There are still some gaps to be filled, but all in all, things are becoming a little clearer.

Happy Friday!

Chapter Three: Usually it's the Usual Suspects.

O'Hallahan was staring at the fattest, meanest looking Siamese cat he'd ever seen. The cat was staring back.

He was sitting alone in the personal office of the recently deceased Charisma Ponderosa waiting to interview her husband and taking in the room with an eye developed over years of being an investigator. Judging by the expensive artwork, fancy oak desk and antiques spread about the room he could tell she had liked the finer things. Judging by the cat he could tell she liked cats.

O'Hallahan, on the other hand, hated cats. He absolutely despised them. To begin with he was allergic. Even being in proximity to the plump white hairball on the desk would probably make him break out in hives later.

Then there was their attitude; aloof and superior. It seemed to him a definite luck of the genetic draw that the domestic housecat hadn't evolved into a creature ten times as big as it is now. He was certain without a doubt that being the case we would be on the menu. He believed that when a cat rubbed up against your leg it wasn’t showing affection. It was doing a little pre-meal tenderizing.

This cat in particular had real malice in its eyes. For a second he flashed on the faces of both of his ex-wives. A shiver ran down his spine.

The door to the office swung open and a mustache walked in.

It was one of those giant, brown bushy mustaches of the Wyatt Earp variety. O’Hallahan supposed there was man under the mustache but it was difficult to tell. It had legs and wore a suit. But all he could see was the giant, handlebar mustache.

“George Howell.” said the mustache, “Please have a seat.”

As he watched the mustache move over to the bar and pour itself a scotch, O’Hallahan could just make out the shape of a chubby pink face under the hair.

“Scotch?” Asked the mustache.

O’Hallahan shook his head. “On duty.”

O’Hallahan had nothing against the occasional spirit, mind you. It was just that the history of alcoholism in his family made him particularly careful to limit his drinking to special occasions. Like birthdays or when Ryan Seacrest was on the t.v.

The mustache spotted the giant blob of cat on the desk.

“Snowbell!” he roared. “Get the hell off of there!”

The cat stood, hissed at the mustache, jumped off of the desk and slunk off into the corner.

“Mr. Howell, I won't take up much of your time.” O’Hallahan said. “Do you know of anyone that had a problem with your wife at tonight’s party?”

An amused laugh came from the vicinity of the mustache.

“Problem?” giggled the mustache. “You’d be hard pressed to find one here tonight that liked my wife.”

O’Hallahan leaned forward in his chair.

“Does that include you?”

“Why not?” said the mustache. “This hasn’t been a marriage in years. About the only thing Charisma loved these days was her money and that damned cat over there.”

As if on cue Snowball looked up and hissed at the mustache.

“Back at ya you little fucker.” Spat the mustache. “I can’t wait until the Doctor picks you up tomorrow.”

“You’re getting rid of her cat?” asked O’Hallahan?

“Sold him. Got twenty grand for the nasty little bugger from some Surgeon in the city.”

O’Hallahan whistled. “Seems like a lot of cash for a cat.”

“It’s a show-cat, a champion.” The mustache replied. “He’s probably worth twice that but I don’t care. I hate the damn thing and can’t wait to see it gone.”

O’Hallahan quickly scribbled a couple of notes.

“Besides yourself is there anyone else we should suspect might have something to do with your wife’s ‘accident’ tonight?” he asked.

The mustache took a swig of scotch.

“I dunno.” He said. “Maybe her sister Eunice. She showed cats, same as Charisma. Charisma’s bastard kitty always cleaned her cat's clock. They hated each other. That's why the only thing Charisma had in her will about that cat was 'Eunice doesn't get him.'"

O'Hallahan stood and tucked his pad into his trenchcoat.

"I'll chat with her, then." He said. "Thanks."

As he walked back out to the ballroom he reflected on how hated these heiress murder cases. Heiresses as a rule always had tons of enemies which made fingering the person who actually murdered them complicated. He shuddered at the thought of the mess facing the poor detective assigned the case should somebody ever off Paris Hilton.

What often made it even worse in these cases was that the more he found out about the victim, the more he sympathized with the killer. Heiresses just weren't very likable.

He thought about just saying "screw it" and fingering the Butler again this time. He'd done that on the last three cases. It was always an easy answer and saved him a ton of work.

Although he couldn't shake the feeling that he just might be able to actually solve this case. The answer was right there. He could feel it.


Chapter One: Charisma Hits the Dance Floor.

Chapter Two: Death Punches Back on the Clock.

Arthur, they're paying a price for the country's record.

