Like having my teeth pulled

...with a Gerber.

Anyway, we're headed north tomorrow, so Sparky helped me try to do some wrapping tonight.



I'm not totally paranoid, but while I don't work too hard to keep my identity SUPER SECRET, I would rather not be excessively identifiable to strangers on the internet. There ARE weirdos out there. Plus, what with my occasional calls for extreme violence in various directions, I'd like to avoid any fatwas.

What you DON'T see in this picture is Mr. Abby doing the lion's share of the wrapping on the other side of the rug. He's better at it than I am.

Notes to Iraq Study Group

Well, this little group came out with a very nice list of recommendations the other day. I read over the report online. Nice summary of how things are going over there. Beyond that, well...

There are just a couple of things I'd point out. Maybe any interested parties could print these out and occasionally refer to them while reading the ISG report.

1 - Iran is not a partner for peace. Iran kills US soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. If they could kill Coast Guardsmen, they would. It doesn't seem to violate any classification to say that we KNOW that Iran is responsible for a particularly nasty variety of weapon that was developed STRICTLY to kill American servicemembers. And it does. It has. SGTs Reali and Willey. Among many many others. We do not "partner" with countries that take an active, cheery interest in killing our soldiers.

2 - Syria = Hezbollah. They are not "partners for peace" either.

3 - In no way, shape or form does this group have any right to insist Israel comprimise its security to help us weasel out of Iraq.

Check it out - if this group's definition of success involves pleasing Syria, Iran and Hezbollah, as well as requiring the only reasonably civilized nation in the region to roll over and expose its belly, is theirs a definition of "victory" we really want?

(hint - if answering the above requires any thought at all, you should immediately jab a fork into your hand. Repeat until you're thinking more clearly)

Christmas Gifts

We've established already that I love Christmas. I hate the stupid song, but love the holiday.

But we like to focus on things I hate here, so let's do that. I hate Christmas gifts. I hate Christmas gift shopping. Now, I'm sure this is because I'm not very good at it. I have family members who spend all year picking up the most wonderful things. I, on the other hand, have no idea what anybody ever really wants unless they tell me.

It's not bad with some folks. I get the list, select an item or two, then purchase. But it still gets bad.

See, even if I manage to FIND a gift that seems like something someone will want/use, I then have to WRAP it. Does anybody remember my post on trying to make a shipping box? Yeah - gift wrapping is a similar total meltdown. I did a couple of easy ones today. Of course, I spent half the time trying to chase the dogs off the wrapping paper, a quarter of the time unwrapping the tape tangled around my fingers, and the remaining fourth trying to remember where I set the scissors. Then I spent five minutes picking G. Shep hair off the packages.

And these were the nice, normal boxes. I have one object that I can tell is going to reduce me to whimpering on the floor and swigging gin.

THEN it got worse. Because my entire family is certifiably nuts, we do tend to do Dog Gifts.

I told you Santa Claws has something stashed away already for the Sparkster, but I had a bag from PetSmart that came in with a couple of others. Stupid me, I set the bags DOWN on the couch while I did a couple of just-walked-in things. Only to turn around to see BOTH of the Bad Dogs expressing ACUTE interest in it.

Which led to more yelling and cursing. Because Bad Dogs do not UNDERSTAND the concept of delayed gratification, or holidays.

So although I'm wildly looking forward to this Christmas, I can't wait to be done with the gifts. I like giving them, and I like getting stuff (who doesn't), but the logistics make me crazy.

So if you'll excuse me, I have to go try to wrap a squeaker toy. Silently.

Water Heater

OK. I sensed a little disbelief on my earlier rant. So here it is. I did some cropping to minimize the total number of coffee drips visible. Yes - it's UNDER MY COUNTER.



Didn't know they made these, did you?

SO MUCH HATE

There are no words for my rage. And I can swear with the best of 'em.

Have I told you about my water heater? My....(wow - I think I could run together a string of four-letter words to serve as an adjective, but it would be a LONG string)...miniature water heater???

My water heater that makes it PHYSICALLY FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE to wash my body AND shave my legs? Oh, who the hell am I kidding. I can't wash and condition my hair unless I want to skip soaping my torso and washing my face. I got my hair washed, armpits shaved and started reaching for the body wash today when - ZAP! - COLD WATER!!!

