Sebbylite

I went for a hike this weekend (and ran into about 6 feet of snow that I was not expecting at all), and as hikers will do I started talking to this couple who was going up as I was coming down. They asked me about trail conditions and if they were on the right trail, etc, etc.

But then they said that they were disappointed in the trail, because it was supposed to be an old mining road so they assumed it would be groomed and flat. Now this trail hasn’t been a road in 30+ years, if that, and considering that is in very good shape. But it’s still a trail, so there are rocks all over, and half of it was stream, and logs had fallen across the trail, and all the other things that happen when you are in the woods. I admit that I judged them a little bit on the inside. Until they mentioned that one of the people that they had brought had bad depth perception, so that was why they were hoping for a smoother hike.

I still shrugged this off, thinking that bad depth perception couldn’t be that bad, even on a hike like the one I was on. Then I saw her coming up the trail. And yes, she did look absolutely miserable. She was literally bent over at the waist to get as close to the ground as possible to see where she was stepping. And when she heard me coming down the trail, she glanced up to see what was going on, and immediately stumbled over the next step.

Seriously, if that had been me, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have ever left the house that day. So on one hand I applaud her for trying the hike at all. On the other hand, I can’t think of anything else that would make hiking worse than bad depth perception. Well, other than missing a leg or a foot, but even then there are prosthetics that would make hiking easier than what she was experiencing. Oof.

I had a semi-conversation with a co-worker the other day about death. And by semi-conversation, I mean this:

Co-worker: The ninja report* is going to be the death of me yet.
Me: Really? I’m pretty sure road rage is going to be what gets me.

Admittedly my comment was completely off the cuff. But as I thought about it more, I realized that it was as close to a prediction as I could make about myself. I’m in pretty good shape, I don’t smoke, I exercise a lot, I eat ok (and plan on doing that better), I’m happy most of the time, etc, etc, etc, and there is no clear health hazard in my life. But then I thought I could do better, so I’ve come up with the Top 3 Ways That I’m Likely To Die:

1) Exposure-this is a fancy way of saying starving/freezing/eaten by a bear/trampled by a moose. Basically, I like to hike, and as soon as I finish with this whole ultimate frisbee thing, I’m going to start going camping or backpacking again. And I’m sure that silly little things like not having someone to go with won’t stop me from going by myself.

2) Road Rage-don’t get me wrong, I’m a great driver. I haven’t been in an accident since I was 15 and had only been driving for 2 months. But sooner or later I’m going to get angry at someone’s terrible driving and flip off the wrong person, and that person is going to try to run me off the road. Or stop next to me at a stoplight and pull out a gun. Or follow me home and then wire a bomb to my car’s brake lines.

3) Jealous Husband-HA! April Fool’s!

3) Cancer-just because there is no telling when or why someone might get cancer, I have to throw this out here. Plus I needed to link to this.

Other front-runners include: liver disease, lung cancer from second-hand smoke (thanks, M), rabid dog, or murder-suicide (not me, but my wife-I tend to attract crazy women).

And that’s all.

*”Ninja report” is a reference to How I Met Your Mother. Marshall is telling a story about some complicated legal brief he is working on when Ted stops him and says that they are already lost. So the suggestion is that Marshall just call it the Ninja Report and then it will be an interesting story again. Also, I’m not going to divulge work secrets on my blog.

Ok, I am entirely too tired to give a detailed description of the events of the last 62 hours, so I’ll give you the quick and dirty and fill in the details later…

I got into town around 9:30 on Friday, and met up with about half the team in our hotel room. Since most people on the team had no idea who everyone else on the team was, we spent some time getting to know each other (aka, drinking in the room) before heading out on the town. I really have no idea what was going on before I got into town, but I hear stories of ordering “Nailin’ Sarah Palin” to the room, lots of drinking, and maybe a little gambling.

So we hit the town, got some food, drank some drinks, and invariably did the Vegas thing until about 4:30/5 in the morning. Where we crashed 7 people in one room (2 beds with 3 people each, and one on the floor), not realizing that the room upstairs had no one in it. At all. But it didn’t really matter for those 2 hours of sleep anyway…

Saturday was Frisbee day number 1, which I will recap later, along with Sunday’s events. There were some interesting things that happened, but they need more time than I am willing to give them now, to fully flesh out the details. And yes, I did mean to say “flesh out” the details.

