Isn’t she dreamy? Hadn’t checked in there for a while. Apparently on NBC now with Brian Williams, who I liked on CNBC, but haven’t seen on big NBC yet. Don’t usually watch any TV until Conan these days, if at all.

But almost thirty! Lift this burden!

Just about everyone I interact with on a regular basis is pretty liberal, some hard-core leftwing, others sort of apathetical but we-gotta-do-something-for-the-people non-political liberal, if you know what I mean. That’s to be expected in a university town. I don’t enjoy arguing politics since it seems like every argument’s been made before and nobody ever gets convinced. It’s futile, and infuriating. One of the hardest things to argue about it prescription drug costs. Our country is basically subsidizing the cost of drugs for everyone else on the planet, either by giving drugs away for free to the direst of places or by relenting to price controls in places that can afford drugs, but don’t want to pay their share. It’s very hard to come up with a convincing argument against reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada other than, “it won’t work for long,” and that argument is not easy to articulate. Russell Roberts does a good job in this article that I hope you’ll read. The fact is, we’re getting screwed, and it’s my opinion that we’re going to keep getting screwed for quite a while. Eventually the drug companies won’t export drugs to countries with price controls, and those countries will give in and pay fair prices or start breaking our patents. Who knows what will happen then. In the last paragraph, Roberts suggests some good ideas to lower the industry’s domestic costs that could ease the pain.

I was talking with a fellow the other night, a Kerry supporter very much opposed to the Iraq campaign. After enduring the infuriating liberal version of “supporting the troops,” (they’re victims who need our pity and help in extracting them from Iraq–vote Kerry!–as opposed to professionals who should be honored for their accomplishments and sacrifices on our behalf) the argument went along the lines of why we should be paying for their school systems and infrastructure when they have oil and we have problems with our own schools and roads. I didn’t want to be in the conversation much, so my answer was the flippant yet whole-heartedly endorsed: “Because we’re Americans, man! We’re tough and strong and can take care of ourselves! These people have had a boot to their neck for thirty years! They have nothing but dirty water and mass graves!” So on. So forth. Queried he, “You’re really going to vote for Bush?”

It’s a probably factual that we spend more on defense than the rest of the world’s nations combined, although China’s military expenditure is not exactly transparent and at least twice what they publish in their state-controlled media. But our navy keeps sea lanes open for trade around the world. The oceans are protected by our fleets. There is no UN navy, no other nation projects naval force for anything as benign as giving freighters safe passage through the high seas. No government in the world would consider blocking an essential waterway for righteous fear of retaliation from a USN Carrier group. We don’t tax any of these freighters, and we suffer a massive trade imbalance because of those ships. This is the American Empire that the unhinged Left so despises. We spend all that money so our Navy can exercise anywhere in non-territorial ocean on Earth with relative ease, and can arrive at any trouble spot well-trained. And nobody’s chipping in, not helpfully at least. We’re getting screwed. Deal with it. We’re tough. The alternative would be ruinous.

Found that article from this lovely post on the writer’s own typepad site, via Knowledge Problem. And I suuuure felt like ranting!

Move along.

Thanks to Bill.

I wish I could have witnessed last night’s game. The defensive, low-scoring games are easily as exciting for me as the high-scoring shootouts. Tonight’s game was a gem too. Woody and Jason Marquis (the only starter I’ve seen so far this year) did magnificently, giving the bullpen some rest after Tuesday’s 7 1/3 innings by the relief staff.

I found the webpage for Scott Rolen’s charity, the Enis Furley foundation. Read this page to find out what it’s all about. That’s really nice, and given Scott’s reputation for being the prototypical classy character around the game, I’m sure it’ll be a big success. Lots of players from around the league, and from around all the sports, would be willing to go there to meet sick kids and brighten their hopefully long and happy lives.

Cards are up 4-0 over the Brewers right now, with Ben Sheets pitching for Milwaukee. It’s surreal how great the Cardinals are playing right now. It feels like there’s no team we can’t beat. And I think that’s true. Especially nice is that my girlfriend never liked sports much, but has become a big fan of the Cards. Her favorite pitcher is Ray King (who I call Big Tubby Ray); and she goes between Jim Edmonds and Pujols as her favorite position player. It helps to learn a game when you regularly have a good team to watch. I never thought NFL football was much to watch until college. My roommate sophomore year (97-98) was a big Denver Broncos fan. That was a great season to watch the Broncos, and I don’t think I could have developed an understanding for football if I didn’t have such an effective team to learn the game from.

