I'll have pictures shortly. The match was great! Our seats were better than incredible. My brother and I sat in row one, seats three and four! The US (and Bruce Arena) should be disappointed with their performance. It was a fairly pathetic effort against a team that left many of its best players at home.

It felt like ALL of England descended on Chicago for the weekend. The English fans were great and the atmosphere at Soldiers Field was indescribable. After the match we went to an Irish Pub and listened to the victors sing and make revelry.

This is not a deal...What the [insert expletive] is this? There's NO way the NRSC is getting another dime from me in donations. As for McCain...I can't comment on that waxy [insert expletive].

"These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement would clear the way for yes-or-no votes on some of Bush's nominees, but make no guarantee."

I can just here the excuses in the English tabloids now...I think Bruce Arena and his Yankees are going to "bring it" to Sven's scrubs. Shame on them for disrespecting the US National Team.

It's ALIVE! Her last component arrived this afternoon. My wife told me I'm a nerd.

you could just type what you really think? I guess good writers/artists don't hold back. They just kind of throw "it" out there (consequences be damned). I'm wandering around the house tonight aimlessly. It's a pathetic scene. I think when I finally decide to write something honest I'm going to do it in code.

I was going to write something about stained glass. There's no source material tonight...no politics.

I was getting ready to run to the bookshelf to pull some source material but stopped after I stubbed my toe! Good timing. I was going to quote a piece from Kreeft about light as part of my entry.

I love the story telling element of stained glass. It's like a giant tapestry or mosaic made dimensional by the inference of light. The light/shadows are always unpredictable so the story is less absolute, certain or pre-ordained. I'm straying here from the narrow path (and struggling to write as usual). The light implies a certain sense of purity; I'm just not sure I feel it.

I think most people conjure up religious images, etc. when they think of stained glass. It doesn't have to be religious. I have three examples (one is religious while the others are not).

Slide 1: This is from The Tunnel Of The Stone Spirit in Spirited Away.
Slide 2: This is from St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, MA.
Slide 3: This is from the beginning of Kindgom Hearts.

He's bringing them all...This is a squad of scrubs, and it obviously reflects Sven's view of the US MNT. If I were Bruce Arena, I would bring my WC squad and lay waste to this heap of English rubbish.

Goalkeepers (3): Scott Carson (Liverpool), Robert Green (Norwich City), David James (Manchester City)

Defenders: (7): Wes Brown (Manchester United), Sol Campbell (Arsenal), Ashley Cole (Arsenal), Glen Johnson (Chelsea), Gary Neville (Manchester United), Phil Neville (Manchester United), Matthew Upson (Birmingham City)

Midfielders (5): Michael Carrick (Tottenham Hotspur), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Stewart Downing (Middlesbrough), Jermaine Jenas (Newcastle United), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City)

Forwards (4): Peter Crouch (Southampton), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham Hotspur), Andrew Johnson (Crystal Palace), Alan Smith (Manchester United)

Here's the money quote:

"That means the likes of Peter Crouch, Andrew Johnson, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas and Wes Brown could all feature in Chicago, prompting sceptics to question the entire reasoning behind the trip."

*DISCLOSURE: I'm the moron who bought tickets @ $100.00 each and plane tickets to Chicago. I feel like an idiot. I've written to the English Football Association and US Soccer.

As far as I'm concerned this is the post of the month. It's Glenn Reynolds on Andrew Sullivan. Here's a quick excerpt:

"As Mickey Kaus has noted, Andrew can be excitable. A while back he apologized to me for some of his criticisms during the election, and more recently he has apologized to his readers for his waffling and defeatism on the war last spring. Perhaps he'll apologize for this at some point in the future. But, I confess, I find the question of what Andrew thinks less pressing than I used to."

Read the rest...

Here's a picture of our new vacuum, r2_d4. It looks like R2D2 (only I wouldn't let it have C5P0 as a life partner). The giant sucking sound it makes is the same one that Lucas' last two films made.

I did this button/image swizzle in PhotoShop. It needs copy. Please draft some and send posthaste!

Here's my post from PoliPundit

"What rubbish...I’ve been sitting on the sidelines but this chaps me in dark places. Lucas is moron...I thought he was a genius until I read LOTR. He’s just another baby boomer in his dotage with utopian fantasies. We all see how well his galactic senate works here on planet earth via the UN. The corruption is on display every day. I think the real Emperor is Anan…He [Anan] has several Sith Lords (or whatever) in Chiraq, etc. Lucas is just looking for his Sally Field moment- when all the eyes of the left fawn over his fat neck."

