Forbes Magazine Hot Royals

Why would Forbes Magazine want to designate who they think are the World's "20 Hottest Young Royals?" With only unmarried royals under 35 qualified to be considered for their Hotness.

That is the world's #2 Hottest Royal in the photo, Hot Harry. So hot he had to take his shirt off.

Harry is the son of the late Princess Diana. I don't believe any DNA testing has been done to determine, for certain, who the father is.

UK Royals took the Top 4 Hot Spots. I've only heard of the first 2. I'd heard of none of the World's other Hot Royals either.

I'm so ignorant I didn't know that Sweden, Germany, Greece or Denmark even had royals. I knew the Arab countries were big on having Kings and Queens. 2 of them are Hot. I'm not totally fluent in Arab, but I think one of the Hot ones is a boy and the other a girl. I can't tell by their names, but #6 is a Sheik. I'm thinking that is Arab for Prince. And then at #17 we have a Sheika. Which I'm guessing is a girl Sheik.

The Sheik is from Dubai, the Sheika from the United Arab Emirates. #18 is also from an Arab country, Jordan, but she isn't a Sheika, she's a Princess. Africa has only 1 Hot Royal, coming in in last place, a Princess from Swaziland.

Here's the entire list for you to commit to memory.

01. Prince William (Britain)
02. Prince Harry (Britain)
03. Zara Phillips (Britain)
04. Princess Beatrice (Britain)
05. Charlotte Casiraghi (Monaco)
06. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (Dubai)
07. Princess Victoria (Sweden)
08. Prince Azim (Brunei)
09. Prince Carl Philip (Sweden)
10. Andrea Casiraghi (Monaco)
11. Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis (Germany)
12. Princess Madeline (Sweden)
13. Princess Theodora (Greece and Denmark)
14. Prince Wenzeslaus (Liechtenstein)
15. Princess Tsuguko (Japan)
16. Princess Sirivannavari (Thailand)
17. Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (United Arab Emirates)
18. Princess Iman bint Al Hussein (Jordan)
19. Prince Philippos (Greece and Denmark)
20. Princess Sikhanyiso (Swaziland)

Is Bush an Idiot?

That is the subject of a Scarborough MSNBC YouTube video that you can watch below. I'd not seen many of Scarborough's pieces of evidence regarding Bush's possibly idiocy.

Am I remembering correctly? Did there used to be a time when we would not have openly speculated on such a thing regarding a president? Is it somehow in bad taste?

I know a tempermental Puerto Rican who thinks one should not speak ill of the president. Or make fun of him. She thought it was in terribly bad taste to include Bush on a list of men who looked like old lesbians.

Yesterday I blogged some pics of Bush acting goofy at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, where he'd given a commencement speech and then proceeded to engage in some frat boy frolicking with the cadets.

This morning I see on my web stats that I've got a lot of people from the Air Force Academy looking at that particular blogging. I hope they don't take umbrage.

Now, watch the below video and see if you think Bush is an idiot.

Something Actually Funny From The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

This afternoon I came across something amusing. And it is from a source where I've seldom found them being intentionally amusing, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Well. Unbeknownst to me, the Star-Telegram has been running this little weekly video show on their website called DaFoWo Show. As in Dallas Forth Worth Show.

I tried to embed the video from this week, but that source code did not work. It's pretty funny, with one section tracking Fort Worth's current Gaydometer Reading. And another showing one of my kind, a hapless Northerner, coping with the Texas heat. You can view the video I could not embed at the Star-Telegram website by going here. I don't know how long it will be viewable til replaced by the next week's video.

I found an episode from a month or so ago, on YouTube that I am able to embed below. It's not quite as amusing as the current week's episode, but it's still pretty funny in a couple places.

Alma is the First Hurricane of the Year

Alma became the eastern Pacific's first named Tropical Storm of the year today. She is dropping a lot of water on Central America and is expected to become a hurricane before she hits Nicaragua late today.

It seems odd to me that so many hurricanes are named after people I know. Alma is one of the best Songbirds of the South, currently performing in various venues on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Alma does not like hurricanes.

I don't know what Alma's predicted trajectory is after she leaves Nicaragua and enters the Caribbean. I don't know if Alma is heading in Alma's direction.

