The blog is getting short shift today.  We arrived in Hereford, TX much later than I had expected.  It is late and there are several things I need to do this evening.  I left Rumsfeld at the spa.  He was happy, ignored me when I left, he was so busy with one of his little girl friends.  So much for Mommy Cat.  

I had a great posting for today but accidentaly deleted it.  This is it all you are getting after that.

TRACKBACK SPAM
Trackback annoyances.  I accidentally deleted 2 good trackbacks this morning.  If yours is not there, you know why.  Last night I finally deleted trackbacks over at The Subway Canaries.  I found it rather interesting.  I am now concluding many of the approximately 800-1000 pieces of trackback spam I get each day on this blog are deliberate. I just want to thank whoever is doing it.  The pornographic titles are so filthy and so explicate it makes me wonder about the mind-set of someone who would do this.  We’re talking way beyond X-rated filth.  I am angry at being subjected to this constant harassment. It is harassment. Blog Harbor has not recourse on these.  Either I turn off trackbacks completely, or let them continue.  It has dawned on me that I’ve not been fair to whoever it is who is spamming me.  I need to be praying for you.  I promise I will now do so. You need help.  You may think it is cute and you are trying to prove a point, but you are one sick puppy, that’s for sure.  If you think you are defending the honor of some political figure, you are disgusting.  Anyone who collects this sort of supporter is disgusting.

As someone who has had melanoma, this is the dumbest thing I’ve seen.  Melanoma is caused by exposure to the sun and genetics.  No amount of caffeine or exercise is going to prevent it.  The only way to stop the spread of melanoma is a twice yearly full body mole exam and having every possible mole that could go into melanoma removed, properly by a wide excision, cut, and stitches.

They are still seeing Big Bird in San Antonio. Yep, this is exactly the description of the critter my parents saw on their property in Lincoln County a couple years ago.  Dark gray or black, huge, at least six feet and, according to my bird watching mother, not a condor. We do need to realize though, this is one of the paths for condors.

More on the looming Hemmingway House cat-astrophe.
“…The trouble began as a spat with a neighbor several years ago. Now, the conflict pits the cats' keepers against two former members of the Florida Keys Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Motivated by concern for what they considered an excessive cat population on the property and the potential for the cats to escape and be run over, Gwen Hawtof and Debra Schultz are believed to have brought the museum to the attention of those charged with applying the 1966 Animal Welfare Act, said the museum's chief executive, Michael Morawski….”

The petition to save the cats:

MacsMind has news about the death of Tom Snyder.

Tom Snyder was my favorite host - of anything.  He was also the first person to re-assemble the cast of a defunct television series no one was really interested in at the time.  It was early in the 1970's.  The Trekkie in me was in heaven!


MUST READ:  Blog Lizards has a fascinating take on the 1980 Olympic Miracle, hope, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.

THE DAY’S RANT
This evening I was listening to O’Reilly while driving into Clovis, NM.  I was so annoyed I nearly ran a red light.  The problem is the fact that O’Reilly has somehow convinced himself that only the blogs and sites on the “Far Left” are cruel, vicious, vindictive, and over the top.  Lanny Davis tried to tell him that there are a number of “mainstream” far right conservative blogs that are as cruel, vicious, vindictive, and over the top as those on the left.  As a Republican with ‘conservative’ tendencies this bothers me.

Until we are willing to admit that there are good conservatives and good liberals, bad conservatives and bad liberals we are never going to be able to achieve anything that is remotely intellectually honest.  To think that only liberals do horrendous things to conservatives is false.  I think in O’Reilly’s case, it’s just plain blind.  Far Right bloggers have a tendency to be hard on liberals, but as a whole they are not as outrageous as the Far Left.  There is this strange, almost irrational hatred of almost all things Hillary that could seriously backfire in 2008 if it becomes more shrewish.

The big problem with conservative blogs and the martinets of the Far Right is the do indeed control, or pull the strings, on more than a few members of the House and the Senate.  Look at the fate of the Immigration Bill.  This was engineered by the extreme Far Right.  The problem is people like O’Reilly aren’t paying enough attention to these people.  They are absolutely merciless and completely vindictive with anyone who crosses them.  What they are doing to Lindsey is the perfect example.  

Ronald Reagan once said that anyone who voted with you 80% of the time was NOT your enemy.  Lindsey is not the enemy.  Somehow he managed to cross John Tanton.  What John Tanton, arguably the most powerful person in the country right now, wants, John Tanton is determined to get.  If anyone gets in his way, Tanton manipulates, determined to destroy that person.  He salts the right campaign chest, puts money into various PACS, and there it goes.  Suddenly all his goose-stepping minions of darkness fall into line.  Since Michelle Malkin is the most visible in the blogsphere and on FOX, she leads the way, out to destroy a decent man.  

Why?

Lindsey Graham does not dance to John Tanton’s music, hence the Far Right must destroy him.  It’s that simple.  It is also that disgusting.

Last year they were out to destroy Chris Cannon.  This year it is Lindsey Graham.  Who will it be next time?  If you don’t see the pattern you are either blind or – stupid.