Diplomacy - Ram Style

Rams Felix & Godzilla demonstrate one way to carry out international relations.

Excuses, Excuses

No I'm not lazy or have given up or anything, I've just been sick the last few days (and still am).

Posting will once again be plentiful as soon as I don't feel like someone is sitting on top on my head.

Soda Art

Just Give the Poor Yankees a Chance!

I still can’t stop feeling like I should be researching for debate whenever I’m on the computer!

Ummm…. How about those Yankees? It’s turning out to be quite a rags to riches story for them as they slowly climb back into the playoff hunt. Who would have thought that they would challenge the Red Sox’s (or any team!!) for the top spot in the division this year with the pitiful 650 billion that they spend on the bullpen and backup catcher? I would strongly guess that New Yorks resurgence must be a big surprise for Larry Lucchino after all the money he threw around this offseason to acquire what he thought was every free agent on the market (missed Roger though). You can’t keep those poor Yankees down, can you!

It’s always been said that America loves an underdog. And that point has been proven through history by the widespread support for well know losers such as the National Football Leagues New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers, Major League Baseball’s Yankees, Red Sox’s, Mets and Atlanta Braves, the NBA’s Spurs and Jazz. Well, as the Yankees climb black into the playoffs, fighting off the evil rich Devil Rays, Orioles, Sox’s and Blue Jays, America cheers them on. Cheering on, as they have always done, the underdog. That underdog, the Yankees.

Man, if only they had a revenue sharing system, New York would actually have a chance.

Into the land of the dead; I mean, debaters...

As I'm sure you know (if you don't know, you will know, why, I don't know), last Sunday I (we) headed down south to Texas to debate at the NCFCA National Tournament. I had actually never been on a plane before, doing bellyflops into the pool off the high jumping-board into a pool was the closest I had ever come to flying. Well then, actually that's not right. As a small child, I once was pushed off the viewing deck of the World Trade Tower (One 110 story) and fell all the way to the 30 floor before a helicopter piloted by Bill Clinton and Bill Gates snatched me from the air and saved me from sure death. But that's a long story, and it's classified anyways. Anyhow, the flight down to Texas went well with no problems and very few delays. In fact we arrived four hours earlier then we were expecting.

As soon as we landed in Austin and set foot outside of the airport terminal, I knew right away that we really were in Texas. The mild 190 degree temperatures plus the smell of cooked rattlesnake easily gave it away. And to make a long story shorter, over the next few days we had a lot of fun debating, playing Ultimate Frisbee, basketball, football, and just meeting debate and speech people from across America (my favorite group was region seven - great debaters, great Ultimate Frisbee players). We ended up not breaking to the outrounds in debate even though I thought we did pretty good in all six rounds. We could have easily won two of the ones that we ended up losing but things like that happen. All I know is we did our best job and things just didn't work out in our favor. Sometimes you get unlucky (some debate touny's come down to a coin-flip, or a judge can vote on a non existent stock issue) and we just happened to be the unlucky ones this time. Regardless of all that, every single round that we debated in was very fun and I really enjoyed it.

(debate pictures - none of us) (general nationals photos)

Saturday, while on our way back to the airport, we decided to stop in Austin for a hour to see the state capitol building. It turned out that just at the same time as we arrived there was a protest on illegal immigration going on outside and on the steps the capitol building. There were speakers shouting into microphones about the evils of illegals and just a little bit removed from the main protest group, counter - pro illegal's protesters screaming about the raciest anti illegal immigration protesters. I really wish I had brought the video camera...

(pictures of the protest) (pictures of the capitol)

And by the way. Why does the Texas flag bear so much of a resemblance to the French flag?

A Week in the Lone Star State

See all pictures here

Back

Well, I'm back. More to come on the trip and tournament as soon as I wake up.

New Resolution!

Resolve that America should change it's approach to illegal immigration.

Thank God for W!

NBC News ran a story tonight proclaiming Bush to be an unpopular, lame-duck president without friend or ally, being backstabbed even by his own party. Indeed, many of the GOP candidates for the White House are distancing themselves from him or even slighting him.

