Whine Lovers

We've terrorized ourselves.

Daily Kos: 10 Suicides a Month at Fort Hood Texas:

"Fort Hood, Texas has the highest number of suicides of any military base in America. PTSD from multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan was the likely primary cause of this year's 75 suicides through July. The shooting tragedy in Texas is part of a larger mental health epidemic at Fort Hood.

This year alone, the base is averaging over 10 suicides each month - at least 75 have been recorded through July of this year alone.

Speculation on the background and motives of the shooter in Texas is a diversion from the severe mental health problems many of our soldiers are strugglin"

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Then again...

BBC NEWS | Health | Feeling grumpy 'is good for you':

"In a bad mood? Don't worry - according to research, it's good for you.

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine."

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Somebody is projecting a bit much:

Limbaugh’s fetish? Mentions ‘anal poisoning’ 13 times in 2 years | Raw Story:

"MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Rush Limbaugh one of the world's worst people Thursday evening for saying that an HBO special about President Barack Obama should get 'anal poisoning.'

In fact, Olbermann noted, Limbaugh has mentioned 'anal poisoning' 13 times in the past 2 years. Limbaugh has also referenced 'men bending over and grabbing their ankles' 19 times. Olbermann suggests that Limbaugh could have a medical condition that lead to his fascination with that region of the body.

'There is actually no disease called anal poisoning,' Olbermann quips. 'The best anyone could come up with by explanation is that it's a term frequently used in pornography.'"

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Cool. Oceans are not just for drilling... baby.

Underwater Kite Harnesses Ocean Energy : CleanTechnica:

"A completely new concept of underwater wave energy using a simple 7 ton kite turbine design has been developed by Minesto; which is a spinoff from the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab. The Deep Green underwater turbine captures the power of the ocean just like a kite in wind.

The system could generate 18 terawatthours of energy annually, enough to provide nearly 4 million British households with reliably green electricity every year. UK households now use about a third of what average US households use in energy"

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5 Must-Have iPhone Apps for Wine Lovers

AppleInsider | Report: Apple to launch Verizon iPhone in Q3 2010

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Youth Mobile 2030: 6 Amazing Cars From The Future (PHOTOS, POLL)

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Will You Read This Post? | Psychology Today

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Scared of Horses

Check out my buddy Shipper. He made the New York Times. That's him on the left. Wet suits in Palau are for pussies.

Here's the article that goes with the pic. I've dove Blue Corner twice and Blue Hole to Blue Corner once.

Blue Heaven for Big Fish - New York Times

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Keep talking, Shrub. Every time you open your pie hole progressive causes reap a windfall.

Bush raises half a million for MoveOn - AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth:

From Eli Pariser, the Executive Director of MoveOn. Dear MoveOn member, Yesterday, an amazing thing happened. After the Senate's shameful vote, and after President Bush called MoveOn 'disgusting,' our email started to fill up with messages like this one: I'm currently in Iraq. I do not agree with this war, and if I did support this war, it would not matter. You have the RIGHT to speak the truth. We KNOW that you support us. Thank you for speaking out for being our voice. We do not have a voice. We are overshooted by those who say that we soldiers do not support organizations like MoveOn. WE DO. YOU ARE OUR voice. And then came the donations. By midnight, over 12,000 people had donated $500,000—more than we've raised any day this year—for our new ad calling out the Republicans who blocked adequate rest for troops headed back to Iraq."

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He ain't the only one cryin'.

Supreme Court author: Justice Souter wept when he thought of Bush v. Gore:

"When Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, appeared on Thursday's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert grilled him about the meaning of the book's title. 'Do they have secret handshakes? Is it like the Da Vinci Code? Are there bizarre sexual rites going on there?' Toobin had to admit he wasn't aware of any secrets of that kind, but did confide that 'Justice Souter was so upset about the result in Bush v. Gore that not only did he almost resign the Court because he was so upset, but there were times when he thought about the case and he wept.' 'You say the justices have tried to put the decision of Bush v. Gore behind them and move on,' Colbert said. 'That sounds like one of those movies where a bunch of frat brothers inadvertently kill a prostitute and then later she comes back and haunts them and kills them one by one. Is that it? Are they haunted by that decision?'"

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All hat and no cattle.... and scared of horses. Still wanna have a beer with this putz?

Bush should of heeded Cooley's advice:

And I ain’t gonna crawl upon no high horse
Cause I got thrown off of one
when I was young and I ain’t no cowboy
so I ain’t going where I don’t belong.
DBT - Pin Hits the Shell

George Bush the Texan is 'scared of horses' :

"President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses. George W Bush saddles up, but where is the horse? Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a 'windshield cowboy' – a cowboy who prefers to drive – and 'the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life'. He recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when Mr Fox offered Mr Bush a ride on a 'big palomino' horse. Mr Fox, who left office in December, recalled Mr Bush 'backing away' from the animal. ''A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion,' he said, according to the Washington Post."

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Telemarketers: they have your number

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national Do Not Call list.

The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees the list, says there is a simple fix. But some lawmakers think it is a hassle to expect people to re-register their phone numbers every five years.

Numbers placed on the registry, begun in June 2003, are valid for five years. For the millions of people who signed onto the list in its early days, their numbers will automatically drop off beginning next June if they do not enroll again.

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That's got to hurt.

