Hat Tip to RS Janes @ Liberaltopia:

Received in an email, author unknown, but good advice for us all.

Achieving Peace & Calm During the Holidays

I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me, and we all could probably use more calm in our lives, especially at this hectic time of the year.

Some doctor on television this morning said the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started. So I looked around my house to see the things I’d started and hadn’t finished and, before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of shhhardonay, a bodle of Baileys, a half a sicks pak of bear, a butle of vocka, a pockage of Prunglies, tha mainder of bot Valum scriptins, the res the Chesescke an a box chocolets.

Yu haf no idr who frkin gud I fel.

Peas sen dis orn to dem yu fee ar in ned ov inr pece an culm

happpee halidozees

In just a few short days, it will be 2009.  The current Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler will retire into the archives and this current site will come alive — just as we did in 2008, 2007, 2006, and so on.  Out with the old, in with the new.

In past years, I just carried your lazy butts over to the new site so that you wouldn’t break a sweat.  Not this time, bucko.  This time you are going to have to pull your own weight.  That means you are going to have to put the beer down, and do a little work.

After all, I have already done the HEAVY lifting here.

So whaddya have to do you ask?

Well, pop on over to the next year’s version of the Rott and register. Nobody is going to do it for you.  Once you’ve registered,  and after you have validated your email address, you can go ahead and leave a comment.

That’s it.  Pretty simple, huh?

Of course, the new site will not go into production until New Years Day.

Another task you might want to do now is to check your bookmarks and browser favorites.  Check to make sure that the link reads exactly like this:

www.nicedoggie.net or http://nicedoggie.net

Don’t worry about the /2008 or /2009 that trails at the end of the URL — we will add that ourselves.  NEVER put the trailing year after the URL.

For those of you with websites listing the Rott in your blogrolls:  check your links to make sure it conforms exactly as I’ve shown above.

Now go register!

UPDATE: Some of you are having trouble logging in with the username you have chosen.

HERE IS A FRIENDLY LITTLE HINT WHEN CHOOSING USERNAMES:

Do NOT choose a long, drawn-out statement of a username.  A simple little one-word username like buttmunch or pointedhead is all you need.

A couple of you tried to create a username in the form of a sentence and then wondered why it wouldn’t work.

Your username is just that:  a username.  If you want to display a different name in your comments such as “LC Fight em over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” then you can change your nickname and display it on your profile page.

But just keep your usernames simple, and you will have less problems.

K.I.S.S.

Here it is, the unedited version of the “shoe throwing incident” in Iraq.

(You just KNEW I had to share this)

Here it is, Thanksgiving Day, and instead of posting pictures of bloody violence I thought I would just wish each and everyone of you a happy day in which to reflect on the things you are THANKFUL for.

For example, Misha has something to be thankful for: a new job with good bennies.

I am thankful for just another day above ground — the rest is all gravy.

I have the turkey in the oven, and it is stuffed with my White Castle stuffing.  A few years ago, I was the guest of a close friend who served this turkey stuffed with the best stuffing I had ever had.  I noticed that everyone was taking three and four helpings of the stuffing, and I asked my host what kind of stuffing it was.  She told me the secret:

White Castle Turkey Stuffing

Ingredients:

10 White Castle hamburgers, no pickles
1 1/2 tsp. ground sage
1 1/2 cups celery, diced
3/4 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
1 1/4 tsp. ground thyme
1/4 cup chicken broth

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, tear the burgers into pieces and add diced celery and seasonings.  Toss and add chicken broth.  Stuff cavity of turkey just before roasting.  Recipe makes about 9 cups (enough for a 10 to 12 pound turkey)  Note:  Allow one (1) hamburger for each pound of turkey, which is the equivalent of 3/4 cup of stuffing per pound.

(To bake outside of the bird, place in a 2 1/2 quart casserole dish, and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees F.)

Strange as all of this sounds, this makes the best stuffing you will ever eat.

BTW: I have upgraded this site to WP 2.7-beta3-9909.  There shouldn’t be any major problems.  If Misha can talk Hosting Matters into upgrading from PHP 4.4.7 to PHP 5.2.6 then every bell and whistle will work flawlessly.

