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July 30, 2006
This is a war
Israel makes a mistake and kills civilians (of course the terrorist Hezbollah rockets were in the neighborhood - because the terrorists hide behind women and children, aren't they brave!/sarcasm).
The world throws a fit over this. War Crime!, the crazy leaders of Islamic states scream. But this is war. The damned terrorists park their rocket launchers next to residential areas. They don't care about the women and children who are killed. Not.One.Bit.
Why has the world not screamed "war crime" at the Islamic terrorists who blow themselves up in ice cream parlors and restaurants in Israel, killing children, or who murder school children in Russia, vacationers in Bali, innocent women and children in Darfur and other African countries?
Why does the world not understand that this is a World War. The Islamic Terrorist organizations are taking over countries and have declared war on the west, and anyone who does not see this is sticking his/her head in the sand.
The United Nations is worthless - an organization made up of mostly despots and rogues from 3rd World Countries who want nothing more than to stick it to Americans.
We have to do something. I worry about Venezuela - how soon before it becomes an Islamic state, with crazy Chavez making nice nice with Iran?
The Venezuelan president, Chavez, said this "...Therefore, we should save humanity and end the American empire," Chavez told a crowd at the University of Tehran."source (which is a crazy statement since we do not have an empire, we do not have colonies).
And the Venezuelan Energy Minister is threatening to cut off oil to the US.
Why doesn't the Left realize that these terrorists are fascists? They will take away every right we ever had and then take our lives and our children and our land. And the terrorists are going to get entry to the Americas via Chavez.
And yes, I'm extremely worried - extremely concerned.
For more reading that might wake some people up, go check out Something ... and Half of Something. Linda has several posts that are very pertinent.
Posted by Beth at 12:42 PM | Comments (4)
MVRWC
Go read Beth's post at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
Are you done yet?
I feel about the same way she does. It's depressing. The world is just going to shit, and the crazy assed political correctness, can't make anyone feel bad crowd will prevent the truth from coming out.
While groups like CAIR believe that it's a positive thing for Islamofascists to take over an African country, the media is ignoring the fact that sharia law is being enforced on people who do not want it.
It is frightening.
Posted by Beth at 10:25 AM | Comments (1)
July 25, 2006
Neighborhood news
Yesterday, I heard a lot of sirens, loud ones - like they were just outside the house, and then, they stopped.
I figured by the reaction of the dogs that something was going on in the neighborhood. Since I was busily working, John went out with camera to see what was up.
One of our neighbors had fire! And John has a good post with pictures all about it.
Elsewhere, in neighborhood news, our next door neighbor kids want a dog or cat, but since their mom won't let them have one until they are older, they all coming trooping over to our house several times a day to play with the dogs and cats.
I have to get them to understand that just because I am home, it does not mean I'm not working!
But they are good kids, and I think John enjoys the interaction.
Posted by Beth at 7:54 AM | Comments (3)
More on family critters
Shadow is a lot better this morning. I wonder if playing with the neighbor kids yesterday evening just wore him out a bit?
Kiki has recovered her appetite, and now I know why she is a bit of a chunky puppy. She ate her food, then started on Shadow's food. Shadow had none of that and nipped at her.
Meanwhile, Houdini was eating the cat food and the cats were eating dog food.
Gandalf looks awful - he got very knotted up and I've been trying to cut the knots out, so his coat is more than a bit patchy. I found that using a seam ripper is the best way to get thru a Persian's fluff. He looks like a very fat kitty, but it's all hair. Compared to RestStop or Hal, he looks like a scrawny rat, if you push his fluffy hair down. Now that I've been chopping at it (he does not allow me to try to comb it out - and that is impossible anyway) he looks like a well-loved and kind of ratty stuffed animal.
Our next-door neighbor's children love our critters. They come and ring the doorbell at least once a day to see if they can play in the back yard with the dogs. John always supervises, and he is just wonderful with them all.
They also like to come inside to play with the cats. But I think after about 30 minutes, John suggests it is time for them to go home. They can wear you out!
