"Xe" Are On The Road Again

So now Iraq is kicking out the "Xe" security folks in their country allowing them a couple of days to pack.  Seriously, can't we just change their name?  That seemed to help their image over here.

Gettin Our Maverick On

Part time governor, full time idiot, and occasional truth assassin on Fox "News" is in Texas stumping for secessionist/governor Rick Perry yesterday and today.  Fresh from a tea-bagging event (let your imagination run with it) her visit here only makes sense as we too don't require facts to get all mavericky and stuff and we love us some Palin!  Not that her visit here is a big deal but I wanted to post what I heard from a woman being interviewed on the local news yesterday. She apparently couldn't decide between Kay Baily (R-lying douche) or Rick Perry for Texas governor until she heard Palin endorse Perry and she's all Perry now bitches!

No wonder Texas is in a never ending shit storm against its own middle class when the middle class doesn't know enough to even consider alternatives to the same crap that have resulted in things like keeping 30% of  Texans without health insurance (or other equally appalling metrics like national education rankings, etc.).  Palin makes her mark like Perry, Kay Bailey, and numbers of others always have: incite the crowd to feed on the belief that everything wrong is the result of things like bad border security, Washington interference, and liberals instead of the asshole you put in office.

And another thing....how come Palin is addressed as "Governor"?  She quit that job so that shit should stop...just sayin.

Phelps, Bringin It To Houston!

Yep, we haven't had this much hate in town since Sean Hannity's "Freedom Concert" last summer. Thank God the folks from Westboro Baptist came through to give us that "Fred bounce"! Not sure if everyone knows but the city of Houston had the nerve to elect an open gay mayor right here in the middle of the Republic of East Texas (land of Cornyn, Kay Bailey, Tom Delay, Dick Armey, Bush(s)...I could go on). Annise Parker's swearing in ceremony was held today and the Phelps clan drove all the way down from Topeka to bless the occasion.

Good on Houston for electing someone on issues instead of fear/hate or other stupidity driven factors. And, good on Houston as well for takin one for the country because if the Phelps bunch is down here, they aren't fuckin up something somewhere else.

Politics suck, this should help!

willis is pretty much disgusted with everything political so I'm counting on the joy of the season to help my mood.....who better than muppets to bring cheer to anyone. Let me be the first to wish anyone that passes this way, Have a Very Merry One!

Invite Glenn Beck for Dinner? This would be the same and easier to stomach.

Shamelessly ripped off from The Chive.

Contradictions...

Obama's Nobel peace award may be a bit of a contradiction. Particularly right after announcing plans to add 30000 troops to the war in Afghanistan. Obama himself was very humble about the event although it gave those on the right some crap to feed on. My opinion is that while this may be a contradiction of sorts, it's not as bad as Bush (42) having a fuckin library.

Huckabee On The Daily Show Tonight

It'll be interesting to see what if anything, is said about Huckabee's commuting a 108 year sentence on Maurice Clemmons. Clemmons killed four police officers in Washington on 11/29 and was himself killed by police several days later. Huckabee caught a fair degree of grief from both the left and right for his actions while he was governor of Arkansas and has stood his ground.

I don't have much use for Huckabee. To me he is one example of what's wrong on the political right. I say "one example" as each of the republican nominees for the presidential election in 2008 brought their own slice of batshit crazy to the table (McCain = war is good, Rudy = everything is 9/11, Fred = senility, Tancredo = wholly crap!, etc). That and since then Bible-Huck got his own show on Fox to continue to show us why we should be thankful he didn't get close to being elected. That said, I'm backing Huckabee (just this once, dammit) sticking with his decision on Clemmons (one might say there's little else he can do and one would probably be right). However, living here in the Republic of East Texas and watching our Governor Perry repeatedly refuse to move on the death penalty against the recommendations of parole boards and others for several Texas inmates makes Huckabees's actions laudable by comparison....just sayin. It shows an unexpected degree of open-mindedness from a member of a crowd that views everything in black and white.

News.....