That just ain't right.

Oh, stop. Spare me. I don't give a rat's ass if YOU don't mind cold showers. And I do not give a SHIT if people all over the world lack indoor plumbing. I just don't care. I am an American. I am an adult. I file respectable tax returns. There is NO REASON for me to have a shitful, three-gallon water heater.

You might not understand how this impacts one's life. But think about it. EVERY SINGLE DAY I run out of even lukewarm water before I can complete my shower routine. Now, true, in a perfect world, I DO like a nice, long, hot shower. But these days I can't get FIVE DAMN MINUTES.

So this means that EVERY SINGLE DAY I have a bad experience that pisses me off. I haven't shaved my legs in like four days. I won't until I can
A) schedule an additional shower where I otherwise require no washing
B) shower somewhere else

That would be the gym. And how ridiculous is it that I have to plan to shower at the gym if I want to wash my hair and shave my legs?

And yes - I blame Mr. Abby for this. We wouldn't be in Tampa, in this weird-ass financial position, in this evil stupid ratbastard CRACKHOUSE if it weren't for him. I TRY not to hold it against him, but I pointed out that I fully intend to have this situation rectified this summer. If he can't get orders and get us somewhere acceptable where we can improve on the housing situation, well, I'll move into a goddam state campground somewhere. At least they have HOT WATER.

AAAAGH!!!!!!! So. Damn. Angry.

OK - now that I've vented about that, I have things to do. I think I'll kick Sparky, just to vent that last little bit of "irate."

Shooting out the speakers

I've mentioned before that I've spent some Christmases far away from home. All of them were at the hands of the military. And all but one of them (the first one, Parris Island, '96) was made even worse by AAFES (that is, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service).

I was 19 and stationed on Okinawa the first time I encountered this horror. I was living on Camp Hansen on the empty northern part of the island. One day I wandered into the exchange about a month or so before Christmas. I was feeling okay about the whole thing. Away from home, yeah, but I was in Christmas denial - I wasn't there, so it wasn't happening.

Then, from above, as I wandered the aisles of knives, cigarettes and black Tshirts, I heard it...
I'll be home for Christmas,
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me,
Where the love light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas,
If only in my dreams.
Christmas Eve will find me,
Where the love light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas,
If only in my dreams.


Oh Jesus. I'd been doing well up to THAT point. Now I was choking back a lump in my throat, and glancing around, I noticed a zillion other young Marines doing the same thing.

I had the same experience the next year, when I was in the same place trying to get orders off the island. That year, I'd hoped to make it home for Christmas, but it didn't happen. And Bing Crosby made every trip to the exchange an excruciating reminder of what I was missing.

After that, I hated the song. Even if I WAS headed home, it reminded me of all the times I wasn't, and of all the folks who, for one reason or another, weren't where they wanted to be either.

And it went over the top last year. December was a month of death and horror and fear where I was. Things were bad and getting worse, we'd gotten hammered on Thanksgiving and the roads were blowing up regularly. It seemed as though we were sending soldiers from our manuever unit home in bags every day.

On Christmas Eve, we ran a road that was getting to be a nightmare in order to pick up some of our soldiers and take them on a shopping trip to Camp Liberty. Christmas was going to suck, but we figured we'd do a run to the nice PX so everybody could buy Spam and a new CD or something. Eat a real meal with non-stale bread. Have fruit. And ice cream.

We picked up our team, braved the same Hell Road going out, then shot up to Liberty. We pulled down the guns, shucked our armor and helmets and wandered into the Big PX. It was nice. This was the most relaxed we got during our year there. Wandering the aisles, grabbing a box of CheezIt, and some cans of root beer, I heard it again.
I'll be home for Christmas,
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me,
Where the love light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas,
If only in my dreams.

I could've spit. No - I wouldn't be home for Christmas. Not even close. As it turned out, I'd have a crummy Christmas in the extreme, but I definitely was NOT going to be home, and I did NOT need Bing reminding me about that. Armed to the teeth, I was tempted to pop off a couple of rounds at the speaker. Or whoever had decided to play Bing Crosby.

Asshole.

Anyway, I switch radio stations when that one comes on. Talking to Mom today, I discovered that she refers to last year as the year she'd stalk out of a store if they played it.

