Top 5 Favorite Weird Movies, in no particular order.

The Life Aquatic
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Brazil
Four Rooms
Fight Club

Thanks Bill Anderson, I needed a good laugh.

On Monday, Bill tried to respond to my criticism of him, but he misfired and did more damage to himself. I think Bill truly believes the propaganda he preaches. Is there a machine somewhere pumping out mindless socialist clones? He doesn’t say anything I haven’t heard from some overexcited ISO foot soldier down at the Union Terrace. A loyal army of drones void of independent thought, incapable of reasoning and unable to understand any information that doesn’t affirm their ideals. I just hope their builders had the foresight to incorporate an off switch into their construction.

I was trying to decide how to respond to Bill, but he really doesn’t present anything to respond to. He didn’t make a coherent argument, he simply regurgitated a laundry list of talking points probably distributed to him by his ISO handler.

And I see no reason to debate anything with someone that still defends these murderous riots.

“Did the Muslims overreact? No, I don’t think they did. They have the right to protest the cartoon, just as much as those who published it have the right to publish it.”

They’re not just protesting. They’re murdering, kidnapping, burning embassies, making death threats and offering rewards for the someone to murder the cartoonists. We know the papers have a right to publish those cartoons. We also accept that Muslims have a right to protest. However, if they were just protesting, we wouldn’t have much to talk about. Instead many Muslims are living up to the fears expressed in those cartoons.

I suggest every listens to Redemption Song. I’m partial to version performed by Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer. You can have your religion and your freedom. Stand up for yourself, but don’t trample others while you do it.

UPDATE:

Oddly enough, I specifically criticized Bill Anderson once prior to his statement about the cartoon riots. It was back in November before I ever met him or knew he was a local blogger.

I identified him as one of Madison’s unhinged left that the rest of the liberals should distance themselves from. I was right.

“Here’s a hint to everyone. This is the unhinged left. If you associate with these people or do not reject their support, then you are an idiot. These are exactly the kind of people that foster and encourage terrorist actions like the bombing of Sterling Hall.”

In fact, I’d say my assessment was a home run. He does support terrorist actions. And in case you don’t know what I mean by terrorist actions, using violence or the threat of violence to achieve a political goal is terrorism.

1732 – George Washington was born. Some may believe that his birthday was earlier this week, but that is only because the Uniform Holidays Act of 1968 designates that his birthday be celebrated on the third Monday of February. Prior to 1971, Washington’s birthday and the holiday, Presidents Day, were always held on February 22nd.

1819 – The United States bought Florida from Spain for five million dollars.

1889 – The bill allowing North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington to become states was passed into law.

1915 – Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare against all merchant ships in the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean.

1923 – Chevy produced its one millionth car.

1924 – President Calvin Coolidge delivered the first radio broadcast from the White House.

1932 – The Drunken Murderer, Ted Kennedy was born.

1952 – Bill Frist was born.

1962 – The Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin was born.

1973 – China agreed to establish diplomatic liaison offices with the United States.

1975 – Drew Barrymore was born.

1980 – The Miracle On Ice. The US defeated the USSR during the Olympic playoffs for men’s hockey. The USSR was highly favored.

1987 – Andy Warhol died.

1994 – Aldrich Ames and his wife were charged with spying for the Soviet Union. Ames was born in River Falls, Wisconsin. He compromised 100 separate operations and 10 operatives, who were executed by the Soviet Union. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

The radio sucks. At least traditional radio.

I can stand listening to Madison radio stations for only brief moments. Occasionally WSUM is good, but most of the time it’s not. WMAD had a few tolerable moments during the 92.1 and 96.3 days. I even heard them playing punk on 96.3 one day. And then a week later 96.3 they changed its format to country music (gag). I’m not going to mention the rest of the Madison radio stations because there is nothing nice I can think to say about them.

So what I’ve learned over the years is that I don’t enjoy listening to the radio. It rarely plays music I enjoy, in fact it’s most often music I detest. So it never occurred to me to spend time looking for an internet radio station to listen to, even though I’ve had a broadband connection for years and had the bandwidth at my disposal.

It was only today that I found myself wondering if there is a punk rock radio station on the internet. I don’t know how the thought came to mind, but I found what I was looking for.

Punk Radio Cast

It was a cold (October) day in Caledon, Canada in 1999 when two young boys decided to create something they could call their own. The radio station was fueled by raw integrity. Nah, who are we kidding? We just wanted our own channel to express opinions, play music, and come on..who has never turned on the radio and thought it would be cool to dj? The station became an addiction. After several attempts of trying to rehabilitate Danny and Mike, everyone gave up. These strapping lads decided that this would be the perfect job. So instead of a pastime, the station was modeled into a business. After years of perseverance and several failed attempts at recruiting staff members, the radio station continued to expand. The current staff is the greatest combination of motivated people who are determined, as a team, to have the best radio station on this side of..Uranus. We would like to thank everybody who has contributed to the success of PunkRadioCast because without you people, this website would only be perpetual waste.

Finally a radio station that I can listen to. Look at some of the artists they have on their playlist:

Swingin’ Utters
MxPx
Get Up Kids
Bouncing Souls
Screeching Weasel
Descendents
Joe Strummer And The Mescaleros

This kicks so much ass I can’t possibly describe it. Finally, salvation!

Since I had my scanner and photo albums out, I’ll share more pictures from my time in Japan.

This is Maeda Point, which in on the west coast of Okinawa. It has wonderful scuba diving, including an underwater cave that takes you under the cliff and into a hidden cavern.

You need to plan your dive well though. My roommate Ryan and me went on a dive one weekend and forgot to take the tide into consideration. When the tide rolls out at Maeda Point, a flat plain of several hundred feet of dead coral is partially exposed. When you try to make it back to shore, the waves smash against you and if you fall, you get dragged across the coral. It was exhausting getting onto shore.

Here I am trying to squeeze into a diving suit just a little too small during my PADI certification class.

Here’s a glimpse into the barracks life of Marines in Okinawa.

We had a tradition that once a week we’d hang out in Ryan Wruck’s room, drink beers, sip Sake, play cards, or just cause mayhem. Part of the tradition was to wear our BDU hats backwards, wrap a metal coat hanger around our head and dangle an empty beer can from the hanger. I have no idea how that tradition started, but it was fun.

Here are wonderful portraits of a couple of my buddies. This is my roommate Ryan Jahnke.

And this is Robert Cardillo. His nickname was Dillywop since he’s Italian.

Here’s a couple pictures from a trip to one of the malls in Okinawa.

Coricino and me were having some fun with hair extensions.

And here I am posing with some Pokemon statues. They love Pokemon in Japan. You’ll see it everywhere.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. We had to work too and sometimes that meant going to the field. Here’s Milton posing with the most important piece of equipment in the field, the coffee maker. Milton was our resident coffee expert and he’s also a nationally ranked chess player.

And every good NCO makes sure his troops are happy, so I was feeding Skittles to Milton.