On Old Historical Route 66 in Seligman, AZ, we spotted this interesting cafe. We didn’t have the guts to look at the menu, (or the menu to look at the guts?)

Over the next few days, we will be posting one of the pictures from our summer vacation. Today, we stopped at Lake Havasu City, AZ and got this picture of the restored London Bridge:

And secure the borders while we’re at it.

Oh, and a pox on illegal alien drug runners.

The Patriot Post has taken the Texas Three’s plight to heart and arranged a petition to ask that their sentences be commuted, that the borders be secured and that the illegal alien scumbag that got a bullet in his backside be prosecuted for his drug-running offenses.

You should read Mark Alexander’s Article on this issue for all the details.

I think that’s a good cause. Here’s the text that came in the mail:

Make your voice heard TODAY!

Please join fellow Patriots and sign “Free the Texas Three and Secure our Borders” — A citizen petition calling on President Bush to commute the sentences of both former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, and their colleague, former Sheriff’s Deputy Guillermo Hernandez; asking Congress to insist that the DEA prosecute Mexican national Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila on felony drug distribution charges; and demanding that Congress and the Bush administration secure our borders.

“It is not honorable to take mere legal advantage, when it happens to be contrary to justice.” -Thomas Jefferson

To sign this petition online, go to — http://PatriotPetitions.US/borders

Please forward this invitation to Patriot family members, friends and associates. In order to encourage serious consideration of this critical issue, we must collect in excess of 100,000 signatures.

Is it just me, or does United States Attorney Johnny Sutton specialize in prosecuting law enforcement officers protecting our international borders? Why does he believe the testimony of degenerates and criminals over that of the officers themselves?

Senator Clinton is at it again. This time she shot off her mouth to the Pentagon demanding they prepare to withdraw troops from Iraq. This malicious attack on our Military should convince Americans that Clinton, not unlike John Kerry, is “Unfit for Command.”

Eric Edelman, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy, offered a sharply-worded response (to Clinton’s demands), saying such discussions boost the enemy.

“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,” Edelman wrote.

Just like we’ve been saying all along, Wilson and Plame are LIARS!

Judge Dismisses former CIA Operative Valerie Plame’s Lawsuit Against Bush Administration

WASHINGTON — A federal judge dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against members of the Bush administration Thursday, eliminating one of the last courtroom remnants of the leak scandal.

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity in 2003. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments. Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

“Droughts are becoming longer and more intense.”

That was Al Gore’s testimony before the United States Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee on 21 March 2007. Gore offered no proof to his claim, so some researchers conducted a study on droughts of the 20th century; the conclusions of this study suggest that Gore was lying when he made his testimony.

The folks at CO2 Science, in their analysis, concluded with the following:

With respect to the temporal distribution of the 30 severe and persistent droughts identified by Narisma et al., seven of them occurred during the first two decades of the 20th century (1901-1920), seven occurred during the next two decades (1921-1940), eight during the middle two decades of the century (1941-1960), but only five during the next two decades (1961-1980), and a mere three during the final two decades of the century (1981-2000), which is not at all what one would have expected if the climate-alarmist thesis that is propounded by Gore and his followers was correct.

So just what is the situation here? The scientists who performed the analysis note that the 30 major droughts they identified were “mostly located in semi-arid and arid regions” that “are naturally prone [our italics] to large fluctuations.” And it’s as simple as that. The 30 major droughts of the 20th century were likely natural in all respects; and, hence, they are “indicative of what could also happen in the future,” as Narisma et al. state in their concluding paragraph. And happen they will. Consequently, the next time a serious drought takes hold of some part of the world and the likes of Al Gore blame it on the “carbon footprints” of you and your family, ask them why just the opposite of what their hypothesis suggests actually occurred over the course of the 20th century, i.e., why, when the earth warmed - and at a rate and to a degree that they claim was unprecedented over thousands of years - the rate-of-occurrence of severe regional droughts actually declined.

Is it just me, or does everyone get their parcels smashed by the Postal “Service?” This box only contained a book, so there wasn’t any serious damage done. Click the image for a close-up.

This isn’t the first time that we have encountered this sort of scrunched package - once we had to return a ceramic crock which had been jolted into shards even though it was packed to withstand a ten foot drop. It looked like one of the handlers went “postal” on it.

And this isn’t the only USPS incident. Once, we ordered something on-line and the package didn’t arrive even though the on-line tracking showed it as delivered. We called the USPS to complain, and they didn’t own up to losing the package. They told me that my only recourse was to contact the seller with a lost package request. We did that and the seller (Amazon, in this case), made it good and shipped a second package. Weeks after the second package was received, lo and behold, the USPS finally delivered the original package! We followed Amazon’s instructions and refused delivery, and hopefully, they got their merchandise back.

We experienced another recent incident where a bank deposit by mail failed to show up in our account. A call to the originator of the check got them to put a stop on it, and they issued a new deposit, this time as a direct deposit to our account. A few days later, the original deposit showed up at the bank (which was dishonored, of course).

Doesn’t USPS have some sort of quality goals like most viable service organizations? When we use Fed Ex or UPS these things seldom happen.

Last week, I found a website (thanks again, Rick) where four excellent essays offer the perfect rebuttal to the nonsense that Al Gore produced in his recent crockumentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

These four essays, “The Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse,” as it were, are grouped into a page entitled “Good news, Mr. Gore, the Apocalypse has been postponed.”

Four Horsemen art credit Black Horse Design

The first essay, “The Gospel According to Gore,” shares some insight into the reasons that some become alarmed, while analyzing the difference between “consensus” and actual scientific discovery.

Al Gore Goes to Hollywood (But Not To CalTech) reveals some of the junk science that Gore uses in his film, “An Inconvenient truth.” The essay shows how Gore overlooks scientific facts while mesmerizing the audience into watching the doom unfold (never mind the man behind the curtain, Dorothy).

The third topic, “Unlikely CO2, Possible Meteorites, Probable Sunshine,” is a discussion of things that are actually known to affect climate, and how anthropogenic phenomena such as urban heat islands have little effect on global climate, if any.

Finally, “Counting the Cost of the Precautionary Principle” discusses emission reduction treaties, alternative energy sources and the costs, in terms of both economics and politics, of “going green.”

Every couple of years, our Bromeliad on the front porch will produce one of these brilliant pink flowers. Eventually, there will also be purple pods embedded in the flower, which adds more color. These come and go quickly, but not as fast as the cactus blossoms. There is a second bloom coming up in another part of the plant, so we will have two this summer. Damsel took this picture a couple of days ago.

A couple of years ago, I took this 3D picture of a previous bloom from the same plant (you need red/blue or red/cyan 3D glasses to view).

Just to dress her up a bit, I got these rosewood grips for the li’l S&W 442 revolver. We’re going to the range tomorrow and see how they feel with live rounds.