Saturday night was a little bit of a mess. We took forever to clean up after the games and get food. Some people napped, some people got snacks before showering, some people just drank more before getting back to the hotel room, all of which pushed our “Let’s Hit the Town” time back by quite a bit. We finally got to dinner around 9:45, and left the restaurant around 11:30. After which we met up with some folks, and sat outside a club in the Bellagio for 2.5 hours trying to figure out what to do. I was tired, so I had no will to try and persuade people to get off their asses and get somewhere, and it seemed that no one else did either (or they were just content with being in a casino in Vegas, even though no one was gambling or doing anything we couldn’t have done anywhere else in the entire country). I finally got a cab back to the hotel around 2:30, and found the open room upstairs that no one was sleeping in and crashed. I know, it’s pathetic, but I like my sleep, and get cranky and unhappy when I don’t get any.

Sunday after we finished playing was probably my favorite part of the tournament. The team hung out doing car-bombs and drinking beer for about an hour, talking trash to each other and whoever walked by. We left and checked into the Mirage (Pooh was staying in Vegas for another couple days, so he had a room there where we could put our stuff, shower, etc), and then went to eat. After the unlucky few left for the early airport run, Pooh, Frankus, Katie and I walked across the street looking for the low-stakes casino. We didn’t find it, but we did pass by the guys giving away the call-girl cards, which was an experience in and of itself (hopefully Pooh enjoyed it too). Then we went back into the Mirage and played some Pai Gow Poker, talked some trash to the dealer and the pit boss, got in a little bit of trouble for having no idea how to play, and generally had a good old time. And as fun as Friday and Saturday nights were, I think that Sunda is going to be the day I remember most (for some obvious reasons), and the day I had the most fun. I just wish more people could have been around, and that we had more time to play. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Ok, so it is now 7:30, and I’m going to bed. Yep, bed. Vegas takes it out of you…

I play a lot of pick-up basketball at the gym I go to, mostly because I can’t really see a game and not play in it. But also because I love playing basketball and I feel good during and after playing.

The gym I play at has a pretty good game too. Usually there are only 1-2 “chumps” out there at any given point in time, and everyone can at least catch the ball on a consistent basis. And of course there are also the guys that can actually play, and are usually the reason why a team wins and stays on the court for 5 games in a row. These are also the guys that I like to guard. Let’s face it, I’m not an offensive powerhouse on the court. But I realize this, so I do what I can do (rebound, make lay-ups, and play defense). The main thing I do is play defense, because that part is the most fun for me. It’s a challenge on a more personal level than the 5v5 game, it’s you against him, and it is your job to ensure that he doesn’t score. And I take that seriously, because it’s fun to beat guys who think that they are the hottest shit on the court since they first started making pumps.

Anyway, back before they switched ownership of the gym, there was a little bit different crowd that went to play. One guy in particular I always liked playing against, because he was good. Not only was he good, but he actually tried when he was out there, unlike a lot of guys who just dribble down the court and shoot from just past half-court because they are lazy. It was always a big challenge for me to play against him: he was strong, a good shot, quick, and didn’t lose the ball that easily. I’m sure that he didn’t give two rabbit farts about me, but I always knew that if he was there, it would be a good game.

Then I saw him outside of the gym about 2-3 weeks ago, and lost all respect for him. Why, you ask? Well, he was walking across the street while I was driving, and he was following behind this tiny pug with a pink jacket on. I could hardly keep myself from laughing out loud at him. Because even if it was his girlfriend’s dog and he was just taking the pug out for a walk, as soon as you get out of the house you take that damn jacket off and stash it in your pocket until you get back again.

Like I said, he hasn’t been back to the gym to play that I’ve seen since they changed ownership. But if he did come back, I’m not sure I could take him seriously anymore.

I know so many people that need one of these.