So the Donovan critters are happy and mostly healthy this morning.
Oh, and Barnacle says, "Meow".
Posted by Beth at 6:30 AM | Comments (2)
July 24, 2006
Shadow
Shadow is our wonderful black lab. He was born in 1993, and he is rather aged for a large dog.
We love him very much. Unhappily, he is failing quickly, and I don't know how much longer we will have him with us. His breathing has become labored this evening and his glands are very swollen. I'll have John take him to see Dr. Green tomorrow morning - maybe she can do something to give us more time with Shadow.
I really do love this dog. He has been the sweetest, most faithful dog ever. He is in bed with us tonight, because he asked to come up, and John picked him up and put him on the bed.
How I wish our pets could be with us for as long as we live! Anyway, if you have a lovely dog or cat, give them lots of attention and love.
Posted by Beth at 9:42 PM | Comments (2)
The Cotillion is not about boobies
Some women bloggers are ... ummm ... ahhh ....... getting a lot of attention by being a bit .... overexposed, yeah, that's the word! They post a lot of suggestive pictures of themselves, or silly ones suggesting that they are super heroes, and even go so far as to do vlogs. Unhappily, a fair number of these women are on the right side of the political spectrum.
Some of them make claims that are pretty outrageous.
The Cotillion abhors such behaviour. However, such blogging makes for wonderful snark attacks.
Posted by Beth at 8:23 AM | Comments (4)
Boston Rally
We are extremely lucky to live in the United States. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion, amoung other important rights.
Muslim countries have none of the above. Yet, the Muslim American Society of Boston took advantage of our freedoms to speakout about how much they hate Jews and Israel. They had a 'rally' at Boston City Hall Friday, and several people involved with the rally assaulted Seva Brodski, who was taking pictures and videos of the rally. One man even threatened to hunt him down and kill him.
I can only hope that there were FBI investigators there, also, and that they also got pictures of this crowd.
Once again, Muslims show just how 'peaceful' they are.
Posted by Beth at 7:49 AM | Comments (1)
July 23, 2006
Finally - a picture
John and I picked up our new dog, Kiki, on Wedensday. She is a four year old yellow lab/bloodhound. Her family could no longer keep her, and when we picked her up, there were sad tears.
Kiki is a very sweet dog. She follows me all around the house, and when I leave the house, she whines until my return. She has slept at the foot of the bed every night.
It is apparent to John and I that at some point, she was mistreated by a man, because she is scared to death of John. Her family got her as a rescue, so who knows when something evil happened to her.
Anyway, here is her picture. In this shot, you don't see the bloodhound in her, but she has a ton of extra skin, and depending on her expression at the moment, Kiki can have a very wrinkled visage.
So, here is Kiki. We love her already!!
Posted by Beth at 10:23 PM | Comments (4)
July 20, 2006
Web Games I like to play
Sometimes, I get rather frustrated and need something to take my mind off of things. There are several Web Games that can become rather addicting.
Bookworm is very satisfying. I love to see the points add up. However, I think that it is a little too easy. I have managed to get more than 3 million points before losing, and I'm really not that good.
Weboggle is fun to play if you just have a few minutes, because the games are three minutes long. However, a lot of words in the WEBoggle dictionary are in no other dictionary on earth - so it is a little bogus.
And then there is Scribble. A 'cooperative' web-based scrabble game. I enjoy playing it, however, the regulars there want everyone to play it exactly the way they tell you to - so they can get the big point words - not that it matters, since there is absolutly no tracking of who gets what score - it's the total score for each game that seems to be of import.
If you go to Scribble, ignore the nasty comments in the chat and stay away from the message boards. I am called a 'troll' because I'm not as smart as they are, I guess - or really, I am as smart, but they don't like it if anyone makes a mistake. The game has expert boards for those people, and I do not try to play the expert boards, but they follow me around the regular scribble boards and can be quite rude. In fact, they have labelled me a troll, so know, when I do play there, I go by troll/beth. It's a challenging, non-competitive game, but beware - they are not nice to newcomers!!!
