Woody Cavenaugh

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Then she noticed the shotgun in one of the officer's hands, aimed at her neighbor's 45-pound Labrador retriever.

"I said, 'Why did you have to do that? You didn't have to do that,'" Mrs. Kulers said. "He said, 'It showed its teeth.' He said, 'We have a right to do this.'"

Police shoot your dog in a similar manor you may shoot the officer's dog. If the officer has no dog, you may shoot his child, but care must be taken that it is only a flesh wound.

Thank you,
The Management

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I remember it well, just a few months ago we had two intelligent qualified guys running for president. It was going to be a tough choice. Back then it was about the issues. They didn't attack the other, that would be low and a waste of words, "Let me tell you about what I believe!" Good times.

But those times are gone now. Now we've reached the stupid season. It happened when the presidential candidates chose their vice presidents. The criteria for choosing a VP is different from that of choosing the president. The VP's job is to fill in the gaps in the president's armor, and hopefully at the same time help balance any niches the other team have. Obama is a minority, so the McCain camp chose a woman. No harm in that women can be Vice Presidents too.

So, did you flinch when I referred to a woman as a minority? Probably not. Should you have? Most definitely. In the 2000 census women made up 50.9% of the US population. Just saying. You can talk about the glass ceiling, but you can't compare a minority to a woman. Its apples and oranges, both are fruity arguments.

They've made a big deal in the news about "The Bridge to nowhere". The facts say that Palin supported this bridge, then the popular tide of opinion changed and so did her opinion. There is no harm in this. However, you can't really say that she was against it. That would be a half truth, which is a lie in sheep's clothing.

For most of my life I said over and over again that I didn't care for blond girls. My preference was for brunets or red heads (a man can dream). If you look at the facts of my dating record you will see that I tended to prefer small, brown haired girls who were looking for a knight in shining armor to protect them from the evils of the world. Then I married a tall powerful, intelligent, capable of killing me with her pinky blond. Can I really honestly say, "I have always preferred blonds"? Nope. I CAN say, I didn't used to like blonds but I saw the error in my ways and I now prefer them. So logically, Palin could say, "At one time I supported the bridge to nowhere, but after careful study of the facts I turned against the idea entirely." She could, but she won't.

Politicians are not allowed to learn, or grow, or change their minds for any reason. If they do, it summons the clown parade with their clown cars, and honking horns, chanting "Waffle! Waffle! Waffle!" while making horses asses out of twisted balloons.

That's why we've had eight years of an idiot president. He's not allowed to say, "Whoopsie daisy, I sure blew that call." Not only can he not apologize for screwing up, he's not allowed to fix his mistakes either because that would imply that he's realized he's wrong, learned from his mistake, summoned the clown parade.

Meanwhile, EXTREMELY well paid political wolves are going over every speech with a microscope looking for clips and phrases they can rearrange, and spin out to say something to damage the candidate. Or, to put it in a less politically correct way, "lie and slander". Here's one that John McCain approved of (or there is a sound bite at the end that says he did) where they accuse of Obama of passing legislation that teaches comprehensive sex education to kindergartners. Lets for a minute assume that it is the truth from the mouth of the all mighty himself. Guess what! You've just agreed that McCain supports pedophiles! If you don't want to teach kindergartners where your "no-zones" are and teach them to tell a parent, teacher, or police officer anytime someone tries to touch them there, than you are supporting the people who are out there (RIGHT BEHIND YOU) groping your babies for sexual gratification.

But that's crazy talk. Obama didn't pass legislation teaching little kids how to do the horizontal mombo. For one, the legislation states that the comprehensive material had to be age and developmentally appropriate. They wouldn't be teaching the little ones to use a condom, they would have been teaching little ones to protect their no-zones. Not that this matters at all, the legislation didn't actually pass. Those poor little tykes have no idea what is happening to them and don't know what to do about it.

But I digress...

These idiotic and false messages are getting front page headlines for two reasons, first the mainstream media is playing to the lowest common denominator. Second, anyone who is dumb enough to believe the lie, is going to click on the ad on the page asking the question, "Who was a better leader of the world: Britney Spears or Cookie Monster? Click here to vote!" If you actually clicked that link I've lost a lot of respect for you. You should be ashamed!

Do you want to know who I think is to blame for all this mess? Ralph Nader. You want to know why? Seat belt laws. First Nadar helped make the seat belt mandatory in all cars. Then the laws were created forcing everyone to wear them. This very small thing was a death knell of the human race.

