Getting Fired Up For the RRR

Howdy Folks!

For those who don’t know, the RRR is the Red River Rivalry. Most people alive only know about the match up in the Cotton Bowl each year during the State Fair of Texas, but the rivalry began in 1900. There have been a number of years when the two teams didn’t play and the game was once played home and home, but since 1929 this contest has been held at the Cotton Bowl, with the tickets being equally distributed so that half of the stadium is Crimson and Cream, and half is Burnt Orange and White. There is no home field advantage. The record in this heated rivalry is 59 wins UT, 40 wins OU.

As with most rivalry games, team records or rankings coming into this game are meaningless. On too many occasions the team with the worst record coming into this game has come out victorious. This game is often about championships, either conference or national, but it is also about bragging rights, and more importantly, recruiting.

This year, the OU team comes in with a theoretical advantage over UT. Both teams are struggling in their own ways, with UT coming off of an embarrassing and emphatic loss. UT has shuffled a number of players on their depth chart since last Saturday’s loss, which is surprising considering they were the #4 team in the nation prior to losing to UCLA. UT will be featuring their fourth new starter at running back this weekend, which will be their fifth game.

As a life long OU Sooner fan and a UT grad, I have always enjoyed this game each season more than any other. It is just plain fun because of the intensity of the game and the rivalry, as well as the setting during the State Fair of Texas. It is an event of sensory over load and I can already smell and taste the savory flavor of a State Fair Corny Dog, slathered with mustard, accompanied with the loud cheers, yells, oohs and aahs.

A couple of video selections to accompany this post.

The first from the largest margin of victory either team has experienced in this long rivalry.

The next is an introduction I would like to see from OU linebacker Ronnell Lewis and UT QB Garrett Gilbert.
Hello Mr. Gilbert, my name is Mr. Lewis and I will be serving up your ribs today.

For those who can’t attend the game, like me, it will be live in color Saturday at 2p.m. on ABC.

BOOMER-SOONER!

**BONUS VIDEO**

A nicely done history of the RRR video.

What Did The DNC Know And When Did They Know It?

Busted! Houston SEIU Member Voter Registration Fraud

Catherine Engelbrecht’s diligence and hard work have exposed the criminal acts carried out by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) member Steve Caddle of Houston.

Ms. Engelbrecht and friends spent many hours investigating voter fraud in Harris County by Democrats and unions, with the result being a criminal complaint forwarded to the Harris County DA.

What did Ms. Engelbrecht discover that is so alarming?
Mr. Caddle’s group had registered 23,207 fraudulent voters.

From the story at Publius Forum:

“The integrity of the voting rolls in Harris County, Texas, appears to be under an organized and systematic attack by the group operating under the name Houston Votes,” the Harris voter registrar, Leo Vasquez, charged as he passed on the documentation to the district attorney. A spokesman for the DA’s office declined to discuss the case. And a spokesman for Vasquez said that the DA has asked them to refrain from commenting on the case.

Could this investigation have anything to do with the Harris County voting machines being torched recently? I wouldn’t bet against it.

Great work, Ms. Engelbrecht.
Your hard work is greatly appreciated and I hope it serves as an example to other concerned citizens to get involved.

*UPDATE*
Ed Laskey at American Thinker has a post on this.

**Cross posted at Urban Grounds.**

Hail State!

The Mississippi State Fight Song, performed by students and fans on campus, (featuring Nuke’s Nephew).

Great job, Will. Tell your sister Happy Birthday, and give your Mom a hug for me.

Friday Open

Confucius say … If light stay on for over 4 hour, call an erectrician.

Have a great weekend y’all.

(h/t Carla)

Mysogyny: New and improved!

Here’s the latest from the “religion” that gave us HONOR KILLINGS ….

It’s HONOR BEATINGS!

Top 20 pro socialism quotes from Obamaworld

In their own words …. (h/t bonz)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Top 20 pro socialism quotes from Obamaworld, posted with vodpod

What if they gave a recovery, and nobody came?

Recession Ends, No One Notices

If the recession’s over, maybe no one told the economy.