Here's Arthur Chrenkoff on George Lucas and here's a good piece on Vodkapundit.

The MSM assault on America continues...I will finish the equation for you:

MSM + DNC = Liberal elites and secular relativists offended by tradition, religion and any whiff of patriotism.

Michael Isikoff, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and Peter Arnett could draft press releases for the DNC. Dan tried to alter/change the outcome of a US election...Eason announced in Davos that the militay was willingly and knowingly shooting at members of the press...Peter Arnett is a Tokyo Rose and Micheal Isikoff just sanctioned the deaths of 100 innocents.

Why? Mostly because the MSM/DNC despises the President and the 62+ million Americans who voted for him.

I didn't know what Lord Of The Rings was until the first movie came out. I didn't even know who J.R. Tolkien was. I saw the movie and purchased the second book the next day. I read book two over a long weekend. As soon as I finished, I purchashed and read the third book the next weekend. Evenutally I went back and read book one...The mythology, storyline and richness of characters in LOTR trounces Star Wars.

It wasn't a slam dunk and this Republican Majority is PAINFUL to watch. I'm optimistic all the Democratic obstructionism will hurt their chances in 2006. Bolton now moves to the Senate Floor where this bumbling Republican Majority will have a chance to approve him. BTW...Vice President Cheney will cast the tie breaker (in the event there is one).

Long after Dan Rather tried to change the outcome of a democratic election, the VIACOM network is still serving a healthy dish of DEMOCRATIC Propaganda!

Long live CBS comrades!

Tomorrow the Senate will vote on Bolton's confirmation. There's still time to contact Senator Chaffee (R, RI) at:

http://chafee.senate.gov/webform.htm
http://chafee.senate.gov/

Educate yourself at confirmbolton.com

It appears listless...Some economists are concerned about stagflation. I'm more concerned with the various bubbles (real estate, oil, etc.) . All the bubbles are probably related to the loose money supply. Here's what Forbes writes about the oil bubble:

"The chief reason petroleum prices have surged is the Federal Reserve's
inadvertent inflationary monetary policy that began in the fall of 2003.
Inflation begets speculation. There's hardly a hedge fund in the country that
hasn't taken fliers on petroleum futures. Inventories, already very high, are
surging in anticipation that oil is headed even higher. Goldman Sachs'
prediction that oil could go as high as $105 a barrel is a sure sign that prices
are peaking: We haven't heard such talk since the early 1980s, just before oil
went into a devastating deflationary spiral.

The Federal Reserve, of course, must do its anti-inflationary part by removing excess dollars from the economy. For a variety of reasons, gold is the best barometer of monetary disturbances. Its current price, though down from its recent highs, is still firmly in inflationary territory. If the yellow metal dips below $400 an ounce, then the Fed--and the rest of us--can rest easy."

Anger compels me to write this next statement, but I hope the real estate/housing market collapses. I don't care how people suffer as a result (I'm not really a nice guy). Speculators have pushed decent and earnest people out of the market. My wife and I can't purchase a starter home in Bridgeport, CT for under $300,000. Bridgeport is a total dump! The former mayor was tried and convicted of fraud and the mill-rate is astronomical. Additionally, the public school system is pathetic and useless. We may have to commute to work from Iowa.

I hate those [insert expletive] people who have signs on every other sidewalk that say something like, "I pay cash for houses". [insert expletive]! People are buying homes in some markets and flipping them a week later for 10%-20% profit. Some people move a [insert expletive] tree or paint a mailbox and ask for 50,000 - 100,000 more. Money is too cheap and sooner or later the bill is going to come due.

Damn! I love the English language. Writing, at least for me, is an agonizing process. I've read too much crap and anytime I start to draft an article or blog entry I start to run back and forth between source material and the developing content. I'm just not very good at "free writing" content that isn't supported by actual concrete facts. I'm also developing memory loss in my dotage that prevents me from remembering if I've written about certain topics/subjects. Sometimes I may think about a piece and even support it with a list of quotes/articles/books but never actually draft it.

So...This short piece begins the same way.

Europe (France and Germany) have problems. I've written about their low-birth rates, rampant secularization and immigration/assimilation symptoms extensively. Those are serious problems, but probably not enough to ignite this tinderbox. What those problems need are an accelerant. Since time immemorial (the dawn of recorded history - did I tell you I love the English language), it's usually economic related matters, etc. that provide the spark.

