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I have to run to a physical therapy appointment so I won’t be blogging much till after lunch, but I somehow feel a need to blog. The wife snapped at me last night for bitching at every driver on the road from the time we left the driveway, so maybe my vitriol tanks are a bit overful today…

I think Bush renominating Pickering is a big fat thumb in the eye of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Idiotarian) and the Dumbocrat Party. A good old-fashioned Texas-size can of whupass has just been opened up.

“Unfortunately, they have not learned from the Trent Lott episodes and I am going to do everything I can to stop the Pickering nomination from going forward,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

On the contrary, Senator Schumer. The GOP learned much from the Lott episode. Primarily that the left can think only in racist terms, which most people out here in the real world couldn’t give a crap about.
Hmm, I notice that the Judiciary Committee website hasn’t yet been updated. Or have they chosen the new committee chairmen yet?

South Korea should remember why it’s South Korea. Ungrateful bastards, you’d think they were French.
And North Korea should remember that we still have lots of nukes. In fact, we probably have enough to make Vietnamese carpet bombing look tame in comparison.

PETA apparently thinks KFC is being cruel to chickens.
Somehow I suspect they’ve picked the wrong commercial entity to picket. Does KFC actually raise their own chickens? Sounds like not:

“We require all of our suppliers to follow welfare guidelines, developed by us with leading experts on our animal welfare advisory council,” the company said. “Our suppliers are receiving unannounced audits at their poultry facilities throughout the year. Failure to comply with our strict guidelines would result in termination of our supplier agreement, if remedial action is not taken.”

Thanks to BOTW for the pointer, although I went to Fox instead of Yahoo.

A serious load off my shoulders; I’m no longer Master of the Lodge.
But I’m secretary now and I’m going to have to keep a close eye on my successor, and try to bring his successor up in the right way.
It was a great night, all things considered, with about 70 people crammed into the room (more than we’ve had for a very long time for installation), and all but two of the incoming officers there — one was sick and the other was tending to a hospitalized daughter. The Grand Master and Grand Treasurer were there, as was our Grand Lecturer, the inestimable Worshipful Brother Jeffrey D. Naylor.
Best of all, after the ceremony, my wife gave me this:

And the most interesting comment of the night that was made to me was by the Chaplain, himself a Past Master: “Didn’t it strike you as odd how one minute you’re Master and the next you’re not? There’s not a ceremony, or even so much as a ‘thank you for serving’, and the next thing you know, some other guy is sitting in your chair.”
Which was exactly what I was thinking when it happened. Along with the thought that there’s a bunch of dead Past Masters who were probably spinning in their graves at that moment 🙂

but I’m just not in the mood.
See, back on December 1, as we were road-tripping home from the in-laws’, I stopped to put gas in the car. As I walked from the car to the cashier, my left foot slipped on a chunk of ice, resulting in me driving 300 miles in agony and barely being able to make it up the stairs when we got home. I didn’t work for about three days because I couldn’t sit up in my chair.
The doctor gave me prednisone, which worked really well the first day (six pills), and wore off completely by day 5 (one pill). So he had me come in for a lumbar X-ray and sent me to the sports medicine people for physical therapy, which I’ve been doing now for about three and a half weeks. Lumbar X-ray showed “degeneration” in whichever disc it is that lights up the sciatic nerve going to my left leg. (No, I’m not particularly knowledgeable about anatomy, even though mine tends to hurt a lot.)
Today for the first time I seem to be making some progress; I can stand up longer without the nerve lighting up my leg, and I’ve been able to sit up longer and longer every day. But I just don’t feel much like writing or reading other people’s blogs. (The fact that I’m on vacation and spending my time reading real paper books may have something to do with that.)
That’s the physically annoying issue. There’s a generally annoying issue as well, as I wind down the last two days until I’m no longer Master of my Lodge, and get that much closer to putting a man in that chair whom I’ve come to believe doesn’t really belong there. However, there’s not a whole lot we can do about that because there’s nobody else to put there. Sure, I could have recycled myself, dropped him out of the line, and moved the rest of the officers line up one notch. But I don’t have the energy to do it again. (It’s not a physically or mentally demanding job, it’s just a PITA somewhat akin to trying to herd cats.) And none of the currently-active past masters are interested in recycling, and the Senior Warden-elect isn’t ready. So we’re stuck. And I’m unenthusiastic. And I have to get dressed and go to his past master’s dinner tonight, and tux up tomorrow night for installation. Neither of which I really feel like going to.
*SIGH*
Maybe I’ll feel better about it next week. Maybe we’ll start the bombing and that will make me happy. “Who will rid me of this turbulent dictator?”

We’re off to the local pub for dinner, comradeship, and general pubbery-wubbery. See you all next year.

Naylor found a Billy Mays web site.

Absolutely.

Fuckin’ A:

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli soldiers hunting militiamen in the West Bank killed six Palestinians on Thursday — four gunmen, an unarmed teenager and an apparent bystander, officials on both sides said.

Keep on keepin’ on.