Well, a lot of Conservative Blogs, including Mike at Half-Bakered (who is a Libertarian) carried a picture that looked like Cindy Sheehan held a book signing party and no one came. Well, that may or may not be true: Cindy Sheehan Claims Photos Falsely Implied Her Book Signing was a Flop.

“Photographer Evan Vucci, queried about the incident today said that he was present at the book signing from about 10 a.m. to about 11 a.m. During that time, he said, people were coming in to have their books signed in small groups of a few at a time.
“At the time the photos were taken ‘maybe 5 people had come in,’ Vucci says, and Sheehan was waiting for more to stop by, which they did individually as well as in very small groups. Therefore the wording of the caption is accurate in that Sheehan was waiting for people to show up at her signing.”

So they were splitting semantic hairs. Was this a bait and switch on Conservative blogs, which was sure to pick this up? You notice that the caption didn’t say anything about any people actually coming in, just that she’s waiting for them.
By the way, I looked up Cindy’s book on Amazon and found it rather far down on the chart, #3, 031. I rather liked the first review:

I tried to read this book but it was so poorly written that I gave up after ten pages. I had sympathy for her but not any more. This grandstanding and egocentric woman needs to shut up and learn to accept what life brings you – sometime good and sometimes bad. Get a grip woman, seriously and stop disgracing your sons name. He had respect and wanted to do his part to protect America. If you hate it here so much then go to Iraq and help the people there.
As for your partially read book, it is now lining my birdcage because the paperboy got hit by a car and hasn’t delivered the paper in two days.

MSRP of Cindy’s book is $15, but list at Amazon is $10 (free shipping!), and she sold her donated copies at the book signing for $20 each.
Cindy is a rather sad and pathetic figure, who has used up 14 of her 15 minutes of fame. Sure, she will still be covered by the MSM because both she and they are anti-war, but the American people will have moved on and cast her by the wayside. She really needs to get on with her life and honor her son the way he wanted to be honored. Which is to be remembered that he did his best to serve and protect this country.

I was scrounging up some information from the Zone Archives for a comment to a post on Tennessee Guerrilla Women and I came across this snippet. I wanted to share it with you:

Which brings me back around to my old Conservative idea of doing the right thing for the right reasons. This is not an easy task, let me tell you. You can do the right thing for the wrong reasons pretty easily, getting positive short-term results. But then something will come back and bite you in the rear later over it and it will leave you wondering, “What did I do to deserve this?” All must be in positive alignment, action, motivation and intent, to obtain a long-term positive outcome. Remember this always and you will do much good in this world. [emphasis mine]

I have talked about this many times, but not for a long time. I think it’s time to start talking about Conservative values again, not just commenting on the news of the day or my wargaming.
That is all (for the moment).

I have three stories here, all of which are connected. It will take a bit of doing, but I will show you how.
Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
Refusal to present ID sparks test of rights
President Discusses Border Security and Immigration Reform in Arizona
The first two stories are easy to link together. The first one is how the Miami Police will be doing random shows of force and ID sweeps throughout the city. All well and good, at least on the surface.
But what happens when a citizen doesn’t want to show their ID? May SCOTUS be damned for ruling that a police officer has the right to ask for ID, even when the citizen has done nothing to warrant attention. So the second article shows what happens to you if you don’t respond properly to the request of, “Papers, please.” You get detained for three hours, lose your job and have the sword of Damocles hanging over your head with the possibility of Federal charges.
But here’s where it ties together. In the third article, President Bush talks about his “Guest Worker” program. Enter the country illegally, apply for a GW card and get to stay for six years. Yeah, that’s a real incentive not to cross the border illegally.
It is this mishandling of the illegal problem that is causing such a security hole that now requires these ID sweeps. I have ideas on how to cut down on the illegal problem, but I would have groups like the ACLU, La Raza and even the Mexican Government screaming for my blood, so I will keep my ideas to myself. Suffice it to say I would make it clearly evident if someone was a caught illegal alien.
Unless the illegal problem is solved swiftly and permanently, this cycle of losing privacy will only intensify.
I fear the police, especially here in Memphis. I am an extraordinarily private person, and do not like my ID checked without probable cause. But if I want to stay out of police custody, I have little choice.
I do not view this as a means of security, but rather a loss of freedom. But I suppose that went out the window when ID’s became mandatory. And as always, the tip of the sword doesn’t hurt if applied slowly. But the rest of the sword is the part that does the damage.

