To Whom It May Concern,

My husband, Willie J. Willikers, Jr. was unable to attend work today on the account of him being sick with leeky nose, congestion, drythroat, & body aches due to his disobedience of not getting enough sleep finally catching up to him. I hope that you understand that Willie needed to take this day off to rest & recooperate.

Thanks,
Wanda Willikers
(Willie's wife)

I was driving home last night when I saw them. They were approaching from the opposite lane in an old Chevy Bronco, one headlight was out, the windshield was cracked, belching blue smoke from the muffler.

I got a good look at the vehicle's two occupants while they were turning. They had bronze complexions, mustaches, black hair slicked back over their scalps. They didn't use their turn signal to indicate they were turning into the gas station, they barely even slowed down. They deftly avoided a gas pump and screeched to a stop in one of the parking spaces.

"Fucking Mexicans," I thought. I couldn't help it. Years of living in Dallas, having to say "numero uno" to order a Whopper combo in Burger King because the person behind the counter didn't "habla ingles" conditioned me so. I was hit with a pang of guilt. "I shouldn't judge these guys. They're probably some of the guys that are busting their ass, helping rebuild New Orleans. God knows the people that used to live there aren't doing it."

Then I saw the sticker on the back of their vehicle. "THEY CAN'T DEPORT US ALL." I was overcome with a wave of anger I hadn't felt in a long time. Well, at least hadn't felt this week. The thing is, we don't HAVE to deport them all. We don't have to deport any of them. All we have to do is quit giving a free ride. Turn off the spigot, so to speak. Tell all these "sanctuary cities" that if they don't start upholding our country's immigration laws that their federal funding is cut off. Hell, we did that back when the federal government ordered all states to lower their interstate speed limits. Impose SEVERE penalties on companies that hire people who cannot legally work in the United States. Get rid of this stupid policy that automatically grants US citizenship to anyone born on US soil. That was a good idea 200 years ago when our country desperately needed to bolster its population. Not such a good idea today when it is essentially a ticket to a free ride. No more free health care. No more free education. That may sound harsh, but dammit, how much do American taxpayers have to bleed before we decide the wound is severe enough to require treatment?

The problem is, despite the fact that the majority of Americans see illegal immigration as a serious problem that needs to be dealt with, those in power don't WANT to do anything about it. Democrats have a lock on the hispanic vote and don't want to do anything about it. They see 15-20 million potential voters as they press to grant illegal immigrants the ability to vote. Republicans, on the other hand, are beholden to their corporate sponsors, who do not want to lose their cheap labor. Cheap labor = more profits = happy corporation = Republican still in office. So nothing is going to be done about this, and the reconquista will continue.

I wanted to go to these two guys and tell them that we don't have to deport any of them, all we have to do is make so that when you get here you want to turn around and go back home. But I figured I'd either get "Que?" or some Mexican Judo (you know, "Judo wanna mess wit me, main. Judo wanna get cut, esse.")

Fucking Mexicans.

UPDATE: FUCK! Guest host today. Screw him AND Rush Limbaugh for taking a vacation every three days.

2) Driving to work this morning, I come across a vehicle being driven by an apparent pinko hippie liberal commie pussy. It's plastered with bumper stickers; that retarded COEXIST sticker, one that says "George Bush is not MY President," a "Commander-in-Thief" one...typical liberal bullshit.

But there were two stickers in particular that caugt my attention. The first one read:

Support our Troops

NOT THE WAR

IF WE KILL THE INNOCENT, WE BECOME THE TERRORISTS

The first sticker seems to state that you can support our troops and the duty and responsibilities they have while at the same oppose the action they are undertaking. Fine. I know that in some people's mind this sort of fuzzy reasoning passes for logic. Hell, I guess I could even argue that I might fall under this category in that I appreciate members of the US Armed Forces, I would never spit on one that just came back from overseas, I respect them and realize that America as a country would not exist had it not been for the sacrifices made by them. At the same time, I don't believe that the manner this current war is being fought indicates that we are "in it to win it." Our soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are not police officers. As Rush Limbaugh likes to say, "the purpose of an army is to kill people and break stuff." I agree and you cannot win a war if you tie the military's hands "Oh, you can't blow up a mosque even though those guys that were just shooting at you ran in there to hide." "Don't fire unless fired upon." Etc.

