Conservative Donnybrook

I was listening to Dennis Miller’s radio show on the way home from work today and one of the callers had a great suggestion, which I will plagiarize now. Build a fence between Mexico and the United States out of solar panels and donate the energy to border households. Dennis and I (although Dennis didn’t know about my approval) thought the idea was brilliant. If you make the immigration issue a cause in the energy crisis and also pledge to lower carbon dioxide emissions (through solar energy) NO ONE can object to building the fence then. We’ll have a fifteen layer impregnable Maginot line on our border with Mexico within weeks! (Granted, it won’t keep Germans out).

Pure brilliance as far as I’m concerned. I would link to that portion of the program, but the capitalist pig who is Dennis Miller requires that you pay him money to get audio of his past shows. (I don’t blame him; I would do the same thing. I don’t want to work forever!)

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Owner operators and fleet managers staged a protest against the high price of fuel today in the streets of Indianapolis. Around 60 drivers left the Cloverdale Auto Truck Plaza ( a truckstop I once worked for about 40 miles west of Indy) and proceeded in a convoy toward the Statehouse in Indianapolis. Fuel prices have soared in Indiana with the price of diesel averaging $4.16 per gallon as of this writing.

Unfortunately, only about a dozen drivers veered off of I-70 to parade around the Statehouse an hour or so before lunch. While they were loud, honking their horns and waving to the crowds of smokers arrayed around the government buildings, lawmakers did not meet with the drivers.

On the other hand, the truck drivers may have a friend in John McCain who has offered to suspend the gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day, during the peak driving months. While the call for suspension smacks of populist pandering, it may well help to bring truck drivers around to the McCain camp. Granted, some of the drivers may well have already been in the camp, but any accretion to McCain’s numbers will be an added benefit.

Aside from the fact that dead-heading from Cloverdale to Indianapolis is a somewhat ironic gesture, since it probably cost these drivers about $40 - $50 a piece, while they hauled no load (weren’t getting paid), the sheer amount of noise they generated was impressive. At $4.16 per gallon , it now takes over $1,250 to fill the tanks of a big rig. It will be interesting to see whether law makers respond since eliminating the petroleum tax would work to eliminate the funds to maintain roads. However, since those taxes are proportional to the price of fuel and were enacted while fuel prices were much lower, the amount of tax that needs to be collected in order to maintain roads today is a much smaller percentage of the price of fuel than when the tax was enacted. It will be interesting to see whether lawmakers will lower the tax to keep it neutral and to give truck driver (and the ultimate consumers of every product that is shipped) a break.

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The man who was shot in the buttocks by border patrol agents Compeon and Ramos has been convicted of drug smuggling - exactly the suspicion upon which the border agents originally stopped Mr. Davila for the first time. Ramos and Compeon are serving prison sentences now for attempting to protect our borders, but it looks like the guy they shot was a scumbag after all.

Conservative Donnybrook was but a twinkling in the eye of its founders when the Ramos/Compeon bruhaha erupted, but I think it is safe to safe that most, if not all, of the contributors to this site support the border agents in their quest to maintain order on our borders (if not, I’m sure they will give me hell for saying so). Ramos and Compeon are, to some extent, vindicated by this latest conviction.

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I think Newt has blown a fuse. Thank God he didn’t run for president after all.

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Ok, I admit it: I’ve become a big Howard Stern fan as of late.  Granted, I dismiss Stern’s politics as uninformed and despise his dictatorial demeanor.  But for what Stern lacks in political acumen and humility, Artie Lange makes up for with working-man wit and genuineness.  This is why I was saddened to learn that Artie had quit the show for a second time. 

We will find out for certain whether or not Artie files for unemployment come Monday, but in the meantime New York Magazine is rumoring that “Lange is gone for good, and new comedians will begin auditioning for his job when the show returns.”  Should this be the case, your Sirius radio will be as worthless as a share of Countrywide stock.  Without Artie, expect the show to return to Jackie Martling-era vapidity.

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There’s a relatively new blog dedicated solely to stuff that white people like.  I’m not the type to “LOL,” but this really got me.  Not only is the analysis of said “stuff” spot on, but I think the deadpan delivery has finally made its comeback.

Of particular interest is #11.  But read them all when you have the time.

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Scientists at the University of Western Ontario have discovered that fat makes us - well - fat.  How? 