While listening to the game and click-click-clicking my way through the internet I found this blog, written by an Army lawyer with the 1st Infantry Division. A Division is a very large group of people, but I wonder if he’s ever met our pal Mike, a doorgunner with the 1ID? Interesting things he’s working to accomplish, check it out. And into the blogroll he goes.

Also in my clickin’, I discovered that The Questing Cat‘s dad contributes to a blog. Military tradition is strong in that family; so is good sense and good writing.

Really a tale of one municipality and a non-profit corporation in lieu of government, two towns straddling the Alaskan-Canadian border. Two groups of people alike in all ways apart from how they see themselves in relation to government. Check ‘er out.

Happy Fun Pundit was such a great website that I haven’t had the heart to de-blogroll it, in spite of it’s abandonment of several months. (At least) I suppose it was a kind of voodoo/wishful thinking: if you link it, they will blog… Apparently, they’re coming back soon. I can’t wait to see what’s come of the fat man on the moped. And the big collared shirt of shame is too valuable a psyops device to retire.

I know how you guys are feeling right now. I was there last season after we got our asses handed to us by the Cubs in that late season five-game series. (One of the games was a rain makeup). I’ve never seen Dusty Baker as shook up as we was in the post-game interview. The Cubs lost the division last night. And I really enjoyed that game. I split work early to listen to it on the radio over a few brews with a fellow Cardinals fan. Don’t lose focus and get bitter and ineffective, like in this game. Last season, I rooted for the Cubs once it was clear our chances for the division were lost utterly. Don’t believe me? Here’s what I wrote September 15th, while we were still alive in the WC race. And here during the playoffs, I was pulling for the Cubs. And here again. The Cubs are a great baseball team, but they’re lacking leadership in the clubhouse. And Prior needs another week off. He’s had the same routine for almost six years–I can’t find the article where I read about it, but he works on specific aspects of his delivery and conditioning on each day in between starts. I suspect his difficulty recovering from his calf/achilles injury is being aggravated by deviation from his routine. If you can get him back in top form, you’ve got a great shot at the wild card. And, due to MLB rules in the wildcard era, we won’t get to see you again until the NLCS at best. Hope to see you there. It’ll be some great baseball.

How about some jokes and anecdotes to get you through the day? Don’t say I didn’t offer.

If you liked that go to his main page and start scrolling. The July 19th post written at 8:18 is particularly of interest. If you haven’t heard of the incident to which he refers, I direct you here.

This is funny. Way funnier than my “Flabalanche” joke.

Also funny is this. I sent it around via IM the other day, but neglected to post it. For shame.

Here‘s a lawsuit I can get behind. The Verve was a talented, productive band before they released “Bittersweet Symphony” a song that earned them an assload of money both in direct album sales and in deals with Nike to use the song. That cash rolled out as fast as it came in when Rolling Stone’s management (sorta) sued them for copyright infringement and won all the money they’d earned with their song, since the string section loop in the background was sampled without permission from the Stones’ “The Last Time.”

The case at hand is of Air Force Major Gregory Stone. Michael Moore (spit!) used footage from his funeral in his movie “Fahrenheit 911:” The Movie in which Truth Burns, and used it without the permission of his family.

“It’s been a big shock, and we are not very happy about it, to say the least,” Kandi Gallagher, Maj. Stone’s aunt and family spokeswoman, tells Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson.

“We are furious that Greg was in that casket and cannot defend himself, and my sister, Greg’s mother, is just beside herself,” Miss Gallagher said. “She is furious. She called him a ‘maggot that eats off the dead.’”

I’m no lawyer, and the original tape may not have been copyrighted. But it would be great if they could sue Moore for all proceeds from the movie. And start up a scholarship for children of fallen soldiers. I’d see the movie if I knew that’s where the money was going.

The newest installment of Arthur Chrenkoff’s “Good News from Iraq” has been published in the Wall Street Journal, and is available online at the Opinion Journal site. Check it out.

