I swore, but I make the rules, so there!

I swore I wasn’t going to say another word about Paris Hilton, but like a traffic accident we can’t tear our eyes away from the crazed woman.

NBC, hoping to bolster their sagging ratings, has offered Ms. Hilton a million bucks for a first-out-the door-interview.

Parental warning: adult content ahead. This is going to be ugly.

There’s no gentle way to say it; the minute Ms. Hilton hits the street, her mouth will be filled with fresh penis, and her nose will be overflowing with cocaine. The garbage she spewed about living a higher spiritual life was another camera-play. Jailhouse redemption takes a lot more than Paris is willing to give. This is tough adult talk, but God help us, it's exactly what'll happen. I wish I had a million bucks. Money for nothing would be good, and for those kind of bucks, I might do more than I'll freely and openly admit to.

I wish I had a million bucks to confess my sins. I've been a bad boy; never been a celebrity; never played one on TV. I've been a ne'er-do-well and a sinner; playing with my mortal soul ought to satisfy the home-viewer.

Staying in the grown-up mode for a moment; a quote from Sigourney Weaver finalizes all: "Who do I have to f--k to get off this boat?" Goodnight, Gracie.

Isn't Paris a city in France?

I am so tired of Paris Hilton. This woman exhausts my patience. She is not worth the exuberance the world expends upon her. I don’t mention brazen killers on my feeble blog. This thoughtless beach bunny doesn't rate a [dis]honorable mention in the pantheon of evil individuals.

Paris is quite a piece of work. The LA County Sheriff may be in some deep doo-doo because he had the hots for her and let her out of jail. There is all sorts of pundit reckoning going on about preferential treatment for celebrity offenders.

I’ve never been a celebrity, and never played one on TV. I busted the speed limit in a fast sports car, and wore the orange jumpsuit while I waited for my lawyer to show up. My advice is to do the time; 40-something days is only about six weeks; you can do that standing on your head.

Rumor has it that if some jailhouse duck can get a snapshot, it will be worth $500,000 bucks. Take my breath away! Here, I’ll give you the ex-wife, a good friend, and the orange jumpsuit for free. Paris, do the time!

Helping the troops, and other links

Here are a couple of links that will help you to make life better for our troopers. The first is fairly straightforward: You need to go to Bill O'Reilly's website and take the O’Quiz. In collaboration with ATT, a trooper in Iraq will then be sent a 20-minute courtesy calling card, just because you logged on to take the test. It’s free, easy, and the quiz is something I routinely use to keep what’s left of my mind flexed to some degree about current events. Cookie reading is easy; you can't leave a greasy computer footprint on anyone's website without a trackback.

The second link, which will also aid our troops, is something I’ve been hoping for. Constant readers define me as a conservative Libertarian; we are not ready to challenge the Big Two-party system, so I’m once again looking to Republicans. John McCain is a RINO [Republican In Name Only], and being a war hero doesn’t necessarily translate well into being a viable leader of the civilized world’s last stand against heathen theocracy. Mitt Romney is okay, but civilization is at a crossroads, and “okay” is not good enough. Romney cannot stand up to the fire that the Democrat she-devil will breathe when the race draws nigh. America stands at a turning point of history, and the hand of the average voter is being forced by the premature declarations of those presidential candidates who sense disaster looming.

Since my party is not yet ready for the ultimate political run, until the Kennedy Amnesty-for-Illegal-Aliens Bill kills the Republican Party, I am much enthused that Fred Dalton Thompson has thrown his hat into the proverbial ring. Most definitely I'm with Fred. President Reagan proved that being an actor is not a disqualifying credential, and the former Senator from Tennessee has more integrity in his movie-making road shows than so-called “serious” politicians have in all the endorsements of Hollyweird’s finest. I have children of service age; I will trust this TV actor more than any trial lawyer from a neighboring state—despite his pricey haircut—to decide what’s right for my children. I don’t want Socialists like Hillary running things, and I damn sure don’t want shyster lawyers like John Edwards to step anywhere close to the controls for spaceship Earth. What scares me to death, more than any sci-fi scenario or alternate future a’la’ Phillip K. Dick and The Man in the High Castle, is that some otherwise clear-thinking American citizens are going to vote against George Bush. Their thinking against Bush is so deeply influenced that they will regard the death of the next soldier in Iraq’s fields as nothing more than a political milepost to be held against him.

I am posting links on my sidebar as I can figure the template out. You are well served to follow my hyper-links in this text.