George W. Bush Air Force Academy Commencement Goofiness

Yesterday Our Dear Leader, President George W. Bush, gave a commencement speech at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

During his speech Bush said the whole Iraq thing had been a learning experience, as in he said, "we learned from hard experience that newly liberated people cannot make political and economic progress unless they first have some measure of security."

Let's see, we invaded Iraq while bombing the hell out of the country in a program called "Shock & Awe." We then occupied Iraq, supposedly to make sure Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Then, for some reason some Iraqis did not feel as if they'd been liberated, they felt like they'd been invaded and so they fought back, hoping to be liberated of the liberators.

I know if some other country didn't like America having weapons of mass destruction, which we do have, and if that country thought America's leader was a threat to the peace of the world, and if that country decided to invade America, with a Shock and Awe bombing of Washington, D.C., including the presidential palace known as the White House and if after the invasion that country captured our President, put him on trial and then executed him, well, I would be quite mad and I would become an insurgent doing anything I could to hurt the invaders.

And it would really make me mad to hear the leader of the country that had invaded America, and toppled our government, claim that we'd been liberated.

And on a totally different note. The photos in this post were taken yesterday during the graduation ceremony. Bush appears to be acting quite goofy, what with chest thumping a cadet and smoking cigars, among other things.

Meanwhile two more Americans were killed in Iraq yesterday during a battle at a place in Iraq called Donkey Island.

The Bluest Skies I've Ever Seen Are In Seattle

Click here for a July posting about Seattle's Blue Sky, including song Seattle.

(The photo of Mount Rainier is the view from my big sister's place on Lake Meridian in Kent)

I believe I am heading that way in July. I've not been in Washington for over 2 years. When I'm gone this long it is a bit of an adjustment returning to the Evergreen State. First off, I'll be going from temps in the 100s to temps where the locals think they are having a heat wave when 2 days in a row temps are in the 80s. I'll feel very chilly. Til I acclimate.

Second off, the people will look to me like they've had the air let out of them. I first experienced this driving back for my mom and dad's 50th. It was in Colorado the people seemed to start looking deflated. And then I went into a Super Wal-Mart in Ontario, Oregon and it looked like everyone had just come from a 2 month stay at a health spa.

2004 was my last time in the Northwest during summer. That time Lulu plucked me from the airport and drug me to downtown Seattle to Pioneer Square to deliver some of her fabulous jewelry art to a gallery. I'd not been back in 3 years and I could not get over how many people were out and about in lively downtown Seattle. And how the vast majority looked like they'd had the air let out of them.

Fort Worth is so proud of being named the Liveliest Downtown in Texas. I wonder what a Fort Worther thinks when they see an actual lively downtown like Seattle's? With all its deflated people. It must be perplexing.

I'll be staying at my little sister's in Tacoma, where I'll play uncle to her babies, two cute poodles. The bulk of my time will be spent working with Operation Lulu. That should be fun. It always is.

(That is the Tacoma Dome in the pic, with Mount Rainier behind it. Both built with no eminent domain abuse.)

At some point in time my mom and dad will show up. I've not seen them in over 2 years. Today I learned I'll get to install some ceiling fans and chandeliers in my sister's house. I've not done something like that in awhile. I hope I don't electrocute myself.

I hope I manage to get over to Eastern Washington. I've not done that since 2004. I love spending time in Washington's Bavarian Village known as Leavenworth. When I first moved to Texas I read of a town here called Muenster, that promoted itself as if it were a Leavenworth type thing. It isn't. Leavenworth is Disneyesque in its attention to detail. Muenster was more like no one there knew where or what Bavaria is. Muenster did have a dusty German bakery and a German pizza parlor. I've no idea what that means.

It's the fresh fruit I really wanna go to Eastern Washington for. I've not had a good apricot in 4 years. I love apricots.

In Texas you can buy blackberries for about 3 bucks for a few ounces. In Washington blackberries grow everywhere. I intend to eat a lot of blackberries and have a lot of fresh blackberry milkshakes. And seafood. In Texas seafood is called catfish. I want cod. Or halibut. And some fresh out of the water dungeness crab. And oysters.

Since I moved to Texas all the berries that grow in Washington have now become known as Super Foods. I grew blueberries on my rooftop deck and never managed to eat all that I grew. I did not know, at the time, that they were Super Foods. Where I lived farms grew blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. But no blackberries, because they grow wild everywhere. It amazes me that blackberries are something you buy in a grocery store here in Texas.