Apparent non-celebrities crash White House party, Tiger Woods wrecked his car, Oprah is gonna quit while Lou Dobbs did and Micheal Jackson is still dead. On less important matters, we are gonna send about 30000 (the population of Dorchester County, Maryland) more troops over to Afghanistan.........the most awesome war ever!

Palin, An Alternate Read

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Going Rouge! Looks like this has been out there for a few weeks but it's the first I saw it and certainly worthy of a willis post! Its full of contributions by writers like Jim Hightower, Juan Cole, Joe Conason, Chrstopher Hayes, etc. and can be purchased at the publishers ("Or Books") website. There is also an activity/coloring book out there by the same title. Either of these books I'll guess would be more entertaining and probably more honest than the book Palin quit her governor position to write for us.

Animation of US Airways Ditching

Additional related animations at the link. Presents a "real time" exchange of information with the visual of what's transpiring at the same time. Old news I know, but this enhanced version of the animation was just released......that and I think it's really cool!

A Fair Sunday

Live recoding of Bonnie Raitt doing "Too Long At The Fair". That's "Freebo" on bass behind her in the beginning of the song. Haunting melody that has stuck with me since I first heard it played by a solo guitarist at a coffee shop in Denver. Hard to find tunes in those days without Internet abilities. Bonnie did it in `72 on her "Give It Up" album which I believe is the only time it was recorded. I doubt anyone could have done it better.

Today is Bonnie Raitt's 60th birthday.

Death by "Numbers"

This is Khristian Oliver. He was executed last night in Texas at 32 years old. He committed a horrible crime when he was 20 when he shot and beat to death a man whose house he was burglarizing. The victim was shot 5 times and bludgeoned so badly he was unrecognizable. I'm not going to get into how I feel about the death penalty as we could be hear all night and you don't deserve that. The reason I bring up Mr Oliver is that his sentencing was determined by jurors who relied on bible passages to support their determination for execution. Specifically some sections of the Book of Numbers; "the murderer shall surely be put to death" and "the revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer". Mr Oliver was a bad guy and maybe deserved what he got, I don't know. But I wonder if the jury happened to be all Muslim and used the Koran to arrive at their decision, how it would fly for Mr Oliver or anyone.

Doubt We've Seen the Last of Her

Carrie Prejean and the Miss California USA organizers have apparently settled their legal battle with each other. They were suing her for not showing up and she was suing them for religious discrimination so she can say "god" as much as she wants. The settlement is confidential of course however, the folks over at TMZ.com say she "folded like a cheap suit" during settlement negotiations when confronted with a solo sex tape. "We're told it took about 15 seconds for Carrie to reduce her demand for more than one million dollars to.....just validate my parking please."

So lets see..... fake boobs, hates gays, loves god and porn, zero contribution to society (except for maybe the porn, I'll have to see it first), and rivals "Joe the Plumber" for milking her notoriety for every thing it'll get her....yep, she's a republican. She'll be writing a book, running for office, or providing insightful analysis on Fox any day now.

Washing Machines to be as Safe as Airliners?

Electrolux announced Friday that it is going to close down its production facilities in Iowa and move the operation to Mexico. It represents about 850 workers in two small towns (Webster City and Jefferson). While moving jobs from Americans that bother companies with stuff like healthcare, vacations, living wages, sick pay, maternity leaves, etc. to locations that don't have to screw around with these distractions is nothing new, it deserves to be mentioned when ever it happens. On a side note, my brother tipped me off to the following NPR radio article that seems to match well with the Electrolux story.

Something A Little Different

Nice A Capella medley of Michael Jackson's stuff I ran across. I've always liked his music all the way from "1-2-3" days to his new stuff. Yep, he was a little strange but that's not what this post is about.




Speaking of MJ. Do ya think he invented the "moonwalk". I did, but it ain't so......

Geesh willis, almost a month without a post and this is all ya got!?! .....Yep!

An Award, Really, An Award for willis!

