Tastes Like Chicken

I am again reminded about how much the NCAA sucks. I am also reminded that evidently my alma mater is populated by unathletic douchebags that think asparagus is a funny mascot. Where's all the protests against political correct BS? I pretty much can't stand kids today.

From an AP article today referring to the William & Mary Tribe logo:

The NCAA ruled in 2006 that the college could keep the Tribe nickname but its feathered logo was demeaning to Native Americans and had to go.

Seriously – how the HELL is this demeaning to Native Americans? How the hell does Florida State get away with it? Sometimes our f-ing country SUCKS!

Excellent OpEx printed in the WSJ by Scott Garrett, Jeb Hensarling and Tom Price.

Excerpts:

Unlike the proposal from the Obama Administration, the core of our plan is a promise to the American taxpayer: no more bailouts. The actions of the past year have merely incentivized additional excessive risk-taking by providing the promise of a government backstop. This backstop – whether in the form of capital injections, loan guarantees, or the purchase of toxic assets – exposes taxpayers to untold risk while benefitting firms, creditors and counterparties that have made questionable decisions. We must put an end to the bailout mentality that has gripped our government and changed the face of our financial sector.

We need to reverse the trend of government interference in the marketplace.

It's time to reject the "too big to fail" bailout logic that has resulted in unprecedented government intrusion into the marketplace and reinstate the free market principles that are the cornerstone of our nation and a healthy financial sector.

Moving to the front of the line of the hordes of entities that I am bitter with this morning, are XM radio and AT&T.

I'm sure this is old news, but I finally read some email this morning, informing me that XM radio is increasing my monthly subscription fee to directly pass on a U.S. Music Royalty Fee. All I use my XM radio for is listening to MLB games. MLB happens to be another org that I am bitter with – I think they charge way too much to listen to the games online. So I've been happy with using XM to get my fix while driving, and using my SlingBox to watch games at work and on the road. The whole XM thing is just one more nickel and dime tactic, which in my opinion is over the top, especially since a bunch of their channels still play ads. I'm seriously considering dropping them, just on principle.

On the AT&T front, I get myself all excited for the iPhone 3.0 update that enables tethering, and then I hear that AT&T is going to charge $55 a month for this. Ridiculous. Especially since they have other unlimited data plans for other phones they sell that allow tethering at no extra cost. Why are they hating on iPhone users? Unfortunately, AT&T seems to be the only provider that works at our house, so I don't have a lot of options here.

Corporations suck. I'm sure even if I did drop both of them, they'd just declare bankruptcy and our idiot socialist president would hand them a whole bunch of my tax dollars in a bailout anyway.

I finally got around to watching this on the TiVo. Nothing like a good gory vampire movie to watch before you sleep. The only real problem with this particular movie is that the whole thing is in Barrow, Alaska, in the middle of winter. Melissa George is wearing a parka the whole time and doesn't show nearly enough skin.

This post originated at MidwoodPhoto.com. Visit that site for more of my galleries.

My wife and I recently made a quick trip down to Florida and I managed to get some decent sunset photos with a view of St. Pete in the background. These are HDR processed with three separate exposures. The photos are now up in the MidwoodPhoto gallery, and they are also posted in my Flickr account.

Site contents and images Copyright Midwood Photography 2008 © All rights reserved.

This post originated at the Midwood Travel Blog. Visit that site for all the content. Registration is free.

Last month we made a very short trip to visit Gramma Shirley in Tampa. Sorry to the rest of our friends living in FL that we didn't get to see – we didn't have enough time to make all the rounds, but we'll catch you next time. Below are some of the pics [...]

HDR sunset photos from our quick trip down to see Gramma Shirley.

Lou Pritchett's open letter to Obama. I pretty much agree with every word.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reilly's and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Sometimes I can't actually believe the news that I end up reading…

Debbie McLucas comes from a patriotic family – her husband and both of her sons served in the U.S. military, and her daughter is currently deployed to Iraq on her second tour of duty as a combat medic.

So when McLucas arrived at work at a Texas hospital last Friday, she was stunned to be told that the Stars and Stripes she had hung in her office in advance of Memorial Day were offensive, and that the flag had been removed.

Read the story at FoxNews.com

Are you kidding me? This is absolutely ridiculous. I can't believe political correctness in this country has gotten to the point where we can't even hang American flags in the workplace without offending some douchebag that is perfectly happy living here. If you are offended by the flag, I am offended by you and you should be removed.

I heard about this while listening to a couple of liberal DJs on the radio this morning. They actually said they were pissed off that she was told to take it down. But seriously – what do these people expect when they elect a socialist president who won't even put his hand over his heart during the National Anthem?

Our country is in serious trouble, and it's not getting any better…

This post originated at MidwoodPhoto.com. Visit that site for more of my galleries.

I finally got around to posting some of the photos from my niece Maggie's first birthday party down in Pennsylvania. They are available in the gallery, and there are also a few more at my Flickr account (the ones that were too blurry or out of theme to make the cut).

The gallery on MidwoodPhoto is password protected. If you want the password, email me.

Site contents and images Copyright Midwood Photography 2008 © All rights reserved.