Come on - that song doesn't make ANYONE happy. It sucks and it makes people sad. It makes even HAPPY people sad. It should be purged from music libraries, banned from radio stations, and Bing Crosby should be dug up and beaten.

Infamy, history and memory

The MacDill AFB PX (or, I suppose, BX in Air Force Speak) can be a strange place. This time of year, the snowbirds are in for the winter, and it's nigh on impossible to wander around the PX without getting stuck behind a pack of slow-moving retirees. I normally try not to be too bitter about this, figuring that if I'm lucky, I too will be old and slow-moving someday.

Once in a while I step around some codger moving at a glacial pace, and glance back at him only to be amazed.

See, these are old military people. Old war dogs. And you forget about that until you look back at some little old guy who's wearing a Pearl Harbor Survivor cap. Jesus God, I always think. We think of it as history, but for some guys still out there walking around, it's a memory that probably still comes at night.

I had the good fortune to get to visit Pearl Harbor as a side trip of a Marine Corps mission some years ago. It's a beautiful sight, and if you get the opportunity to see it, you should. There's still oil surfacing from the ships, 65 years later. There are still Sailors and Marines in those ships.

And once in a while, out walking around, you run into the boys who made it off the ships. Of course, if you think about it, that wasn't the end of the war for most of them. Some of the ships were raised, and all of the Sailors who could went on to see that war to the end.

On December 7, 1941, they weren't old men, and they weren't yet "the greatest generation." They were just boys, Sailors and Marines, doing Sailor and Marine things (that is, drinking and chasing women).

Remember that with the old folks in the store and the parking lot. You never know. I pass old-folk cars in the parking lot that have WWII stickers and "ex-POW" license plates. I nod at old men in the exchange who have no legs. I get cut off in the commissary line by tiny old ladies who patched up soldiers under barrages of artillery in European mud.

For some of them, it ain't history, it's a memory. Thank them while you still can. And remember that every image you see on tonight's news from Iraq and Afghanistan is a memory for one of our modern warriors. Thank them, too.

Product Endorsement!

Time to point out another product worth spending your hard-earned money on. Sparky, as many of you know, is a little rough on squeaker toys. OK - very very rough. He usually has them less than 24 hours before he's wrecked the squeaker. At 4-8 bucks a toy, I can't afford to keep up.


But then we found this guy! It's a "black squirrel" from the American Kennel Club "Outdoor Series." I picked it up in Michigan and handed it over within minutes of walking in the door, so he's had it...eleven days. And he's been working on it. And it's STILL squeaking.



Don't tell him, but I think Santa Claws has an AKC Outdoor Series "raccoon" hidden away somewhere...

Buy these AKC toys! They'll squeak until you take them away from your dog and grind them up in your food processor!

Abby and the Hippies

I promised a story about Oregon, didn't I?

Years ago, in the days before Mr. Abby, I had a long distance "thing" with a guy we'll just call the Sailor. He was in the Navy on a ship out of Everett, WA, and I was on Okinawa.

I said it was long-distance.

I was just past 21, and took a week or so of leave in the summer to fly to Washington. There, the Sailor pointed out that he had some hippie friends in Eugene and they'd invited him and me down for some event called the "Oregon Country Fair."

We rode the train from Seattle to Eugene (which was pretty - I recommend it most highly). We met up with the hippies and rode out to the Fair site with them (in their van - I'm not kidding). We'd camp there for a couple of days, the plan went.

Now, a little background about me, particularly at that point in my life. I probably qualify as a "conservative," but it's a stretch. Back in the late 90s, I was distinctly less so. I've never been a "peace and lover" flower-child type, but I'm pretty into everybody just doing their own groovy thing.

I was a little far to the left for most of the Marine Corps (my lack of a Rush Limbaugh quote tattoo on my ass leaves me left of most of the Corps), but I figured I could do the hippie fair thing.

Well, apparently two or three years in God's Beloved Corps had left me a little different than I was before. The hippies were all very nice, but they seemed like freakin' space aliens to me. The clothes were...well, hippie clothes. Not a big deal, I thought. I've got kind of a homeless park ranger thing going on, I can work with that. Well, no, Abby. You might be able to sleep in the dirt in your clothes for a couple days, but the Marine Corps has done something to your posture...

