I said I’d posted my last entry on Fumento, I was wrong. BigWig has posted a response from Fumento.

I am impressed. It seems maybe Fumento has learned his lesson. His response is reasoned, more polite, and appears to be free of lies. Lesson learned. Score one for blogs.

I was responsible for tipping InstaPundit to the story via email which BigWig (and others) then linked to. I’m certain others tipped Insty off as well but he did respond to my email after he posted his comment, which brought attention to the issue. I am not taking credit for the entire storm laid on Fumento, but I’d like to think I played a small part. So, though I may fall into Fumento’s category of one of the 99% who get no traffic, I did help ensure that the issue got a significant readership. Credit after all goes to Rich.

I am not saying blogs are better than journalists by any means, but they can be a factor. Fumento was goaded to respond to allegations because of blogs. That is a good thing.

I fancy myself to be quite the barbecue artist. I discovered Steven Raichlen has a blog. He is the author of The Barbecue Bible, which is a great book regardless of the level of your barbecue skills. It covers the basics, like grill types and methods of cooking. And it has some amazing sauce recipes.

His book takes you through various types of barbecue throughout the world. His blog is replete with recipes. He’s blogrolled over there on your right. I have his book and you should buy it too.

There’s been some blathering in blogworld about these survival kits. You know, the stuff you should have for when the SHTF* or when the lights just go out for a little bit. These discussions point out things like food, water, flashlights, a weapon or two, purifiers, and backup generators. These are all fine and good but there are items more essential to survival than those.

Let’s face it, when Armageddon comes, you’re gonna have a lot down time. It’s not going to always be about running willy-nilly through the land shooting at helicopters, liberating your captured comrades, and sniping at the evil minions. Here’s a list of the ten most important items you should take:

1 – You’ll spend a lot of time sleeping. That’s why you need a comfortable, inflatable mattress and some fine goose-feather pillows. Since you’ll have all this down time, very comfortable sheets and comforters are a must too. If you’re not well-rested, then you won’t be a very effective freedom fighter.

2 – Atomic Fireballs are a must. I don’t mean weaponry. I mean a nicely flavored, long-lasting hard candy. And who doesn’t love hot cinnamon? As a bonus, these can be loaded into a slingshot or your homemade rocket launcher and propelled at squirrels for some good eatin’. In addition to being able to incapacitate a squirrel, it adds a nice cinnamon flavor to the otherwise gamey meat. Jolly Ranchers are OK but they aren’t as aerodynamically suited to be propelled at high velocities and are not recommended for squirrel killin’.

3 – You’ll also need a good cookbook. And preferably one that centers around open fire and coal cooking. You’ll become weary of cinnamon flavored squirrel quickly. You’ll need new sauces for your squirrel and this book is great for new sauces. Oh, and you’ll need take along some spices or learn to grow your own otherwise this book won’t be much help.

4 – Various health and beauty aids, such as toothpaste, soaps, nail clippers and lotion. Nothing can tear apart a ragtag freedom fighting machine quicker than poor hygiene. Also, it’s very difficult to lay waste to nefarious communist over throwers when you have problem skin. And nothing will stop your army quicker than ingrown toenails. An ounce of prevention, and all of that.

5 – A good book. Unless you can entertain yourself by reading cookbooks, this may be time to start reading War and Peace or Moby Dick. You’re gonna have lots of down time and TV is not going to be quite as prevalent with enemy forces blowing up communications towers and such. And you shouldn’t take The Bible. Nothing will depress freedom fighters more quickly than all this talk about the end of the world.

6 – A nice fruit basket. When you meet up with your fellow freedom fighters and are seeking alliances, nothing says Trust Me better than an exquisitely assembled basket of fruit and nuts.

7 – Some board games and decks of cards. Self-explanatory.

8 – A 9 iron. Good for clubbing the enemy and you can use the Atomic Fireballs to practice your chipping. If you chip like me, this is not a good method for taking out squirrels unless the squirrels are behind you.

