They will all suffer for this outrage.

I'm with Jane.

Jabba has no business on Armed Forces radio.

If you shoot him, you'll just make him mad.

This strikes me as the perfect way to address leaders of countries we have a problem with. Remember when we didn't used to go "Ohmygodhesoscary!" every time a foreign leader visited the U.S.?

Kirk. You're still alive, old friend.

Kirk.

MuppetTrekbabies.

(P.S. - Aaron - the pecs are real.)

Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you.

It was just a matter of time before the O.J. raid to recover his memorabilia inspired copycat crimes. I'm disappointed in Jonathan Frakes for this.

Frakes' “crew” known only as “The Away Team” consisted of several grips, cameramen, and one makeup artist from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Frakes' plot centered on hotel patrons and employees not recognizing his "Romulan counterpart" disguise. Donning Picard's Romulan make-up from ST:TNG episode 108: Unification, Frakes stormed into the hotel demanding, among other things, his old uniform, a phaser on display, and a copy of the Playboy with Denise Crosby in it.

Riker, we hardly know thee.

I'm the Horned One. The Devil. Let me give you my card.

If you didn't get a chance to catch the CW network's new show Reaper the pilot is re-running tonight.

It's pretty damn quirky and funny for a network show which is reason enough that it'll probably be cancelled by mid-season so check it out while you can.

A miserable little clerk crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help.

Am I a masochist because I do business with at least two of the 10 Worst Customer Service Providers?

Verizon would be the top of my personal list. Any sort of billing problem and you find yourself descending into the lowest level of Dante's hell with no escape in sight. I literally spent upwards of 12 hours total trying to work through a problem with them last month. They have the art of not fixing a problem down to a science.

The problem is NOBODY does customer service any more so there aren't a whole lot of alternatives.

If you get a chance read through some of the forums linked above where customers detail complaints. It's pages of pages of similar issues followed by a comment from some "customer" of that service named "Verizonrokz" taking everybody else to task because they're too stupid to understand what a great company they're dealing with and that we're all lucky just to be able to send them our checks every month and use their services. **Cough** PLANT **Cough**

You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh.

The real danger of the Democratic party refusing to lead-

I was going to write something about the tempest over Ahmadinejad's visit to New York and how the media have bought the administration's push for war hook line and sinker but what would be the point? The Administration can do whatever it wants including a war with Iran because the Democrats will just roll over.

Then I was going to write something about the Treasury Department's report on Social Security which is clearly another attempt by the Boy King to try and kill the program but what would be the point? The Democrats don't have 60 votes in the Senate so clearly Social Security is at the mercy of the Republicans.

In fact it's hard to find anything that I personally think is worth fighting for right now. My squad is the Washington Generals and rooting for them or giving them pointers or expecting them to put points on the board is pointless.

I can't motivate myself to support losers and the things I care about politically are too damn important to watch jackasses go through the motions barely pretending they care.

Screw 'em. I'm going to blog about sports, movies and Star Trek for a while. Sorry CB.

Desperate ducks commit desperate acts!

So far this year I've had to eat a bit of crow on the Ducks. I was sure we'd see a breakdown by Dixon before now along the same lines as last year. As of yet that hasn't happened.

Still - I expect the fist real test will be facing Cal this weekend. I'm looking forward to this game as it ought to be a real, old-fashioned Pac 10 shootout. The true challenge will be when Dixon faces a tougher secondary than he has so far this year and throws a couple of interceptions. That seemed to be the beginning of the end for the Ducks last year.

If we can't win today, then none of us have a future.

Just to follow up on my last post.

A couple of weeks ago I listened to an interview with the contemptible Democratic congressman Brian Baird from Southern Washington and was struck by one theme running through his explanation towards supporting the war in Iraq- he knows better than us.

Baird was asked to explain his view of government in light of that; whether he thought it was the duty of congressmen to represent the views of the majority of their constituents or to try and make informed, reasonable decisions even if those decisions go against what the majority of voters want. Baird predictably stated that we are a "constitutional republic" and it was his job as a representative to vote his conscious; voters be damned.

Putting aside Baird's dubious understanding of his role as a legislator in the House of Representatives I still find his explanation more than a little pathetic. His argument might make sense if we were talking about how high to set the price of tariffs on beets imported from Canada as the average voter wouldn't have the time nor the inclination that a full-time legislator would have to sort through the information and come to a reasoned conclusion before voting.

But in the case of Iraq does Baird really believe that the voters aren't making informed judgements that we should get the hell out? Is he really saying that his few weeks on a Pentagon dog n'pony show touring the country trumps the views of thousands of military men and their families who are begging our government to end the war? Apparently so.

Hubris. Nothing less.

Today's vote on the Cornyn Amendment was more of that same thing. With both political parties failling to get the country to buy in to the whole Petraeus testimony act last week and it's importance towards changing the war or really, really turning a corner this time, the Democrats and Republicans decided to emphasize the point by giving the voters a middle-finger through this sense of the Senate resolution. They have nothing but contempt for us.

Here's the thing- in a democracy contempt doesn't get to work both ways, regardless of what congressmen think on the subject. If our leaders fail to make the changes on the important issues that the people want then we vote in new leaders. If -after voting in new leaders- they still fail to make changes- they wind up with their heads on pikes.

The political class is flirting with disaster if they believe the will of the majority of Americans doesn't matter. Many of us have already had enough where we won't participate in elections or provide monetary support to the parties we've previously supported. You can't keep poking that beehive before you get stung.

I don't care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do.

It's clear from yesterday's votes that it continues to be business as usual for the weenie Senate Democrats who continue to refuse to fail to use every legislative tool they have at their disposal to fight the Iraq/ Bush/ Republican idiocy.

I won't list out all the solutions progressives are practically SHOUTING at Reid and company (forcing actual fillibusters for a start) because the entire exercise continues to leave me frustrated. The whole D.C. establishment - government and media - are dangerously out of touch with the wishes of the vast majority of this country.

Last week's Petraeus testimony only forced to underline that fact. That does not bode well for the future of this country. It's one thing to have a deaf ear and it's entirely another to pretend that what you're not listening to in the first place doesn't really matter anyway. Especially if this country is governed by any form of a democracy.

Last Saturday we had dinner with a Marine EMT and his wife. He's been over to Iraq on several deployments spending huge chunks of time away from his wife and family. The financial impact has been severe and, at one point, his wife had to involve one of our congressman and the threat of a congressional investigation to work out a payroll issue with the Navy. I suspect that if the Webb amendment had been if effect and he'd been stateside longer, some if not much of this suffering could have been alleviated.

This guy is a super-patriot and a Marine to the core (pardon pun) and he feels after years of this war that the system is broken and we just aren't taking care of those that are serving now and have served. Why are we allowing this to continue and what can we do to change it?

That's the frustrating thing because we really don't have an answer to that last part of the question.