So you could say that I whole-heartedly support our soldiers while at the same time, don't support the war all the way.

HOWEVER, the second sticker seems to imply that our soldiers are terrorists. Don't agree? Who is doing the killing in Iraq? Even those of you that think George Bush is the most evil man alive, those of you that think Dick Cheney is a Nazi in Conservative clothing, those of you that, if George Bush invented a cure for cancer, would find some sort of consipiracy where he was actually only trying to make his big oil/big drug/big money/neo-con friends rich, cannot argue RESONABLY argue that George Bush (or his cronies) is the person killing "the innocent." No, that action comes from further down the food chain. Whether it's the General giving the morning briefing, the pilot dropping the bomb, the Sergeant giving orders to his platoon, or the soldier pulling the trigger, it is much more likely that if an "innocent" is killed, it is at the hands of one of our troops. Now, I for one realize that sometimes, in war, unfortunately, innocent civilians are killed. That sucks. But it is also unavoidable. In a perfect world, we'd never have to kill another person. But we don't live in a perfect world, and because of human nature, we probably never will.

So, with that in mind, and in order to save Mr. pinko hippie liberal commie pussy some valuable space on his bumper for other smart bumper stickers like "My Other Car Is A Bicycle" and "SELECTED, Not ELECTED," I have taken the liberty to condense the messages on these TWO stickers to one, convenient, easy-to-use bumper sticker.

Support our civilian-murdering terrorist members of the US military,

NOT THE WAR

Who gives a fuck?

There are two camps of thought on the speed of light, one that believes that it is an absolute speed limit and cannot be exceeded, and one that believes that the speed of light is just like the speed of sound and will eventually be broken. I fall firmly in to the first camp, I don't think it is possible to propel a particle with any measurable mass faster than the speed of light.

Under the Theory of Relativity, the mass of an object (e.g. objects WITH mass) increases exponentially as its velocity increases. As that object's velocity approaches the speed of light, the object approaches infinite mass. However, humans cannot really observe this increase with man-made objects because we've never built anything that even approaches the speed of light (Helios 2 reached a speed of about 70.2 km/s in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, roughly 0.023 percent of the speed of light)

You're all familiar with the phrase "Force Equals Mass Times Acceleration." Some of you even know that this is Newton's Second Law. This is a simplified version of the Law, and isn't really applicable to particles moving at a (relatively) fast velocity. We cannot observe this increase because humans have never made anything go anywhere close to the speed of light as we have to take in to account the objects increasing mass, as well as the time needed to accelerate the object. If you follow simply algebra, you know that if you throw infinity into an equation, you get infinity. Multiply or add infinity to a number, the result is infinity. So what happens when we multiply a given velocity vector (i.e. acceleration), well you get infinity. Infinite force. This means that to propel an object to just the speed of light you will need infinite energy, to say nothing of the energy requirements to EXCEED the speed of light.

SIDENOTE: I am not saying that we will never travel to a distant object in less TIME than it would take to travel to that object in a straight line at the speed of light. You never know, we may discover some wormhole that shortens the distance to another object, or create some kind of warp drive (which doesn't actually propel a ship forward, but rather distorts, or "warps," space-time around the ship so that it can travel from point A to point B faster than it could under normal propulsion.)

But none of that really matters here. I'm skeptical of these two scientists claim for one reason, time. More precisely, the human inability to perceive time in anything smaller than about half second intervals. Think about that. Try to measure out a half-second. Try to indicate to your buddy how long a half-second is. Sure we can say "I eat lunch in 30 minutes," or "Your dad called five minutes ago" without looking at a clock and be relatively certain that we are accurate. But once we get to intervals of time less than a second, the results get "iffy." Even automated systems have trouble accurately measuring in increments smaller than hundredths of a second.