I'll be blogging and doing a lot of video when I'm up north. I'm sure my thousands of readers will be eagerly anticipating that. I know I am.

Hulk Hogan Car Wreck

Hulk Hogan's son, Nick, is doing time for being underage while driving drunk and speeding, resulting in a wreck that left his friend, John Graziano, in a coma that he has not come out of.

Nick's wreck took place in Clearwater, Florida. On Sunday Hulk Hogan was driving his Mercedes and got into a 7 car pile-up. Also in Clearwater, Florida. I don't know if Hulk Hogan was drunk and speeding. I do know he is old enough to consume alcohol.

I also know jail conversations between Nick and his dad have been recorded and you can listen to them. In the one I listened to, Hulk Hogan trashes the guy that his son put into a coma. Nick says the guy in a coma was very negative.

On the recording I listened to there was not the slightest hint of remorse that the victim was in a coma. Instead, Nick was wanting his dad to help arrange for him to have a new reality show when he gets out of stir. A reality show detailing his comeback from being in jail.

Nick's main concern regarding his reality show was that he wanted to make as much money on it as possible.

Is there a petition somewhere we can sign to keep this kid from making money from doing jail time for being underage and driving drunk and putting someone in a coma?

You can listen here to Hulk Hogan and his jailbird son discuss the son's victim and his future. The son's future, I mean, not the victim's future. The two Hogan's don't seem to give a rat's ass about the victim.

Obama's Memorial Day Gaffe

We've had a very stormy day today in North Texas. Around noon I was walking in Veteran's Park in Arlington. It was hot, with very dark clouds moving south. And then suddenly extreme wind and a huge temperature drop. I went from hot to chilly in seconds.

While walking I was listening to Rush Limbaugh. No, I am not a right wing nut job. I find him very amusing. And my cheap radio headphones only get one station clear, that being WBAP out of Dallas. And Limbaugh happens to be on the air when I walk or ride my bike.

So, today this woman calls up yammering about Barack Obama seeing dead people. It took awhile for Rush to sort out what she was talking about. Seems at the start of a Memorial Day speech in Las Cruces, New Mexico Obama gaffed when he said--

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

Obama's official website quickly removed the unfortunate verbiage.

There seems to be a sort of cottage industry tracking Obama's Gaffes. He's repeated several times that his uncle helped liberate Treblinka and Auschwitz. Trouble is, the Russians liberated both those death camps. American troops did not enter Poland, which is where those death camps were located.

Maybe his uncle told Barack this and Barack never thought to question the story. Just like he didn't question his assertion that over 10,000 had died in a tornado in a small Kansas town.

And there's what I thought was a gaffe during a debate with Hillary, which I never read anyone questioning. It was about the administration's poor planning in Afghanistan and Iraq. Barack claimed that the U.S. army was stretched so thin by the Iraq deployment, with not enough guns, that our soldiers in Afghanistan at one point had to use guns they'd taken from dead Taliban. When he said that it just seemed ridiculous to me. I really can't see those in command not making sure their men have good ol' American guns, let alone having them use Taliban guns.

Maybe it wasn't a gaffe. But I sure don't recollect reading about any incidents like this. And one would think one would.

Below you can hear Obama make his Memorial Day Sixth Sense Gaffe at the start of his speech.

Puerto Rico Primary

I know a Puerto Rican. She moved from the island to the states over 20 years ago. She talks to her mom, back on the island, at least once a day. That is every single day for more than 20 years.

The Puerto Rican pays attention to beauty pageants. Miss Puerto Rico won Miss Universe awhile back. This caused much celebration on the island and a late night extra call to the mom on the island.

Puerto Rico is now all atwitter due to the first time ever being the focus of the American presidential race, with visits by all the Clintons, including Chelsea, and by Obama. The Clintons have spent more time on the island than Obama. Apparently Puerto Ricans like Hillary more than Barack.

That is certainly true of my local Puerto Rican. She gets down right nasty talking about Obama. Apparently Puerto Rican's are born with really bad tempers. Or so I've been told. My local Rican can get worked up almost over just about anything. One time she was screaming about something Arnold, the California governor, said along the lines of "Puerto Rican's are hot-blooded, violent people who are quick to anger." I said, "You are hot-blooded, violent people who are quick to anger."