That’s one conclusion from the latest ABC News Consumer Comfort Index. In last week’s results, optimism for the economy’s future reached its lowest since March 2009. This week, the CCI’s index of current conditions stands at a dismal -46 on its scale of +100 to -100.

That’s even though the National Bureau of Economic Research declared last week that the recession ended in June 2009. Clearly, the public’s economic yardstick is a different one. [snip]

This week 89 percent of Americans rate the economy negatively, 75 percent say it’s a bad time to spend money and 55 percent rate their own finances negatively. The CCI’s -46 compares to a record low -54, a record-high +38 in early 2000 and a long-term average of -13. Recession or not, we’re still in the weeds.

Link

Another Log on the Fire

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

From our nation’s founding, we have acknowledged the source of our inalienable rights as men, so eloquently stated by Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence.

Those rights have been hardwired into each and every person from birth. That simple recognition and affirmation, “by their creator,” was conspicuously absent in the closing remarks of President Obama’s speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on September 15, 2010.

As the President read from the teleprompter, his omission of any mention of The Creator was missed by the media and unremarked upon by those in attendance. But, thanks to the New Media (hat-tip Free Republic), we know the truth. BTW, here is a screenshot of the official transcript (just in case, you understand). And, here’s the video of the speech, FF to 22:40.

Also blogging: Sad Hill News

GCP Open Thread

An open thread for your posting delight while technical difficulties are ironed out.

Meet Delaware’s Chris Coons

Christine O’Donnell’s opponent in the November general election is well known to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid …

“I’m going to be very honest with you — Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He’s my pet. He’s my favorite candidate,”

Now that’s funny — I don’t care who you are.

more: Ed Morrisey on “The Sore Loser Party”

She warned us

What’s wrong with this picture?

Homework Assignment: Try running your household or your business like this and tell me how it works out for you.

Hat tip: George Ure

Thought for the day

“We need leadership that’s as committed to getting this economy moving as it is about building a mosque at Ground Zero.” … W.C. Hall

Where For Art Thou, Severance?

An excellent piece in American Thinker, Obamacares Fatal Flaw(?), informs us of the potential demise of this enormous government power grab.

Virginia is asserting that certain portions (that is, the personal mandate) of ObamaCare are unconstitutional. If Virginia prevails, it leaves the question of what happens to the rest of the ObamaCare statute. This is where the concept of severance comes in. Normally, all comprehensive laws contain a boilerplate severance clause: it says that if any portion of the law is found to be unconstitutional, that portion is severed from the rest of the law — that is, the rest of the law stands.

But ObamaCare contains no severance clause. Virginia is asserting that if it prevails on its substantive claims, the whole law is unconstitutional. (If Virginia does not prevail, any one of the twenty-plus legal challenges have the same severance argument available.)

If a severance clause is normal boilerplate, why does not ObamaCare contain one? This is where Scott Brown’s election enters.

Read it all, it is most excellent.

I will not, and encourage all not too, consider this a victory until the black robes have performed all their rituals.

And it only took them 18 years

The LA Times has discovered that Bill Clinton is a liar.

Pigs fly.

Heh™

Clinton Claim in Whitman ad is false

Gov Christie schools teacher

If this guy isn’t careful, he’s going to be on the short list for 2012.

Christie – Barbour 2012.

I like it.

Peace is not a cause …….. It is an effect

By Jim Baxter
(originally posted September 12, 2007)

Every September, I recall that is more than half a century (62 years) since I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation of Japan following World War II. This time every year, I have watched and listened to the light-hearted “peaceniks” and their light-headed symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that “Peace is not a cause – it is an effect.”

In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was a BARman] and I returned to Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa. We were issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.

B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.

We were informed we would land three Marine divisions and six Army divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in. It was estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the Japanese homeland.

In August, the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima but the Japanese government refused to surrender. Three days later a second A-bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The Imperial Japanese government finally surrendered.

Following the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant…” Indeed, they had. Not surprisingly, the atomic bomb was produced by a free people functioning in a free environment. Not surprisingly because the creative process is a natural human choice-making process and inventiveness occurs most readily where choice-making opportunities abound. America!

