I don’t do this very often, but there are two things I am looking forward to very much:
The first is Battlestar Galactica. The new season begins here in the US on Sci-Fi on Friday, July 15. Click on the link above for episode sneak peaks on the first five episodes. The Miniseries and season 1 of BSG are numbers 3 and 4 on my list, you’ll see 1 and 2 below.
The second is Serenity. The movie derived from the short-lived series Firefly on UPN. I thought it was an excellent series and was sorry to see it go. I am saving up to buy the DVD of the series, so I will have it in a couple of months. I need to buy the 5th season of Babylon 5 first.
Donations are always greatly appreciated.

Today is the day we remember those who have fallen in the service of this country. People who are my battle brothers and sisters, who joined and died. From the Concord Green to the streets of Baghdad, the blood that feeds the tree of Liberty is always necessary and precious.
Places like Bunker Hill. Cold Harbor. Bastogne. Guadalcanal. Chosin Reservoir. Hue City. Tora Bora. Fallujah. Speak these names with reverence and awe.
And when you place a flag on the grave of a fallen soldier, please remember those who died at sea, for that is their grave.
When you give remembrance at a parade or cookout, please remember to salute the flag and thank a veteran for their service.
All gave some. Some gave all. Some are still giving. POW-MIA.

John Ford, one of the power brokers in the Tennessee Legislature, has resigned his seat, but not for the reasons you think. Operation Tennessee Waltz wasn’t even the reason, although it was the excuse.
NewsMax has covered the resignation in this story, Tenn. State Senator Resigns After Arrest.
But what was not covered was the ethics investigation that was underway against Senator Ford, and the vote to throw him out of the Senate was as soon as next month. If he were to be thrown out, he would lose his pension and benefits from the Senate. Resignation preserves those benefits.
And that’s important because he has a lot of mouths to feed. At least 8 children by at least 3 different women, and he’s married to none of them (at the moment). I doubt the income from his funeral home business (where he lists his residence, so he can represent that district) could cover his expenses.
I have no doubt that after he’s been convicted and served his time, his (former) constituents will be happy to re-elect him back into the Tennessee Legislature. They did it for Marion Barry in D.C., I have no reason to doubt they will do it here as well.

From Fox News Tongue Tied:

A high school student who painted an image that kinda sorta looks like a stairway to heaven had to change it after some folks complained about the religious imagery, reports the Napa Valley Register.
The student, who carries a Bible and has earned the nickname Pastor K., said he didn’t want to offend anyone and immediately changed the image on a painting outside the Napa High School art room.
Stairs previously leading to a castle in the sky now lead to a sunspot in the sky, and the castle is moored to the ground instead of planted in clouds. “I don’t want to cause anyone to get upset,” said the student, Kyle Trudelle.
Some observant students wonder, however, why no one has complained about a nearby mural depicting the Virgin Mary. It was explained that that painting is about Hispanic heritage, so it’s OK.

I think my emphasis pretty much sums it up. things even slightly Christian are banned, but Hispanic symbols are OK, “because it’s part of their heritage.” Well, Christianity is part of my heritage, so I better start seeing some equal time here.
Here’s another Tongue Tied, I’ll let you be the judge:

A school district in North Carolina is spending nearly $50,000 a year to have its teachers berated as racists in the name of diversity and anti-racism training, reports the Greensboro News Record.
Officials in Guilford County are requiring some 300 teachers in the district to sit through seminars by Chicago’s Crossroads Ministry. Participants, according to the paper, “are taught that history is written from the perspective of whites and that laws and policies benefit whites while putting minorities at an immediate disadvantage.”
The paper provided no details about the seminars.
The Crossroads Ministry makes no bones about its belief that “U.S. racial and cultural imperialism abroad are fundamentally based on white supremacy at home, founded on the belief that only White Europeans and White Euro-Americans should set the world’s agenda and control and distribute the world’s resources.”
The ministry also insists that whites are like alcoholics who are unaware of their racism and how they “benefit from and even depend on the sufferings of others for their happiness.” Coincidentally — we’re sure — one of the Guildford County school board members trying to make sure there is plenty set aside in next year’s half-a-million dollar training budget for Crossroads is Deena Hayes, who the paper describes as a trainer in institutional racism for the People’s Institute which frequently partners with Crossroads. [emphasis mine]