This was the hard part. I found that no matter where in this whole place I was, I felt like a damn federal agent or something. I could NOT find a suitable "hippie pose." I had very few just-standing-around poses in my inventory then, and they went something like this:

A - standing with my feet shoulder width apart and arms folded.
B - standing with my feet shoulder width apart and hands behind me
C - standing at the position of attention (feet together) with my hands in my pockets

That was about it. And I think they all went with a disapproving scowl. I felt like a fed, and the hippies looked at me like I was a fed.

So it was an uncomfortable couple of days. I'm not into pot, and if there's no marching, I'm not into drums. I don't get giant puppets on stilts, and I cannot function somewhere where there is no meat available in the food for sale. I finally managed to find beer, but it was some sort of homemade ginger atrocity that not even a young Marine on leave could choke down.

The only highlight was in the grounds itself. It's a beautiful location, and with any group slightly less over the top than the hippies, I think it would have been fabulous. They had the most wonderful communal showers I've ever visited (raised wooden decking, open air at the top, good pressure, warm, etc). The only downside was that it was co-ed communal showering with hippies.

Now if it had been co-ed communal showering with Marines, it would have been great. As it was, one naked experience with hairy, pudgy friendly people my parents' age and older was plenty. More than plenty, in fact.

So that was the Abby and Hippies in Oregon story. In the end, the Sailor and I parted ways on distinctly less-than-friendly terms, and I haven't been back to Oregon since then.

But if you're in the market for a big ol' Hippie Fair Good Time, the link to their site is below. Enjoy. And don't forget your shower shoes.

OK - I can't make the link work, so you'll just have to cut-and-paste.

http://www.oregoncountryfair.org/index

OOh! Another map!

And I got to do a worldwide one, too! I had to check "China" because...well, Hong Kong is a part of China.

Man, I look at THIS map and think, "what a lot of places yet to see..."



create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

I'd LIKE to do a trip through Europe someday. I'd also like to do Africa, but THAT will wait until someday when I'm not burned out on "roughing it."

Places I done been

I thought this was a fun little tool. The red states are the ones I've washed up in or wandered through at some point or another. I find it hard to believe I've never passed through Vermont or New Hampshire, but I couldn't remember, so I didn't opt for either.



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Huh.

You know, looking at that reminds me a trip to Oregon some years ago. That's a good story. Perhaps later tonight I'll make a pot of coffee and share it with y'all.

ARGGGHHHH!!!!

FedEx...let me COUNT the ways I curse you.

I engaged in a long drawn out email exchange with FedEx about my package's Tour of Florida. This involved answering questions like "what does the package look like?" Answer: "I don't know, because it's in WEST PALM BEACH!"

So finally it gets over here, and it's "On Truck for Delivery." Now, I have to go do some shopping this evening, so I clicked on the site one more time.

"Customer not available or business closed, 1445."

WHAT??? I have been here ALL AFTERNOON! I recently took a shower, but I have Bad Dogs in the house. They'd have barked. I went outside and poked around. Nada. No FedEx slip. Were they even here? I dunno - I watched the truck cruise up and down the road earlier this afternoon. Perhaps the CLEARLY PRINTED NUMBER on my mailbox confused them and they tried to delivery my crap somewhere else.

This is starting to make me CRANKY.

Oh well, I've other things to do today. Like some hard core KWANZAA SHOPPING.

FEDEX - On THE LIST

Yep. I keep A List. I'm that kind of gal. It's a loooong list, too. It could be titled "enemies of the realm," or "people who've pissed Abby off," or even "those entities which need to be whacked upside the head with a bat."

And today, Federal Express is On The List.

I ordered some crap. And it shipped from LOUISIANA on 29 NOV. Now, we are talking FedEx "Home Delivery," so it's not like it was going to be here the afternoon of the 30th.

But I have absolutely NO LIFE, so I've been clicking on the tracking page. Estimated delivery date, it said, 2 DEC. Cool. Home Delivery happens on Saturdays, so I was down with that.

Hmm...Saturday comes. I click on the tracking page. Last entry? "Departed FEDEX location," which was Orlando, at 2145 on the 1st. Cool, I thought.

Saturday stretched on...no package. Hmmm... clicked on the tracking page. The only thing that had changed was...no estimated delivery date anymore? Grrrr....

Still, I figured, it would show up early Monday. It's FedEx. They're good. It's a busy time of year.

