Month: July 2005

Adventures at Del Taco

Man cannot live by bread alone. That is why God created Del Taco!

Del Taco is the best breakfast burrito in fast food. But it is also the most evil. The Macho Bacon and Egg Breakfast Burrito is 1,030 calories. The small hash brown that you get in the Combo Meal is another 250 calories. The medium coke is 230 calories. Total value of this Combo Meal is 1,510 calories with no drink refills.

The proper way to eat the burrito is to unwrap it, place lots of hash browns and hot sauce in it, fold the tortilla back up and then wrap it with the foil wrapper. It works better with a fresh tortilla but there is no guarantee that you will be served one that is soft. Don’t eat this in a moving car; it is the only fast food that I park my car to eat. Remember, napkins are our friends.

I order this once a week, usually on Saturday or Sunday morning. Depending on my plans, I purchase from one of three different locations. All three stores claim to be open 24 hours a day but this is a crock as I will explain shortly. In the mornings, two of the three stores have huge amounts of litter in their parking lots on a regular basis. Both of these stores are next to McDonalds which adds to the contrast in management styles of the franchise owners.

The worst of the three stores from which I occasionally purchase food is located on Calvine Road just off Highway 99.This store has been closed on several occasions when I have tried to purchase food on my way to work—between5:30 and 6:15 am—despite the fact that their sign clearly states that breakfast is available from 11 pm. On other occasions they have been out of diet coke, bacon, eggs & hash browns. (There is a store on Florin Road that I tried to order from at 6:00 am and they refused to serve me so I never went back.)

The Del Taco on Laguna Blvd by Petco is much better than its Calvine counterpart. They have never had a shortage on food items that I have ordered. (Their proximity to Petco does not seem to be responsible for the abundance of food.) However, they have a very slow drive thru. I have been stuck in it for over 45 minutes in the evening. The best franchise of the three that I visit regularly is located in West Sacramento. The parking lot is usually spotless. They have the same cook every time we go there. We buy food there about three Sundays a month. Only once have they ever been closed and that was for an employee meeting.

Everywhere you order the breakfast burrito from Del Taco, is made a different way. The ration of lettuce and eggs
varies considerably. Once the cook even put refried beans in it, yuck! Guess which of the three stores did that
mistake?

When it is cooked properly there is nothing better. If good food and a breakfast adventure is on your list of weekend
chores then try Del Taco.

 

CAIR Unmasked: Live

Hugh Hewitt spent almost three hours this week with Hussam Ayloush—a spokesman from the Southern California Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Wow, what an eye-opening interview.

The CAIR representative kept trying to pass himself off as an average American guy who just happens to defend the rights of people who read the Koran and pray to Allah. He did a good job defending his point of view in a partisan sort of way. That is until he was asked to denounce actions that Muslim folks had taken against non-Muslims and then he was unmasked. (You could tell that he was holding back from revealing what he really believed.)

Hewitt nailed Mr. Ayloush with a question about the unprovoked attacks on Israel in 1948 and 1973. The CAIR representative saw nothing wrong with surprise military attacks on Israel with no provocation. He also had excuses about why the people in the Palestinian refugee camps were taught in school with maps that purposely-left Israel off the Middle-East maps.

At the mention of Israel, Mr. Ayloush went into attack mode and accused Hewitt of being a Jew lover and a hater of Islam. He then went on to accuse Hewitt of being a racist and a bigot. When pressed for answers, Ayloush went into a lame retort that he is a simple engineer and not a politician. In other words he was not qualified to speak on these matters. Excuse me, Hussam Ayloush, you were there as a spokesman for CAIR! This dumb bumpkin from the carpet bazaar act may work with some folks but he picked the wrong host on which to pull that stunt.

CAIR was revealed to be what I have often heard them accused of being, they masquerade as loves of peace and democracy but their true aims are the same as the terrorisms that plague the world today. They are obstructionists to a solution. Instead they run interference and provide cover for those sworn to kills us.

I often wonder if their brother Muslims were such caring and loving people as Mr.Ayloush claims, then why have they forced the Palestinians to live in refugee camps for over half a century? There is more than enough land and money in the Arab countries that if they wanted to absorb the Palestinians into neighboring countries they could. Apparently, it is better politics for Arab rulers to keep the peasants stirred-up about a non-existent external threat (Israel)that oppresses their brothers than to confront the oppression in their own nations.

CAIR will provide political cover and legal representation for terrorists but is not interested in rooting out the terrorists in their own community. Its too bad. If they wont deal with their own people, they will create a situation where those outside the community that they claim to represent will have to do it for them. They are setting-up the circumstances that they claim to be trying to prevent. (This is a common tactic of many special interest groups.) When a crackdown begins on their people they will have no one to blame but themselves.

Thanks Hugh for giving Mr. Ayloush enough rope to hang himself with his own words. Transcript on July 25 & 26 at RadioBlogger

 

Trump Thumps United Nations

Hugh Hewitt started his show on Friday with the testimony of Donald Trump before some obscure congressional committee that has been asked by the United Nations to give it money to renovate its building in New York. This is one of the best pieces of audio I have ever heard for a host of reasons. It illustrates what is wrong with the UN, the complicity of the US government, fact that Congress has many ignorant as it relates to the real world—members and the brilliance of Trump.