I remember I was in charge of making sure that my brother woke up for school while we were growing up. Yes, my older brother, the one that is supposed to be more responsible, blah blah blah. Basically he wouldn’t even use the snooze button, he would just sleep through whatever alarm was set, until I walked in and pushed him out of bed. Then of course he was mad at me all day long…

But if I had one of these here things, I never would have had to be in charge of him. More than likely the whole neighborhood would have been woken up as well, but that’s not my problem now is it?

Still, I like the theory.

I just remembered a bit of a dream I had last night, and I wanted to share it with y’all. Mostly because it was a pretty sweet dream, and I think it will make a good story to tell (and also because I’ve slightly been heckled into posting by someone who will remain nameless).

Basically the part I remember of the dream is that I was a member of a team of ninja assassin’s and we were trying to win a war against a bunch of Foot Clan-esque ninjas. You know, the kind that blunder around but call themselves ninjas because they wear a full purple pajama suit with mask and belt? Yeah, those guys. The problem for them is that me and my team were actual ninjas, and assassins, and were picking them off like ducks in Duck Hunt.

After going through this for a while (which was pretty sweet – usually my dreams are the “frustrating” kind, where I’m playing frisbee but wearing 25 pound shoes and everyone else has jet packs, that kind of thing. But in this dream it was the other way around, and I was kicking ass and taking names and they had no chance), the “Big Boss” showed up to try to take us out himself. It turns out that the Big Boss was Jimmy Chu, and he was actually taking out my teammates. I was still fighting ninja style so they hadn’t found me yet, and was making my way over to take Jimmy out, when all of a sudden his fiancee Kim walked in looking extremely pale. I left my cover and went over to grab her, because my mission was to get her away from Jimmy before they were married (kind of a like a Princess Bride-Man in Black-Prince Humperdink menage a trois, or maybe it was more of a Matthew Broderick-Rutger Hauer-Michelle Pfeiffer thing, I’m not sure). As I run up to grab her and get her out of there, she just looks blankly over at me and says “It’s too late.”

Of course I don’t believe her so I keep trying to convince her to come with me. She looks up at me, and then takes her hands away from her chest to show that they have been covering a bullethole in the center of her chest. When I see this I go into a blind rage and finish off the rest of the Duck Hunt/Foot Clan. And as is the way of dreams, just as I square off with Jimmy for an ultimate ninja style showdown, it’s wakey time.

Usually I don’t remember my dreams, so on the one hand it’s strange that actually did remember enough to write something down in a cohesive manner. On the second hand, it was a pretty sweet dream. Like I said before, I tend to have the frustrating type dreams, the ones where I seem to be running through sand or running uphill, where I can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a frisbee, etc, and the fact that in this dream I could do anything and everything I set my mind to, it was awesome.

Maybe tonight I’ll have more to share with y’all.

I found this online today (of course I didn’t copy down where I got it, so I can’t give due where due is credit), and had to share it. Mostly because it sounds like something that I would think about doing, but chicken out because of the exact reason that actually happened. Does that mean I get a runner-up Darwin Award?

You all know about the Darwin Awards – It´s an annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.

Last year´s winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

And this year´s nominee is:

The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened.

It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO
unit (Jet Assisted Take Off – actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra “push” for taking off from short airfields.

He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!

The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that location.

The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing
at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds.

The driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing
him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event.

However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.

Most of the driver´s remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.

Epilog:

It has been calculated that this moron nearly reached Mach I, attaining a ground-speed of approximately 420 mph.

I’ve told this story so many times that I don’t know who knows what, who doesn’t know what’s going on, and who doesn’t care. So I’ll try to keep it short and to the point.

We made an offer to our landlord asking for half of July’s rent prorated for all the crap we’ve put up with. His return offer was $300, or the equivalent of about 5 days, or he would not pay us anything but let us out of our lease at the end of the month. So whatever way you look at it, the offer is crap. Regardless of whether or not we are staying here for the full lease of getting the fuck out of dodge, he still owes us money. And he owes us a lot more than just 5 days worth. We were out of hot water for 7 days, we spent two days cleaning before we could fully move in because the place was a pit, we had a lot of crap that the former tenants left in our house for over two weeks, and the heater isn’t going to be fixed until August 15th (which isn’t that big of a deal since we won’t use it, but I thought I’d throw it in there for good measure).