Ted Turner strikes again. Ted Turner says Iraq ‘no better off’ after U.S.-led war.
Ted is continuing to spew his Liberal talking points as he always has, without regard for the truth. He basically calls for us to get rid of our nuclear arsenal, as if beating our swords into plowshares will bring peace. It will, in a way. It will being about the peace of the slave, as in those who don’t have weapons to defend themselves will become the slaves of those who keep their weapons.
He then goes on to basically question the Presidents sanity:

“You have to question … the president on a lot of decisions he’s made,” Turner said. “He might just think launching those weapons would be a good thing to do. … He thought Iraq was.”

Nuclear weapons are a defensive weapon, never an offensive weapon. At least in our hands. You never know about countries such as Iran, which has vowed to “Wipe Israel off the Map.” That could certainly be construed as a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Not the words of a sane man.
He does get one thing right, almost:

Turner said war is an outdated form of diplomacy that has stopped working.

War is an extension of diplomacy, which is the stage you spank another country (or group of individuals) until they see things your way. You break things, including their spirit, until they agree with you.
Ted, don’t go away angry, just go away.

Yep, my planning skills are impeccable. I got up early, started hacking away at the code, and got done right at 11:00. Since I have to give blood at noon, I don’t have time but for this little post. Enjoy the new color scheme, I don’t know how to change it. One of the down sides to Moveable Type.

Temp files I didn’t know about (about 7.5mb of them) choked my system, crimped the MySQL database and caused Moveable Type to crash. I luckily was able to backup the entries and main template.
After a couple of hours of deleting the old stuff, installing the new and getting it to work, I have pulled out what little hair I have left.
Well, I got it to work, that’s the good news. The bad news is the new look. It’s 10:30 and I’m going to bed and tackle the rest of this job tomorrow. There may be no posting as I have appointments throughout the day and I might not have the time after getting this thing to behave.
I may have to upgrade to the next level of server so I have a bunch of space to expand, but I don’t know if I can afford it. We’ll see.
G’night.

In celebration of me having Thanksgiving weekend off, Mike and I engaged in a rather large and bloody fight of 5,000 points of Epic:Armageddon.
It’s the kind of game where you take turns moving one unit at a time, instead of your entire force all at once. The number of units is very important. You don’t want to have a few big units, or too many small units. If you have a few big units, you can get nibbled to death by ducks, if you have too many small units, you don’t have the ability to concentrate enough firepower to accomplish anything.
Well, it seems I am having trouble learning that lesson with my Ork forces. I had 9 large units, including a Great Gargant (think 40 foot tall anime mech, but way uglier. Pictures to come later when he’s finished). During this battle, I had 9 units to activate, compared to 17 for Mike. After all of my forces had come to rest and done all they could do, he still had half of his units that he could activate with impunity.
I at least think I’m the better general, but I’ve been trying to run a marathon with an extra 100lbs of leg weights with my list choices with Orks. I beat Mike on a semi-regular basis when I play Space Marines, and I beat Mike with Orks in a smaller battle when we had the same number of units a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I won last Wednesday with Necrons (Schwarzenegger Terminators) because I had a reasonable amount of activations compared to him.
Well, in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to have a 5,000 point rematch and my Orks will be ready. I’m through with trying new and weird lists, I’m going for the kill and this is my warning to Mike. He hasn’t seen a horde of Orks until he sees me line my Orks up next time. Who knows, I might have to buy another box of Orks.

Well, it seems that our Congress is finally starting to address the immigration problem. Bill Would Eliminate Birthright Citizenship.
You see, pregnant women waddle illegally across the boarder, give birth to an American citizen, and get to stay to take care of the child. And the rest of the family gets to come along as well.
This bill in Congress would deny citizenship to children born in the US if the parents are illegal immigrants. This would help cut off the flow of illegals, and stop a major incentive for this illegal immigration.
Good Job Congress. Now all you have to make it SCOTUS proof, because the ACLU or some other Liberal rights advocate group. Of course the 9th Circus will rule against the law, no matter the grounds, so this will have to go to SCOTUS to decide the issue. If SCOTUS strikes it down, it may have to go the Constitutional Amendment process.
Keep it up. We need to secure our borders and stop this flood of illegal immigrants that refuse to assimilate into the American culture and way of life.

Some good news for Black Friday. Hillary Clinton’s Left-wing Slip Showing.
Daily Kos, a rather notorious Left-Wing blogger that happens to live in Tennessee, the same state that I live in, has been holding a poll and Hillary, that standard of the Democrat party, is slipping.

