The Countertop Chronicles

sort of

If nothing else, his bill will stamp Virginia indelibly as a state where hidden heat-packing while bar-hopping is fine and dandy.

Sounds good to me!

If you want the full file, click the pic

and I promise this is the last photomerge for some time.

Remember this impressive guy?

Well, these guys were at Fisherman’s Wharf tonight.

I think we can all agree that this is a good thing.

Troubling on one level, but also promising that young minds aren’t raised in this culture.

Other thoughts:

For the most part I have no idea who is gay. I know there are lots of them, but I can’t pick ‘em out. The guys at least. There do seem to be lots of lesbians, or should I just call them 45 year old women with mullets.

And the class divide is shocking. The poor are destitute and the rich live in gorgeous homes with heavy gates and armed security. No wonder they push gun bans here, the rich are as armed as any politician and have only the unwashed masses to fear. Strangley like Soviet era Russia even

I grew up in Northern Jersey, right on the edge of the suburbs of New York City. My parents are New Yorkers. Dad’s from the Bronx, mom’s from Queens. Growing up I spent a significant portion of my time walking the streets of the city that never sleeps. This was in the dark ages of New Yorks history - the 70s and 80s - when the worst socialist, anti capitalist, anti war elements of the Democratic Party ruled the city.

It was, then, appropriately thought of as destitute. A failure. A city of crime and run away homicides. They tried many things but nothing worked. And then came Rudy Guiliani. Say what you will about him, he cleaned the city up by arresting criminals and panhandlers, eliminating (where he could) those bloated government programs and taxes and regulations that had driven the life from New York City. As much as I hate him, Michael Bloomberg has at least kept going the renaissance that Rudy launched. The result has been to the financial and cultural benefit of all New Yorkers, and indeed the entire nation.

I live in the D.C. area now, and while D.C. has its bad parts, the crime is largely limited to those out of the way places that neither tourists nor the commuting business professionals frequent. So, it came as a shock when I headed out this morning in the one party anti war socialist city of San Francisco. Where the freaks were absent on Sunday, they were out in droves come Monday.

I loved the city after my walk yesterday. I can’t wait to get home after seeing the amount of hideous scum and hucksters and scam artists and pick pockets and pimps and hookers and beggars and stealers out this morning.

Seriously, does no one even question a little bit the mental/physical/financial shape of the city’s stuck-in-the-60s-homeless-hippy population??

Ok, on top of the hottie stewardess here’s what else you get for $245 round trip (and its worth noting that United and American had same general route for $1700).

POWER OUTLET at my seat. No worries about the laptop going dead

Hot stewardess.

Movies - 45 to choose from on my 9 inch by 6 inch personal TV, a sample of the choices include. 3:10 to Yuma, Bourne Ultimatum, The Darjeeling Limited Into The Wild, Superbad

22 TV stations

The Boingo TV station

Video games - DOOM!!!

And an online interactive menu for ordering food and drinks.

Plus, I’ve got a wide three seat row all to myself.

I get in at 11 am San Fran time today. Assuming it takes me an hour to get from the airport to my hotel and checked in, what’s the coolest thing to do/see in an afternoon downtown?

I want to check out the Asian Art Museum, and get down to the Warf.

Anything else? Where do I go to catch a glimpse of the bizare???

So, sitting at Max & Erma’s in Terminal B at Dulles waiting for my flight with the hot Stewardesses to take off.

Food is ok. Crappy bacon (an unforgivable sin) but pretty damn good coffee. In fact surprisingly good coffee.

But that’s not the point of this post.
My tableware assortment is (and remember we are inside the security zone) a real metal fork (complete with sharp prongs) and a plastic knife.

Now, I can understand the desire to not have knives running around. And I can understand the desire of an airport restaurant trying to market itself as a bit upscale and wanting to use real flatware.

But seriously, wouldn’t it be better to just serve me with plastic utensils than a metal fork and a plastic knife??

And from a security standpoint, isn’t a real metal fork just as dangerous as a butter knife???

And, while asking these questions, it dawned on me, who is watching the kitchen to make sure the real weaponary their isn’t somehow walking out, into the hands of Al Qaeda.??

I didn’t mention that Virgin has by far the hottest flight staff of any airline currently flying the friendly skies.

Or, at least U.S. Skies.

For that, Richard Branson deserves our sincere applause.

Hot. Smoking, Drop Dead Gorgeous.

Down Boy Down.

And he’s not afraid to dress them in a fashion that highlights, ahem, their ASSets.

Where air travel has become mudane, predictable, simply a longer version of the across town cab trip (complete with the puke from the guy who the taxi picked up last night), travel on Virgin harkens back to a day when it was exciting, an adventure that was as glamorous as it was fun.

And it all starts with a healthy dose of sexism.