The Donald isn’t my favorite political person but his comments on rebuilding the World Trade Center and this Congressional testimony are two high watermarks this year that have earned my respect.

The audio is from C-SPAN and is not copyrighted. I have several friends that will be getting audio CDs of this from me.

 

Roberts Opposition Begins Attacks

Ann Coulter is outstanding in her field. Well yeah; but this time she’s all alone screaming her lungs out. Noooooooo!!


Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt is strutting around like the rooster in the barnyard. He has always advocated John Roberts as one of the top three choices for the Court.


Granted, there is not that much of a paper trail at the Appellate level, but Roberts has an extensive record as an attorney and advocate for causes that Conservatives support.


I trust Hewitt. He has demonstrated good judgment on many issues and Roberts is his friend.


While it is true that only God truly knows a mans heart; on the outside, Roberts seems to be a good choice. I am amazed that the usual suspects on the Left are already resorting to digging dirt on his wife. They are upset that he is married to a woman that is Catholic and Pro-life. The Left is angry that Roberts might be a rarity in politics, a Catholic that believes in the teachings of the church. This is quite a contrast the lapsed Catholics that dare sit in judgment of him such as DUI Kennedy.

Roberts family should be off limits to this confirmation process. The fact that the Left has to resort to such tactics is an indication that they lack a hook for their fundraising letters.


I think this process will have some delays but Roberts will ultimately be confirmed. Replacing the Chief Justice will be a cakewalk when that time comes but if there is a third opening in the court during the second Bush term, it will be all-out war because this will be the vote that will permanently move the Court to the Right and Liberals will have lost all three branches at this point.


Oh, look for the Chief Justice to retire shortly after Roberts has been confirmed.

Nuke Mecca?

US. Rep Tom Tancred  has touched off a firestorm of controversy by commenting that in response to a nuclear attack on the United States, a military response to such an attack might include bombing Moslem holy sites such as Mecca.

Hugh Hewitt spent most of his show on July 18th trying to defend pluralism and verbally spank the Congressman for his remarks. Many former military members called Hewitt’s show defending the idea that all options must be on the table including nuking Mecca. I think Hewitt was surprised that so many would agree with the Congressman. Hewitt tried to dismiss the Congressman as a fruitcake that should apologize as soon as possible.

While Mecca would not be at the top of my targeting list, I think that we learned that it is a bad idea to publicly rule out any type of target. As soon as we announced that mosques in Iraq were off limits to American soldiers and should be protected, guess where all the terrorists congregated? Had we then destroyed the buildings, perhaps it would have been a good tactic. However, more Americans died due to these politically correct limitations on the war.

I think the President was right when he said that you are either with us or with the terrorists. I just hope Iran and Syria get visited by some of the more elite members on Uncle Sam’s payroll.

Hewitt discounts the assertion that the Global War on Terror is a religious war. I believe that it has been since the Beirut barracks bombing. It just took us two decades to take it seriously. We may not be at war with all of Islam but we are at war with a denomination within the Islamic world. The people at war with the West are the true believers. Those that believe their scripture is the word of their god and take it literally are the ones we are fighting.

In the West, if I believe that the Bible is true and should be taken literally I am a good Christian. Why is this normative for me but if I follow Islam, and believe the same things about Koran, then I am a terrorist. It seems to me that destroying the West is the true form of Islam, and the type that George Bush hopes that the Islamic World will adopt is a heretical form. This isn’t the view being popularized today but based on its history; I think it is a more realistic view of Islamic history.

It is clear that the God of Christianity is incompatible with Allah. People like Hewitt will take pluralism over orthodoxy. Pluralism is just a temporary cease fire until one side gains an advantage over the other. The political consensus in the West is just a new version of Roman theology. In ancient times, you could believe in any god as long as you declare that Caesar is Lord. Now, in America you can have any god as long as the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court is Lord. This was never the intent of the Founders. Freedom of religion as found in the First Amendment was intended to allow for a variety of Christian sects not equality of all faiths or freedom from religion. Both are distortions of original intent.

Forcing a pluralistic template upon the Mohammedans of the world will not succeed. 9-11 was the modern equivalent of the barbarians sacking Roman in the declining years of the Empire. Will our leaders get a spine or repeat history? I think we have yet to properly identify our enemy and have the will to deal with them.

American Hiroshima

Joe Farah, the man behind WorldNetDaily.com, posted a very disturbing article titled “Al-Qaida nukes already in U.S.” The article makes many profound assertions about the next attack on American soil.

According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the “American Hiroshima” and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border …

I read the article twice yesterday, once at lunch and the second time last night to my wife. Her reaction and mine was how can this be? Farah’s article is part fact, part Tom Clancy and part Mission Impossible. But we must ask ourselves are his assertions true?

Unfortunately, there are no sources sighted to backup many of his assumed facts.

Farah claims that “Al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads.” He goes on to assert that several nuclear weapons have already been smuggled into the United States.

