTO (AP)—The Buffalo Sabres are first overall in the NHL despite missing eight regulars to injury.

Toni Lydman, Drew Stafford and Nathan Paetsch scored to lead the injury-riddled Sabres to a 3-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

Buffalo, using a number of call-ups from the AHL affiliate in Rochester, has lost only once in regulation in its past 11 games (9-1-1).

And Rochester, even with all of the call-ups, still has more wins this year than any other team in their division.

The Sabres are an exciting organization.  If you haven’t been checking them out, or you have never been interested in hockey, this may be your year, and Buffalo may be your team.

I’m sure you would rather talk about Al Gore, Global Warming or Writing Tips, but I felt with all the chatting goin on about funding cuts for the troops in Iraq that this may be an interesting topic.

Wounded Soldiers Detail Poor Living Conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
“Soldiers get less than they deserve from a system seemingly designed and run to cut the costs associated with fighting this war,” Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s national security panel. Shannon was injured by a gunshot wound to the head during a firefight with insurgents in Iraq in 2004.

“The really sad thing is that surviving veterans from every war we’ve every fought detail the same basic story. A story about neglect, lack of advocacy and frustration with military bureaucracy,” Shannon said.  Link

Vets Face More Health-Care Cuts
From budget cuts to homeless vets

The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) says the nation’s homeless veterans are mostly males (4 % are females). The vast majority are single, most come from poor, disadvantaged communities, 45% suffer from mental illness, and half have substance abuse problems. America’s homeless veterans have served in World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Operation Iraqi Freedom, or the military’s anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America. Forty-seven percent of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam Era. More than 67% served our country for at least three years and 33% were stationed in a war zone. Link

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Are we supporting our troops?

I got a 2007 Membership Renewal form for the National Republican Congressional Committee in the mail this weekend. I figured it took a lot of guts to send them out, since it’s really just a fundraiser after they really didn’t perform at all since 2000, so instead of a check I typed up and mailed in this reply:

To: Congressman Tom Cole, NRCC Chairman

Re: Membership contribution request

Dear Congressman Cole,

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the NRCC. I was surprised to hear that there are actually any Republicans still in the Congress. The last time I sent you money, we controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. We were really going to get things done. So what happened?

You’re asking me for money to help you fight for reform in the areas of immigration, Social Security, and Medicare...yet you had six years of total control in Washington in which to advance our agenda. Who fell asleep at the wheel? The same folks who want my hard-earned money now that they’re powerless to push anything through the House at all, and can merely stonewall Democrat bills in the Senate? What was my money paying for when you guys ran the joint?

The fact of the matter is, I am not sending you guys a penny. I, like many who vote Republican, am the antithesis of the “rich, evil Republican” that the Democrats like to portray. I make a modest living and am happy doing so, and thought that sending some of my valuable money to you Republicans while you were in power would actually help you accomplish something. I was sorely mistaken, and I won’t be making such a poor investment any time in the near future.

I was not one of those voters who “sat out” the last election in order to teach you Republicans a lesson. I do understand what’s at stake here. But for you to come back to us with your hat in your hand after a shameful squandering of six years in control of everything in Washington is too much. I won’t vote with my wallet the way I will with my ballot. Either you Republicans in the Senate had better start acting like conservatives, or you won’t have any support left from people who thought you were there to advance the causes about which we care most deeply.

Good luck. Your candidates will likely get my vote in 2008, but you won’t get one red cent. This time you earn it first.

PS: The same applies to Presidential candidates in 2008. At this point I remain firmly resolved to write-in Ronald Reagan.

I really don’t think anyone in Washington truly represents the people who vote for them any more. Look at the Democrats, for instance. The ones who ran on an anti-war platform don’t dare defund the war, because they know that’d be political suicide. So the crazy leftists who helped them raise money are going to be mad as heck. On the other side, our Republicans had six years to get things done, and had the power to do it, and still produced nothing.

This simply reinforces my long held belief that nobody in Washington is there to solve problems. What would the Republicans do if they couldn’t dangle the abortion or immigration carrot in front of us voters? Especially in this age where you’re only as important as your last five minutes’ performance, they’re just simply afraid of having no crisis handy with which they can rally the voters.

