This rock is more patriotic than Congressman Earl Pomeroy

This enormous rock, about five feet tall and parked in a very remote location outside of Bismarck, has more patriotism than the American left. The owner of the land on which it sits, I presume, has adorned it with an American flag, the names of some North Dakota soldiers killed in the global war on terrorism, and the following quote from our President:

“We will not waver; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail.” George W Bush

It’s just a shame that very few people will ever see this rock; I stumbled upon it by accident while out getting the truck dirty. Can you imagine the heartfelt pride in our soldiers the artist must have felt as they painted this tribute to their sacrifice? It’s very moving and I had to tell you about it.

On the other hand, this reminded me of the cowardly Earl Pomeroy, the hapless US Representative from our fair state. While I and several hundred other motorcyclists stood guard outside the funeral of a fallen soldier, he came by to attend the funeral and offer waves and salutes. This happened less than 24 hours after he voted against House Resolution 861, titled “Declaring that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.”

This is so typical of the liberal Democrat mantra of “I support the troops, but I don’t support the mission.” Have you seen the text of the resolution that Earl voted against? If not, click the link above. But first let me point out that this resolution was a show of support: it didn’t promise funding, it didn’t have any policy riders in it, it was simply a declaration that Americans are doing a good work and that they’ll succeed. Earl disagreed.

Here’s some of the text. I left out all the “whereas” clauses because, while they’re part of the text, they are not the meat of the resolution:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) honors all those Americans who have taken an active part in the Global War on Terror, whether as first responders protecting the homeland, as servicemembers overseas, as diplomats and intelligence officers, or in other roles;

(2) honors the sacrifices of the United States Armed Forces and of partners in the Coalition, and of the Iraqis and Afghans who fight alongside them, especially those who have fallen or been wounded in the struggle, and honors as well the sacrifices of their families and of others who risk their lives to help defend freedom;

(3) declares that it is not in the national security interest of the United States to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq;

(4) declares that the United States is committed to the completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure, and united Iraq;

(5) congratulates Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and the Iraqi people on the courage they have shown by participating, in increasing millions, in the elections of 2005 and on the formation of the first government under Iraq’s new constitution;

(6) calls upon the nations of the world to promote global peace and security by standing with the United States and other Coalition partners to support the efforts of the Iraqi and Afghan people to live in freedom; and

(7) declares that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.

What was so objectionable to cowardly Earl that he couldn’t vote YEA on this? Did he object to a “Whereas” in there somewhere? The only one that should count is this one:

Whereas the United States and Coalition servicemembers and civilians and the members of the Iraqi security forces and those assisting them who have made the ultimate sacrifice or been wounded in Iraq have done so nobly, in the cause of freedom;

That clause alone is worthy of a YEA vote. Instead, spineless Earl the Pearl voted along with such notorious wackbags as Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel, one of the guys who keeps saying our soldiers are too dumb or poor to choose other career options. Then he has the nerve to show up at the funeral of a fallen soldier the very next day, putting on his North Dakota face on the flight back, and presumes (correctly) that it will go largely unnoticed.

“Representatives” like Earl Pomeroy do not represent North Dakota or the majority of Americans. Some of them, like our beloved Representative, are backstabbers when it comes to our soldiers at home. They make all the right somber appearances here in North Dakota, then run back off to Washington to be who they really are. I’m glad people like the person who painted this rock are up to the task of supporting our fighting men and women worldwide. If I was a member of Travis Van Zoest’s family the day of the funeral, I’d have denied the two-faced Earl Pomeroy entry into the ceremony…at least until he explained to the hundreds of real patriots outside why he voted the way he did.

The official roll call of the vote can be found here.

The full text of House Resolution 861 can be found here.

Ice 9

If you can name the artist whose song this post is titled for (without a Google search) I’ll be impressed! I was taking the long way home again today and found some really wild ice jams on the river. Naturally I had to go out and photograph them from up close!

I’m not saying how far out on the ice I went to get these, but I can say that I know it was only a foot deep or so before it froze. In all likelihood it was frozen all the way down. In any case, it was solid…and in the event of a plunge through the ice, the only casualty would be my ankles.

Greatest Christmas display in Bismarck-Mandan, 2006

UPDATE:I brought this post back up to the top of the page and added some more photos because Paul Schaff is going to be on the PH Phactor on KFYR AM 550 radio – Thursday, December 7th at 8:15am. Tune in at 8 and go see this Christmas display!

Now’s the time of year when carloads of Bismarck-Mandan residents get together and troll around our fair cities in search of eye-catching Christmas displays. It’s even so popular that local limousine services offer their services to drive you around to the more popular neighborhoods!

Obviously neighborhoods like Northview Lane come immediately to mind, but one house you might not know about really beats ’em all. I’m talking about Paul Schaff’s house, in the far southwest corner of Mandan.

I know about this house because it’s within spittin’ distance of my parents’ house, on a hill overlooking Fort Lincoln school. This is the view of the house from behind…yeah, that’s right: these folks are serious! I took this picture from the schoolyard below.

In years past I remember there even being a musical ornament of some sort, so we’d have to turn down the sounds of Charlie Brown Christmas and roll our windows down as well. I didn’t hear anything like that last night as Stacy and I took a drive past the house.

To get to this house, you need only find West View Lane in southwest Mandan. Let me make it easy: Head south on Highway 1806. Cross the bridge and keep going, as if you were going to Fort Lincoln State Park. At the top of the first big hill is an intersection with 19th Street. Take a right on 19th and follow it until you come to a 4-way stop sign at 8th Avenue SE. Take a left and pass Fort Lincoln School, and you can’t miss the house. From there it’s just a matter of taking a couple of right-hand turns to find them at the end of the road.