I should really quit playing these games. They are incredible time wasters, and I coule probably get the house clean in a day if I would stop going to them.
Posted by Beth at 8:42 AM | Comments (3)
Kiki
Kiki is now a member of the Donovan clan. John and I picked her up last night from the people who will not be able to keep her. Damn, that was hard! Tears and sniffles and a reluctant dog.
Kiki is pretty afraid of John. Makes me wonder if at some point in her life some man was unkind to her. She'll come around. She is very sweet, and Shadow is in love with her (all his black lab manliness really perked up around the pretty lab/bloodhound mix).Houdini is fine with her, too.
I was a little worried about how Kiki would react to the cats, since she has never been around them. Fortunately, she seems to think that the cats are funny looking dogs, and she is not at all bothered by them.
She has been clinging to me since we brought her home. She slept on our bed, next to me, all night long. I think she is sad and misses her family, she won't eat anything so far, not even dog biscuits or a crust of pizza!
I'm glad I'll be home for the next 10 days, hopefully, Kiki will get more comfortable and happy.
I have not yet taken a picture of her. I want to try to get one of Kiki and Shadow and Houdini all together. But first, I have to work.
Posted by Beth at 8:13 AM | Comments (5)
July 18, 2006
New addition to our 4-legged family
Tomorrow, we get to pick up Kiki - our new dog. Her owners have to move and cannot take her with them, so we are going to adopt her into our family.
I can't wait! She is half yellow lab and half bloodhound. What a fun mix!
I'll have pictures tomorrow.
Posted by Beth at 10:23 AM | Comments (4)
Wow - 100 weeks!!
I am very happy to report that this week marks the 100th Carnival of the Recipes!!!
Thanks to everyone who has participated and managed and worked hard to keep this carnival going for nearly 2 years!
Posted by Beth at 6:46 AM | Comments (1)
July 7, 2006
George Cardinal Pell
Cardinal Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, Australia, has written a great article on Islam and Western Democracies.
An excerpt:
The history of relations between Muslims on the one hand and Christians and Jews on the other does not always offer reasons for optimism in the way that some people easily assume. The claims of Muslim tolerance of Christian and Jewish minorities are largely mythical, as the history of Islamic conquest and domination in the Middle East, the Iberian peninsula and the Balkans makes abundantly clear. In the territory of modern-day Spain and Portugal, which was ruled by Muslims from 716 and not finally cleared of Muslim rule until the surrender of Granada in 1491 (although over half the peninsula had been reclaimed by 1150, and all of the peninsula except the region surrounding Granada by 1300), Christians and Jews were tolerated only as dhimmis, subject to punitive taxation, legal discrimination, and a range of minor and major humiliations. If a dhimmi harmed a Muslim, his entire community would forfeit protection and be freely subject to pillage, enslavement and murder. Harsh reprisals, including mutilations, deportations and crucifixions, were imposed on Christians who appealed for help to the Christian kings or who were suspected of having converted to Islam opportunistically. Raiding parties were sent out several times every year against the Spanish kingdoms in the north, and also against France and Italy, for loot and slaves. The caliph in Andalusia maintained an army of tens of thousand of Christian slaves from all over Europe, and also kept a harem of captured Christian women. The Jewish community in the Iberian peninsula suffered similar sorts of discriminations and penalties, including restrictions on how they could dress. A pogrom in Granada in 1066 annihilated the Jewish population there and killed over 5000 people. Over the course of its history Muslim rule in the peninsula was characterised by outbreaks of violence and fanaticism as different factions assumed power, and as the Spanish gradually reclaimed territory
Go read the whole thing. I hope it will open the eyes of those who believe that Islam is at heart a peaceful religion.
Hat Tip to Hugh Hewitt.
Posted by Beth at 7:48 AM | Comments (2)
July 5, 2006
Science??? Engineering?? I think not!