The letter I wrote pretty much says it all. I wish everyone who got the NRCC fundraising request would do the same thing. If nobody with an (R) by their name has any sack anymore, then they don’t deserve to be in national politics. Period.

Leonidas
Faithfully supported by his 300 Spartans
Betrayed by his own Ephors
Hamstrung by indecisive councilors
Minimally supported by his allies

Xerxes
Self proclaimed God
Dictator to the 100 Nations of the Persian Empire
Profligate with Gold and Blood in pursuit of Conquest

Comes now the movie based on said graphic novel and bearing the same title. From the trailers and marketing released to date, the movie seems to follow the graphic novel faithfully.

With general release set for Friday the 9th, advanced screenings are now running for critics.

Their question for director Zack Snyder (via Drudge according to the senile gray strumpet): “Is George Bush Leonidas or Xerxes?”

The answer from any given individual will have far more to do with their opinions than anything else.

Go tell the Spartans
Passerby
That here, obedient to their laws
We lie

(more...)

Just in case you wanted to go dumpster diving in Wisconsin, the ASPCA has changed what you might find.
“Abandoned dogs living on the Menominee Reservation in northeast Wisconsin will no longer routinely be shot and placed in dumpsters, thanks in part to a $4000 ASPCA grant to the Fox Valley Humane Association.”
Will it be business as usual when the money runs out?

This should be interesting!

In ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ Al Gore is shown claiming this proves the theory, but palaeontologist Professor Ian Clark claims in the documentary that it actually shows the opposite.

He has evidence showing that warmer spells in the Earth’s history actually came an average of 800 years before the rise in CO2 levels.

Prof Clark believes increased levels of CO2 are because the Earth is heating up and not the cause. He says most CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the oceans, which dissolve the gas.

When the temperature increases, more gas is released into the atmosphere and when global temperatures cool, more CO2 is taken in. Because of the immense size of the oceans, he said they take time to catch up with climate trends, and this ‘memory effect’ is responsible for the lag.

Scientists in the programme also raise another discrepancy with the official line, showing that most of the recent global warming occurred before 1940, when global temperatures then fell for four decades.

It was only in the late 1970s that the current trend of rising temperatures began.

This, claim the sceptics, is a flaw in the CO2 theory, because the post-war economic boom produced more CO2 and should, according to the consensus, have meant a rise in global temperatures.

‘Global Warming Is Lies’ Claims Documentary

I am sure Jesse is on the way.

Cherokees eject slave descendants
Ruth Adair Nash (right), a freedman descendant, with family members
Descendancy stems from the 19th Century Dawes Commission lists
Members of the Cherokee Nation of native Americans have voted to revoke tribal citizenship for descendants of black slaves the Cherokees once owned.

A total of 76.6% voted to amend the tribal constitution to limit citizenship to “blood” tribe members.

Supporters said only the Cherokees had the right to determine tribal members.

Opponents said the amendment was racist and aimed at preventing those with African-American heritage from gaining tribal revenue and government funding.

The Cherokee Nation has 250,000 to 270,000 members, second only to the Navajo.

Read the whole thing. So much for desegregation.

Amazing how this gets no airtime in American media, or from NOW.
ran women arrested over protest
Iranian women hold banners calling for equal rights - June 2006 photo
Seventy people were arrested at last June’s demonstration
Iran’s authorities have arrested more than 32 women activists protesting outside a courthouse in Tehran.

The protesters were showing solidarity with five women on trial for organising a protest last June against laws they say discriminate against women.

The five have been charged with endangering national security, propaganda against the state and taking part in an illegal gathering.

US pressure group, Human Rights Watch, has urged an end to the prosecution.

It said the women had been exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

The five are organisers of a demonstration last June which was violently broken up by the police and led to the arrest of 70 people, many of them innocent bystanders.

‘Intimidation’

The BBC’s Frances Harrison, reporting from the demonstration, says almost all the leaders of Iran’s women’s movement were arrested.