Pissed off Patricia has it exactly right. Where Iraq is concerned it's time to bring them home. She poses a rhetorical question with regards to Maliki's recent raid on Basra-

"If the Iraqis want to start battles on their own time schedule, against the advice of Petraeus, why must our military end up doing the dirty work?"

Why indeed?

The answer of course is that pulling out our troops is going to be difficult. Actually "difficult" isn't a strong enough word to describe it. It's going to be nye impossible.

I've spent the morning looking for a post I'd read off of one of the hundreds of sites linked off of Zaius' site which is now eluding me. The author of that very insightful post was able to identify the biggest source of the difficulty in bringing our troops home as the two competing narratives between Republicans and Democrats. (If this was you please speak up and I will link.)

In her analysis the Republicans continue to push the frame that we're in a global war and pulling our troops out of Iraq will be admitting "defeat." In contrast- the Democrats see the broader fight against terrorism in a much more complicated and, I might add, realistic context of economic, political and religious precursors.

In my opinion this analysis is dead on but it does leave us without a solution. But there's a perfect solution that the next Democratic president could employ to withdraw our troops out of Iraq which would leave the nattering nabobs of knuckleheadery on the Right speechless for a change: declare victory.

Use the occasion of your first State of the Union to announce we've resoundingly won the war in Iraq. Throw in the caveat that there might be some hick-ups as we turn the country completly over to the Iraqi armed forces but, as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George Bush are fond of saying: "democracy is messy." Make it clear that the troops are needed on another front in Afghanistan.

Once the troops are stateside then hand out medals by the bucketload. Have ticker-tape parades. Stage some photos of sailors kissing nurses. Give that asshole Betrayus a Medal of Freedom. Celebrate our victory over the insurgency at every public venue available.

Above all make it clear that anybody that questions the pullout of troops from Iraq is questioning their victory and their honor. We all know that nobody but dirty fucking hippies would question our troops honor.

Don't you think this would work?

I wanna correct you, alright. The full name of this product, as it appears in stores all over the county, is Johnny Switchblade: Adventure Punk.

If you're looking for a gift for your kids I suppose this is better than Bag O'Glass. But only marginally.

If you were not a bride I would kiss you goodbye.

Kossacks are besides themselves because Harry Reid has apparently promised Joe Lieberman he'll keep his seniority and chairmanship regardless of the results of the election. This is with most political analysts seeing moderate to big pick-ups for dems in the Senate this November. They can't seem to figure out why Reid is doing this or what Lieberman has on the Majority Leader that would keep him from throwing that traitorous little toad over a cliff. The man is actively campaigning for John McCain for God's sakes.

I would say that Reid's action makes perfect sense if you consider what I talked about here. The Democrats will need better than a 61-39 majority to get ANYTHING done in the next congress. Republicans will simply declare they're filibustering every single piece of legislation that comes up. Reid's kissing Lieberman's ass because he's going to need the little pint-sized Napoleon.

Of course Reid could take some of the actions that progressives have been screaming for this last few years, not the least of which is to force Republicans into true filibusters rather than just the declarations of same they're able to get away with now. Drive their obstruction into the open. Of course that would be too confrontational. That would just make the Democrats look mean and go against the comity in the Senate so we just can't have it.

Instead we let ourselves be pushed around by someone who was thrown out of the Democratic party by it's voters and is currently campaigning to ensure that the two Senate Democrats still in the race for the presidency aren't allowed into the White House to secede Bush. Mark my words: Lieberman will be speaking at the Republican convention and thumbing his nose at everything the Democratic party supposedly holds dear.

But at least he'll still have his Chairmanship.

Java, java, java, java, java, java, java, java.

I'm throwing down the gauntlet to anyone who thinks they can out-caffeine me today.


Created by OnePlusYou

That's 89 clicks in 30 seconds, baby. But if anyone calls me chipper or perky I'll sock 'em.

HT to Blue Gal.

Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind.

While General Petraeus testifies today and the numbskulls that make up our media focus on what this means to the presidential candidates who raced to Washington for the event, I'd just like to once again publicly thank our democratic congressional leaders for throwing MoveOn under a bus (*) and defending the General's oh-so-delicate sense of honor.

I'm sure we'll all be so thankful the General wasn't tagged as the lying pol he is and can now stand once again before congress once again and tell us how swimmingly things are going in Iraq and why Iran must be blown to smithereens without a moment to lose without his integrity or, God forbid, his honesty coming into question. Great job on that guys. Real bang-up work there. Really.

(* Clinton - nay, Obama - not present.)

Frankenstein! Frankenstein the legend, Frankenstein the indestructible! Sole survivor of the titanic pile-up of '95.

I almost joined Chuck Heston today.