Tamper with a giant, indeed! Tyrants, beware: Free men are nature’s pit bulls of Liberty! The Japanese learned the hard way what tyrants of any generation should know: Never start a war with a free people – you never know what they may invent!

As a newly assigned member of a U.S. Marine intelligence section, I had a unique opportunity to visit many major cities of Japan, including Tokyo and Hiroshima, within weeks of their destruction. For a full year I observed the beaches, weapons, and troops we would have assaulted had the A-bombs not been dropped. Yes, it would have been very destructive for all, but especially for the people of Japan.

When we landed in Japan, for what came to be the finest and most humane occupation of a defeated enemy in recorded history, it was with great appreciation, thanksgiving, and praise for the atomic bomb team, including the aircrew of the Enola Gay. A half million American homes had been spared the Gold Star flag, including, I’m sure, my own.

Whenever I hear the apologists expressing guilt and shame for A-bombing and ending the war Japan had started (they ignore the cause-effect relation between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki), I have noted that neither the effete critics nor the puff-adder politicians are among us in the assault landing-craft or the stinking rice paddies of their suggested alternative, “conventional” warfare. Stammering reluctance is obvious and continuous, but they do love to pontificate about the Rights that others, and the Bomb, have bought and preserved for them.

The vanities of ignorance and camouflaged cowardice abound as license for the assertion of virtuous “rights” purchased by the blood of others – those others who have borne the burden and physical expense of Rights whining apologists so casually and self-righteously claim.

At best, these fakers manifest a profound and cryptic ignorance of causal relations, myopic perception, and dull I.Q. At worst, there is a word and description in The Constitution defining those who love the enemy more than they love their own countrymen and their own posterity. Every Yankee Doodle Dandy knows what that word is.

In 1945, America was the only nation in the world with the Bomb and it behaved responsibly and respectfully. It remained so until two among us betrayed it to the Kremlin. Still, this American weapon system has been the prime deterrent to earth’s latest model world- tyranny: Seventy years of Soviet collectivist definition, coercion, and domination of individual human beings.

The message is this: Trust Freedom. Remember, tyrants never learn. The restriction of Freedom is the limitation of human choice, and choice is the fulcrum-point of the creative process in human affairs. As earth’s choicemaker, it is our human identity on nature’s beautiful blue planet and the natural premise of man’s free institutions, environments, and respectful relations with one another. Made in the image of our Creator, free men choose, create, and progress – or die.

Free men should not fear the moon-god-crowd oppressor nor choose any of his ways. Recall with a confident Job and a victorious David, “Know ye not that you are in league with the stones of the field?”

Semper Fidelis
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WW II and Korean War

Job 5:23 Proverbs 3:31 I Samuel 17:40

Never Forget

(photo h/t free republic)

Update: here is an interesting link that will go in the right hand sidebar, “The Roll”
It is a television archive site of all things 9-11 … Sept 11 Television Archive

9/11 the falling man

Breaking: San Bruno explosion live video

Amazing video from kgo tv7

((here))

Update: Live streaming has stopped ….

“6 dead, 54 homes burned to ground” Fox news….

raw video from AP …

Attack of the killer tomato

Obama names Asian Carp Czar

The White House has tapped a former leader of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Wildlife Federation as the Asian carp czar to oversee the federal response to keeping the invasive species out of the Great Lakes.

On a conference call today with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and other congressional leaders, President Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality announced the selection of John Goss to lead the near $80 million, multi-pronged federal attack against Asian carp.
“This is a serious challenge, a serious threat,” Durbin said. “When it comes to the Asian carp threat, we are not in denial. We are not in a go-slow mode. We are in a full attack, full-speed ahead mode. We want to stop this carp from advancing.”

I feel better now.

Imagination, Optimism, and Tolerance

The importance of having bold and imaginative people in leadership positions is defined, not by the lowest common denominator, but by the inspirational power to achieve.

Continuing along the “1969” theme ……

“Tolerance,” explained Mrs. Hartsfield, “Means you don’t kill someone just because they believe differently than you.” She was speaking specifically about the news of the day to her 9th Grade Social Studies class, of which I was but one of thirty youngsters who had the privilege of receiving an excellent public education from an excellent public school teacher.