.....From my good blogging friend Annette. What can I say, the lady obviously knows scrap when she sees it. She has a wonderful blog, is a very talented writer, posts frequently and if she isn't one of your "favorites", she should be. I'm flattered by this award and her recognition of me and this little blog. The first thing I did was go to the other sites awarded by Annette and I'm also more than a little flattered to be named amongst them! Great blogs all (no surprise from Annette's "Just My Little Piece Of The World") and I'm ashamed to admit 5 out 6 were not on my blog roll...but they are now! Being lazy and an infrequent poster it took me a while to get to this post accepting this fine award. It is a pretty high honor for willis and I don't take it lightly!

Honest Scrap Award Rules (yep, there are some!):

1. You must brag about the award.

2. You must include the name of the blogger who gave you the award and link back to that blogger.

3. You must choose a minimum of seven blogs that you find brilliant in content or design (not sure how I fell through the cracks on this one!)

4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with this award.

5. List at least ten honest things about yourself.

.........then pass it on with the instructions!

I'll claim 1 & 2 done with the first paragraph of this post and will now list seven blogs to pass the award to. Difficult to do for several reasons. I have a set of blogs I visit pretty regularly and I link to their blogrolls as well as items in their post that expose me to more blogs than I can remember or stuff into one bag called "favorites"...so I don't. But from this I know there are good blogs out there far beyond the ones I know and to pull seven blogs out of my hat for recognition (willis' "recognition".....yea, well I'll get to that in a minute) is difficult. If you want to know which blogs I think deserve any award from me, just look at my blog roll and whom I follow! These certainly aren't in any order of preference as each of these blogs are unique and terrific in their own right (willis' clever disclaimer). Okay, an award from willis.....one might say who cares and that's okay and probably appropriate. None of these blogs need any recognition from me to be the great sites they are. This is really only the "willis edition" of this award and If I could add a rule to those listed above, I would say that none should feel obligated to do anything and willis is down with that.....word up!

First is "Field" at The Field Negro. Field's blog holds a bunch of blog awards and for good reason. He stirs it up just fine on issues of life, sports, politics and people in general and he does it with honesty, wit, humor and just plain talented writing ability. I really can't say enough about this blog, there's is just so much there you have to look and its very worthwhile. The Field Negro is a very powerful blog with frequent well researched post and has always been one of my favorite stops.

Second is Bill at Tome Of The Unknown Writer. I linked to the Tome Of The Unknown Writer from one of the other sites I frequent and once there, I never left. Bill can write, and like any of the other sites I'm "honoring" here, he could be paid columnist at any venue. Bill is different in that he should be. Bill does some wonderful stuff on his blog and is definitely worth the read.

Third is Madam Miaow at Madam Miaow Says... Madam Miaow hails from across the pond and keeps my love of all things English (Fawlty Towers, the irreverent decorum of the House of Commons, The Beatles, Eddie Izzard, etc) intact. She post with a beautiful blend of wisdom, wit, humor and honesty that you will enjoy immensely. She's bloody awesome!

Fourth is Doug at When Will I Use This?. Doug is a math teacher dealing with adolescents which should carry an award all by itself. I know he's not in it for the money. "mathman6293" (Doug's handle) writes about education, family, history, politics,the sciences and baseball. He's honest above all, the man pulls no punches and I love his post and displays of dry humor that show up in his and his lovely wife's blog. I have yet to be able to answer the question his blog title ask but a new question with every post works for me!

Fifth is Rachel at Art Of The Possible.....now with cupcakes! Rachel writes about her life experiences, her Mary Kay goodies, politics and feminist issues. She does it very well and is a joy to read. She always seem to provide me with a new perspective on something I thought I knew everything about.

Sixth is Tengrain's blog Mock Paper Scissors. Shouldn't be much intro required here. Tengrain along with several others are part of the reason I started blogging. Yes, you have him to partially blame for Old & N The Way. Tengrain is a master of "snark" and a true artist of display on a webpage. And lest I forget, he can write as well. One of the masters!

Seventh is John Coby at Bay Area Houston. There is so much stupidity down here in The Republic of East Texas that "Bay Area" never lacks for material. If ya think Texas politicians are only about the national stage, visit here for all the insanity on a local level. If you can't find it here, you can find a link to it. Every state should have a site like this one!