9 – A towel. If we’ve learned one thing from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, it is to carry a towel.

10 – Some good weed. If it’s the end of the world, you’ve got more important things to worry about. So why not smoke something that will slow your reflexes, kill some brain cells, and maybe make your grandchildren impotent all for a good buzz? Plus, it will make dealing with your annoying freedom fighter comrades much more bearable.

Now get out there and assemble that survival kit. If you need to make room, it’s OK to throw out the gas masks and flashlights. These practical items are definitely more important for the long boring task of saving the world.

*shit hits the fan

I wrote Polite Society detailing my difficulties fitting politically with my neighbors. Barry suffers the same thing.

I do confess to identifying more with Republicans, as I’m sure Barry identifies more with Democrats. But diehards from those parties would label either of us as the other guy.

Per this KNS article on website construction:

Surely this has happened to you: You go to a Web site that promises loads of valuable information and easy navigation, but once there you’re stymied. You can’t find anything. Argh!

Should I point out the KNS search engine almost never works, it’s difficult to navigate, and old articles aren’t archived?

Thanks to AlphaPatriot, I am now a marsupial.

So, Friday night, me and the Mrs. are having dinner with friends (a married couple). We’re talking about the usual stuff and somehow the topic of Bush comes up. First, to preface, I rarely bring up politics in conversation. However, if someone else brings it up, I’ll let loose with both barrels. The woman we’re having dinner with essentially announces her support for Bush and then says Oh, you voted for Gore didn’t you? She said it like she took pity on me.

It struck me as odd. First, I despise Al Gore because of his stance on the issues, he abandoned his state while he was VP, and he has absolutely soulless eyes. But I am difficult to label politically. I am pro-gun, for gay rights, anti-death penalty, anti-tax, anti-big government, think abortion should be legal, think responsibility should lie with the people, think civil liberties should never be threatened, but I still see the need for government monitoring of certain things. So, I don’t fit in really with most Democrats or Republicans (or Libertarians for that matter).

I gathered that at some point in the past we had talked about something and I made a comment that lead her to believe I must be a (quiver) liberal. After all, if I think differently than a Republican(Democrat) then I must be a Democrat(Republican). My wife had a good chuckle informing her that Oh God no, he hates Gore. She then asked me my opinion of Bush and I said that he gets two things right 1) tax cuts are good and 2) that little Iraq thing. Pretty much, I think he’s wrong about all the other stuff. Then I said But Ashcroft, he’s a scary fucker and I won’t vote for Bush as long he’s around. Her husband remained silent the entire time.

Then the conversation turned to beer choices. In polite society, you only talk politics with folks who share your views, I suppose.

I wrote this. Manish sends this link saying it ain’t so.

We here at SayUncle are fair and balanced.

Chuck alerts me to an article on Guns and Kids.

Essentially, more kids are arrested for gun possesstion but the money quote is:

McNeal, Columbus Juvenile Court Judge Aaron Cohn and Assistant School Superintendent Brenda Dozier said the biggest single contributing factor to the proliferation of weapons among juveniles is the lack of parental supervision.

Amen! It’s good to see someone identify the real problem instead of blaming an object.

Teresa has a post (that has a great pun in the title by the way) in which she ponders men and their ability to not think. I am capable of thinking nothing and doing nothing for hours at a time. Actually, I don’t think it’s that I am thinking nothing. I think I am thinking things but when prompted can’t remember what the Hell I was thinking. Hope that made sense.

I am reminded of the Wanda Sykes’ joke:

Ladies, if you ask your husband what he’s doing and he says nothing, trust him. Because they can do that for hours.

If you read one thing today, it should be this.

Per this:

France’s Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has just appointed a committee to draft a law to ban the Islamist hijab (headgear) in state-owned establishments, including schools and hospitals. The decision has drawn fire from the French “church” of Islam, an organisation created by Raffarin’s government last spring.

Germany is facing its hijab problem with a number of Islamist organisations suing federal and state authorities for “religious discrimination” because of bans imposed on the controversial headgear.