These scientist state that they have witnessed these photon traveling a distance of one meter "instantaneously." The speed of light is exactly 299,792,458 m/s (Two-hundred ninety-nine MILLION, seven-hundred ninety-two thousand, four-hundred fifty-eight meters per second.) If the photons did indeed travel at the speed of light, it would have traveled that distance of one meter in 3.33 nanoseconds (0.00000000333 seconds or three BILLIONTHS of a second)! Well, what if that particle took three HUNDRED MILLIONTHS of a second to travel that one meter? The difference would be imperceptible to human eyes, but actually 10 times slower than the speed of light. Unless they have access to a VERY accurate chronometer (the atomic clock at the US Naval Observatory is accurate to within 1 nanosecond), I wonder if they have the capability to ACCURATELY measure 3 nanoseconds?

UPDATE
It turns out that the scientists are working on experiments in quantum tunneling. This theoretical phenomenon is when a particle actually moves faster through some sort of medium faster than it would through a vacuum. What it looks like they are doing is projecting these photons through a prism to another prism through some sort of barrier then predicting where it should emerge on the other side of the object. If they witness a photon emerging where they predicted, they are assuming that this is the same photon and it has effectively "tunneled" through the barrier at a speed faster than the speed of light (through a vacuum.) Interesting.

I can always remember my wedding anniversary because it's the same day that Elvis died. THANK YOU, Elvis, for dying on the same date I got married!

10 years, which apparently is the "tin or aluminum" anniversary. I guess I'm going to get my wife a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper. I should probably drink all the Dr. Pepper first though, 'cause it ain't the "tin, aluminum, or carbonated beverage" anniversary. Of course, if you go by the "modern" anniversary list, 10-years is the "diamond" anniversary, but...fuck that.

Anyway, THANK YOU, Mrs. Heavyarms, for doing what no other woman on the planet was willing to do and take me off my parents' hands.

But have you heard the names Yousef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed? They were arrested on August 4 in the vicinity of the Naval Weapons Station in South Carolina and charged with possession of an explosive device. The two men, both students of the University of South Florida, claim they were on a weekend trip and the materials found in their vehicle were only fireworks. The Council on American-Islamic Realtions, called the arrests "wrong" and immediately came to the their defense.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you HAVE heard of the incident briefly, but as Michelle Malkin has pointed out, there is more to this story than is being reported.

1) The FBI searched a South Florida home in relation to the two men's arrest. The home, where one of the arrested men reportedly stored some of his belongings, is owned by Sameeh Hammoudeh. Hammoudeh was co-defendant in a case with Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida, was charged with 17 counts (acquiteed on 8) of funding terror-related activities. Al-Arian pled guilty to one count of conspiring to provide services to the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The remaining charges were dropped as a result of the plea. Hammoudeh was acquitted on all charges.

2) The house used to be rented to a group called World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). WISE was co-founded by Al-Arian. One of the names tied to the home is a terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list Ramadan Shallah, former WISE associate. Shallah, currently the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, taught at the Universty of South Florida, while at the same time served as the number 2 man in Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

3) Mohamed and a man named Ahmad Ishtay were cited by Tampa police in July for shooting squirrels in a public park. Ishtay confirmed to reporters that he is one of the house's tenants.

Folks, whether you want to admit it or not, our country is dying. Our border is being eroded by the constant stream of illegal aliens coming into this country to "seek a better life and do the jobs Americans won't do." There are terrorist cells, ISLAMIC terrorist cells, in our country right now as I type this. And we're fucking blind to it all because we're more concerned with Britney Spears' latest hairstyle or the shenanigans of some over-hyped NFL player. We don't want to talk about ISLAMIC terrorism for fear of offending someone. Fucking sheep. Maybe we deserve it.

No, it ain't Wal-Mart, Target, Dollar Tree, or that guy down on the corner that wants to sell me Chinese Rolex watches.

It's the fine folks down at Despair, Inc.. When I saw their Pessimist's Mug, I knew I had found AWM's new store.

