I am Woman Hear Me Roar

After a long cold tiring day, I decided to succumb once again to my cathode ray addiction and sit down for some TV viewing, intending to watch my favorite nonsensical show, Prison Break, and then catch the last half the South Carolina Democrat Presidential Primary Debate.

But, before I get to the debate, and what a debate it was, I must mention Prison Break. For the most part the show is filmed here in the D/FW zone of Texas. Currently most of the show takes place in a prison in Panama. I discovered after going for Tex-Mex for lunch at Esperanza's in the Stockyards that a part of Fort Worth's history was being used as a prison. I was surprised I had not read mention of this in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram because that paper never misses a chance to brag about anything remotely brag-worthy. Like if at any point in their life a person somehow touched Fort Worth or its environs that newspaper will say something like "Fort Worth Native, Bill Paxton", or like yesterday the Seattle band Foo Fighters was in town. One of the band members lived in Fort Worth for a short time when he was a toddler. The article labeled the guy (I can't remember his name) a Fort Worth native. They actually interviewed him and asked what he remembered of Fort Worth. "Nothing" was his reply.

So, it was surprising to me that the Star-Telegram did not have a big article talking about Fort Worth becoming a mecca for major Hollywood productions, with cities far and wide Green with Envy. Ironically, the one and only reference to the Stockyard Ruins being used as a TV set was a little blurb that said something like "The Fox TV Show, Prison Break, is using an abandoned Dallas area meat processing plant as a prison." Now if you knew how obsessed many Fort Worthers are over Dallas, referring to something taking place in Fort Worth as being in the "Dallas area" is pretty much a misdemeanor here, maybe a felony.

I remember reading the reference to the show using a Dallas area abandoned meat processing plant and wondering where it was. So, I was quite surprised to be driving in the Stockyards zone, driving by the old Swift-Armor meat plant that I call the Stockyard Ruins and seeing a guard tower where none existed before. And then it dawned on me what it might be. I Parked and made my way to a viewing point through a gate and was looking right at the Sona Prison in Panama, complete with palm trees that died in our first freeze here of the year.

Speaking of dying in a big freeze, back to last night's debate. So, I was watching Prison Break, came to the first commercial, switched over to CNN to see if the debate was being interesting. I never went back to Prison Break. I got to the debate right when Hillary and Barack started their now infamous verbal battle. I believe this was the wildest debate I've ever seen and I pretty much watch them all. Usually the crowd is told to be quiet, not to applaud, not to boo, warned that violators of this policy might be removed.

Well, last night apparently there was no such warning, that, or the moderator, Wolf Blitzer, realized that what started as a debate had turned into a World Federation of Wrestling Match and crowd participation only helped with the spectacle. So we had loud cheering, clapping, booing, hissing. And a lot of laughing.

There has been sniping between the Clinton and Obama camps for a couple weeks now. Last night was the first time the pair directly shot barbs at each other, rather than through their surrogates, like Mr. Bill. The best zingers where when Barack accused Hillary of being a lackey for Wal-Mart to which Hillary accused Barack of working for Chicago slumlords.

All in all, I think John Edwards won this debate. Obama seemed a bit shell-shocked, like he was being hen-pecked. Hillary once more seemed to be the toughest of the three. And not in a good way.

This morning I finished Dick Morris's book "Because He Could" where he pretty much shreds Bill and Hillary. One part of the book details the Clinton's epic fights that many witnessed over the years. Another part pretty much made a real good case that it was Hillary who caused the worst of the Clinton scandals, the worse being refusing to let Bill settle the Paula Jones case out of court, which then led to Bill committing perjury, which then led to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Hillary was completely the cause of Travelgate, as well, despite the Clinton denials. Anyway, it is a good book. I recommend it.

Update: I liked the Morris book I finished this morning so much that this afternoon I got his latest book, the one where he counters Hillary's "Living History" book. His is called "Rewriting History". So far I'm only a few pages in and there's some good stuff. Like a section of Hillary's more bizarre bouts of getting caught in really weird lies. Like when she claimed to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary, he being the recently deceased first climber of Mount Everest. Trouble is Sir Edmund became a known name well after Hillary Clinton was born. And then there was the incident where Hillary made up a bizarre story on the Today Show, telling Katie Couric that Chelsea had been jogging around the Twin Towers when they were struck on 9/11. Trouble is Chelsea said later that she was miles away on the other side of Manhattan watching the nightmare unfold on TV, just like most of us experienced it.