So, someone in the Democratic Underground decides to "prove" that an airplane flying into the World Trade Center and blowing up would not actually make the building collapse.
How does he do this? He builds a square out of Chicken Wire!!!
Yes, chicken wire and a cement stepping stone. Right.
And chicken wire is not even made out of steel - it is galvanized iron - does anyone know the difference between steel and iron out there?
If so, perhaps you should let the DU 'brains' in on the secret.
Aside from the fact that his entire experiment is totally bogus, isn't it sad that 5 years after 9/11 they are still trying to blame the Bush Administration? At some point, don't these people need to chill out and perhaps see a shrink?
Reality-based community - my ass!
Hat Tip to John for the link.
Posted by Beth at 4:27 PM | Comments (6)
July 4, 2006
Not everyone hates us!
I heart Christopher Hitchens.
Posted by Beth at 10:30 PM
Fireworks!
John has a miniature mortar and he fired a bunch of Black Cats from it tonight.
Scared te pooches to death! Houdini is still hiding his head under the pillows of our bed!
Now we are watching the Boston Pops Fireworks display. They have a big barge in the St. Charles River that the fireworks are coming from, and even on TV, they are just beautiful! And John Phillip Sousa music - Yey!!!!
I wonder if Boston Maggie can see them? I just love Boston Maggie - she is so funny!!! And she flashes bars. Really.
I like Boston. What a historic city! The Back Bay Hilton is my very favorite hotel in the US - it is great.
Posted by Beth at 9:42 PM | Comments (1)
Jordan
I got a lovely e-card celebrating Independence Day from a photographer named Jordan. Jordan lives in Poland. He grew up under Communist rule, and truely celebrates the freedom he has now. Jordan is a very gifted photographer.
Go visit his website and read Light of Soul.
And thank you, Jordan, for the e-card and for liking us Americans!
Posted by Beth at 8:02 PM | Comments (1)
Happy Independence Day!
Today is our 230th birthday. The beginning of our country. The end of living under English Rule.
Happy Birthday, U.S.A!!!
I have many wonderful memories of celebrating the 4th of July with my family when I was a kid. We would start the morning out, bright and early, by raising the Stars and Stripes and saying the Pledge of Allegience.
Dad would ready the backyard for our annual fireworks display, and Mom would prepare food for the big neighborhood bash that we always had.
We probably entertained 50 people or more every Fourth with fireworks, burgers, hot dogs, tons of soda pop - mostly rootbeer, and for the grown ups, steaks and cocktails and beer - lots of beer! (my dad worked for a brewery, after all!).
The kids would all climb all over the jungle gym and swing on the swing, and explore the woods behind our house. If it was really hot, Mom would put the sprinkler on, and we could run through it. We were a bunch of browned little kids.
When the sun was still up, we would light 'snakes' on the driveway. We would throw "craker balls' at the ground to hear the pop.
Once the sun went down, the kids all got to light sparklers and wave them around until we got tired of them. Then Daddy would start the fireworks display.
We always had Roman Candles and fireworks that would zoom up to the sky and blow up into beautiful designs. We also had fancy fireworks that were nailed onto the trees that would make all kinds of designs. I know my dad spent several hundred dollars on the display each year - and back in the early '60s, that would buy a heck of a lot of fireworks!
Mom always had a birthday cake made for Independence Day, too. A big sheet cake, and she would put a small sparkler on it and light it as she brought it outside to the big picnic table.
Wow, those were such fun celebrations!
Now, of course, fireworks are not allowed in the city, jungle gyms are deemed 'dangerous' and the liability of holding a personal fireworks display would be incredibly huge.
But Independence Day is still a great day to go to watch civic displays of fireworkes, cook out and celebrate the birth of our great nation.
And in celebrating the Forth, don't forget to thank the many hero's of our Armed Forces who have given life and limb for the past 230 years so we can live in freedom.
For a more colorful post, go see my beloved husband's blog, Arrgghhh!.
Posted by Beth at 9:55 AM | Comments (4)