Boasso is a Democrat/Republican/Democ rat. What I mean by that is that he started out as a Democrat. Back in the mid-1990's, he switched party affiliations. Earlier in the year when "That Fat Cow" (Kathleen Babineaux Blanco) decided she sucked as governor and would not be running for re-election, the Louisiana Democratic Party found that they did not have a viable candidate and approached Boasso to see if he was willing to switch parties again. Since the Lousiana Republican party endorsed Bobby Jindal, he did. He's now the Democratic front-runner in Louisiana's gubernatorial race.

Boasso is a stereortypical Louisiana politician. He's a rotund man. He could tell you that he's John Goodman's cousin and you could tell him, straight-faced, "I see the family resemblance." He's got big, thick, hot-dog fingers. He looks like he'd be good in a bar brawl. He's got that Southern-Louisiana-but-no t-quite-Cajun accent.

He has an affinity for props. In the first campaign commercial I've ever seen for him, he tells us that he started his first business cleaning shipping containers "with box of Tide and a garden hose" (Well, he says it in his St. Bernard Parish accent "Widda bocksatide anna gah-den hose.") Then, to drive the point home, he shows you a box of Tide and a garden hose. (Got that, cupcake?) He tells us he's going to "cut da cossa helt-cair" and does so behind an ambulance. He says that he's going to raise teacher pay while at the same time holding schools accountable while standing in the doorway of a school bus packed with kids. He uses a cardboard cutout of Bobby Jindal in every one of his campaign ads (See Big Challenges, Show and Tell, and Together at Boasso TV.) He loves his Jindal cutout so much, in fact, that he's even taken to appearing at campaign stops with it. Guess he's getting his money's worth.

He's SO obsessed with Bobby Jindal that 12 of the 17 most recent articles listed on Boasso's News page talk specifically about Bobby Jindal. You've got to admire that kind of dedication. Or obsession.

Boasso looks like the kind of guy you'd like to knock back a few beers with. Maybe go eat some boiled crawfish with. Unfortunately, when you look under that big, jovial, friendly veneer, you just see another political opportunist.

In the 1990's, Louisiana experienced a mild political revolution. Prior to the 1990's, it was virtually impossible to be elected to ANY office; federal, state, local, if you listed your party affiliation as anything other than "Democrat." William Kellogg, Republican, was elected governor in 1873 (that's EIGHTEEN, people). Louisiana didn't see another Republican Governor until 1980. In fact, since Louisiana resumed statehood after the War of Northern Aggression (the "Civil" War to you Yankees), only 5 of Louisiana's 36 governors have been Republican. The same could be said of the state's representation in Washington. Only 4 of Louisiana's 30 Senators since Reconstruction have been Republicans and, until David Vitter was elected in 2005, Louisiana had not elected a Republican Senator in over 130 years. The same is true in the House of Representatives. Between 1890 and 1973, Louisiana did not elect a single Republican to the House. In 1995 Louisiana sent more Republicans than Democrats to the House for the first time in over 120 years. The same holds true for the State Legislature. To say that Democrats have had a lock on the State of Louisiana would be an understatement (I COULD argue that Louisiana is at the top of all the wrong lists and the bottom of all the right ones for the VERY reason that Democrats have run the show for so long...but I digress.)

However, during the 1992 Presidential Election Boasso lived in one of the few pockets of the state that voted in favor of George H. W. Bush (The GOOD Bush only won 19 of the state's 64 parishes...counties to the rest of you.) Boasso's home parish, St. Bernard, was part of a 4-parish pocket of Bush voters in the southern toe of the state. In 1995, 5 of Louisiana's 8 Representatives were Republicans, and Louisiana elected a Republican Governor (only one of two in the preceeding 120 years). The Republican party, after decades of corruption from the system of "Good Ol' Boys" (see Edwin Edwards...the gub-ner so nice, we elected him thrice!*) finally gained a foothold on the Sportsman's Paradise.

It is no small coincidence that Walter Boasso switched party affiliations at this time, from Democrat to Republican.