So where does that leave us? Well, we’re moving again. A teammate of ours has room in his 4 bedroom house that we’ll take, and live with him and his girlfriend. Then they are moving out in November to a new spot, which means that we’ll have 5/6 people in a house for a month or three, and then only 3 or 4. I don’t know if I’m going to make it through that, let alone my dog. He’s pretty out of sorts as is trying to deal with living with other people.

Plus I’ve had more to drink in the last three weekends than I’ve had in the last three months, and my liver hurts. I had to take today off of work because I was dead tired and getting sick from being exhausted. Which means that I’m totally looking forward to moving again in under two weeks (ps-that was sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell). Oh, and we’re having a party this weekend, to either trash the place because we don’t have a deposit put down on it, or just because we want to hang out and drink some drinks.

I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: woe is me.

There came a point in my moving experience where I was taking a break, and thinking about all the shit that has happened over the last couple of days, and I didn’t understand why I wasn’t pissed off. I mean, there was definitely plenty of opportunity to get angry at all the different problems that were cropping up, but for some reason I just took it all in stride and kept a pretty even keel during the whole process (which is still going on), or at least as even a keel as I ever have.

Thinking back over it, I guess I would have to say that pretty early on in the moving process I realized that it was going to be the horror move from a bad/great 80′s movie (think Money Pit meets Pet Cemetery). After that point it became useless and self-destructive to become angry, and so I just went with it. To make you fully realize just what I’m talking about, I’ll try to recap the story as best I can (although I know that I’ll have things a little bit out of order):

This was the original plan: old tenants would move out on the 30th (Saturday), we would give the landlord Sunday the 1st to clean and make things ready for us, and then we would meet him on Monday the 2nd at 10am to get keys and start moving in. Sounds pretty simple, right? It should have been.

We showed up Monday at 10am to find that the old tenants had packed up their clothes, and some of their more valuable items, and then just left. No cleaning, no throwing away of food, no moving of extra furniture. Nothing. When we showed up, the landlord was puttering around in one of the bedrooms, vacuuming and dusting, and basically making no impact whatsoever on the cleanliness of the house. After a brief conference between the three of us who are living together, we told him to stop (1-it would have taken him a week or more at the rate he was going to actually clean the house, and 2-that is what getting a deposit is for, to pay for cleaning and damages). After a small discussion, where we offered to clean the house if he gave us the old tenants deposit, a decision was made to hire a cleaning crew for the house. It ended up taking 4 professionals about 10 hours to finish cleaning.

At this point in time, the house is mostly clean. Except for my room, which was evidently used as the neighborhood cat bath-house. And by bath-house, I mean urinal. The carpet was pretty much saturated with old urine (and the gallons of odor-covering-foam that the landlord tried to use to cover the smell). He said that if the smell didn’t go away after the odor stuff dried, he would replace the carpet.

Of course, he forgot to set a time frame on this carpet replacement. And as of Tuesday at noon, he left town for the summer. Which left me high and (not very) dry. And which is also why I spent my Fourth of July (go America!) ripping up carpet, taking out carpet pad soaked with urine, and cleaning the floors underneath. Then, because it still smelled like a port-o-john on a warm day, I drenched it with enzymatic cat-urine killer.

Which almost worked. After letting it sit for 24 hours, it only smelled a little, so I poured on another coating and we’ll see how it smells then.

I’m back. The above was written last Wednesday. It is now Tuesday, and I’m going to continue the story.

Alright, where was I? Oh yeah, the cat piss. It turns out that the urine-off was pretty damn good stuff, and my room doesn’t smell at all anymore, which makes me happy.

Well, almost makes me happy, because we still have no hot water. Did I not mention that? My bad. We haven’t had hot water since last Tuesday. Yeah, as in 7 days ago. Which means I either stink pretty bad during the day, or I go over to friend’s houses and beg the use of their bathroom (which usually works, maybe because I smell so bad they actually want me to shower and are willing to put up with me using their shower to do so).