You want to talk about racist, there you go. So steeped in anger and hatred against whites, they ought to be members of whatever non-white Klan there is out there.
And buried in one of the articles is this:

[Superintendent Terry] Grier agrees more training is needed. The district is more diverse than nine years ago, he said. The school system has gone from 57 percent white and 37 percent low-income students to 45 percent white and 46 percent low-income students.

You mean none of the white students are low-income? Are you sure about that? Are you sure that all of the non-white students are low-income? Isn’t that statement racist in itself?
You need to follow the links in this second story, especially to the Crossroads Ministry. They are a bunch of flaming Liberal apologists who are seeing the world through a very bad set of prescription glasses. They need to be exposed as to that they are so they can be ignored like the rest of the racists in the world instead of being paid to give “seminars.”

I had a wonderful time at Nashcon. It is truly a wargaming con. You had ancient era miniatures, Napoleonics, chariot races, aerial dogfights, a battleship card game going on, almost everything you could want in a wargaming con.
But I was there to play Epic:Armageddon. Let’s get on to it.
Mike and I started out at 4AM Saturday morning to make sure we were there in time. We arrived at 745 and meandered around waiting for the event to start.
With all pictures, click on them for a full sized view.
Here are my forces, the Ultramarines 3rd Company with support elements. I have six squads of tactical Marines, backed up by terminators from the 1st Company, plus a detachment of Predator tanks and another detachment of Whirlwinds providing fire support. That big ugly white guy behind the Terminators? That’s a Titan. He’s 1/3rd of my force total all by himself.

The first battle was with Neil, he beat me to a pulp with his Orks during the Ides of March Epic Tournament back in March. This time he played Chaos Space Marines.
Most of his army was dropping in from orbit, so he started with a very light force on the board. He marched all of his forces around the edge of the board, all over to my left flank, keeping out of the range of the Whirlwinds. My forces cautiously advanced, taking up positions around one of his objectives. The other was way across the board and I didn’t have the forces to cover it, so it was ignored.
Turn two saw the advancement of his forces into contact with one of my tactical detachments, and we slugged it out, ending in the destruction of that detachment for me. I moved my other tactical detachment over to work on the survivors and was supported by the Titan.
Turn three was when the fresh Chaos troops arrived. They dropped right between my blitzkrieg objective and my forces. We fought and he reduced my Marines to just the Commander and his retinue. He also destroyed my Whirlwinds while trying to attack my titan. The good news is my Terminators teleported in and secured his Blitzkrieg objective. The turn ended in no winner, both of us had two points.

Turn four is where things went wrong for Neil. He threw wave after wave of troops at the titan, trying to dislodge it off the objective it was holding on to, and it failed horribly. I made my best die rolls of the game, and he made his worst rolls. I ended up destroying or driving off most of his forces, leaving him in control of one secondary objective, while I held all three on his side of the board. I won! I received 18 out of a possible 20 points for the win.

Round 2 was against David, playing orks. I faced a literal sea of orks, garrisoned in the middle of the board.
In this game, I could not make a save for anything! I moved my tactical detachments up to cover the objectives, and he kept pounding away at them, killing a stand or two a turn. His fighta-bommaz (the orks misspell everything) killed a Whirlwind, which hurt. I lost my second template to cause even more damage by way of them. I marched my Predator tanks around the flank, and that was how turn 1 ended.
Turn two opened with a bang. I opened fire on his gunwagonz, breaking them. I started to pull back my Tacticals, as I did not want them in close combat with a horde of orks. The titan kept pummeling away at the sea of bodies, causing massive damage to them, but the orks just kept coming.
Turn three saw the tide of battle change. My Terminators teleported into his unprotected backfield and destroyed the broken gunwagonz. My titan also broke his other gunwagonz detachment. He threw everything he had in range of the Terminators at them, but they took it all and kept smiling. Another march of the Predators brought them into range of the last broken gunwagonz, but because they marched, they could not fire.