This is my absolute favorite time of the year. Sure, I can’t go out on the motorcycles without spiked tires (which I’ve done) and it’s a lot colder to go walkabout with my camera… but driving around snowy roads with Vince Gauraldi playing in my truck is the absolute best feeling I get in Bismarck-Mandan all year long. With that in mind, I’ll be posting more Christmas sights here. They’re even better when shared.

Sure wish I knew what this thing is

If you ever find yourself coming home from Fort Lincoln at night, you may have looked up at the hill behind Beck’s Museum and seen this thing lit up at the top of the hill. It appears to be on private property, and I have no idea as to its significance. If you have any information on this particular monument, please post a comment. For once I’m stumped.

UPDATE: This is a memorial to a young man who died unexpectedly. ’nuff said.

Advancing front

Sometimes I get a picture that’s blurry, grainy, or otherwise imperfect, yet is so COOL that I just have to hang on to it. This is one of those nights. These clouds were so neat that I had to pull over, lean out the window of the truck, and snap the picture before the clouds advanced in front of the moon.

I had the camera set to 3200 ISO, which (if I do my math correctly) is about 8x more sensitive than your typical digital camera will go. That would hopefully allow me to capture the moment, which it did. It was still a little blurry because I am not very steady while protruding from a truck window. But I took it in order to show other people what the clouds looked like last night…so it works.

Parhelion

This was a unique sight on Saturday: a rainbow on each side of the sun! It’s a parhelion, or sundog. It’s formed by rays of light refracting through ice crystals, just like they do with water droplets to form a rainbow.

I saw this as a bunch of low clouds rolled past. The remnants of the clouds caused this phenomenon to occur, and it disappeared when the skies cleared completely.

Lori Line returns to Bismarck-Mandan


Lorie Line played the Bismarck Civic Center once again with a show on Saturday Night. As you can tell from the photo, Stacy and I had really good seats: just four rows back, with a great view of Lorie’s keyboard. That lady sure can play! I don’t know how many of you are fans of Christmas at the Minneapolis Dayton’s from years past, but she used to play there back in the ’80s. I never made the connection until the first time I attended the show here in Bismarck.

I’ve been a Lorie Line fan since my wife and I started dating. She’s extremely talented, her husband does a great job as the emcee, and the production is always top notch. This year’s show was really good…but it was nowhere near the high standard they’ve set in years past.

One downside to the show is that gospel singer Robert Robinson is no longer touring with the group. That man’s voice could draw tears from the hardest of hearts! Hearing him sing carols like “Oh Holy Night” “What Child is This” is enough to make your knees weak. I wish him well in whatever his current endeavors may be. The bright side is that his replacement, soprano Kelly Smith. She’s definitely a worthy successor to Mr. Robertson.

Another element missing from this year’s performance is a trademark Lorie Line feature. She comes out with a legal pad and asks the crowd to belt out requests. She then sits down at the piano and makes an impromptu medley of the list! It seems that someone always yells “Spongebob Squarepants” but there are also requests like “Inna Godda Da Vida and other challenging tunes. We kept waiting for this part of the show, but it never came.

I don’t get it…this show’s theme was supposed to be “The Traditions of Christmas” but I didn’t really feel the Christmas spirit by the time the show was over. It was certainly a great performance by everyone, yet really didn’t capture the fun and sparkle that one normally gets at a Lorie Line concert. My favorite show of hers happened to be themed, “My Favorite Things.” This one, however, didn’t really seem to have a theme. Hopefully things will be back up to that sky-high standard next year.

One neat thing they did this year was during the part of the show every year when the kids come up on stage and sing. They have a photographer that takes a hi-resolution picture, which they post on the Lorie Line website for people to download the next day. They also had the whole crowd sing “Silent Night” along with the orchestra. They record it at each performance and make it available online as well, for 99 cents. That’s a good way to get people to go to your website! I wonder what I could post here…

If you have an opportunity to see Lorie Line this Christmas season, don’t pass it up. Don’t let my comments about not living up to last year’s show stop you: I doubt anything could match it. I do hope, however, that Lorie brings her legal pad with her the next time she comes to Bismarck.

Identify that statue IV

This one’s got some special significance, but I’d give it away if I told you what that was. If you’re able to guess where this statue is, then you should be able to tell me what’s so special about it. If you can identify the statue but not what it’s there for, then you really need to do two things: go back and read the plaque beneath it, and look more closely at other local statues in the future!

Hazy shade of winter

One interesting thing about the really cold North Dakota nights is the amount of ice crystals in the air. It stays bright all night because of the diffused city light in the air, and there’s a nice soft glow to objects such as our beloved capitol. I was driving home and couldn’t resist a quick snapshot.

Really bright sources of light tend to shoot spires of light straight up into the sky, which are visible for quite a long distance. It’s almost like a “synthetic aurora” in a sense, except they don’t dance like the real thing.

Operation success: airport caves to jihadist imams

Scroll down a couple of posts, and you’ll see my theory that the six imams who behaved like textbook terrorists, then were evicted from an aircraft, were actually carrying out an operation which achieved its desired result.

Now in this report from Minneapolis – St. Paul, they’re being served a little more victory:

Airport officials said Friday they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation at the request of imams concerned about the removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight last week.

Airport officials will accept the group’s invitation to visit a mosque, airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

“I think there’s a mutual recognition that it would be helpful for there to be a solid understanding,” Hogan said.

These people are not going to be satisfied until Islam is institutionalized. They understand how to do it, and little tiny incidents like this will add up and set precedents over the long term. It’s too bad the West seems willfully blind to what they’re trying to achieve, even though they make absolutely no pretense about their goals and methods.