I'm still trying to get my head around what happened, or what almost happened. The whole thing left me pretty shaken up. It's one of those things that if you change a slight thing and Mrs. Wormer is a widow and my kids don't have a dad.

It was a car accident, of course. A stupid, insane car accident. I had run to the store to get the fam a special treat of donuts for Sunday morning and was first in line to turn left onto the highway by the store that leads back to my house (this took place less than a mile from my house.)

As the turn signal went green I began to pull onto the highway and caught something coming fast from the left out my peripheral vision and slammed on the brakes. The other car (a very nice 08) ran a red light that had been red for a couple of minutes going at at least 55 mph. She tore off the bumper and the two front wheel wells of my car.

As I approached her to make sure everything was okay she wouldn't get out of her car and acknowledge me or the accident, but she seemed to be physically fine. The cops, paramedics and ambulance arrived almost immediately and the woman apparently tried to slit her own wrist with a knife because they quickly piled her onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. They then pulled out a huge clear bag of what looked to be prescription drugs from her car.

The officer had to give me her information but said I should probably wait a while to call her because she has "other issues" that are going to need to be dealt with.

What I've been trying to put out of my mind all day is that - if I'd been a half-second faster off that light this lady would've t-boned me on the driver's side of my car at highway speed. Odds are it would've taken the jaws of life to get what would've been left of me out of my car. If there was anything left to get out.

This isn't lost on Mrs. Wormer or the kids who seem a little bit more upset than myself and they weren't even with me. I'm getting a lot of hugs today.

A half-second. Jesus.

It's genuine 160-proof old Anglo-Saxon baby.

Some of his best bits...




Omega Man, "There are no phones ringing here."



The Planet of the Apes, "Get your stinking paws off me..."



The Planet of the Apes, "It's a Madhouse..."



Soylent Green, "It was people..."



The Ten Commandments original trailer.

R.I.P. ya big ham.

I see you are familiar with the falling-down-on-the-floor ploy.

Happy Friday! Here's the second chapter of my murder mystery--

Chapter Two: Death Punches Back on the Clock

Homicide Detective Sean O’Hallahan was staring at the weirdest crime scene he’d ever seen.

An hour ago he was blissfully asleep. He’d been enjoying a particularly pleasurable dream in which Katherine McPhee was feeding him grapes when his ringing cell phone rudely dragged him into consciousness. The last thing he remembered thinking to himself as he watched McPhee fade out of his vision was “what kind of idiot has a job which would call you at three in the morning?”

He was that idiot.

What made it even worse is that it couldn’t have been the desk sergeant or dispatch but had to be Captain Chancey himself on the other end of the line. Captain Chancey only had one mode of communicating: yelling. He yelled at his boss. He yelled at his subordinates. He yelled at his wife, kids and goldfish. Now he was yelling at O’Hallahan.

“I need you to get your ass out to the Ponderosa estate!” he screamed. “Dead heiress. You're up!”

“Who tagged it homicide?” O’Hallahan asked.

“McGrue,” replied Chancey. “Now get your ass down there now!”

O’Hallahan sighed. Officer Mike McGrue was actually nicknamed “Officer Magoo” by the rest of the cops. He was unquestionably the worst policeman on the force. Magoo was notorious for an off-duty incident in which he completed a personal deposit during an armed bank robbery without noticing anything irregular, least of all the three guys waving Uzis around the place. It was only when he walked out the front door and into a ring of squad cars and shotguns pointed at him that he realized something wasn’t quite right.

Now Magoo was the reason O’Hallahan was standing in an enormous foyer staring at this bizarre death scene and wishing he was still in bed. There was no justice in the world.

By the looks of things Mrs. Ponderosa had taken quite a fall down the bulk of the long stairway and landed squarely on top of the baby grand piano at the foot of the stairs. The impact of her fall had crushed the piano with the piano returning the favor.

O’Hallahan couldn’t help but darkly observe that with her large polka-dotted feet sticking out of the wrecked piano it reminded him of the Wizard of Oz only this time the Wicked Witch of the East fell on Dorothy’s house and not the other way around.

The bespectacled officer Magoo was on the other of the piano standing next to a statue of Venus. O’Hallahan wondered if Magoo didn’t realize it wasn’t real and was trying to chat her up. Might as well get this over with. He shambled over to Magoo.

“Mike,” muttered O’Hallahan. “Whataya got?”

Magoo snapped to attention, startled. “Just a second, baby,” he whispered to the statue. He grabbed O’Hallahan’s arm and led him closer to the body of dumpy heiress.

“Notice anything funny about the belt?” he asked O’Hallahan.