The women held up banners outside the revolutionary court, saying: “We have the right to hold peaceful protests”.

The aim of the women is to draw attention to discriminatory Islamic laws on polygamy and child custody that often cause great suffering to women, our correspondent says.

When the five women on trial left the court building they were arrested again, along with their lawyer.

Parveen Adalan, one of those on trial, said her lawyer had not yet seen any of the evidence against her, although she has been questioned five times by the intelligence agencies.

“They didn’t give them our documents to read, so we don’t know what’s happening,” she told the BBC.

One of the women demonstrators, Nahid Mirhaj, accused the police of trying to intimidate them.

She said the police chief was “using obscene words and describing us as ‘misfits’”.

Our correspondent says police and plain-clothes security men chased away journalists and onlookers and then loaded the women onto a curtained minibus and drove them away.

The women believe the authorities are trying to intimidate them to prevent any kind of protest during International Women’s Day on 8 March.

The Progressive and forward looking religion of peace. No wonder leftards support Islam over America, they wish to do the same to those who disagree with them in America.

Wow. It is nice that the terrorists have such nice support available.

In February, two anti-whaling activists (one from Australia, one from Los Angeles), intending to attack a Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica with a bottle of acid and a smoke bomb, got lost in the fog in their small dinghy and were rescued with the help of several boats, including the whaler. However, as soon as the activists were safe, one thanked the Japanese crew but said, “I guess we’re back on schedule, and we’ll be pursuing you again.” Shortly after that, the activists approached the whaler and tossed the acid onto the deck, injuring two crew members.

I can’t believe the whaler didn’t become a ‘hippier’. I would have put a spear right through that dinghy. And, on the same page…

It is well-known that Saudi Arabia still prohibits women from driving cars (or riding in them unless accompanied by a male relative), but a December Associated Press dispatch from Riyadh reported on female automobile salespeople (who are successful in selling to females, who can own cars as long as someone else drives). Also, in January, a holding company owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal hired a female pilot for one of its jets. The woman, Capt. Hanadi Zakariya Hindi, flies with no restrictions but still requires a male relative to get her to and from the airport.

Saudi Arabian law obviously uses a very strict definition of ’cockpit’.

Sherman, set the WaBac Machine for the closing days of the Clinton administration.  The military and intelligence agencies have been bled white by massive cuts, their capabilites further eroded by endless deployments to Third World nations on missions that closer resembled Meals on Wheels than anything approaching a U.S. national interest, and further demoralized by witch-hunting of the rank and file by a political appointee leadership who loathed the military and called servicemembers extremists.

To say nothing of the Augean stables that was the Clinton administration with endless scandals from taking financial contributions from the Red Chinese People’s Liberation Army, transfer of vital multi-stage missile and neutron warhead technology to the Red Chinese, to the endless other -Gates… It was time for a change.

Son of former President Bush—“Dubya” promised a big change.  A strong defense, law and order, fiscal restraint.  Did we get it?

Over the past twelve years or so, core Republicans have been kicked to the curb by tone-deaf Republicans-in-Name-Only (RINO’s), those sheep-in-wolves-clothing who spent like drunken sailors, passed abominations like McCain-Feingold and who came damn near close to handing amnesty to some 20 million illegal aliens.

Disgusted, the Republican party faithful stayed home in droves during the last election cycle, costing the GOP control of both the House and the Senate.

Has the GOP party leadership paid attention to this shot across the bow? 

Evidently not.

What the Conservatives are being given—as some supposedly viable alternative to the Hard-Left Hillary Rodham (Clinton) and the Islamic Obama (at a time we are fighting fanatical Muslims)—are just more First-string RINOs.... They uniformly have sided with Democrats on most evervy vital political issue: Freedom of Speech, Second Amendment, Homosexual special rights, Amnesty for Illegal Aliens… HOW in God’s name do they lay claim to the title Republican?

Oh, if only Ronnie could have been cloned....

(more...)