So it's Monday. No package. Hmmm... clicked on the tracking page. Still no delivery date, but a new piece of tracking info.

"In transit," it said. "West Palm Beach, Florida."

WEST PALM BEACH??? Hey, FedEx, WRONG SIDE OF THE FREAKIN' STATE!!!

So I'm annoyed. Is it anything super-important? No - just a couple little things for Kwanzaa and a little toy for me. But still. I'm bitter. Very bitter. And FedEx is On The List.

Home Run

Mmmm...venison tenderloin. I just hit one out of the park.

When I came back south, I brought along most of a doe that Carl had shot while I was up north. Yes - I took pity venison. I can live with that.

I'd carefully separated the tenderloins when we cut the deer up. I stashed them in a corner of the freezer till Mr. Abby was out of the area. Then I got to work.

First - thawed the tenderloins. Once thawed, I salted and peppered both sides.

Then I fired up my small skillet with olive oil, crushed garlic and mushrooms. Once that got sizzling, I dumped in the rest of a bottle of red wine and a little balsamic vinegar. I cooked this, then dumped some sage in after a sniff. I then ignored it and let it simmer down.

Then I fired up the stove under my heaviest skillet. I let it get hot. Very hot. Then I dropped in the tenderloins. 90 seconds on each side. Did NOT touch them while they were searing.

After those 3 minutes, I pulled out the tenderloins. I gave them some mushrooms and sauce.

Oh so good...I prefer my meat rare, and so it was FABULOUS.

I'd like to work more on the sauce. I think next time I'll add some beef broth and cut back on the wine a little. And perhaps some salt. Normally, I'd make the sauce in the pan the meat was seared in, but venison is so lean there'd be little to gain.

Anyway...if only deer came with more of those yummy little tenderloins. Good stuff.

Christmas

It's almost Christmas, and I am one happy camper about that. Contrary to the belief of one family member who recently called me "Scrooge" after I bitched about the Christmas-music blitz I endured on my drive south, I LOVE this time of year.

This year, Mr. Abby and I will pack up the Bad Dogs and head north for a Big Ol' Family Christmas at Bad Dogs (North). My stepkids will fly in, and it will be a hoot.

I love being home for Christmas. I'd low-crawl through a hail of machine gun fire to be home for Christmas. I've spent...four?...Christmases away from friends and family (boot camp, Okinawa, Okinawa, Iraq). That's enough. I can do it - but if I don't have to, I don't wanna.

We did one Christmas down here with my folks camping in the back yard and the kids and dogs. Not. Enough. Room. It works better up north. Plus there's snow, and the rest of the Bad Dog Family.

We have to pick our priorities, and I've decided this is one of mine. I have a close family and I enjoy them. I don't want to miss the opportunity to engage in all our weird, non-religious Christmas rituals. It gives me great joy to watch my whole family sitting around, eating snacks and opening presents. It gives me great joy to sit down for too much food at a family Christmas dinner. It reminds me why I've been doing the things I've been doing since I became an adult.

THAT is worth defending, and it is worth driving across the country for.

So this year, we'll have pretty much the whole Pack up home (except Cousin Ruth - communist). There will be Too Much Traffic at my parents' house. They will have put up a tree that is Too Big. We will eat Too Much Food and Too Many Cookies. The dogs will race around and chase Hobbes under the tree. I will mislabel packages and erroneously give Mr. Abby's underwear to Mom.

It will be fabulous. I can't wait.

Range Time!!!

Packed up my little uber-tactical "range purse" and headed off to do some shooting this afternoon. I've been recently, but had one of those "crummy" range days (just couldn't get comfy, inconsistent, etc etc).

Today, however, was a STELLAR range day.

I bought a new pistol a few months ago. I shall post a picture so you may all drool before I continue.

OK. Stop drooling. You'll mar the finish. :)

It's a 1911-style .45 auto. I love this design - the single-stack magazine makes it perfect for my hands (it's a lot slimmer that the grip on many of the newer-style big automatics).

Anyway, I've been religously putting 150-300 rounds a week through it. My pistolwork is improving, too. I normally shoot one, big, ragged hole out to about 20 yards, at which point I shoot a cluster of little holes. I haven't put a round outside the 5-zone (the part of the target designated as sure 'nuff dead) in months. Until today, but that was only one and I was firing with just my left (weak) hand.

