Nazzo fast, Guido

John McCain and Mike Huckabee are the two main Republicans left in the race for their party's White House nomination. And either of them appears to be conservative enough for President Bush.

That doesn't do it for you, huh? How about...

Although he did not explicitly mention Senator John McCain, President Bush on Friday sought to unify the Republican Party behind its eventual nominee, describing the election of his successor as president as a stark ideological choice.

That's not it either, you say? OK, let's try...

President Bush, in a rousing speech to fellow conservatives, exhorted his ideological cohorts to "fight for victory and keep the White House in 2008."

The two-term U.S. leader, who addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, leaves office next year and said it is important that the next president continues to reflect the conservative political principles he represents.

Still not quite there, is it? Our "compassionate conservative" president, who on the whole has turned out to be nearly as bad as the Democrats he ran against (A+ in killing terrorists, D in everything else), is trying to rally the troops to keep the White House in Republican control, and it's going to fall flat. Conservatives know that neither McCain nor Huckabee truly share their beliefs, no matter how good a speech they give. (I really love the part about how McCain's speech was "surprisingly well-received" and how it got "polite applause". You know, where I come from, polite applause usually means we're just minding our manners, rather than issuing forth with a rousing chorus of "Bullshit!")

For years, I've held my nose and voted for Republicans, even when I knew that they were really RINOs, and I did it because voting for Democrats was unthinkable, and I just couldn't bring myself to stay home. This time, I just don't know if I can whore myself out like that again. I sincerely thought Fred Thompson had the conservative chops, but his campaign, for whatever reasons, fell flat. Ron Paul would make a decent second choice, but his campaign, while really pretty impressive when you consider it, isn't getting any real traction.

Maybe there will be a good movie showing on November 2.

Medical preparations

No, not *that* kind of medical preparation (Though it could be useful--and who would have thought they had a web site?) We're talking about preparing for a medical emergency, or a time when medical help isn't easily available, say in the aftermath of a major disaster.

Medical kits for self-reliant families

I found this somewhere, on some forum or blog, but can't remember which one for attribution. SurvivalBlog, maybe?

Building Solar "Stuff"

As I was continuing my research on solar power, I ran into the BuildItSolar web site. Lots of nifty stuff, including a section that is just up my alley: Frugal Living Energy Ideas. One that is particularly interesting is suing bubble wrap as a window insulator. You can't see clearly through it, but it will still pass light while increasing the R value of your windows dramatically. Pair this with their Cardboard Shutter, and people in extremely cold climates, or people in places where winter is rough, or just folks in houses that are suddenly just too expensive to heat may find a difference between cold and cozy.

Let's see, 3 layers of cardboard sandwiching 2 layers of bubble wrap, each of which has a layer of aluminum foil...fitted tightly to the windows...removable during the day, or replaced with a layer of bubble wrap if perfect visibility isn't necessary...

Yeah, we may be onto something here....

Lies, and the lying bastards who tell them

It really chaps my rump the extent the anti-freedom forces go to in their attempts to take away our rights. Today's liar is one Calvin Godfry, who blogs for the Miami New Times (sorry, no links to the loony leftists' home page; I feel dirty enough linking to the blog entry), along with the first commenter to his post, Florida is Bottom of the Barrel on Gun Control, where he bemoans the fact that Florida only got 8 points in the Brady Bunch's latest BS-a-thon.

Personally, I think that's a pretty good score, Florida. Shoot for a perfect 0 next year, will ya?

However, bad as Calvin is, commenter MichelleH is worse. She whines"I just hope this article doesn't encourage people to buy more guns, just what Florida needs. Ugly? I'll say, given the number of domestic shootings and murders increasing nationwide, especially here in Florida." She continues in a similar vein, piling lies atop innuendos and covering the whole thing in poorly done sarcasm.

Fortunately, our fellow gunnies in Florida showed up and piled on, variously noting

• "Too bad the facts don't fit the extremist rhetoric of this post."
• "...why is it that there's not a single scientifically valid and reliable study that proves even a medium correlation, not even link just correlation, between increased gun restriction laws and lower crime rates?"
• "Nothing like a bit of rational thinking and reasoned discourse on a Monday."
• "The author of this tripe is a moron and knows nothing about the issue at hand."

and my personal favorite

• "You Floridians are going to have to work harder. Here in ol' Kaintuck we got a '2.' Of course we're shooting for a zero, or preferably negative integers."

You tell 'em, boys!

Now, just for fun, I' like to leave you with a single statistic on that 8 point Brady state, Florida. This comes from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's "Florida's Crime Rate at a Glance" page:

• 1997 Violent Crime Rate: 1025 per 100,000
• 2006 Violent Crime Rate: 706 per 100,000

Yeah, all those e-e-e-e-vil guns are really causing that violent crime thing to go way up, huh?

Figments of our imagination

One in four Britons don't believe wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill existed, according to a recent survey.

Churchill is compared to Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh, seen by many survey respondents as a mythical person, the London Daily Mail reported Monday.

The survey, conducted with 3,000 respondents to test their general knowledge, reported other historical figures such as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and the Duke of Wellington were made up for books and films, the Mail reported.

You know, as a mild Anglophile it's pretty depressing to watch the once-Great Britain sink into the muck. Perhaps we should take up a collection to buy Sir Winston some new bearings--he's surely burned out the ones he was buried with.

Buy health insurance, or else

(Via Drudge)

It would seem that if we elect Frau Clinton, you're going to have health insurance whether you want it or not.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.

If we let them have this, I wonder what they'll garnish for next? Failure to make political contributions, perhaps?