If seatbelts were optional, people when they bought a car would have the choice. "Hmmm...seat belts for $50 dollars or a front drivers side DVD player for $200. Duh! Give me the DVD player!" Some weeks later this guy watching is Epic Movie while driving 80 miles per hour down the highway veers across the median and slams head first into the car which has no DVD player but did come with seat belts because it is an obvious choice for safety. The Epic Movie fan and his family are launched out of the windshield where he splats into a tree in a cow pasture, a Mack Truck, and a guy on a moped. The family with the seat belts are hurt bad but survive. Darwinism is at play. The idiot has removed himself and his family from the gene pool, making the world a smarter place. The car filled with those who chose of their own free will to buckle up survive, also improving the gene pool. Its a win-win.

You think I'm making this up? You think the world isn't a dumber place. Feel free to examine the evidence.

No child left behind. Lowering the bar, one school at a time.
Search youtube for "painful and stupid" I got 41 THOUSAND hits and most of them also included the term "funny".
Hole in the wall. If I even have to say why...
Protectionism in general

My absolute earliest memory: I had been put into my crib for the night and my parents were getting ready to go to bed themselves. I pull the pair of tweezers I had hidden in my PJ's out, climb out of the crib and find out for myself exactly what it was in those little slots in the wall. (Which I learned later were called electrical sockets.) I learned a valuable lesson that night that has stuck with me my whole life. Do you doubt this was a valuable lesson?

As long as there are people out there stupid enough to spend money on internet enhancement drugs there will be a market for the idiocy that defines today's politics.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I grew up on the coast in commuting distance from a military base. My neighborhood was made up of active duty military, retired military, and civilians in fairly equal numbers. Growing up that way I was exposed to ideas and customs I might not have experienced in other places. One of these customs was the hurricane party.

The idea was simple. A hurricane was coming, its been suggested that people gather up supplies in a safe fortified location and hole up until the storm passes. Many people think that it might be smarter to combine supplies, and man power in a single place to wait out the storm, since there was nothing else to do after the power goes out, you could while away the hours being social. Thus in my neighborhood during every hurricane there was at least one hurricane party.

My dad prefers to spend his hurricanes sitting on the porch watching the action. After it is over, he will drive around looking at the damage, offering help to friends where is needed. Mom on the other hand prefers to fill the bath tub with water, pile supplies and a portable radio in the bathroom and (back then) gather me up to sleep on the floor and wait until the whole thing blew over. Mind you, though our bathroom was the only interior room in our house, it has a large mirror on each door, one above the sink, and glass shower doors. I never would bring it up to her even as a little tyke because I saw just how important it was to her to at least feel like she was safe.

Of all the hurricanes I grew up during, only one ever caused us any real damage at all and that was after I had left the area to seek my fortune in the Piedmont. The only other "adventure" I ever had any witness to at home on the coast during severe weather was one morning after when dad discovered... the body.

Our windows were boarded up so there was no seeing outside unless you went outside, and dad being naturally adventurous and indestructible, was out the morning after at first light to survey the damage. He wandered the backyard, to see no damage, just a few limbs down. Going to the front yard, he saw down the street some trees leaning, many limbs down, a few misplaced trashcans, and what appeared to him to be a pile of cloths at the edge of our yard next to the street. He went to investigate.

Moments later he was back inside instructing mom to call the ambulance, there was a body in the yard! Mom kept me inside, dad kept his distance and shortly later EMS rolled up. It didn't take them long to figure out that the person, though soaked, was very much alive...drunk and passed out. They asked dad if he recognized the person who was at this moment still very incoherent. He thought he had seen the man before as a friend of the neighbors, so an EMS person went over there to see if they had "lost" anyone.

"Hey!" cried the EMS person, "Here's another one!" In the neighbor's yard, between two cars a soaked to the bone woman was passed out. They began to make sure she was OK as well.

Several minutes of knocking at the door brought the neighbor around. (By this time I had slipped outside and joined my father a respectable distance from the action.) Apparently during the night when the eye was passing over, a couple thought it was safe to go home. Neither them or anyone else at that hurricane party were sober enough to comprehend or voice any of a number of concerns. The couple apparently fell down and passed out while trying to simply FIND their car in the yard.

To this day we still laugh about that. Good times.

The moral of the tale is that though a hurricane party is in and of itself probably a good idea, you really need to stay sober to take full effect of the the benefit. Also, those of you who tend to stay home during and venture out after should take a camera of some kind. You never know when a photo opportunity might arise.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:21 AM | Permalink