The unemployment rate in Germany is 10-12% with a projected 2006 GDP of 1%. People are hurting and Gerhard Schröder's SPD party is in trouble. The SPD went searching for a scapegoat and quickly identidfied "Global Capitalist 'Locusts'" as the cause of the country's economic malaise.

Ah yes! Germany and scapegoats. This is a time-tested formula for them. The interlopers in this case were portrayed in "metall" magazine as mosquitos wearing business suits and red/white/blue top hats.



This magazine is published monthly by Germany's largest union. Over at Davids Medienkritik, David Kaspab and Ray D write:

"Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would be proud of his contemporary German journalism students. If he could only be here now to watch his offsprings' promising attempts at propaganda!" Scary stuff...

The economic malaise in Germany isn't the result of rapid interlopers. It is the result of "cradle to grave" social programs run amuck!

Part II Douglas Coupland and French Ambition

One of my favorite books in college was Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland. There's this incredible exchange of dialogue between the Tyler and Stephanie (his french love interest) regarding ambition that strikes a chord in me every time I read it.

"You asked me what makes French 'teens' so unambitious. They are
not unambitious, Tyler, but I must tell yooo, I am tired of your
ambition talk. I ask yooo, which is more fair: to promise your
children the moon and then give your children nothing-or promise only a little-be realistic-so when your children become civil servants or drive a truck they are not unhappy? I think your ambition is crooo-el."

Have you ever read such a bleak passage before? I've written about this particular quote before because it just astounds me. Is it related to Germany's economic problems? You betcha! There's a whole generation of Germans who have no incentive to change anything...only excuses to look outside themselves for scapegoats.

One of the Wright Brothers decided that he was too old not to have accomplished something. He remedied that by building an airplane. We're such a youth-oriented culture that as you approach thirty you begin to feel the same way maybe a 40 or 50 year-old man felt in the 1950's. I spend an inordinate (and unhealthy) amount of time thinking about my accomplishments and legacy.

I started writing about this tonight because I was thinking about Savage from Brave New World. What is about "youth" that seems to amplify every emotion? Why is it that a whisper of something once enjoyed innocently or purely like love, laughter or loneliness reconnects, albeit ephemerally, with some forgotten nerve? Is it just coarseness that dims that connection? Is it maybe the pressure of making mortgage payments or the convenience of barbiturates and alcohol that dull and fray those connections?

I've thrown it all on the canvass tonight since I've written so very little original content over the past year. I have "things" I'm thinking about, but just lack the gumption to get them on paper. Here I am in the waiting place...waiting....waiting.

I spend too much time thinking/reading/writing about politics. As a result, I feel like a beaten horse. I have some small projects I'm working on that provide some distrations/diversions. I've almost finished building my son a computer...It's a total Frankenstein. I used parts from my old Compaq 5700T (I'm weeping as I type), a machine my brother gave me that's circa 1993/94 and a cheap machine from eBay. The machine from eBay is priceless...It's probably from some insurance company or something that a developer used before he/she lost his job to outsourcing. I purchased some fans from Comp USA (some of which use LED(s) and diodes for color and flare). The machine is running WIN98 SE since most of his educational titles are old or were purchased at tag sales. The entire build-out cost less than $200.00. I named the machine bullfrog.

Other stuff...Never make an online purchase from www.eKitchenGadgets.com. I won't recap all the reasons here since all you need to do is peruse http://www.epinions.com/.

Disney has finally released a limited-edition CD box set for Disneyland's 50th anniversary called "The Musical History of Disneyland". Disney could (and will) make a fortune when they open the archives and produce this kind of content for public consumption.

I just participated in my second five boro bike tour! We didn't take too many photos so I'll have to pull one from the archives. It rained all morning. I saw one old guy being carried away by EMS for hypothermia at the 2nd rest area. I also saw a biker collapse on a tight turn at the 1/2 way point.

The skies eventually cleared just as we finished ascending the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The descent from the bridge to Festival 2005 at Fort Wadsworth (and our souvenir t-shirts) was awesome.

The ascension of Hillary Clinton will not end the culture war. The rancor and vitriol on display by the Democrats/MSM/Cultural Elite is just the opening salvo in an escalating conflict.

It's not too early to stop her ascension!

Lean more...