In February of 2007, longtime REPUBLICAN politician Walter Boasso announced his candidacy for governor. In March, the Louisiana Republican Party officially endorsed Bobby Jindal for governor. Incumbent Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, faced with the sad realization that she was a colossal fat ass...err, failure, opted not to seek re-election in order to "focus on the remainder of her term." Longtime Democratic Senator John Breaux also considered running but, faced with the facts that 1) the Louisiana State Constitution stated that candidates must have been a citizen of the state for the 5 years prior to seeking election (although it doesn't really give any information on what exactly constitutes a "citizen," naturally), 2) he lived in Maryland, 3) he was registered to vote in Maryland, decided not to run for fear that the question on whether or not he was legally eligible for the office would cloud his campaign.

The Louisiana Democratic party was reeling. It was searching for a viable option to run against Bobby Jindal, the Republican frontrunner in the race. Boasso was very vocal in his belief that the LAGOP's endorsement was just part of the "same old, same old". Rather than seeking out one of their own, the LA Democratic Party saw an opportunity in Boasso who, until a little over 10 years ago, WAS one of their own. In April of 2007, Boasso formally switched parties. Again.

It's times like these that I really feel sorry for you folks that don't live in the Bayou State. Sure, y'all get to have elections, too. But you have "candidates" that run for office in your state. In Louisiana, we get "characters." Characters like John-Goodman look-a-likes, replete with big, sweaty, sausage-fingered meatball hands. Characters like an honest-to-god Republican "person of color" once described as "An Arab American and the Republican's token attempt to mend bridges long burnt with the Arab American community" even though he's Indian-American.) (7-Eleven-Indian, not Casino-Indian.)

* Edwin Edwards was elected to four terms as governor. Two terms from 1972 to 1980. He lost to Republican David Treen in 1980 before being re-elected in 1984. He lost to Republican-Democrat (read: "wishy-washy") Buddy Roemer in 1988, and was again re-elected in 1992. Thus, we voted his happy ass OUT of office twice but put him right back in.

2) I worked for about an hour and a half on my review of the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Then tblog decided to crash and I lost all my work (That will teach me not to work on posts in the "Add a Post" window. Tip to all you tbloggers, do it on your own computer and cut and paste.) I don't feel like retyping the whole thing, so that's gonna have to wait.

My son and I went to Mechacon 3.0 this weekend and had a blast in the short time we were there. We managed to snag the autographs from the following voice actors (the roles listed are in no way complete, each person is a very prolific voice actor and played numerous roles):

Michael Dobson - Starscream Transformers: Armada/Energon/Cybertron, General Revil - Mobile Suit Gundam, Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, Duke Dermail - Gundan Wing. Very friendly. told me I was a cool dad for bringing my son. Asked my son if he watches Transformers (he's a huge fan), then asked him "Have you ever heard of Starscream?" in Starscream's voice. His jaw hit the floor.
Richard Epcar - Ben Dixon - Robotech, Batou - Ghost in the Shell. Also very friendly. Talked to him about the death of Ben Dixon in Robotech and how I still remember being shocked as a kid that someone had actually been killed in a cartoon.
Tiffany Grant - Asuka Langley Sohryu - Neon Genesis Evangelion. Very excited to meet her since Evangelion is one of the first anime series I had ever seen (and if you like science fiction of any kind, you should see it, too.) She was nice. Asked my son how old he was and if he had ever been to a convention before. Signed my copy of the Evangelion Platinum DVD Collection "Asuka - Evangelion 'Charmed, Huh?' Tiffany Grant."
Scott McNeil - Rattrap, Waspinator, Dinobot, Silverbolt - Beast Wars, Wolverine - X-Men: Evolution, Duo Maxwell - Gundam Wing. My son presented his Beast Wars: the Complete 2nd Season to be signed (he got the first season signed last year.) Scott asked him who is favorite Beast Wars Transformer was. "Optimus Primal." "Wrong answer!" I laughed. Scott said "No, that's fine, it doesn't have to be someone I played." Then to my son, "So, if you had to choose between Rattrap, Dinobot, Waspinator, or Silverbolt, who'd you pick." "Waspinator!" Scott smiled and said "Waspintor happy at last!" (popular Waspinator quote from Beast Wars) and signed his DVD set with that. Signed my Gundam Wing: Operation 2 DVD (which features Duo Maxwell and his Gundam Deathscythe) "'The God of Death - Back from Hell' - Scott McNeil." (a popular Duo quote.)