Ok, to recap: we now have a house that has no hot water, a shit-ton of stuff that isn’t ours stashed in the basement (and various pieces of furniture throughout the rest of the house), pretty much the only reason it is clean is because we have done a large share of the cleaning, and is in general dis-repair otherwise, which we would have been ok with had it been the only thing wrong with the house, but added on top of everything else it is beginning to look like the proverbial straw. Plus our landlord is a liar. He wrote us an email blatantly playing each of us off against each other, saying that one person or another had agreed to each condition that we found unacceptable. Which, when the three of us living here got together and talked it over, we determined to be complete and total BS.
Suffice to say that we are looking into other housing options, although there aren’t that many out there at this time of the month.

I probably haven’t told you this, since I haven’t had the opportunity of late, but my Retard Dog really loves snow. Why haven’t I had the opportunity? Well, because I live in Seattle, and it doesn’t snow in Seattle.

Wait, then where did this picture come from? Truth to tell, this was taken not ten minutes ago in my front yard. Yes, in Seattle. Yes, it is snowing that much. Yes, the city will be shut down tomorrow. Yes, I am looking forward to it.

I do wonder though, if I have more fun playing in the snow with my dog, of if he has more fun playing in the snow with me? Because I spent the last 45 minutes throwing snowballs for him, and he kept chasing them down. Then we played the Hi-Low game, which he isn’t very good at but I am an old pro*. Then I threw some more snowballs for him, which he either chased, caught, or ate. And the thing is, I’d be more than willing to stay outside and play with him more if 1) my feet weren’t cold. 2) I didn’t have to get up at 5 in the morning to give the appearance that I tried to get to work. And 3) my feet are cold.

Oh, and if anyone cared other than me, I’m back up in the Google rankings for Retard Dog, and if anyone else wanted to link to that story with the words “Retard Dog”, please feel free (as long as it is done tastefully and you let me know in the comments what sites the links are on). I’m also considering a Google Bomb campaign in the near future, but I’m not sure who I want to target, and what I want the “Bomb” to be (Since Anus Chaps is already taken, I’m thinking about targeting Tall Guy with something interesting. Like maybe misunderestimicated).

*The Hi-Low game is when you toss something to a friend in a lob-like manner. Then, when they are looking up at the ball/whatever that you tossed and have their hands raised to catch it, you throw something hard and low in their general crotchal region. It’s a wonderful game, and I highly recommend that you try it at your next work gathering, high school reunion, spa day, or whatnot.

Well, I noticed that I have dropped completely off the google radar (the “goodar”? “ragle”? “googar”? “radle”?) for the search term Retard Dog, and so I thought I’d try and rectify that…and yes, I said rectify.

Anyway, the best way that I could figure out how to get back into the rankings was to tell another Retard Dog story. So here goes:

About three weeks ago, I was hitting the tennis ball for the Retard Dog in my yard, as I have done every day for the past year when I take him outside. On this particular day, my dog was chasing after the ball in a patch of ivy. When he got the ball and turned to bring it back, it looked like a string of ivy caught his foot as he pulled away. He pulled at his foot, yelped, pulled free, and then brought the ball back and looked at me, waiting to chase the ball again. Since he seemed alright, and wasn’t limping, and was pretty psyched to keep chasing the ball, I didn’t think much of it. He is a bit of a drama queen, so I chalked it up to another “episode” in which he was really just being too lazy to walk all the way home or some such thing, and kept playing.

After another ten minutes of playing, it was time to take him for a walk (what? why would I need to take him for a walk after he had been outside playing ball in the yard for 20 minutes? well, strange thing about the retard dog is that he won’t actually crap unless he is on the leash. he’ll stay outside for hours hanging out, and then as soon as I put him on the leash to walk him, he’ll crap within a block. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not). As I got his leash out, and the treats, and the plastic bags, etc, etc, he started licking at his foot in front of my door. I still didn’t think much of it, since he does that quite a bit as well (what can I say, he’s a licker). It wasn’t until I actually started walking, saw that he wasn’t moving, and then saw the drops of blood streaming off his foot that I realized something may be wrong.

Did I mention that it was Sunday evening? And no vet’s are open on Sunday? Well, as it happens, this was the case. I ended up taping an old sock over his paw to try and control the bleeding while I went inside and looked up emergency vet’s online to see what I should do. I didn’t have much luck finding any, and the only one I did find put me on hold for about 10 minutes before I finally hung up. When I looked over the dog again, the bleeding seemed to have stopped, and he seemed to be ok. So I figured that I would just have him take it easy for the rest of the day and night, and then hopefully he’d be fine the following day.