I'll stop bragging now. I just love my Warrior, and I love to shoot it. I love very best to shoot it well.

Consequences

Let's get our Aretha Franklin on, shall we? R-E-S-P-E-C-T...what it's all about in the Middle East.

There's a lot of talk about us backpedaling on the Iraq "mistake." We'll just put the kitten in the box with a little food, drive it WAAAY out in the country and leave it on the side of the road. We'll drive home thinking about the happy life the kitten is going to have on a pretty little dairy farm.

Wrong. In real life, the kitten gets flattened on the highway. In the kitten-as-Iraq analogy, the kitten gets smashed on the highway and all its kitten relatives follow you to your home and piss on your carpet for years.

Let's talk about the Iranian hostage crisis. You know, the one where we made some disapproving sounds and launched one spectularly unsuccessful attempt to free our people? Yeah - that one. That was Them shoving Us. And we flailed around the ground for a while and then they let us get up and run home.

And then there was Beiruit and the 241 dead Marines and Sailors. And then there was Khobar Towers. And the first attack on the World Trade Center. And the African Embassies. And the USS Cole. And the SECOND attack on the World Trade Center.

And then we kinda blinked and said, "huh? Someone out there hates us? Well, let's KILL 'EM!"

Which was precisely the right response, albeit 20 years late.

So now we're thinking about running the Hell away from Iraq. Because it's difficult, and winning would require more than a week and courses of action that are not easily fit on a bumpersticker.

Hmmm...I'm not really into the Vietnam analogies, so let's see if we can find another situation which might shed a little light on Iraq's future without some serious adult supervision. We need a country with lots of Muslims. A country where the U.S. tried to help and left when things got hairy. Preferably one we've visited in the past 20 years...

Oooh! I've got it! SOMALIA!

Now, of course, Somalia is in Africa, has a less-educated populace and fewer natural resources than Iraq. But the security situation is making Iraqi school attendance iffy and the populace is settling nicely into the habit of sitting in the dirt and watching their goats while thinking hateful thoughts, so it's really not a BAD comparison.

Somalia is a sore topic here at Bad Dog Central, as, 14 years ago, Mr. Abby did a lot of sweating in the dirt there. He LOVES to watch CNN while they point out what a violent, evil pit of hysterical Islamic Terror that country is swirling into. Makes him feel like it was time well spent.

If they're not already, Al Qaeda will be running airplane-takeover drills in Somalia very soon. Al Qaeda leaders will be living in mud huts and giving evil orders on satphones from Somalia.

If we leave Iraq, they'll do the same things from there.

Also, if we leave Iraq, the neighbors will notice. They will notice that Americans will NOT tough things out. They will notice that Americans will NOT be inconvenienced at home by a protracted war. They will notice that AFTER Iraq, Americans will NOT be willing to send a single soldier any farther east than a pub in Germany.

And then they will begin again. With no fear that we will come storming in and destroy their nasty little dominions, the masters of terror will take a poke at our warships. They will carbomb western businesses in the middle east. They will storm our embassies and take hostages.

And someday not so very far in the future, they will take more of our planes. They will knock down more of our buildings. They will kill our children and our non-combatants here in our country again.

And we will wonder why.

The Middle East is a strange place. The currency is R-E-S-P-E-C-T and the language, the only one universally understood, is Force. There is at least one country in that region that is working toward developing the world's most dangerous weapons, and he is watching closely what we do on his border.

We must not leave Iraq whimpering. There is no painless solution, as much as we Americans like painless solutions. We change strategies, pay the price and win in Iraq now. Or we will bleed at home later. There is no third way.

Biting the bullet

I don't mind ranting about the War on Terror (as those who know me are well aware). But I normally don't do a lot of that here because...well, this is a public place. But I'm going to go ahead and do it.

We're fucking this up big time. The United States and, I believe, Western Civilization as a whole, is locked in a no-shit struggle with the forces of savagery and darkness. Seriously - take a GOOD LOOK at the Middle East. Other than Isreal, do you see any place that doesn't just SUCK?

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about economies, personal freedom, the god-awful treatment of women, life expectancies, etc. It's a basic premise of mine that the entire region sucks ass and has pretty much nothing to offer except seething resentment and hate.