Stephenville UFO

I was peacefully minding my own business sipping on some salubrious Tension Tamer tea, watching the remaining 3 Democrats debate in Las Vegas when my peace was rudely shattered by my cell phone's annoying ring. I then had to hunt down the phone and saw it was Lulu. All day long I had been plagued by incoming calls with the caller not I.D'd, saying only "private number". These calls came in about once an hour. I don't answer calls when I don't know who is on the other end. The 8th time this happened the caller left a voice mail. It was Lulu. I called her back. She'd somehow messed up her cell phone settings again.

Anyway, so Lulu called disrupting the undivided attention I had been paying to what had been a somewhat entertaining debate. Hillary was acting sort of macho tonight, while John Edwards almost had a teary moment to two. Barack Obama is very articulate.

Oh, back to the Lulu call. Her first husband had told her that UFOs were invading the Texas town of Stephenville. Lulu wanted to know if I was close to there and if I'd seen any UFOs. This was the first I'd heard of the UFO invasion. I told Lulu I would keep an eye on the sky. And then I tried to once more concentrate on the debate. But I couldn't. Those trivial issues those candidates were yammering about paled in comparison to the UFO invasion spectre Lulu had raised.

So, off went the TV and to the Internet I went, Googling "Stephenville UFO". And what to my surprised eyes did appear but link after link about the Stephenville UFOs. Stephenville is down in the Dinosaur Valley/Creationism Museum area. UFOs don't seem much of a stretch.

I'd put some links to the articles in this post but that's a lot of bother and you can just Google it for yourself. It's my bedtime.

To Vote or not to Vote

It is appalling another 4 years has come around with today being the Iowa Caucus. Or as America's Biggest and Most Amusing Blowhard, Rush Limbaugh, calls it, the Buckeye Cauci. Now, just because I mentioned Mr. Limbaugh do not go thinking I'm an arch conservative. I listen to him because WBAP is the only radio station that comes in clear on my cheap headphones I wear sometimes while biking and hiking. And if you've formed a negative opinion about Limbaugh, but have not actually listened to him, give yourself a break and do so. You may find him quite amusing.

It this is an election year it must also be an Olympics year, another event that seems to come around way too soon. It's too early to guess who is going to win the Olympics, but with this election thing it would appear we are going to be stuck with either Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Guilliani or maybe Mr. McCain as our next president. Anyone of whom would seem likely to be a fresh breath of competence after what we have endured since 2000.

I went to a caucus once. In Washington. The year Bill Clinton won. Washington has since switched to the primary method. I'm not sure I approve of the caucus method, based on my own personal experience. It amounted to being about 20 people in a stranger's living room, one or two self-appointed know-it-alls, but in actuality know-nothing yappers, dominating the discussion with ignorant blather while the rest of us sat in pained silence. At some point I couldn't take it anymore and interupted with a string of facts that refuted the nonsense I'd been listening to. The details of what was spewed that night has long left my memory banks. But my disdain for the caucus method of selecting candidates remains.

I'm sure you are wondering who I voted for at my one and only caucus. Well, it was not Bill Clinton. At that point in time I could not believe he could go far with what seemed to me to be his sort of phony ways. As often is the case, I was wrong. I voted for Paul Tsongas. I don't remember who actually won our local caucus. I'm fairly certain it was not Tsongas since the only time I've voted for a winner was the second time Reagan won. And the second time Nixon won. Quite a track record.

My guesses as to who is going to win the Iowa Caucus today, thus insuring they will lose, is Barack Obama for the Democrats and Mike Huckabee for the Republicans.

But I don't think Mike Huckabee is going to win next week as he keeps making weird mistakes. Like his reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto when Huckabee said we need to secure our southern border to stop the Pakistanis from entering from Mexico because they are our #2 illegal alien invaders. This is not even remotely accurate and no artful spin could make it so. So, Huckabee somehow thought it logical that of all the nations in the world that somehow poor Pakistanis made it all the way around the world, wandering up through Mexico in such large numbers that they out number people's from other Central and South America nations entering our country. He somehow thought that millions of Pakistanis were invading us, likely for some long-planned jihad that would make 9/11 pale by comparison. And yet the first he raised this dire Pakistani invasion issue was in reaction to the Bhutto killing?? No, I do not think we really need another out of touch, albeit nice guy, being our president. In other words, I am shocked Huckabee won the Iowa caucus, all things considered, even though I thought he would, I just somehow thought the common sense of all those solid midwesterner Iowans would prevail. But it didn't.

So, with my track record of being wrong it'll probably be Hillary and John McCain tonight, with Hillary turning into a steamroller express making the rest of the election on the Democrat side into a big bore.