Following in the footsteps of BRM and his “Doofus of the Day” posts, here is your Daily Dumbass:

An official in Portland, Ore., says a house fire that caused $30,000 in damage was apparently started by tenants who were using a hole in the floor as an ashtray.

When we lived in California, my step-father used the crawlspace under our house as a dumping ground for every noxious chemical he came up with. Paint thinner, pest poisons, paint, old gasoline cans, and used propane cylinders.  The other corner of the crawlspace housed his crates of ammunition, which my mother wouldn’t let in the house.  He was also a smoker, and on more than one occasion I was worried he was going to kill us all with his non-chalant smoking in high-fume areas or flicking a butt at containers of flammable liquids. 

But to be honest, I never saw him flick his ashes into anything indoors other than an ash tray or soda can.  What kind of moron doesn’t know that you don’t use the basement or crawlspace as an ashtray?  Details are sketchy, and I hope that no-one was hurt in this fire, but if so, it’s only by luck.

By the way, what is the correct term for a group of dumbasses like we have here?  You have a gaggle of geese, a herd of cows, and a grouch of SysAds.  What do you call a group of dumbasses?

On this day, in 1943, the USAT Dorchester, a troop transport taking soldiers across the Atlantic, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat.   On board were four chaplains:  Reverand George Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Father John Washington, and Reverand Clark Poling.  These saints in the flesh not only provided a calm hand to guide men to lifeboats and assisted the wounded, but they also gave up their own life vests so that others might have a better chance at survival.  Soldiers and sailors who survived the sinking remember watching these men pray together on the deck of the ship as it went down.  Their sacrifice probably saved more than a few lives that night, and has been an inspirational example to me since I first heard their story.

Military chaplains are the quiet heroes among the rough men and women that make up our armed forces.  They provide moral guidance to leaders, comfort the wounded in body and spirit, and remind all of us that there are better things than the heat, cold, sand, mud, and heartache that comes with the military.  They act as staff confessor, conscience, and counselor to most military units.  Any soldier knows that if he has a problem, he can go to the chaplain, if for nothing else than to find someone who will listen attentively and make suggestions that are reasonable.  On more than one occasion I have taken Holy Communion from the back of a truck, with the Father just as wet, cold, and miserable as the rest of us.  The difference was that he chose to leave the relative warmth and comfort of the TOC to make sure that the soldiers in his flock were taken care of.

I have known chaplains that were saints walking among men.  I have known chaplains who were only slightly more holy in their manners than the men and women they tried to guide to a better life.  One Catholic chaplain I served with was Airborne, Air Assault, and Ranger qualified, could drink like a fish, would flirt with waitresses as much as the rest of us, and was as viciously loyal to Notre Dame football as anyone I ever met.  He was also the man who baptized my oldest son, blessed my marriage to his mother, and helped to bring me peace when I came home from a particularly hard assignment heartsick and broken.

To all of our chaplains, I say thank you.  There are some debts that can never be repaid, but I hope that my words have some worth in that process.  Even though a good minister can always find a comfortable, safe posting if they look hard enough, they go into the wilderness to preach to and care for the men and women who need them the most. 

Irish Woman, in a discussion with her loving husband:  I am not menopausal, I’m just psychotic.

Some A-1 jerk from Louisville broke some or all of the rules and shot a a young girl in the bloody head due to his stupidity.  Apparently he was practicing his Audie Murphy gun tricks or something and the fool thing went off.


Say them with me now:

1. All guns are always loaded!
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are notwilling to destroy!
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target!
4. Always be sure of your target!

This blunt skull obviously ignored all four of them, and it’s only by sheer dumb luck that the young lady was only wounded and not killed outright.


Listen Junior, guns are not toys. They are tools.  They are not evil automatons bent on killing.  They almost always require a human being to pull the bang switch before they go boom.  Because you were “playing” with a loaded revolver a child has been closer to death than she has a right to be, is scarred for life, and will probably grow up in fear of inanimate objects.  Personally, I hope they throw the book at you and you spend the rest of your young years looking at the world through barbed wire.  But since the gun will be blamed, you’ll probably be left on the street where your innate stupidity will continue to be a danger to me and mine.  And of course this will just go down as another case of EVIL GUNS hurting children, as opposed to some jackwagon whose father should have pulled out hurting a child.  Jerk.

The Supreme Court has apparently decided to send a pretty blunt message to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  They’ve unanimously reversed 5 recent cases that came up to the Supremes from the 9th.

Experts seem to think the Supremes are trying to nudge the lower court a little more towards the middle.  I’m thinking it’s going to take a little more than a few judicial black eyes to get the 9th to start living in the real world.

This is the court that has been reversed more often than any other court of appeal.  In my lifetime, it’s been a laughing matter in conservative circles when a conservative cause has come before the 9th.

Hopefully a judicial kick in the ass of legendary proportions is in the works for this wayward court.  Justice needs to be consistent, and it just hasn’t been that way for a long time in the areas where the 9th Circuit holds sway.

Before you say it, you’re welcome!

What? We’re out of coffee? Hold on……

Clank clank zip zip

Just walk away. I promise you safe passage in the waste lands. Just leave the coffee and walk away.

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With all the work we’ve been doing around Casa de Oso lately, this seems appropriate.

Driving home in a cold rain after a long day at work is not enhanced by listening to Alice In Chains.

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