The atrocious puns on Scott Rolen’s name shoveled out by hackish sportswriters are starting to really annoy me. It’s getting to be as bad as last season, when every Cardinals related headline had something to do with Bo Hart… “Hart of Gold” and other such stupidity. Check out the link name for the recap of last night’s 5-4 Cardinals win that clinched the season series:

That’s right… “Ready to Rolen.” I agree, Scotty is the man; and he had a freaking beautiful swing with that game-winning home run after Zambrano had pitched magnificently to Pujols, striking out one of the best hitters in the game with a man on third and only one out. But that pun is lame, brother.

Anybody figure out what Sosa’s beef with Carpenter in the eighth was? Did Chris pitch him inside? Whatever he said must have shook him up a little bit since he gave up a homerun to Moises Alou.

Update: Bernie Miklasz (or Mikalski) doesn’t have anything nice to say about the Cubs today. And look forward to the matchup today at 1:20 between Matty Mo and Glendon Rusch. We had a hard time our first game against Rusch; he pitched well in a losing effort the second time. It remains to be seen which one shows up today. Also whether Morris starts to come on fire in the second half as I’m predicting. The first two innings should be a good indicator of that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger exposed his left-wing critics for the humorless slugs they are according to this article. Read about it at Second Breakfast.

Donald Sensing wrote a typically level-headed analysis of the Syrian musicians story and concludes that there was no threat.

In response to the possible terrorist airplane hijacking dry-run that I posted about here, local gun enthusiast (who still owes me five bucks) Spoons writes about how he would have liked the passengers to have reacted. He also links to a 2002 article by Steven Den Beste recommending some improvised weapons to use for the purpose of fighting to submission or death any terrorists who would attempt to hijack an airplane. SDB recommends using your seat cushion/flotation device as a shield on your weaker arm and a pen in your dominant hand as a thrusting weapon, aiming for the eyeballs. That’s good advice, I hadn’t thought of using the seat in such a way. It’s about the right size for defending the width of the aisle in an airplane. The Flight 93 stewardesses famously used coffee pots of boiling hot water on the terrorists they successfully subdued (or killed) and gained access to the cockpit. In leading an uprising against terrorists on an airplane you will have restricted mobility and will only be able to have two or three people at most in the front lines in hand to hand confrontation with the enemy. Assuming you could enlist around ten or fifteen willing fighters with high morale, I’d organize the front two or three to adopt Den Beste’s strategy of the shield and thrusting technique, although I’d prefer to give at least one of them a coffee pot of boiling water to begin the assault, smashing it on the lead terrorist and then using the broken pot as a slashing and stabbing tool. The fighters behind the front lines would need longer range weapons. Intermediate fighters, the two or three behind the front line could use improvised maces, by filling crew-length or longer sweat socks with keys and coins. Their object would be to provide enough cover blows to give the lead fighters an opportunity to stab and also to slow down the terrorists filling his place once he goes down and likely thrashes around on the floor, occupying our lead fighters. A fire extinguisher would be an excellent tool for blinding the terrorists and buying time to subdue fallen terrorists.

I’m no professional warrior, but it’s a good idea to be prepared, heaven forbid this should happen to you. I’d be interested to read any other suggestions in the comments.

Did you know that the Cardinals and Cubs play their last two scheduled games of the regular season on Monday and Tuesday? Our season series at this point is 9-8 in favor of the Redbirds. So we have to take one of them to be officially the better team, which may very well make a difference as to who gets to play on in October.

According to Peter Gammons, Randy Johnson would only want to be traded to the Yankees or the Cardinals. I doubt he’ll end up in St. Louis. Our minor system is still in the rebuilding phase, and trading youth for a 40-year old master of Johnson’s character would wipe us out completely and set our farm system back to zero. I don’t see it happening. Arizona’s got a good shot for next season with Randy at the top of their rotation. We’ve got nothing we should be comfortable parting with that would be of any value to the D-backs.

So you remember that storm I was talking about Tuesday? My friend Bobovski got back from Wyoming or Montana or one of those those other states that I might be heading out to in a few weeks. I stopped by his crib around noon on Tuesday to feed and play with his cats and to take in the mail. All was fine then. After I left, the storm hit and whaddaya know? A tree picked a fight with his car. His car lost.

Check this out. I hope to God someone is taking this seriously. There’s no sense in waiting for the Todd Beamers of the world to take care of these things.

Update: Lileks saw that story too and suggests some serious racial profiling take place–before detention camps are needed.

But it could be worse. If this story about Australian police is to be believed.