The former first lady has now slid to fifth place among likely candidates, with Virginia Gov. Mark Warner leapfrogging past her into third place. She now ranks just above the Koz category “No Freakin’ Clue” among top Democrats who are expected to run.

This just goes to show that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. She has been increasingly hawkish, for her own reasons, and it is alienating her Liberal base. So she is losing support from those that she will have to go back and try and recapture, but I promise you her words will come back to haunt her.
Unless a miracle occurs, she is going to stay the junior Senator from New York, providing she can get re-elected.
Good Job Hillary.

Some sad news today, ‘Mr. Miyagi’ Dies at 73
Pat Morita, who made his big breakthrough as “Al” on Happy Days, and who was Oscar nominated for Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, died yesterday at 73.
We will miss you.

As you gather around the table with friends and family, I will be working, gathering clients that have no family and bringing them to the Center, letting them have a feast that they would otherwise not have had.
Remember to be thankful, for things like freedom, health, family, friends.
And remember those less fortunate than you, they may not have as happy a day as you will be having. But I’m doing my best to take care of that.

Something to deeply consider, in todays climate:

“… if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiances here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag,… we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Teddy Roosevelt — 1907

Buckaroo Bonzai once said in his movie, “No, don’t tug on that. You don’t know what it might be connected to.” Well, the Greens have tugged on something they shouldn’t have and are now experiencing the Law of Unintended Consequences. Forests paying the price for biofuels.
You know, those beautiful rainforests that have thousands on unnamed species of plants and animals, a possible cure for cancer, etc., etc. That man rapes for his own purposes, clearcutting and planting crops on to feed our burgeoning population.

The drive for “green energy” in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. From the orang-utan reserves of Borneo to the Brazilian Amazon, virgin forest is being razed to grow palm oil and soybeans to fuel cars and power stations in Europe and North America. And surging prices are likely to accelerate the destruction.

Well, it seems that the rate of clearcutting is increasing to provide more room for more crops… to feed our biofuel needs. So Greens, who are forcing us to use “renewable energy” (which takes more fuel to produce than you get) are now at least partially responsible for the destruction of the rainforests they swore to protect.
So, always be careful in what you do. You never know what it’s hooked to.

From FOX News: New U.N. Scheme: Alliance of Civilizations.
It seems that the UN is going to impanel about 20 people to determine why we can’t all just get along.

… [UN General Secretary Kofi] Annan described the program more generally as an initiative meant to bridge the divides “between different cultures and religions.”
But one lane of the bridge is a lot wider than the other: the panel of 18 “eminent persons” whom Annan named to the Alliance (a 19th, representing all of East Asia, has yet to be named) is weighted heavily on the side of Islamic states, including representatives of Egypt, Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco, Pakistan and the former president of Iran, Mohamed Khatami. There are two representatives from the U.S., but none from Israel.
Nor is it exactly clear what the Alliance is intended to accomplish. According to a statement issued by Annan in July, the Alliance is supposed to “overcome prejudice, misconceptions, misperceptions, and polarization” and assemble by late next year an action plan meant “to promote effective responses to emerging threats to world peace.”

So by stacking the deck with Islamic leaders, almost ignoring the entire Asian sphere, and ignoring one of the hottest spots on Earth, this panel hopes to provide solutions to world conflict. Yeah, right.
The article goes on, documenting how well the Oil-For-Food program was run by the UN, named several people and exposed them for what they are: Corrupt bureaucrats who only want personal power.
I don’t know if the UN should be abolished or not, I can say it has done at least some good in the world, but their political agendas mean nothing but harm to the United States. Things like global gun control, elimination of sovereign rights, on and on and on.

From Drudge: CNN flashed a big black ‘X’ centered on the Vice Presidents face during a live speech he gave. They were several quick flashes of the X. There were also a couple of flashes of a white ‘X’ as well, and some unreadable text was flashed on the screen with the white X.

CNN spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg emails: “We concluded this was a technological malfunction not an issue of operator error. A portion of the switcher experienced a momentary glitch. We obviously regret that it happened and are working on the equipment to ensure it is not repeated.”
A rival network news director asks: “When has an ‘X’ ever aired on CNN before? Who had the graphic sitting in the key signal? Who generated the ‘X’?”

Good questions. It reminds me of an incident on The West Wing. The story is too long to go into for the punchline, but it was a joke of the moment that ended up being very embarrassing to those who had done it, and was almost embarrassing to the President on the show.
Someone was more than likely being cute, and someone hit the wrong button or a glitch really did occur. But I have no doubt that someone will get either a pat on the back for embarrassing the VP, or they will get reamed for embarrassing the network. Or both.