Like I said, Richard Branson is a rock star.

Did I tell you the stewardess was hot??

at and ungodly hour for San Fran.

Took Washington Flyer for the first time to the airport. Its very efficient. They pocked me up in a nice luxury SUV and drop me off right at the terminal for $37 (including the tip). Considering convenience and that it costs $20 a day to park, its a great no hassle deal.

Flying Virgin. Cool. Richard b ranson is a rock star. Entire experience is enjoyable, from quick check in, small well designed boarding pass (picture coming soon) to the lack of terrorists at check in

More, including pics, later

Curt thinks I don’t like the VCDL. Thats about the furthest thing from the truth.
I’m just willing to understand where they are effective and where they are not. And at a state level, they are for my money, the most effective grassroots political organization I know of anywhere.

Case in point - in a year when the gun bigots thought they could make a comeback, VCDL put them in their grace and managed to get the Restaurant Ban Repeal Bill on the Governors Desk!!

RESTAURANT BAN REPEAL - CONTACT GOVERNOR KAINE ASAP

Now that the restaurant ban repeal has passed the House, we need to
absolutely bombard the governor with email, phone calls, and letters!

Let’s get the Governor’s attention with a breathtaking barrage of
contacts with a magnitude he hasn’t seen before!

***Folks, this is the furthest that we have ever gotten the restaurant
ban repeal in the 13 years we have been trying to get it repealed.
This is our chance to get that issue put behind us.***

Get your friends, family and co-workers to contact the Governor and
ask him to sign SB 476 into law. For those in gun clubs, make
absolutely sure ever member and their family does this.

We need to work this and work it hard!

If you are tired of the restaurant ban and want to move the ball
forward for the first time on this issue, HERE IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY!
Trust me on this, DO NOT SIT THIS ONE OUT!

Time is short, so please start now!

To contact the Governor, first call him at (804) 786-2211 and leave a
short message simply asking him to support SB 476 (restaurant ban
repeal).

Next, click on the line below to bring up the Governor’s electronic
contact form (if clicking doesn’t work, copy and paste the line into
your browser):

http://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm

Fill in your name, address, and email address.

Paste in the message subject: “Please SUPPORT SB 476!”

Paste in the following message, or type in one of your own, and then
click “Submit”:

–

Please sign SB 476 into law!

SB 476 allows the most trustworthy group of citizens in the
Commonwealth, concealed handgun permit holders, to be able to carry
concealed in restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages. The permit
holder is prohibited from consuming any alcoholic beverages while
doing so.

This bill absolutely does NOT “mix guns and alcohol” because it
contains appropriate penalties and even a notification provision.

SB 476 does allow permit holders to enjoy a meal with their families
without having to either unnecessarily handle a loaded gun & leave it
in their car, where it can be stolen and used in a crime, or to have
to carry the gun openly.

Currently THIRTY-SEVEN other states allow concealed carry in
restaurants that serve alcohol and have done so successfully because
of the law-abiding nature of permit holders.

I urge you to stand with Virginia’s 149,000 permit holders and to
support SB 476!

Please let me know what you are going to do.

Go VCDL Go!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sitting here, in the arm chair. A 1 year old asleep on my left leg and a 9 week old puppy asleep on my right.

Peggy Noonan shows, once again, why she’s still America’s foremost political columnist

Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs? Do they understand America? Are they of it? Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America? Do they confuse patriotism with nationalism, or nativism? Are they more inspired by abstractions like “international justice” than by old visions of America as the city on a hill, which is how John Winthrop saw it, and Ronald Reagan and JFK spoke of it?

Have they been, throughout their adulthood, so pampered and praised–so raised in the liberal cocoon–that they are essentially unaware of what and how normal Americans think? And are they, in this, like those cosseted yuppies, the Clintons?

Why is all this actually not a distraction but a real issue? Because Americans have common sense and are bottom line. They think like this. If the president and his first lady are not loyal first to America and its interests, who will be? The president of France? But it’s his job to love France, and protect its interests. If America’s leaders don’t love America tenderly, who will?

Then, the kicker . . .

Michelle Obama seems keenly aware of her struggles, of what it took to rise so high as a black woman in a white country. Fair enough. But I have wondered if it is hard for young African-Americans of her generation, having been drilled in America’s sad racial history, having been told about it every day of their lives, to fully apprehend the struggles of others. I wonder if she knows that some people look at her and think “Man, she got it all.” Intelligent, strong, tall, beautiful, Princeton, Harvard, black at a time when America was trying to make up for its sins and be helpful, and from a working-class family with two functioning parents who made sure she got to school.

That’s the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family, and she apparently came from the privileged part of that divide. A lot of white working-class Americans didn’t come up with those things. Some of them were raised by a TV and a microwave and love our country anyway, every day.