The daily discussions of current events were lively enough to hold at bay the distractions of Spring, which usually seemed to explode around the third week of March, and although expected, always seemed to catch us by surprise. The discussion of “tolerance” came on the heels of renewed animus in Ulster, the usual suspects wearing a religious facade. I could not comprehend how the two could have deep hatred for each other, my own life experience with Catholics limited to the family living across the street, Jimmy, the youngest, my best friend. That relationship went much deeper than mere tolerance, and was so natural that the thought of seeming enmity between us was limited to those competitive occasions involving sports, and later, cars, and girlfriends. Jimmy, as I recall, was the first to recognize the immutable correlation between the serving of turnip greens at the school cafeteria immediately following grass-cutting day.

A year or so later, my big brother would give me a book called Future Shock which I enjoyed much less than the hours spent examining his secret stash of rock albums, reading the sleeves, the production notes, learning the musicians’ names, and spending hours memorizing the words to the songs. I think, if pressed, I could still do the whole album-side version of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration, and four-part harmony …” I don’t think even Toffler realized how right he was in Future Shock. Change, and the accelerating rate of change has exploded on the scene, and caught us unprepared to manage our expectations.

If shock and alarm imply fear, then that’s where Toffler might have it wrong, I think. Technology changes, knowledge increases, but people are still people, all knowing the basic differences between right and wrong. And, although Ms. Hollman would tell me some years later in Sociology class that making this conclusion was “imposing a value judgment on others,” I can’t help but think that wondering about the future, and believing in the fundamental decency of people go hand in hand. That is less a limitation, and more a jumping off point, so to speak. A natural yearning to live and let live is the essence of tolerance.

The pace and the scope of expansionist technology increases with each new discovery, and one’s ability to adapt and utilize are limited only by imagination. I saw a commercial recently and blogged about it, “Web 3.0 is closer than you think.” In fact, I think web 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 will flow seamlessly into each other until the day when they are no longer differentiated by generational markers. As technological change becomes accepted and intertwined in the way we communicate and conduct our daily lives, the importance of having bold and imaginative people in leadership positions is defined, not by the lowest common denominator, but by the inspirational power to achieve.

Imagination, optimism, and tolerance are the reasons that I am politically conservative.

They are the reasons that I blog.

I believe they are also, the reasons that this unique American experiment will thrive.

original post 7/18/09

Thank you, Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy has penned a piece that says exactly what I would say if I had the words. Here is an excerpt, and here is a link so that you can read the whole thing.

For the better part of two decades, Americans have been murdered by Islamists and then lectured that they are to blame for what has befallen them. We have been instructed in the need for special sensitivity to the unceasing demands of Islamic culture and falsely accused of intolerance by the people who wrote the book on intolerance. Americans have sacrificed blood and bottomless treasure for Islamic peoples who despise Americans — and despise us even more as our sacrifices and gestures of self-loathing intensify. Americans have watched as apologists for terrorists and sharia were made the face of an American Muslim community that we were simultaneously assured was the very picture of pro-American moderation. […] We look around us and we see our country unrivaled by anything in the history of human tolerance. We see thousands of thriving mosques, permitted to operate freely even though we know for a fact that mosques have been used against us, repeatedly, to urge terrorism, recruit terrorists, raise money for terrorists, store and transfer firearms, and inflame Muslims against America and the West. As Islamists rage against us, we see Islam celebrated in official Washington. As we reach out for the umpty-umpth time, we find Muslim leaders taking what we offer, but always with complaint and never with reciprocation. We’re weary, and we don’t really care if that means that Time magazine, Michael Bloomberg, Katie Couric, Fareed Zakaria, and the rest think we’re bad people — they think we’re bad people, anyway.

Ooooooh, People Are Being MEAN to Obama!

Republicans are being all mean to poor Obama (sniff sniff). They are treating him like a dog! Poor baby.

Here’s your song:

Man up, you damn whiny sissy.

Don’t misunderstand. I ain’t laughin’ with you, I’m laughin’ at you.