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is an appetite-stimulating hormone produced by our brains, which is responsible for a lot of our drive to eat. Scientists had previously thought that overweight people simply had more NPY flowing from their heads than they needed. As it turns out, the UWO study found that not only do our brains produce NPY, but our abdominal fat makes it as well.

A vicious cycle, indeed.

Next thing you know, they’ll say thinking turns your brain to mush.

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Can we assume that other eminently high-minded persons will soon be submitting GOP applications?

Playwright David Mamet explains why he is no longer a “brain-dead liberal.”

Martin Amis jettisons his liberal naivete and looks unflinchingly at Islamic terror.

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As most people know, there was a smallish (by California standards) earthquake in the Midwest in the wee hours of the morning. I, of course, slept through it. My wife awakened and immediately chastised the dog for shaking the bed. I imagine my dog simply looked confused as to what might have brought my wife’s wrath down upon his head while he was peacefully sleeping.

After having seen the latest Obama ads as the candidates focus their attention on Indiana, I must say that this contributor is edging toward supporting the Illinois Senator. Indeed, in his television ad, there is one scene which shows the devastation in the wake of Katrina and then it cuts to text which says, “We can save the planet.” If Obama can prevent hurricanes, surely he can prevent earthquakes that waken my wife and freak out my dogs. And if he can do that, then he’s got my vote!

On a side note, it always amuses me whenever we have the slightest tremor in the Midwest. Suddenly, there are all these articles about “Indiana’s long history of quakes.” There’s probably a similar story in the Tribune about Illinois’ established track record with temblors. I guarantee that within the next three days some crackpot geologist will make some sort of prediction that the vaunted New Madrid fault line is poised for the Big One any day.

UPDATE: It looks like my “prediction” had already come true six days before the 5.2 magnitude Illinois quake. In reporting on the latest earthquake, these guys pointed to their earlier dire prediction of the Big One in the Midwest.

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This shiny happy Muslim cleric and Hamas member has a pretty somber forecast for the city of the pope:

Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam…

Damn blowback.

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Especially the shit show that is the FLDS polygamy hearing.  Some hilights:

• [B]ig-city lawyers in suits and mothers in 19th-century, pioneer-style dresses, all packed into a courtroom and a nearby auditorium connected by video
• By late afternoon only two witnesses had testified, and both only to lay the foundation for documents to be admitted
• The hearing disintegrated quickly into a barrage of shouted objections and attempts to file motions, with lawyers for the children objecting to objections made by the parents’ attorneys. When the judge sustained an objection to the prolonged questioning of the state trooper, the lawyers cheered
• [Judge] Walther refused to put medical records and other evidence in electronic form, which could be e-mailed among the lawyers, because it contained personal information. A courier had to run from the courthouse to the auditorium delivering one document at a time
• The first attempt to admit evidence resulted in an hourlong recess while all the lawyers examined it
• In the satellite courtroom, about 175 people strained to see and hear a large projector set up on the auditorium’s stage. But the feed was blurry and barely audible

Video of the hearing can be found here.

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Kellen Clemens is one lucky man.  And not just because he plays for the most storied franchise in NFL history.  Yesterday, Pope Benedict “blessed and kissed” his newborn daughter after the open-air mass at Nationals Park.  Said Clemens of the experience:

My eyes welled up with tears, it was such a moving experience…I don’t really know if we fully understand just how special it was. That’s a direct descendant of Peter, and there he is giving a blessing and a kiss to our child.

Prediction: After Clemens beats out Chad “Handle With Care” Pennington for the starting job, he throws for 12,995 yards and 72 TD passes, leading the Jets to their second Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts in as many tries.

Update: After hearing of Kellen Clemens’ welling up at Benedict’s blessing Roger Clemens (no relation) phoned Hal Steinbrenner, requesting tickets for tomorrow’s mass at Yankee stadium.  The Rocket looks to have his own baby blessed by His Holiness.

Update II: Rex Grossman, not to be outdone, has procured the services of Chibukak Chinook, an Inuit Shaman, to exorcise William “Refrigerator” Perry’s demon from Soldier Field.

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The Rockies beat the Padres 2-1 last night in 22 1/2 innings.  The game lasted 6 hours 17 minutes!  That is what I call getting you money’s worth.  One could classify this as a liberal game judging by time or a conservative contest if judging by runs…which is it?  Definitely not moderate!

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