Redwood City man ID'd as acid-vat victim:

(09-23) 13:17 PDT REDWOOD CITY -- San Mateo County Coroner's officials have identified 18-year-old Fernando Jimenez Gonzalez of Redwood City as the man who drowned in a vat of sulfuric acid at a Redwood City factory early this morning. Gonzalez's body was discovered at Coastal Circuits Factory on Tacoma Way at around 1:45 a.m. by his father after Gonzalez didn't arrive home, according to a Redwood City police spokesman."

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It's never too early, right? Always noon somewhere....

The Manhattan project: A bartender spills his secrets on the king of cocktails:

"The dry gin martini is often heralded as the king of cocktails, but it's the Manhattan that's the true sovereign of the V-shaped glass. The martini, a mere pretender to the throne, was far more interesting prior to Prohibition - when vermouth made up a full third of the drink and it just wasn't a martini without orange bitters. The Manhattan, on the other hand, is a drink to be reckoned with."

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DBT Lyrics Tour - Ode to Cooley

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Update:
Check out the e-card from New West. Email it to your friends!

Rednecks like to go fast. So they put a rocket makin' factory in Huntsville, Al, brought over some German rocket scientist for "rehabilitation", then, blamo, we went to the moon. Here's to Cooley!

Space City....with a little bit of Patterson

The Birthplace of Alabama

Pioneer John Hunt, for whom the city is named, occupied a cabin alongside a spring here in 1805. A town soon flourished and was the largest in the Alabama Territory by 1819. That year the leaders of the Alabama Territory met here to petition the U.S. Congress to grant Alabama statehood. The recreated 1819 Alabama Constitution Village, a block from the courthouse square, commemorates the historic events through tours given by costumed guides.

Huntsville was the cotton trading center of the Tennessee Valley during the 1840s and '50s when planters and merchants originally from Virginia and the Carolinas built impressive town homes.

Space City's one hour up the road from me.
Its one hour away from as close to the moon as anybody down here is ever gonna be.
(I'm assuming Cooley is referencing the drive from Tuscumbia to Huntsville and not his current home of Birmingham to Huntsville):

Time was when Huntsville was content to be the "Watercress Capital of the World"; the great leap forward came after World War II, when the army consolidated its rocket and missile research efforts in the city. Spearheading the project were Dr Wernher von Braun and 118 other German scientists, who came to Huntsville after a token period of rehabilitation. Von Braun's contribution of the V-2 ballistic missile to the Nazi war effort is ignored by the city, which prefers to laud his later space-age achievements, such as Explorer I, the nation's first satellite, and the mighty Saturn V.

The giant USSpace and Rocket Center, five miles west of downtown on Hwy-20, off I-65 (summer daily 9am–6pm; $15), contains a mind-boggling array of technological exhibits, hands-on displays and weightlessness simulators, as well as a giant IMAX cinema. Outdoors, in the surreal Rocket and Space Shuttle parks, redundant rockets protrude skywards in the blazing Alabama sunshine; the 120-yard, four-story Saturn V rocket is laid on its side to emphasize its immensity.

Remember Space Camp?

"While over there in Huntsville, They puttin' people on the moon..."
"While over there in Huntsville, even NASA shut down, too"

The following are some pics I snapped of the recently cut cotton fields in north Alabama over Thanksgiving last year. When you learn about Alabama history in junior high school there is an enevitable conversation about King Cotton. My granddad and grandmom use to tell me stories of being sharecroppers and going out into the fields to pick cotton. Brutal, brutal work:

Cottonseed

The Cotton Plantation State: Cotton production in Alabama was a major influence in the growth and culture of the state. In fact, Alabama'a farm economy was ruled by "King Cotton" at one time. When crops were poor or prices were down, Alabama farmers suffered. Conversely, when prices were up, Alabama's farmer prospered. In the early 1900s, Alabama farmers suffered extensively due to massive cotton crop failures.

And I put more lawmen in the ground...

The Cotton State: For reasons given above, Alabama was called the Cotton State. While many southern states were referred to as Cotton Plantation States, Alabama was singled out as THE Cotton State because of its central location in the Cotton Belt. Cotton is Alabama's leading crop and Alabama is considered a leading cotton producer.

...than Alabama put cottonseed

The Southern Thing

Ain't about no cotton fields.....

....or cotton picking lies

Uncle Frank lived in a cabin down on Cedar Creek...

Actual pic of Cedar Creek:

Pin Hits the Shell

Cooley makes a reference to racing trains from 2nd street to Avalon in the song Pin Hits the Shell. 2nd street and Avalon are 2 roads located in Colbert County. 2nd street is in Sheffield and Avalon runs through Muscle Shoals and maybe Tuscumbia.

Living on the other side of the river, (in gentile Lauderdale County) we never concerned ourselves with such low-brow endeavors as racing trains. We were too busy studying gravity's effect on the bovine post sunset and whether alcohol, orally administered (to us not the bovine), increased the hilarity quotient. Trust me when I say Gravity's NOT Gone.

Now, I'm guessing at the route Cooley and Co. use to take when they raced the trains. Take a look at the map below. If you extend the purple line past the "end" to George Wallace Blvd (gotta love that) you'll see where you had to go to beat the train on Avalon. When I took these pics we were lucky enough to have train running on the track and, yes we did beat it!

Pin Hits the Shell - racing trains from 2nd Street...

Here is the train as it ran along 2nd St.

...to Avalon.

This is the Avalon crossing

And there is the train comin' on through.

And Finally:

Cooley's favorite place in the world. Wayne's Package Store. Listen to Patterson tell the tale before "Sink Hole":