Mechacon, in Lafayette, LA, is small by convention standards. But it is a three day event, and there is something going on for all of Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday. The hotel that hosts the convention is always packed to the gills. We've been to the last two, and haven't been disappointed yet (well, except for the dealer room.) If you live in Louisiana, try to check it out next year.

Alright, I like to think of myself as a cynical sumbitch. I don't like to get all "tourist-y" when I go places. You know, buy a bunch of shit that says "I got Leied in Maui," or run out and buy a skimboard and run around like a jackass trying to figure that out. However, I like swimming, I enjoy snorkeling, and I LOVE to free dive (although I haven't been able to do it for a while.) So I was excited when I was informed that on my second day we'd be taking a boat trip out to the small island of Molokini.

Molokini, the tiny little island on the right in the picture above, is a crescent shaped volcano crater maybe 500 yards long. The larger island in the background is the uninhabited Kahoolawe. Kahoolawe has almost no fresh water, no vegetation or top soil. During WWII it was used as a training ground for Marines getting ready to invade Japanese-held islands with similar topography like Iwo Jima. Molokini is a popular scuba and snorkeling spot. You enter the crater through the lower side (which is underwater). There are coral reefs running the length of the interior of the crater, and tons of fish. There is a slight shelf running along the crater which was under about 3 feet of water, and then a drop off that falls away and levels out about 30 feet below. Visibility was about 120 feet. The picture below was taken from the interior of the crater looking towards the right as the crater slopes down into the ocean.

We got about an hour in the water here and then it was off to another spot about 700 yards off Maui. This spot was very popular for the number of sea turtles in the area. The next picture was also taken from Molokini Crater looking to the left. Off in the distance is Haleakala, the eastern volcano on Maui. The little light green patch on the slope is the direction we were heading. This is the Wailea/Makena area.

Once at the new spot we saw two turtles on the starboard side of the ship, so I was excited there were some in the area. We got another hour at this spot. There was a long line waiting to use the ramp into the ocean, but there was also a water slide (with no line) so I took this down and put my fins and mask on in the water. After about 30 minutes in the water, a crew member from another boat in the area shouted "Turtle, guys!" I saw him about 20 yards away and about 5 feet under heading towards me with a flock of snorkelers right behind him. We had been told by our boat's crew that if you leave them alone, they may get curious and come take a look at you. It passed off to my left, so I turned around and just swam in a line abreast formation with him for about 5 minutes. Up ahead I saw another turtle heading away from me so I just maintained course and ended up swimming about 10 feet away from two turtles.

After another 10 minutes, I noticed a third turtle resting on the top of a reef about 20 feet down. I free dived (dove?) down to get a better look and then, right as I started to surface to get a breath, he decided to come up and get one, too. He swam right up to me and we rose the last 10 feet together, close enough that I could have reached out and touched his shell. On the surface he took a quick breath and as I followed him back down, he just swam a lazy spiral back to the same spot he was resting on. By this time, a couple of other snorkelers had taken notice, and the crew on the boat were shouting that lunch was ready. I decided that it wasn't going to get much better than that, so I called it a day.

Once everyone was back on board and lunch was underway, the boat followed a course towards the southern tip of Maui to a lava flow that was estimated to be about 200 years old. In the next photo, you can see the volcano cinder cone of Puu Olai. The large beach on the left is Oneloa, also known as Big Beach. The smaller beach nestled at the foot of Puu Olai is called "Little Beach." Little Beach is Maui's only...ahem..."clothing optional" beach. No, I didn't get any better pictures and, no, I didn't go. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Once we reached the lava flow, which was just past the end of Oneloa, we turned around and headed back towards the harbor. We were soaking wet after we were done snorkeling, and we were dry by the time we turned back toward the harbor. Unfortunately, we where "into the wind" (as the Captain euphemistically put it) on the way back and El Pez and I, who were sitting at the front of the upper deck, managed to get soaked by the spray by the time we got back. The trip on board the catamaran Quicksilver was fun. The captain and crew were great, informative, and funny.

Next, Day 3: Oahu and the USS Arizona Memorial