Two hours later, I checked the sock to see what things were like. And as luck would have it, or as unluck would have it, he was still bleeding. At this point in time, I didn’t really have a choice. He had been bleeding for two hours, and he probably needed to go to the vet. So I sucked it up, grabbed as many credit cards as I could find, and drove him to the nearest emergency vet.

I must have knocked loose a small clot when I pulled off the sock, because at this point in time he was bleeding pretty strongly from his paw. And very reluctant to walk around. Which left it up to me to carry the 90 pound dog out to the car, and then from the car into the vet’s office. Although I’m pretty sure that he was in shock, since he didn’t seem to mind when I picked him up, which usually he struggles quite a bit.

When I got to the vet and brought him back to the exam room, the vet and her assistant’s tried to take a look at his paw for about five minutes with no luck. Evidently, the retard dog doesn’t like to have anyone touch his paws (especially when one of them is cut open), and since the dog is pretty large (and pretty rottweiler-ish), he was definitely winning the “veterinary assitant’s need to hold him down to examine his paw” game. So they drugged him, then stitched him up, and brought him back out.

Let me just say right now, there isn’t a whole lot in this world like a drugged up rottweiler with a plastic IV bag over his foot to keep it out of the rain. He tended to stumble around and run into things a bit. Which would have been extremely hilarious if I didn’t feel so damned bad for him. Oh well, I guess it’s one of those things that I’ll look back on some day and laugh…

And back to the present day. He just got his stitches out on Thursday (another game of “this one vet assistant has no chance of holding me down while the doctor tries to take out my stitches” in which he won), and after spending ten solid minutes licking his paw, he seems to be ok.

Which is nice, because I don’t think that I could take much more of the Retard Dog pansying around the house with his little bootie on, giving me those sad puppy dog eyes. For a big, mean looking rottweiler, he sure is a big wuss (which reminds me to tell you the story of the 4 chihuahuas in the neighborhood weighing a total of 18 pounds that absolutely terrorrize him. Another day…).

I ran across this article from Cincinatti, and I had to laugh a little bit. Basically, the person who wrote the article is claiming that George W. isn’t the Devil, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed when he addressed the UN a while ago. As “evidence” that this is true, Mr. Barker posits these “facts”:

“First, it seems that Beelzebub would want to be a little more charismatic, more likable. When you are looking for world domination, wouldn’t you try to be a little less confrontational? You know, fighting to prevent the raping, murdering, gassing oppressive regimes like that of Saddam Hussein wouldn’t exactly be on the top of his list. They would get along quite nicely, as a matter of fact.”

How does the saying go,the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist? Well, how do you convice people that you aren’t the Devil? How about one highly publicized act of goodwill? After that, you can do no wrong. Also, I would think that if I were the Devil, I wouldn’t want competition either.

“Second, the devil isn’t really the benevolent type. According to the American Association of Fund Raising Council (AAFRC), Americans gave total contributions of $260.28 billion in 2005, a growth of 6.1 percent. Major natural disasters here in our homeland and abroad generated at least $7.37 billion (again, with a “b”) in contributions. This is all under our current Satanic Regime.”

I’m not so sure about where Mr. Barker is getting his “evidence”, but I will say that this has little to nothing to do with El Presidente W. I’d be willing to bet that this amount would be the same or higher if any other person was President of the United States. What kind of corelation is there between who is President and how much people decide to give?
None, if you ask me.

“[T]o meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa … I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.”

Well, if you read between the lines of this “smoke-and-mirrors ploy” by the Bush Administration, you figure out that a lot of what he is doing is simply re-organizing funds in AIDS related programs to make it seem like something new is going on. Read this article for more info about that.

Wait, that’s all? The President has been in office for 6 years, and all you can come up with is “Well, we finally got that Saddam guy, didn’t we”? Come on. I’ve done better things for the American public in my daily post-lunch colon-cleanser than what Mr. Barker has posited that W. has done.