The fourth turn was the kicker. David started bringing his forces back towards the objectives that I had captured, but he mismeasured and ended up 1.5cm out of range. I finished destroying anything that was in range of the objectives and won the game 2-0, gaining me another 18 victory points. I’m now 2-0 and my toughest fight is in front of me.
Battle three was against Michael and his Eldar. I don’t know how it got through the playtesting process, but the Eldar are very overpowered for their points.
There are no pictures for this battle because I was too busy fighting for my life the entire time. He just wiped me out like I wasn’t even there. He even killed the Titan without much trouble. At the end of turn 3, my Terminators were in position, but he was able to contest the blitzkrieg objective, and there was nothing I could do to stop him from taking my objectives. He won 18 out of a possible 20. The good news was I was the only player of the day who was able to score points against him at all, albeit only 2 points.
I ended up in Third place overall, behind Michael and Greg, who went 2-0-1 in his battles. Quite a respectable showing, more than I had hoped for. And I got my usual 2-1 record again. This time, the wins were on the winners side of the bracket, usually I lose that first game and end up on the losers side of things.
Mike and I ended up back home at around 12:45 this morning, a good end to a 21 hour day.

I’m up and at ‘em again, this time heading to Cool Springs to an Epic:Armageddon tournament as part of Nashcon 05.
I’ll be back with pictures and battle reports either Sunday or Monday.
Wish me luck.

It seems that Senator Clinton’s move to the center is working. USA Today Poll: Majority Would Vote for President Hillary.

In the poll, 29 percent of respondents said they were “very likely” to vote for Clinton, and another 24 percent were “somewhat likely,” while 7 percent were “not very likely” and 39 percent were “not at all likely” to vote for the senator from New York.

Methinks this USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll concentrated on Blue areas rather than making it balanced. Either that, or her image as a centrist is working.
If her image as a centrist is working, we are in big trouble. Bill was the centrist, Hillary is the flaming Liberal. Let her get into the Presidency and she will show her true colors.
She is as much of a centrist as I am.
Nuff said.

I ‘m sorry I didn’t report on this yesterday, but I only watch recorded TV so I can flash through the commercials. I recorded Law & Order: Criminal Intent Wednesday night, then heard the line discussed on Rush Limbaugh. Tom DeLay Irate Over NBC’s Judgment.
It seems that when the police were talking about a description of the shooter(s), Eames said, “Maybe we should put out an APB [all-points bulletin] for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt.”
I also found out that Vincent D’Onofrio is a flaming Liberal, who got apoplectic over the election in 2004 and having to be taken off the set via stretcher more than once. But I digress.
I will have to re-evaluate my watching this show. Not because of Vince, but because of the writing. I don’t like character assassination, and that is what Liberals love to do when they have nothing substantial against someone they hate.
If you haven’t been following it, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is under investigation about ethics violations concerning who paid for his travel.
The problem is, if the Democrats push for prosecution of Tom DeLay, then the investigation will be widened and many Democrat Representatives will be caught in similar circumstances. So to not be caught with their own hand in the cookie jar, they are going after DeLay with every character assassination tool in their box. Dean says stuff like “Tom DeLay should start serving his sentience” before charges have even been brought, let alone convicted.
I like what Dick Wolf (Creator/Executive Producer of the series) said,

“but I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show.”

Feh.

Well, it seems Mr. Chirac of France isn’t listening to the people who put him in office. Turmoil as Chirac plots to disregard ‘non’ vote. This is about the referendum the people are voting on as far as joining the European Union.
Just to show what he is planning to do, very far down in the article is this:

But one option being discussed in senior diplomatic circles is for candidates in the French presidential election in 2007 to promise to ratify the treaty in parliament rather than by referendum.

