Author: Dick

She didn’t know! My goodness gracious. Sweet little Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, said she didn’t know that when she called her fellow U.S. House member Democrat John Murtha a coward that Murtha had served 37 years as a Marine. And that he was a decorated Marine to boot.

But that is what Schmidt told the Cincinnati Enquirer. She didn’t know. In a statement Schmidt, not surprisingly, makes herself out to be the victim of her own vicious attack.

“Since that moment I have been attacked from across the country by the left,” said Schmidt, whose war experience has largely been limited to attacking those who prefer choice in the abortion debate … “I am thankful for the thousands of supportive messages I have received from the people I represent and others across the nation since Friday. But this story has been way too focused on me, my conviction and word selection. Instead this story should be focused on the extremely poor policy the minority now propose. A policy, I might point out, that through this media storm has now been repudiated by dozens of leading members of the minority.”

I suppose you could say it was “repudiated” by Democrats when you they were faced with a “Have you stopped beating your wife” vote. Even the most rank, and I use that term in several different ways, amateur congress person will have a professional staff. Someone on the Schmidt staff if not Schmidt herself would have known just by reading the newspaper or watching TV that Murtha was a decorated Marine.

But then, the means justifies the ends these days for so many involved in politics, especially on the far right. Their propagandists can call decorated war heroes like Murtha and Max Clelland and John Kerry, cowards and traitors all while having never been closer to a military uniform than passing an ROTC student in college.

It goes back to what I’ve been railing against for some time and that is this crap about attacking those who served their country but don’t agree that getting into the Iraq war was a good move. It kind of cheapens my service to the nation. It’s like they are saying they are the biggest supporters of the troops, but they will only support those veterans who support George Bush and his policies in Iraq. That is just so wrong.

Early this morning was undoubtedly one of those still and chilly times when sound is carried to almost frightening distances.

I woke up about 3:30 and heard this roar that sounded like traffic on the interstate but it seemed very loud. I got up and listened closely and figured that it might be one of the many medivac helicopters that frequents Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital, only a couple of blocks from where I live. But I finally determined it was the interstate traffic.

Now I live close to Interstate 10 but not as close as I lived to Interstate 35 when I lived near Waco, so I am attuned to the kind of noise such highways generate. I-10 is probably six or so blocks west of here, but St. Elizabeth’s various buildings normally block out most of the noise. The interstate is also about seven blocks to the north of me. I usually cannot hear traffic on that part of the highway unless I am outside and it has to be pretty quiet like in the early morning.

The traffic noise was really bothering me and I couldn’t sleep. So I got up and turned on my computer. For the next hour I was entangled in computer hell and seriously wondered at one point if maybe this was all a bad dream. I couldn’t get any of my programs to load and when I would click on them, all I bould get would be a properties box. I did a little tinkering here and there and rebooted a couple of times. Finally, I got the programs up and running, but when I went to type something the Run command box would pop up.

So I went back to bed and when I awoke, guess what? It wasn’t a dream. The I-10 traffic was still pretty loud for after daybreak. And my computer woes continue. I dragged out the laptop to see if I could find on the Web about what the hell is eating Mr. Desktop this week. What a nightmare!

This year’s MUST HAVE Christmas gift. Buy a lovable snuggly Dick Cheney Bear. Squeeze old Dick Cheney Bear on those cold winter nights. Your kids will fall in love with the Dick Cheney Bear. You can tell your deepest, darkest secrets to Dick Cheney Bear and he will tell no one, well, hopefully he will tell no one. Maybe you should avoid telling him secrets. But with the Dick Cheney Bear you will just want to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze …

Christians in Action (CIA) figures with torture chamber sold separately.

If I have learned one fact in my life it is that stupidity and drunkenness is as bad a combination as fire and gasoline. Am I wrong mon amour? Consider a 34-year-old French woman named Sadrine Helene Sellies.

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — A French woman who is terrified of flying admitted in an Australian court Monday that she drunkenly tried to open an airplane door mid-flight to smoke a cigarette.

Sellies claimed to have taken sleeping pills and drank before she left the ground because of her fear of flying.

Mon dieu! She was only trying to settle her nerves. I mean, when you are anxious there is nothing better than a little fresh air.

“Open ze damn door before I get really obnoxious!”

The judge, who told Sellies that one must behave while on an airliner, placed her on a bond of almost $750 U.S. dollars and told her she would have to pay that amount if she did something similarly stupid within the next year. For the sake of future airline passengers who might have to share a cabin with Sellies, I certainly hope she will heed the judge’s advice.

Menard Creek in the Big Thicket National Preserve is a pretty nice place to visit.
It’s nice to go to the woods every now and then. This is a view from the Menard Creek Corridor Unit of the Big Thicket preserve near Livingston, Texas. The Birdwatcher’s Trail on which a friend and I took a short hike this afternoon is only one of two hiking trails open in the preserve due to damage from Hurricane Rita. Hopefully they will open others in the near future.