I leave you with this great joke I just found:

A woman was shopping at her local supermarket where she selected:

a half-gallon of 2% milk,
a carton of eggs,
a quart of orange juice,
a head of romaine lettuce,
a 2 lb. can of coffee and
a 1 lb. package of bacon.

As she was unloading her items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind her watched as she placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up her purchases, the drunk calmly stated, “You must be single.”

The woman was a bit startled by this proclamation, but she was intrigued by the derelict’s intuition, since she was indeed single. She looked at her six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about her selections that could have tipped off the drunk to her marital status. Curiosity getting the better of her, she said “Well, you know what, you’re absolutely correct. But how on earth did you know that?”

The drunk replied, “Cause you’re ugly.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE: I had to roll back the upgrade due to the incompatable setup on the Hosting Matters servers.  The newest version absolutely requires PHP 5.  I suspect that HM will have to upgrade if they plan on keeping most of their clients, because in about two weeks when the actual release of WP 2.7 comes out, everyone is going to be upgrading, and it will be very interesting to watch the train wreck around here.

It must be something like being partially pregnant, or a “for sure maybe”.

It is official now:  John Edwards admits to an affair with a staffer while his wife was battling cancer.

I mentioned somewhere on this site a few days ago that I wasn’t ready to accept something from the National Enquirer, without at least another substantiating source that wasn’t quite so… tainted.

But now that Edwards himself has come forward, it settles it — he is a cad.

“In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs, I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness.”

And shortly thereafter, the two of them decided it was a good thing to run for president?

Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99 percent honest is no longer enough.

Running for president is a pretty open and visual thing.  You couldn’t take a shit ten years ago without someone smelling the odor today.

But being 99 percent honest?  Does that make her child 99 percent yours, or only one percent?

I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public. With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly.

Okay, THAT much I can accept, since it is really something between you and your family, and if they are alright with it, then I certainly am not going to hound you  on it.  But you lied about it to the rest of us, and that is something between you and us, and it goes to whether we could ever trust you again in OUR affairs.

People falter.  We are human.  But if you falter, you should own up to it and not lie about it.

But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006.

Okay, I know that most people won’t pick up on that statement, but how is it that you were RECENTLY caught visiting this woman?

I tend to point out every time a Republican diddles around, make fun of them and wonder why a lot of them still remain if office.  I am certainly not going to make an exception for John Edwards.  He fucked around, got caught, finally admitted to it, and now should slink home again and disappear.

UPDATE

Some more has come out about Edward’s story.  Yesterday I commented that if “…that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006,”  why is it that the Enquirer caught him visiting this woman recently.  ABC has more:

Edwards admitted to ABC News he met secretly with Hunter last month at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., for the purpose of “trying to keep this from becoming public.”

As he left the meeting, at 2:30 in the morning, he was confronted by reporters from the National Enquirer.

Edwards told ABC News he had not told his wife about the meeting in advance.

He said the meeting was not “the only contact” he had with Hunter since 2006 when he said he ended the affair.

“There have been some other telephone contacts,” Edwards told ABC.

Does this mean that Rielle Hunter was planning on coming forward with this information?  I thought that all of this had been “settled” between the Edwards and this woman back in 2006.  Why the need to put the cork in the bottle now?

And it looks like that “99 percent” honesty factor is slipping a bit this morning, since you failed to be 100 percent honest with your wife about resuming contact with this woman.  I am giving you a 50 percent deduction of percentage points just for that.

UPDATE #2

Dammit, I am going to have to take a shower after all of this.

Here is some MORE information that now has an indication of blackmail and payments:

Another blow to Democrats today — Edwards former national finance chairman, Fred Baron, said he had made payments to Hunter in an attempt to keep her quiet about the affair, without the knowledge of Edwards.

I don’t see this as a “blow to Democrats” — that is a media ploy to add substance to something that isn’t there — but it IS a blow to Edwards. If anything, this knowledge coming out now means that the Democrats dodged a bullet if Edwards had been named to Obama’s cabinet, or had some other role in an Obama administration.

Paul Begala had this to say:

“This is nothing endemic to being a Democrat here — this is a human condition.”