"Baghdad” David Bonior is now campaign manager for John Edwards

McDermott and Bonior are two specimens of what Lenin, referring to Westerners who denied the existence of Lenin’s police-state terror, called ``useful idiots.’’ Perhaps Iraqi officials, knowing fathomless gullibility when they see it--they have dealt with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan--actually said such things. Or perhaps McDermott and Bonior heard what they wished to hear. Either way, these innocents abroad should have known that Iraq’s proclaimed policy is:

The only permissible inspections would be those permitted by the 1998 agreement Saddam reached with his servant, Annan, who was last seen doing his Neville Chamberlain impersonation, waving a piece of paper (Iraq’s recent letter promising weapons inspections ``without conditions") that he said meant peace in our time. Under the 1998 agreement, various inspections are forbidden, such as any at eight ``presidential sites’’--about 12 square miles of facilities, with thousands of buildings.

-from a 2002 editorial by George Will

Baghdad Bonior

As a public service here at Say Anything for the linguistically challenged (and you know who you are!) I offer the following writing tips:

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.


2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.


3. The adverb always follows the verb.


4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.


5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.


6. Remember to never split an infinitive.


7. Contractions aren’t necessary.


8. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.


9. One should never generalize.


10. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”


11. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.


12. Be more or less specific.


13. One-word sentences? Eliminate.


14. The passive voice is to be avoided.


15. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.


16. Who needs rhetorical questions?


17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.


18. Don’t never use a double negation.


19. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.


20. A writer must not shift your point of view.


21. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)


22. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!!!!!


23. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.


24. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.


25. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; they’re old hat; seek viable alternatives.

-anon

Sound familiar? Maybe a way to deal with Travel Office, or Bimbo eruptions , illegal possesion of FBI files or missing Rose law firm records? Words to live by! At least if your name is Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton! The senior thesis of Hillary D. Rodham, Wellesley College class of 1969, locked away from the public during the eight years of the Clinton administration, is finally seeing the light of day.

Just as conservative authors have speculated, it was the Clintons who asked Wellesley in 1993 to hide Hillary Rodham’s senior thesis from the first generation of Clinton biographers, according to her thesis adviser and friend, professor Alan H. Schechter, who describes taking the call from the White House. [See sidebar: A stupid political decision ]

Wellesley’s president, Nannerl Overholser Keohane, approved a broad rule with a specific application: The senior thesis of every Wellesley alumna is available in the college archives for anyone to read—except for those written by either a “president or first lady of the United States.” So far, that action has sealed precisely one document: Hillary Rodham’s senior honors thesis in political science, entitled “ ‘There Is Only the Fight...’: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”

Hillary Rodham’s Hidden Thesis

Too bad HillaryCare didn't pass! The amnesia (and rudeness) that so affected the Clintons seems to be spreading:

When MSNBC.com called Keohane last week at Princeton to ask about the thesis, she replied, "I have no memory of this," and hung up the phone.

This is cool story about light manipulation with nanotechnoloy.

New Material Makes the Most of Light
Scientists in New York have created a material that allows light to pass through with little or no reflected glare. Potential applications range from improving optical communications to increasing the efficiency of solar cells.

The first thing I thought of was my UV reflecting glasses next to the radio I was listening to. Then, scifi geek that I am, I thought, cloaking device. At the end of the piece they played the theme music from Dr Who which really got my attention.

Sam of Uncle Sam’s Cabin.

With the advent of World War II many of our Hollywood Stars went to fight rather than stand and rant against this country we all love.

They gave up their wealth, position and fame to become service men &women, many as simple “enlisted men”.

Recently, an estimated 100,000 anti-war protesters from around the country converged on the National Mall , galvanized by Hollywood’s opposition to President Bush’s plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq.

“Silence is no longer an option,” said Jane Fonda, once derided as Hanoi Jane for her opposition to the Vietnam War. She was flanked by Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

Fonda drew cheers. She said she had stayed away from anti-war rallies in fear that the “lies spread about me” would harm the movement.

So how do you feel the real heroes of the silver screen acted when compared to the hollywonks today who spray out anti-American drivel as they bite the hand that feeds them? Can you imagine these stars of yesteryear saying they hate our flag, making anti-war speeches, marching in anti-American parades?

I thought not, neither did I!