O’Hallahan immediately felt himself turning red. He knew it. He’d been dragged down here in the middle of the night for some bullshit reason. Of course this was lost on Magoo, who continued babbling out his theory.

“The belt. It’s a Sashay but the print is all wrong,” said Magoo. “They don’t do a zebra-skin.”

O’Hallahan realized there was a whole hell of a lot he didn’t know about Magoo and for that he was thankful.

“Not only that, but check out the flange on the buckle. It’s aluminum, which is ridiculous on this style, and it’s been bent.”

O’Hallahan looked closely at the belt. He may not understand fashion as well as Magoo but he did get an "A" in metal shop in high school. Sure enough the buckle was discolored and bent in an unnatural fashion.

“Are you saying somebody tampered with her belt?” O’Hallahan asked.

Magoo was triumphant. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. This woman was murdered.”

It dawned on O’Hallahan as he watched Magoo move back over to the statue of Venus and sheepishly put his arm around it that, for the first time in his career as a police officer, Magoo may actually be right about something.

Charisma Ponderosa, heiress to the Ponderosa Kitty Litter Corporation fortune, had been murdered.


Chapter One: Charisma Hits the Dance Floor.

Hey, maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!

One of my favorite lines the last couple of months as the issue of gender has entered the presidential primary is to say we'd have a woman as president right now if congress did their damn jobs. I firmly believe this to be true. If congress was following their own constitutionally mandated role of oversight of the Executive Branch then I have no doubt that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would currently be working in the Oval Office.

The immediate reaction of realists when they consider that statement is to dismiss it outright. Simple math makes the idea that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney could be impeached and removed from office absurd. In the first place- the numbers aren't there for a conviction in the Senate. The whole thing would be an exercise in futility from the start.

It seems to me that this unfortunate reaction to my oft-repeated quip that if congress was doing their job Pelosi would be the president is based on the idea that I am attacking our Democratic leadership in congress in making that statement. In fact - I'm only partly attacking our Democratic leadership. I'm also attacking every other warm body in a suit on capitol hill, Democrats and Republicans, who refuse to accept their constitutionally mandated role in our federal government. Those that put the needs of their party or, more often, their own political careers ahead of the need of their country.

It also seems to me that the assertion of powerlessness of congressional Democrats in the face of a slim majority in the Senate as an excuse (and let's be honest an excuse is exactly what it is) towards inaction is also a tacit admission of the of the real problem facing us. Think about the above calculation on conviction and see if you can determine anything other than our leaders will not push for impeachment because, regardless of evidence, facts or public sentiment, Senate Republicans (and Lieberman) will vote in a block against conviction. Recognition of this reality may be rational, but acceptance of it is as a simple fact of life is beyond absurd.

This collective acquiescence to the true partisans in our government is what drives progressives like myself absolutely nuts. For over thirty years now we've watched as Democrats have continued to meet vicious attacks from Republicans by effectively rolling over and tucking their tail between their legs. We've watched as our constitution was subverted through Iran Contra or abused as it was through the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton. Probably the worst thing we've had to endure is to watch that constitution be simply ignored as this President used a horrible tragedy as an excuse to consolidate power in the Executive not granted to it under our constitutional framework. Again and again our elected representatives in congress refused to acknowledge what they're we're up against.

I would ask the realists to consider this mathematical formulation: 61-39. That is the absolute minimum margin the next Democratic president will have to have in the Senate in order to get anything done. It doesn't matter if it's president Clinton II or Obama. NOTHING of any consequence will make it through the Senate without a Democratic majority of at least 61 Senators. Not health care reform. Not tax reform. Certainly not any progressive Supreme Court Judges. Republican Senators will block it all. They'll do it because they can.

God forbid the Democrats don't lose the House and/ or Senate while a Democratic president is in office, because that day in January that they swear that new congress in will be the day impeachment proceedings begin against that man or woman. They'll do it because they can.

Because they can. Because Democrats don't fight. Because Democrats continue to try and get along with these people or meet them half-way when all they'd rather do to the Democrats in return is put 'em in a bus and drive 'em off a cliff.

I understand the question of what impeachment would accomplish (and it it's really a moot question this late in Bush's term.) My honest answer is that I just don't know.

But I also know what NOT impeaching Bush has gotten us. Not to mention NOT forcing Senators to filibuster or NOT using the congressional powers of Inherent Contempt to really bring the hammer down on John Bolton and Harriet Meiers and a whole list of powers inherent to, but unused by, congressional Democrats which are too numerous to list here. It hasn't led to victory, legislative success or even compromise. It's led to one big GOP middle-finger in our direction.

If we're truly serious about the kind of country we want this to be then we need to bend that finger back until in breaks.