But Edward’s own staffers were a lot more critical:

“I am disappointed and angry,” said David Bonior, a former congressman from Michigan who managed Edwards’ 2008 presidential campaign. “Thousands of friends and supporters of Sen. Edwards put their faith and confidence in him and he has let them down. Young supporters who put their time and energy into his campaign with a newfound energy and idealism for politics have been betrayed by his actions.”

Even beyond the public denials, Edwards had vehemently denied the allegations privately to aides. Jonathan Prince, Edward’s 2008 deputy campaign manager, said on CNN that the former senator personally lied to him during the campaign about not having an affair.

Many aides repeated his denials to reporters — not aware that they were being told to lie.

“I am profoundly disappointed and devastated,” said Chris Kofinis, who was Edwards’ communications director during his 2008 campaign. “We believed in him, and it’s heartbreaking, and I send my thoughts and prayers to Elizabeth, the senator and his family as they deal with this personal tragedy.”

Now is a good time for Edwards to simply fade away.

DJ’s Open Thread

Well for me, the mystery has finally been solved.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3934788900154749704

Instead of talking about killing Obama, or how “Muslim” he is, or some other kind of nonsense, I leave you this REAL gun porn for you while I pack my toothbrush and get ready to go back into the hospital for a few days.

You might want some popcorn — and some kleenex.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5854686068870249151

And no, this isn’t good news.

You just can’t take him anywhere…

First you don’t want them in here, then you don’t want them to leave?

Feds arrest illegal immigrants who are trying to leave USA

The government has a new approach to border enforcement. Instead of just focusing on people who are entering the country illegally, the Los Angeles Times says federal agents are also arresting undocumented foreigners who are trying to leave the United States.

The paper reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been stopping vehicles and checking the immigration status of travelers near the San Diego-Tijuana border crossing.

“The illegal immigrants they apprehend are typically turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol for processing,” according to the paper. “Unless they have serious criminal records or numerous immigration violations, most are returned to Mexico within a few hours.”

The chutes leading out of this country should be greased and offer no amount of friction when it comes to allowing illegal undocumented aliens out of the country.  Even a police escort with a parade if so requested.  The egress should be streamlined, and there should be no door to hit them on the butt.  (Just those spike strips like the old drive in theaters used to have (damn that dates me) to prevent them from driving back in through the exit.

Here is a little Hunter Hayes for you, done about eleven years ago when he was only five years old:

Yes, I am finally back home and somewhat ambulatory in my sleek new motorized wheel chair.  I get to start physical therapy again in two weeks, but I hope to be kinda walking again before that.

* sorry, I had to change the thread from the atheist article to this one because it was FAR more interesting…

Texas legislator, wants to require voters to have photo IDs is photographed casting multiple votes. One legislator was even recorded casting three votes after the morning he died unexpectedly.

Okay here is your daily chew toy:

Randi Rhodes Suspended

Air America host Randi Rhodes called both Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton “whores” in a recent appearance, seen below. Rhodes, who hosts a weekday radio show on Air America, said to the cheering crowd, “What a whore Geraldine Ferraro is! She’s such a f**king whore!” She then proceeded to say, “Hillary is a big f**king whore, too” to a mixed audience reaction. “You know why she’s a big f**king whore? Because her deal is always, ‘Read the fine print, asshole!’”

Air America has suspended on-air host Randi Rhodes for making inappropriate statements about prominent figures, including Senator Hillary Clinton, at a recent public appearance on behalf of Air America in San Francisco which was sponsored by an Air America affiliate station.

“Air America encourages strong opinions about public affairs but does not condone such abusive, ad hominem language by our Hosts,” said chair Charlie Kireker.

Note that Randi Rhodes was at a private event and NOT on the radio at the time.

As you can see, I am able to upload a graphic here, using the new-fangled media upload doohickey in the new version of WordPress, while using Hosting Matters’ locked down web server.

But here is the caveat:  You MUST be using FireFart to make it work, and you are still going to get the “fail” error message once it is uploaded.  (ignore the fail message)

There is supposed to be a fix coming out in WP 2.5.1 that will disable the flash if the server is too restrictive, or if it is running an old, almost obsolete version of php.  (Hint to Hosting Matters:  Time to move up to PHP version 5, since version 4 is no longer being supported)