When President Bush had sent troops into Afghanistan and was shifting focus onto Iraq, I thought - great! This guy gets it!

We were finally going to start Draining The Swamp. Now, we all know that U.S. policies since WWII have not helped the Middle East, and in no way have encouraged the growth of self-determination and human rights there. In exchange for continued access to oil and the opportunity for our companies to profit from said oil, we'd prop up any sonovabitch over there. And we did.

But post-9/11, I thought we had it figured out. Long war, national committment to changing that part of the world, the whole nine yards. Lose the dictatorships, standing up some representative governments, let people do better and have hope and maybe they'd leave us the hell alone. I could have skipped Iraq and seen us going into Iran or (god forbid) dealing with Saudi Arabia like the terrorist petty-cash box it is.

But the President said Iraq and, honestly, it was as good a place as any to start.

Then, all of a sudden, we're doing Iraq on the cheap. No, we were assured. Our military kicks so much ass that we don't need a giant troop buildup ala Gulf War 1. We'll just send a few divisions zipping up to Baghdad. Hell, we won't even worry about bringing the 4th ID in through Turkey. We won't stop in any of the little towns along the way. Piece of cake!

And it was. Of course. Our military does kick massive ass. Problem is, there we were in Baghdad and the oil fields and a few major cities with our collective thumb in our collective ass, while the Saddamites ran away and hid in all the little towns we'd bypassed.

And we never poured the bodies in. Because that would have been some sort of admission of defeat for the Bush Administration, which the hysterical shrieking bitch Democrats would have jumped all over.

Bush is so polarizing that we've been entirely deprived of the ability to have a useful national dialog about how to best conduct this war. The Republicans have, until very recently, been loathe to admit that maybe the ENTIRE plan wasn't ENTIRELY perfect from the VERY beginning. And the Democrats have not offered a single useful bit of input other than grasping at any straw to jump and holler "it was lie! And it's a failure! And we should bring all the troops home!"

Check this out - the troops don't want to come home like that. No shit. Listen vey cloesly: I do not want to have fought in a war we lost because we lacked the balls to win it. None of my comrades in arms want to have fought, bled or died in a war we lost because we lacked the balls to win it.

Our political leaders on both sides need to shut the hell up. They need to stop listening to mothers. We all love mothers, but all the mothers want all the warriors home safe, too often at any cost.

We don't want to be safe and shamed in the United States. We want to be safe, victorious and proud in the United States. We'll take not safe but able to look in the mirror in Iraq.

So the politics needs to stop. We need an assload more troops in Iraq and we need to turn the clock back.

Step 1 - Bigger military.

Yep. The military is overcommitted. But the services are making their recruiting goals. So our Congress needs to get off its dead ass and authorize a massive increase in the Army and the Marine Corps. The 9th Infantry Division colors are in a closet somewhere. Pull them out. Stand up the division again. Give the recruiters a mission - they'll fill it. The Army is just packed with NCOs and officers with combat experience. Fill that Division. Wouldn't take but a year or 18 months to see that full Division's worth of combat power come on line. And the Army has old barracks all over the county.

The Fifth Marine Division raised the flag on Mt. Suribachi. Reactivate. Fund. Fill.

Step 2 - Stop letting Iraqis fuck up Iraq

So great was our desire to declare our on-the-cheap war a success that we turned the running of Iraq over to the Iraqis far too soon. We needed to run that country for a year, while suitable Iraqis were found for key positions. Then we needed to let them run it, but with an American standing right there. We can't take it all back, but we can shove our way back into things. Every time a hospital administrator in Najaf calls Baghdad to try to figure out why they can't pay nurses, there needs to be an American standing by the phone in Baghdad, and the call needs to be on speakerphone. That way somebody is paying attention to who is stealing the money that's not getting where it needs to go.

This is an annoying problem when it's a hospital or school. It really sucks when the rank-and-file of the Iraqi Army isn't getting paid. No pay leaves them susceptible to bribery, which is a Bad Thing. Trust me. I can show you pictures of what a Bad Thing it is.

Iraq is a place where bribery and graft are a way of life. You can't blame these people - we're obviously working up to run out on them, so they need to steal while they can so they have enough money to flee hours after our last soldier gets on a C130. We must make them do better.

Step 3 - Blanket that country in Americans.