Ten honest things about willis.......you are allowed to go to any of the above sites at this time as I'm about to bore the pants off you ( me, I'd rather go with you but I have to do this instead):

1. I was in the Navy between `68-72 and I enlisted to keep from hiking around in rice paddies in Viet Nam. Another wonderful war that solved nothing.

2. I was stationed on a troop carrier ship (USS Duluth) and the first place I went after enlistment was Viet Nam. I spent all 4 years on this ship and while Navy duty did keep me away from rice paddies we did get some mortar rounds lobbed at us from the beach occasionally.

3. I taught myself to play guitar, bass and keyboard while on the Duluth generally out of boredom. The option was playing cards. While on the ship, I and others formed a band that played on the ships flight deck for the crew from time to time and when visiting ports in various countries we would "sit in" and play. As a result, I've played clubs in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, The Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. That was a blast!

4. I call this lovely lady my "first wife" and you may see her comments here from time to time but know that she is my first and only as well. She's a character and keeps willis honest about himself which has always been a problem for some reason!

5. I have one child; a wonderful, beautiful daughter who is an adult now and still lives with the first wife and I....and we love it. She's is just a beautiful person regardless how much I did to screw her up!

6. We have one dog and a parrot for pets although we had three cats, two birds, and a dog at one time. The current pooch is "Buddy", a black russian terrier which translates to about 150 pounds of black fuzzy dog. The Parrot is "Tiffin" (named for Merlin's owl.... she is so wise!?) and she's a goffin cockatoo. I used to think it was a male bird as it always humped the mirror (mine's mounted very high for a reason it seems....who knew?) but the color of the eye iris is the determinate.....they can live 65 years!

7. I current play bass guitar in three music groups. Two church venues and a regular band.

8. I have mostly republican friends. It is east Texas ya know. Over all I find them very good folks and otherwise very intelligent people. I'm not sure what happened along the way but I know I can't correct it by arguing with them and they are sure aren't gonna change me! I don't hide my opinions and I let them think of me what they will.

9. I drive a 2007 VolksWagon GTI. It can handle anything I need to play a gig or golf!

10. I've thought some about giving this blogging thing up. It turned out to be more effort than I thought although I do enjoy it! This award is an inspiration and I feel I do have some people to offend yet so I'm in!

My apologies to each of these folks I've blessed!

willis

Crackin That "Acorn" Nut.

I'm completely on board shutting down "Acorn's" public funding for the actions of some of their employees. This should mean that "Blackwater" (Xe, as it is now called) will finally be on the ropes for federal dollars as well for the actions of some of their employees getting a little out of hand by killing 17 civilians in Iraq. If nothing else, "Acorn" should at least be forced to change its name.

Willis Has $.02 and He's Blowing it Here...

Kinda looks like my checkbook.... This whole thing about Joe Wilson (R, Scumbag) being dragged through the streets to apologize before Congress pisses me off. I know, the guy is a miserable right wing tool and he's proved he's dumber than a warm box of sand by the content of his comment during Obama's speech more so than its timing, but that's not the point. He apologized (half-assed, under duress, etc.) to Obama, the President accepted it and now it's over. For Congress to waste time on a display of indignation for an idiot's fuck up by a body whose members are famous for fuckin up accomplishes nothing...NOTHING! People need health care, wars to end, jobs, etc. .........Get after it dammit!

Town Hall Meetings

Rick Casey (columnist for the Houston Chronicle) wrote a piece today titled "How to Hold a Civil Town Hall Meeting" that I had to read at least three times to appreciate. I hope you'll look at least once. What I find telling is that in congressional districts that are staunch anti-Obama on any level and have a republican representative (redundant in Montgomery County, Texas but I hold hope for all others), the representatives need to put forth no effort to hold a town hall meeting. Just show up (late, drunk, hungover, in golf attire from an outing with the Pharm-guys,......it doesn't matter) and parrot Limbaugh lines. Otherwise, you have to work at it and this is how you do it.

Something About This Idiot....

Makes me miss the quiet, reasoned, intelligence of Katherine Harris.

Here's a tune that may explain it, but I could be wrong....