Those tolerant Europeans. But here’s the real interesting part:

That claim is totally false. The headgear in question has nothing to do with Islam as a religion. It is not sanctioned anywhere in the Koran, the fundamental text of Islam, or the hadith (traditions) attributed to the Prophet.

This headgear was invented in the early 1970s by Mussa Sadr, an Iranian mullah who had won the leadership of the Lebanese Shiite community.

Read the rest for more interesting lies about the Hijab.

Bubba details some local crushing of dissent. More disturbing is that he points out the lack of local media coverage.

Kevin has a good post about guns and racism. As with any study of race factors, the response is to attack such things as racist. I addressed this here a bit back.

Also, one thing often overlooked is the racist origin of gun control. The first gun control laws were passed to disarm blacks. In Tennessee, for example, there was a law passed that stated the only handgun that could be owned was a Colt. These Colts were too expensive for poor blacks to purchase.

This morning’s topic on the HHH morning show was the 10 commandments thing in Alabama. A woman called in and said Who cares about the athiests? They’re just minorities

I am not making that up. Pathetic.

DiFi has criticized Ahnold for glamorizing guns. Of course, this is the same woman who carried a gun, did a straw purchase of a gun for her son, and has armed guards.

So, he wants to do a post on trolls, of course accusing myself, CJ and Justin of trolling. I left the following comment at his site:

So, you think prefacing a post with a bunch of meaningless rhetoric and calling other bloggers who comment at sites (those sites actually having comment sections by the way) trolls because we challenged the validity of your site visits requires that meaningless image?

How ’bout addressing your little fibbing episode instead? I’ve been anxiously waiting.

The comment was complete with the link to a post of mine. Rush then goes and edits the comment to remove the link and then asserts:

My site visit stats are public by clicking the sitemeter, eXtreme tracking, and blogpatrol icons on my site.
My addressing of your “fibbing” was done exhaustively.
I don’t see you mentioned here anywhere unless you cop to one of the listed appellations.
Any questions?

And Rush is the same guy who created a hate site for Bill Hobbs because Bill banned him and edited a comment of his. Add hypocrite to the list, right after liar. Of course, he has never addressed his fibbing. So, he has lied again. Then he states:

I cannot remove his homepage link and I did not. Why he thinks it important to include his url as well is his problem – maybe he thinks he will get 30 more visits. Draw your own conclusions about who is sad, deranged, and delusional.

No Rush, I was referring to the link I left in your comments.

It’s one thing to lie but it’s another thing to cover it up and manipulate the comments people leave to support your lie. Initially, I even defended Rush stating that he was just passionate about his beliefs. But I was wrong, he is a total liar who suffers from some sort of delusion of adequacy.

At first, I was a bit angry about his lying episode. But then I realized what a sad, pathetic little man Rush must be. I am better than him and so are most bloggers.

And as Barry of Inn of the Last Home points out, they’re not the same Barry. Please don’t get them confused. The one linked is the good one.

Rush is just a sad little man. And I’ll never read his site again. I suggest you do the same.

Kathy calls our attention to some gun bias in the media. I know, it’s shocking. Jeff has more on more bias.

If you’re like me, you keep turning your pillow over so you can sleep on the cool side. Not anymore. Mrs. Uncle bought be a Chillow. One word: Awesome!

Per this:

A BOY of seven narrowly escaped death after being mauled by two American pit bull terriers.

Frankie Knowlden had climbed into a neighbour’s garden to retrieve a football.

Dad Matthew managed to prise him from the dogs’ jaws.

So the child was trespassing? Where were the parents?

It is believed the dogs had escaped from their steel enclosures in the garden.

Police said they had no powers to remove them because the owner had taken “reasonable” steps in the way they were kept. But Matthew plans to sue and is angry that they were not destroyed.

So, your child enters someone’s property without permission and where were you? The owners took precaution.

What really annoys me is that, in typical media stupidity fashion, the article shows a picture of a Pit Bull (not necessarily one in this incident) with the caption: VICIOUS: A pit bull terrier

Pit bulls are no more vicious than any other dog.