But thank God for George W. Bush. He's probably the most principled leader of the nation we've had in more than 40 years. It's because of him that we have two more pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, and the law banning partial birth abortion is still in place--the pinnacle of 20 years of pro-life efforts. He signed into law tax relief measure that benefit lower and middle class families. He has guided the nation through the difficult period following 9/11. And now liberals want to undo all these accomplishments in a single term.

Not to say he hasn't made mistakes, but candidates themselves are making a big mistake if they fail to recognize the contributions Bush has made to the nation. He is a president that the record of history will ultimately favor, unlike someone else that went before him:

"The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot."

(Prov. 10:7)

Texas or Bust

I'm going to be gone for a while so don't expect any major posting unless Rex decides to do something unusual.

Sam I Am

We went to look at some sheep and a (possibly) new farm dog named Sam. He was huge (he looks almost exactly like a polar bear), and got along nicely with everyone so we'll see what happens.

More Pictures

GOP Slugfest

Some early thoughts on what I saw from tonights debate.

The guy who I thought did really well was Mike Huckabee. His answers were to the point and just right on (great humor too - "give Hope [Bill Clinton's & Huckabee's birthplace] another chance"). When I heard the evolution question the first thing I thought was "what does this have to do with anything". From Huckabee initial response - he must have agreed with my thought - but he still had a great answer that was the highlight at least for me in the whole debate.

The only other guys who I thought also did really well was Rudy Giuliani. He totally nailed some of the questions (and flopped on some and even was wrong on some of the questions he nailed...) but just looking at the debate in the political sense (not whether I agree with him or not really factored in), Giuliani gave himself, and his chances of winning the nomination a big boost. Who knows, maybe the lighting striking the building and temporary knocking out his microphone right after he got the abortion question will make him think a little about his position.

Tommy Thompson (good answer on the health care question), Duncan Hunter, Sam Brownback and John McCain all did pretty well, but really didn't have anything earthshattering.

Mitt Romney - not a great night. Yeah, the future may be bright, but there are also some big problems that America is facing now - such as going bankrupt... I didn't really notice that Jim Gilmore was on the stage except when he was claiming to be the only conservative in America. Ron Paul, who had a decent debate, still seems to be setting himself up to run on the libertarian platform.

The "It's Over - BIG TIME" award goes to Tom Tancredo who just got completely smashed and diced. Where in the world did the idea of stopping all immigration come from? Does anyone really believe that lack of English is the greatest crisis facing America? English is not what makes America, America. It's the beliefs that Americans hold that make America, America. To me, I could care less whether the official language of America was French. There's a lot of rotten people that speak English, and there's a lot of rotten people that don't speak English. It really doesn't play significant role in much of anything. I don't know, I'm pretty conservative but I still don't have any problem with people speaking other languages as long as they obey laws and act responsible.

In other news, Fred Thompson seems to officially thrown his hat into the ring of candidates I know pretty much nothing about him. I know he was a actor, and probably claims to be a conservative, but just remember the last "conservative" actor that was elected... Yeah, the one from Calee - fornn - yaahh...

Slam Dunk

There was a debate last night?

What do you know, the Democrat presidential candidates had a debate last night on CNN. I, normally on top of these type of things, didn't actually know about it till about 8:30 AM this morning (how many voters actually decided to watch it instead of Sox's, Yankees is a big question though...). From the bits and pieices that I heard from internet highlights nothing was diffrent from the last two democratic debates. Biden was a hawk (well as much of a hawk as a dem can be). Hillery had her lines down pretty well - and made sure to mention that you know who would return to the White House if she was elected. Obama looked lost at times. Edwards (the worst of the top three candidates) droned on about how his heart is broken about the lack of universal heath care (my question, if universal heath care is so good, and so needed, why no make it universal?).

Everyone else was, well, everyone else. Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel all have the same chances of winning the democratic nomination as I do... But I still haven't ruled out running so we'll see.

Right now if I had to pick what is the most possible donkey ticket for 08 it would be Biden as VP and Hillery as president. They seem to get along well, and Biden would help Hillery's cement facade as moderate democratic with voters. Hopefully it won't be a winning ticket or, well, you night want to stock up on nonperishables and ammo.