Odds and Sods

Now this is pretty danged funny…

My Good Buddy Greg in Detroit (among others; Greg just came to mind first) was always semi-amazed during “snappy repartee” with TSMP when she would glare at him suddenly and say something to the effect of “You better watch it. I’m PMS’ing and I don’t think that’s funny…” She never was one to hide anything, that woman.

(hat tip to Fuzzy Bear Lioness posting at The Flight Deck)

A good article about Number 19 at NHL.com…

Once Yzerman joined hockey’s most exclusive club – Stanley Cup-winning captains – he became a hero for hockey fans everywhere, not just in Detroit. Suddenly, it seemed almost overnight in many quarters, everyone understood how special a player, and a person, this Yzerman guy was.

Late in his career, Yzerman was revered as much by opposing fans as he was by the Detroit crowds. Players across the League also understood they were in the presence of greatness. Today, it is impossible to find anyone with a bad word to say about Yzerman.

Actually, the only time anyone ever said anything bad about Stevie was when he put the puck in the net. Those words would have come from the opposing team’s fans and perhaps the opposing team’s goalie and/or a defenseman. Something like “That frickin’ Yzerman! I can’t believe he did that! Again!”

I’ve written once or twice in the recent past about Site Meter and its problems, or my perception that SM is having problems. There’s a place where you can get information about the “state of the service,” if you go look. True to form, I didn’t search long or hard enough to discover it until just recently. And yeah, there were problems. There’s a quite lengthy discussion about last month’s issues and the actions taken to resolve same. But, as my experience indicates, the problems have been fixed. Site Meter has been working as advertised for the past week.

I’ve not written about Madame Speaker’s ill-advised sojourn in Damascus and other points east. There’s been SO much written on this subject, much of it unfavorable (as might be expected). Today’s op-ed in the WSJ pretty well sums up the situation. In part:

Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her now famous sojourn to Syria, donning a head scarf and advertising that she was conducting shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Damascus. If there was any doubt that her trip was intended as far more than a routine Congressional "fact-finding" trip, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos put it to rest by declaring that, "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States."

Americans should understand how extraordinary this is. There have been previous battles over U.S. foreign policy and fierce domestic criticism. In the 1990s, these columns defended Bill Clinton against "the Republican drift toward isolationism and political opportunism" amid the Kosovo conflict. But rarely in U.S. history have Congressional leaders sought to conduct their own independent diplomacy, with the Speaker acting as a Prime Minister traveling with a Secretary of State in the person of Mr. Lantos.

Yes, Congressional Republicans have visited Syria too. But Ms. Pelosi isn't some minority back-bencher. Without a Democrat in the White House, she and Mr. Reid are the national leaders of their party. Even Newt Gingrich, for all his grand domestic ambitions in 1995, took a muted stand on foreign policy, realizing that in the American system the executive has the bulk of national security power. He also understood he would do the country no favors by sending a mixed message to our enemies--at the time, Slobodan Milosevic.

It’s worth the read.

Speaking of Madame Speaker…I’ve had several hits this past week like this one: nancy pelosi leg photos (taken directly from Site Meter). Talk about perverts… That’s SICK! (note that the googler clicked into EIP based on a comment Lou made about a photo of my Mom...)

Another good read: Michael J. Totten on Kurdistan and the Kurds. It’s long and it’s certainly not a sound bite. The back story, if you will, to “The Other Iraq” (a 29-second video that’s been widely played on American TeeVee).

Today’s Pic: SN1 in the cockpit of a MiG-29. Taken last month at Nellis AFB, NV. (USAF photo)