So, if it doesn’t pass by public referendum, they’ll just pass it in Parliament. Who’d a thunk that the French government would ignore the will of the people?

…of the year and I’m trapped driving crazy people around and attending a picnic.
Senators John Ford and Kathryn Bowers of Memphis, former Senator Roscoe Dixon, now an assistant to the County Mayor A.C. Wharton, and several others arrested on charges of bribery, conspiracy, threatening witnesses (all John Ford on this one, natch) and several others. I wasn’t taking notes, considering I was driving around the 240 loop.
If you want the full scoop, check out Mike at Half-Bakered. He’s been on top of it all day.
You decide to help out and change your schedule and something like this happens.
Damn, damn, damn.

I have to work at a picnic today, so posting is cut short. See you tonight or tomorrow.

It seems that the central character in the creation of the European Union doesn’t want to belong to it. French in disarray as they admit EU treaty vote is lost.
The EU Constitution was a bad idea from the start. Instead of painting broad brush strokes and letting the lawmakers fill in the blanks as is with our Constitution, the EU attempts to lay out every policy and minute decision in the Constitution itself. The US Constitution is a few pages, the EU is a James Mitchner novel.
Such micromanaging of a controlling document is a bad idea, since the process to change it (should be) difficult and complex.
With the French backing out of the EU, it would seem that the EU is in significant trouble, as the French were the major pushers behind the idea.
I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Well, it seems that you making efforts to keep your information secure is now considered criminal activity. Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption.

A Minnesota appeals court has ruled that the presence of encryption software on a computer may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent.

The case was about a turd who had kiddie porn on his computer, as well as a copy of Pretty Good Privacy. While none of the porn was encrypted, the fact that he had PGP and what it did was introduced as evidence of wrongdoing.
It seems that I should encrypt my personal information, just on principle. I have a Constitutional right to be secure in my papers, and that means KEEP YOUR DAMN FINGERS OFF MY STUFF. My thumb drive came with a secure vault, I think I’ll start using it.

I think it’s time for something radical to happen. Either a new Conservative Party is formed out of the ashes of the old Republicans, or we start throwing people off the lifeboat.
I don’t see any other way. As long as we provide a fractured non-unity to the Democrats, they will win every time. Why? Because of the traitors in our midst. We must get rid of them, one way or another.
It’s either toss the Traitorous Seven out of the Party, or everybody else leave for a new party and let them have the Republican moniker.
This “deal” that these seven “moderate” Republicans made, which gives the Democrats everything they wanted while we lose big time, has cost us dearly. I think it’s time that we unmasked the sheep in wolf’s clothing and toss these seven out of the Party.
Yes, I know they will be instantly absorbed into the Democrats, giving them control of the Senate, but I think this will be a good thing. This move will get rid of Bill Frist as Majority Leader. He has proven to be ineffective in a leadership position. Better now than if he got elected to the Presidency. It will lock up the entire process with the Senate firmly in Democrat hands, and show the entire country just how bad of obstructionists they are.
The obstructionism will continue until the Mid-term cycle in 06 and we will hopefully regain control of the Senate, this time with true Conservative Republicans.

Why don’t these people just go away? Amnesty Takes Aim at ‘Gulag’ in Guantanamo.
Amnesty International whines about us because we are the only ones who listen at least some of the time. Other places, like Pakistan, the old Iraq, Mexico and a host of other places, all routinely use torture to extract information. And we are talking a lot more than just making the subject stand in uncomfortable positions. But we are supposed to be civilized and not use these barbaric methods at all. Well, we aren’t. Not by real standards anyway. We don’t physically harm the prisoners, but we do cause mild amounts of pain. It’s the only way to get these people to talk.
AA is a bunch of do-gooder Liberals trying to look effective by bullying us around because we don’t treat our prisoners like royalty. They can go straight to hell, because I understand that things like this is necessary when dealing with bad people. AA does not understand the amount of restraint we exert upon ourselves not to actually torture these people.
There is a fine line and we are doing our best to stay on the right side of it.