Per this:

As a second Canadian aid worker — a woman who was an outspoken advocate for the welfare of children in war zones — died from injuries sustained in Tuesday’s bomb attack against the UN in Baghdad, a row erupted over the security failure at the compound, with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan saying U.S. forces should have known to patrol the area.

It’s all Bush’s fault, I am sure.

Update: I was kidding but apparently Kerry and Graham are saying it is Bush’s fault.

Manish has done an outstanding job hosting the VTP.

Mr. Gates will not be charged and has had six of his guns returned. The police still have the shotgun for some reason. Publicola has the scoop.

Rush Limbaughtomy, taking issue with my post on his traffic, tells me that I should get my facts straight with this (in the comments):

Say Uncle should get his facts straight since any reasonable research would show that Hoggs Online and the Fox fair and balance parodies are not sitemetered with the others

However, if you go to the Google Cache file for HoggsOnline, there is clearly a sitemeter tag at the bottom. And the Google Cache for Blur and Tarnish on August 17 does as well. Those sitemeter links are the same account as the other websites, despite Rush Limbaughtomy’s claim.

It seems I caught Rush Limbaughtomy fibbing.

Update: AlphaPatriot comments below that:

BTW, perusing the ecosystem shows Barry at a highly respectable #89 (at least it was when the system went down). Looking at how he got that high shows 31 links from hoggsonline, 26 from savagecruelbigot, 25 from treasononline, and 17 from bumsrush (none from foxnewsblurandtarnish), accounting for 42% of his inbound links. While 137 inbound links is still highly successful (and admittedly more than I aspire to), it would still knock him down from Playful Primate to smack-dab in the middle of Large Mammel. If, as you say, Barry runs all of these blogs (where does he find the time?), he is inflating his own stats.

We bloggers dig our traffic. Some of us like to brag about our traffic or ridicule the amount of traffic others get. But eventually some upstart will come along and challenge us.

Enter Rush Limbaughtomy, who likes to point out his sitemeter stats to folks. You go to his stats and he averages 404 visits per day, impressive for a new blogger. However (there’s always a however), as of this writing, out of the last 100 visitors, only 16 stayed for longer than 0:00 minutes. If you click the entry pages, you notice the same six blogs listed almost exclusively:

http://www.treasononline.blogspot.com/
http://rushlimbaughtomy.blogspot.com/
http://www.foxnewsblurandtarnish.blogspot.com/
http://hoggsonline.blogspot.com/
http://bumsrush.blogspot.com/
http://savagecruelbigot.blogspot.com/

If you go to those sites, you will find that they all run off of the same sitemeter account. And they are all run by Rush Limbaughtomy.

The same goes for his exit pages.

So, what’s that all about? My theory is he links among his different sites thereby turning a single hit into multiples. So, I figure he gets 67 hits or so a day (404 divided by 6) while making fun of CJ for getting 41 per day.

I could be wrong, but it is a bit curious.

Update: Edited to remove link and remove confusing name.

Wow! If you’re like me, you will become angry after reading this.

From the Huh? department:

The demand for increasingly bizarre cosmetic surgery has taken a new twist, with women undergoing genital operations in order to boost their sex life and their self-esteem.

More than 100 women over the past year have been to private clinics around the UK to undergo surgery which is aimed at improving their relationships, particularly after childbirth.

Two forms of the surgery, which involve cutting out a piece of the vagina to make it smaller, and labial reduction, which is where fatty tissue is removed from around the organ, are performed under general anaesthetic.

From this:

Gov. Gray Davis called the recall effort part of a wider effort to “steal elections Republicans cannot win,” evoking the impeachment of former President Clinton and Florida’s 2000 presidential election fiasco.

Wow, you know a Dem is desperate when he refers to the Clenis and Selected, Not Elected at the same time.

So, it seems there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

A spammer has closed shop due to being repeatedly harassed after his personal information was published on the web. Somehow, I’m certain Steve is responsible.