T-shirt Hell also has some breathtakingly offensive stuff going on. They have some amazingly vulgar things to say about the late Rev. Falwell, but their nasty outlook keeps us grounded in what the rest of the world thinks. That link is posted on the sidebar, if you want to buy a shirt and be a public nuisance. Democrats operate off tee-shirt slogans, so those of you on the Left will feel right at home. I don't endorse all their creative stances with the shirts, but they say what we think. Like Rev. Falwell, the owner of that site says things right or wrong, and sticks by them.

Buy a tee-shirt if you're so moved. Take the "O'Quiz" because it's an extremely helpful thing for troopers who'd like to call home. If you can see past the rhetoric of those who have already lined up for George Bush's job as leader of the civilized world, go visit Fred. Someone much wiser than me has pointed it out: We are thinking of the next election; the jihadists are thinking for the next 100 years on how to defeat and kill us.

The Psychology of Illness, Part III

I have a chronic disease, but thank goodness, it isn’t contagious. I can come and go as I please, without worrying about the effect my proximity may have on my fellow human beings, and without the paranoia that the Center for Disease Control [CDC] might put me on a “no-fly” list.

American health care is the best in the world, even if it is outrageously expensive. I think there’s a cause-and effect relationship between cost and quality, but, that’s just me.

Speaking of “me”, that seems to be the only person Andrew Speaker was thinking of when he pulled his little international travel stunt recently. Despite stern admonitions from the CDC that he should not travel because he’s infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis, Mr. Speaker went skying off to Greece and Italy. Okay, it was an important occasion: he got married and went on his honeymoon. Given his potentially infectious medical condition, however, it begs a question: why couldn’t he have gotten married in Atlanta, or wherever he and his fiancée lived, and couldn’t they have then driven to Niagara Falls, or Vegas, or Branson, Missouri?

When the CDC finally caught up with Speaker in Italy, they told him to remain where he was, and cease all travel. Instead, this guy and his new bride hopped on a flight to Canada, and then attempted to sneak back across the border into The States in a car. They were detained, and Mr. Speaker—a lawyer—is now in quarantine under armed guard…as he should be.

What Andrew Speaker did was one of the most arrogant, defiant acts I have ever seen, short of terrorism and mass murder. Ayn Rand long-ago defined the necessity of self-regard and the importance of acknowledging the ego, but I don’t think hammerheads like Speaker were what she had in mind when she wrote The Virtue of Selfishness. It’s not like Speaker is some grade-school dropout with a limited understanding of the English language. He’s a college and law school graduate. If someone tells him something—verbally, or in writing—he can comprehend it.

When the CDC told him not to travel, they meant just that. As I used to ask my children, “What part of ‘no’ do you not understand?” Maybe the guy was just hot to impress his wife. She seems to love him, and if she truly does, then she would have overcome her disappointment at canceling the wedding and honeymoon in Europe, and suggested pleasing alternatives that they could have enjoyed within the continental United States, without the benefit of public transportation such as flying.

The attempted Canada-US border sneak shows that Mr. Speaker was aware of the potential criminal liability that his actions incurred. (That law school training was good for something, I suppose.) He claims that he was doubtful of the quality of Italian health care, so he defied the CDC’s instructions to remain in that country. This—and his statement that he was fearful of dying in Italy—also indicate that he was fully aware of how seriously ill he is, despite a lame assertion to the contrary in explaining why he defied the CDC the first time. “I didn’t know how sick I was” doesn’t jibe with “I didn’t want to stay in Italy because I’m so sick”. He knew exactly how ill he is, and he also knew the potential consequences of his actions.

There is a continuing uproar over this incident, and some of the passengers who shared airplanes with Mr. Speaker are beginning to add their voices to the mix. They are not happy, and who can blame them? I have been in a couple of situations where I was potentially exposed to TB in close quarters, and to this day I thank God that I dodged that bullet. I normally try to take trains when I travel, but every once in a blue moon I have to haul my carcass onto an airplane and share the pressurized, recirculating air with everyone else on board. My primary concern is that the airliner doesn’t break and fall out of the sky; now I’ll have to worry that some selfish squirrel like Andrew Speaker might be aboard, coughing something contagious into the enclosed atmosphere.

The talk is that although Mr. Speaker may not face any criminal liability, he may be subject to civil torts for his reckless endangerment of others. I’m not a lawyer, and never played one on TV, as the saying goes, but that’s exactly what Speaker’s actions constitute: reckless endangerment. I’m not a big fan of litigation, but had I been aboard an airliner with this man, I’d be lawyered-up and ready to take a swing at him. I wish him well in the battle with his illness, and will pray for him in spite of his arrogant attitude. However, someone should provide him with a Bible to pass those long, lonely hours in quarantine. It’s not just his body that needs healing; his brain needs a little maintenance, too.