Story time! Once upon a time, a civil affairs unit was given an entirely stereotypical mission from their CA Higher. "Go forth," said Higher. "Ask around town and find a site for a Government Information Center, where we can have resprentative from each Ministry so the locals can find them easily."

This in a town where nobody who cooperated with the Americans LIVED. Oh, some officials who worked there were on our side, but they didn't LIVE there. They would have been killed. We had one non-dirty judge there and HE received death threats on a daily basis.

Nobody was going to openly side with the Americans, because we couldn't be there to protect them when the Bad Guys came. There simply weren't enough U.S. troops to have a patrol ALWAYS out and about in each neighborhood. And the IA didn't work at night.

So how stupid were our local Iraqis? Not stupid enough to do the stupid things we wanted them to if it was going to get them killed.

More Americans in Al Anbar. More Americans in Baghdad and Babil and Najaf and Karabala. 18 months of an American on every street corner will take care of a lot of problems.

Step 4 - Kill Al Sadr.

Yep. Don't know why we didn't do it before. Al Sadr is not helpful in the job of building a free and open Iraq where each individual is empowered to seek happiness as he or she sees fit.

We conquered the country. We're being very polite about it, but we're the ones with tanks and artillery, so we still own it. We get to kill whoever we deem worthy of killing.

All is not lost in Iraq, but we need to get past political posturing in order to win there. And win we must, for reasons I'll discuss shortly (I'm on a roll tonight).

Step 5 - Bomb the Hell out of Iranian nuclear sites

OK - I know we can't get away with this, but it would send a phenomenally valuable message. Remember - Iran is Not Our Friend. Iran is not a Friend of a Happy Middle East.

Overgrown Boys and What To Do With Them

I was out and about today at the Gun Show. No - no new toys - it's too close to Christmas for me to spend a bunch of money on another gun. I was walking in, and passed two young (early 20s) guys walking the other way.

They were dressed with the GREATEST of care in similar-looking jeans and faux-faded Tshirts. Pseudo-distressed baseball caps. They were doing that "young man" thing - talking loudly to try to be overheard, gesturing too broadly.

I see another variety down here pretty often, too. The "urban male," dressed again with great care, talking loud, slouching around, trying to look...well, I dunno. Scary? Dramatic? Thug-esque?

I see them up home and in inland, redneck Florida. 22 year old boys in big pickups with tattoos and chew. Loud pipes, etc etc.

They're all young men who are trying to BE men. They desperately want someone to take notice of them, they seem to crave some sort of validation.

And every time I see them, I just roll my eyes. You think you're a MAN? You wanna be a MAN? Stop "hanging out" and acting like a over-contrived jackass. I got a phone number for you, son.

1-800-USA-ARMY
1-800-MARINES

I know posturing and bravado are part and parcel of adolescent and just-post-adolescent guyhood. But it chaps my ass to see all those FALSE balls out there wandering around.

Seems to me like any young man worth a damn would be marching his happy ass down to his local recruiter about three days after high school graduation.

But no - these little wanna-be's just wander around, their behavior a giant billboard screaming "treat me like a man and respect me!"

Makes me want to spit. All that excess testosterone and not a uniform to be seen. Makes me want to spit because therein lies a big part of the solution to our Iraq issue. And no, I'm not a fan of the draft. More on this later.

But for now - young men! If you are sitting around, playing grab-ass with your buddies at the gas station and trying to convince your Dad you're an adult while you live in his basement...

The bus is over there. Give your ID to the nice man in the uniform and Get On It.

Happenings

So after the attack of the Kamikaze Pigeon this morning, I sat around the house for quite some time. Then I thought - hey! I'll take the Bad Dogs for a walk.

Tell you what, that's like taking retarded children to DisneyWorld. Lurching all over the place, randomly stoping, acting more or less like I normally keep them locked in the basement.

We got down to the park and Sparky decided to jump in the lake. Then roll in the dirt. Jesus God. So I got home and stuck him in the shower, where he shook several times, covering the entire shower in lake mud.

So - things are going to hell in a handbasket here. And what does that mean? It means Mr. Abby is out of town (in the military sense). Downside - everything instantly goes tits-up the instant he leaves. Upside - I can drink a pot of coffee at 2100 if I want and stay up all night watching chick flick DVDs.