This article then begins to morph into a long form advertisement for a forthcoming book about this very subject. This begs the question of whether this is a factual article or an advertisement dressed-up as a news item. Finally, the article then shifts to advocating better border security and the Minuteman Project.

I have spent enough time on his website to wonder aloud if Mr. Farah will be the publisher of the book that he plugged in this article. He uses his book sales to subsidize the support staff of his website. At the very least, I’m sure that this book will be among those offered to readers of his website.

The fact that the book plugged in this article will probably end-up for sale on this website forces me to question if this is journalism or profiteering.

As for the claims made in the article, I’m sure we can agree that Al-Qaida wishes they had nukes. However, I’m in the camp that believes that if they had them they would use them.

 

The Opposite of THINK is PINK

Ok, I confess that I’m a closet Eric Hogue listener. I know Eric occasionally has some unusual guests but today took the cake. The topic was about members for the California National Guard attending a “peace” rally that was held on Mother’s Day weekend.

Eric was setting the background story to give the proper context to bring listeners up to speed before he had an interview with the Democrat Senator that is stirring-up this alleged controversy. Hogue’s promo on his blog was:

Democrat State Senator Joe Dunn will make an appearance on the show in the morning. Senator Dunn is calling for a Federal investigation of the National Guard, claiming that the Guard is “spying” upon citizens and protestors.

As part of the background for this story, he got a representative from the “peace” group to appear on his show. His guest was a woman from a left wing group called CodePink. She was the typical Michael Moore liberal. She wants us to unconditionally surrender to radical Islam by bringing our troops home and making reparations to those we have offended. In her view the terrorists would then stay in their sandbox (the Middle East) and leave us alone. (I suppose that she would want us to abandon Israel because they make terrorists mad also.)

Anyway, Eric asked her some questions about her group and then got on the topic of the bombing in London. He asked her whose fault the bombing was and after a moments hesitation she said “George Bush.” I could almost hear Eric say “gotcha.” Eric held his cool better than I could and then followed-up with asking her who was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Having proved that she was an idiot, she removed all doubt by answering the other President Bush.

The fact that she could blame any US president for terrorism proved that the Truth is not her ally. Any answer other than terrorists should be blamed for terrorist acts is the wrong answer. Blaming a president that was not even in office is more than just intellectual laziness.

The Right Side Blog has more on this exchange at his website.

As for me, I shut to radio off.

Choice Argument an Absurdity

This is posted so folks will know where I got the idea about my rewrite on God and Government. I’m sure that this is copyrighted , but since the Union is out of business I don’t know where to go to get permission so I will just give credit to the source.

“Choice” Argument an Absurdity
By Roger Canfield
Sacramento Union Nov 2, 1990

If Republicans in the last century had been split on the issue of slavery, they would have used the same arguments as current-day “Republicans for Choice” or so says a conservative activist.

Republicans for Choice’s chairman is Ann Stone of Virginia. Its California board member is professor And Rep. Tom Campbell.

Stone’s fundraising letter falls to the satirical mind of William E. Saracino, former director of Gun Owners, who blasted it into the oblivion earned by all laughable logic.

He wrote a parody of Stone’s letter, duplicating the pro-choice letter very nearly word for word, except to substitute a few words such as “slavery” for “abortion,” “slave-owner” for “women” and “Lincoln” for “Bush,” etc.

Of course, Abraham Lincoln led the Republican Party stand against slavery. Hence, what follows is a parody, a satire, used to demonstrate the moral absurdity of recent arguments saying abortion is merely a matter of choice.

Saracino writes:

Dear Ann:

If you are a Republican and you support a slave-owner’s right to choose, we need your help. You can start by signing the enclosed postcard and mailing it to President Lincoln…

As Republicans, we strongly oppose government interference in our private lives. As pro-choice Republicans, we believe the decision to choose to own a slave must be made by the individual not the State.

This does not mean that we are pro-slavery. There are, and must, be, diverse opinions in our party on this and related issues like plantation-owner consent.

Some of us would not choose slave-ownership for ourselves or our families, but we believe that as a party we must stand for a slave-owner’s fundamental right ‘to make that choice himself.

“…President Lincoln needs to hear…” this rigidly anti-slavery stand will drive young people, Southerners, and slave-ownership enthusiasts In all parts of America out of the GOP.

Since the Dred Scott Decision, this issue has become more and more important to voters. We truly fear our party may face defeat in the 1862 elections. President Lincoln’s re-election could even be endangered.

And we need your financial help with our crusade—a campaign to change the party’s out¬dated, anti-slavery platform. A campaign to add to the party’s ranks by electing solid pro-slavery Republicans to sit side-by-side with pro-slavery and anti-slavery Republicans already in office.

Your efforts with us today will help make our party even stronger— even greater— a bigger tent that can cover us all.

“Sincerely,

Beauregard T. Claptrap
Chairman, Republicans for Slavery

Actually, Saracino’s parody fits arguments made by Illinois’ Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.

Read Harry Jaffa’s book, “Crisis of the House Divided.”