"That may be true, but he shouldn't have said it," she said in anger mode without any sense of the irony.

My local Puerto Rican is very politically opinionated. But she has never voted. The United States came to possess Puerto Rico upon winning the Spanish-American War. We also took over Cuba and the Philippines. Cuba got its independence in 1902, the Philippines got theirs after WWII. But Puerto Rico remains a U.S. possession with a sort of Commonwealth arrangement. Puerto Ricans pay no federal taxes, yet get social security and food stamps.

In 1974 the Democratic National Committee decided it was a good idea to hold democrat presidential primaries on the island. But Puerto Ricans can not vote in the November election. With 63 voting delegates they will send more delegates to Denver than half the states. The reason the Democrats decided to let Puerto Ricans vote in a primary was to curry favor with the Puerto Ricans who were living in the states.

I don't know how this was supposed to work. The Puerto Rican's I've met are pretty independent thinking. Like my local Rican is the only person I know who likes George W. and she says she'd vote for Hillary or John McCain, but not for Barack.

People who talk about who they'd vote for and then don't vote somehow annoy me.

The Future of Fort Worth

That is Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief behind bars. 67% of my thousands of readers want me to keep bashing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. All I can muster right now is a slight variant of that type bashing.

In a paid for by the city of Fort Worth full page advertisement in the Memorial Day Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in an article titled "Citywide Conversation to Shape Fort Worth's Future," Mayor Mike Moncrief is quoted as saying, "Usually, this council and I are the ones doing the talking, but this is our time to listen to you, Fort Worth. We want to hear the concerns, observations and suggestions of our residents as to how we can make the best city in the country even better for future generations."

Best city in the country? Delusions of grandeur is such a sad spectacle to see up close.

But, even weirder than that is this Citywide Conversation thing. The lead paragraph says, "It happened in 1963 and '92. Now, it's happening again---a citywide conversation to stimulate dialogue among Fort Worth residents."

So, twice in the past 45 years the Ruling Junta of Fort Worth has listened to its citizens? And now they are going to listen again?

Here's an idea. Rather than listening how about letting the citizens vote?

Soon bulldozers will begin leveling businesses and houses taken by eminent domain, in yet one more abuse of that legit concept, via its bastardized version as practiced in Texas, in order to destroy the confluence of two forks of the Trinity River at the north end of downtown Fort Worth, to build a lake, some canals and a flood control diversion channel.

The flood control thing had to be added so as to be able to have some sort of legit reason for this project so as to be able to secure Federal funds. Yes, that is right, you in the rest of America, some of your tax dollars are helping pay for this boondoggle.

A boondoggle, I forgot to mention, that the good citizen's of Fort Worth have not been allowed to vote for.

Dallas has a similar project that was in place when Fort Worth copied it. Major difference, the citizens of Dallas, living as they do in an enlightened democracy, got to vote for their Trinity River project. Unlike the Fort Worth project, the Dallas one makes sense, as in there is a huge flood plain that just sits there right now as open land, that will become a huge recreational lake, with 3 big signature, iconic image worthy bridges, crossing the lake into downtown Dallas.

In Fort Worth, which is not quite as enlightened a democracy as Dallas, and where the concepts of conflict of interest and nepotism hold no meaning, the son of Fort Worth's congresswoman, Kay Granger, he being J.D Granger, is earning $110,000 a year running the Trinity Uptown Project, which is what the Fort Worth boondoggle is known as.

One of Fort Worth's good politicians, former City Councilman, Clyde Picht, who has long opposed the boondoggle that the people of Fort Worth have not voted for, said the appointment of Granger's son is "asking for criticism" and that his knowledge of water district issues is "certainly more limited than most people."

Among the many aspects of this project that puzzle me, one is, I don't get how a Ruling Junta can ram through such a massive civic works project, one that involves taking its citizen's businesses and homes, without letting the citizens vote on the project. How is that legal?

And now the Fort Worth City Council is going to have a citywide conversation with the citizens of Fort Worth? And listen to them? If the past is an indicator of the future, if the citizens get feisty with the Mayor and the rest of the Ruling Junta, Mike Moncrief will simply walk away.

Without listening.