A Few of the Regulars at Dehler Park

Our Senior Cheerleader Barb. She has been here since the beginning of Cobb Field they say. She must have first come as an infant in arms.

This is the current waitress for our section. I don't know what her name is because I am bashful when looking at the name tags of pretty young girls.

Back Yard Visitors

Found these animals eating my flowers one of these too hot July afternoons. They apparently do not care much for the coleus, but they do like very much Carol's geraniums.

But Are They Pointed In The Right Direction?

I thought Her Majesty's Forces were being down-graded. It appears they are just undergoing a change in priorities. The Royal Navy once kept the peace on the oceans of the world. Now they and their fellow Forces are protecting athletes while they perform at the Olympic Games. I found this picture and others on Ms Geller's blog, Atlas Shrugged. For the young and ignorant, the title of my blog entry is an allusion to WWII and the direction the guns of Singapore were pointed. The Japanese did not come by sea but by land. Now that I look at the above weaponry, it looks fairly mobile.

And Don't Slam The Door As You Leave

These Australian women can be tough when they need to. Check out Jo Nova's response to some asshole or other.

Civil War Amongst Climate Scientists

I don't know if your brand of job classification doesn't allow a climate scientist to be called a 'denier' or not, similar to the well known and proved idea that African Americans and card-carrying liberals cannot be 'racists.' But it seems as if these folks didn't get the memo. Check them out.

I knew there was a reason I liked this guy

Because of the possible allusion to baseball in the title my attention was naturally caught. I read the article before I noticed who wrote it.

Of course, it is the same Thomas Sowell who makes so much sense in the fields of politics and economics. I am not arguing that because he makes sense when he talks about baseball history therefore we should listen to him when he argues politics and economics. But there may be a certain pattern to these observations: I am thinking of George Will for example, or A Bart Giamatti, and I am sure many more. Are there people who don't make sense in politics or economics who do make sense when talking baseball? I doubt that very much.

Wandering on the Net

A quote from Mark Shea

"I like that the Catholic Church is so transparently inept and so plainly filled with such obviously failed and ridiculous people, not only among us laity, but throughout the ranks of its clerics as well. My abiding sense, ever since converting, has been one of relief. In sectarian Protestantism, the question is always whether you are pure enough, whether you are a “real Christian”, whether your “really meant it” when you asked Jesus into your heart, whether your latest grotesque failure means your whole life as a Christian has been one huge fraud.

 The great thing about the Catholic communion is that it begins every single act of worship with the Confiteor in which we all look at each other and say, “Who am I kidding? i don’t belong here any more than you do, so let’s pray for each other and ask the the Graduates in Heaven to put in a good word for us, trusting that God will cut us slack again just so long as we keep cutting each other slack.” It’s a place where there’s room for me: a screwup who can’t tell my butt from a hole in the ground who has no business darkening the door of a Church, much less brazenly walking up there and receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Almighty God, if you please. The whole project is so outrageous from beginning to end that my only excuse is that God tells all these other people they not only can but must do it, so I guess it’s okay that a dubious jerk like me does it too."

I found this at the top of a long blog entry and comments by John C Wright and those he argues with. This one is interesting though it does follow a downhill trajectory after awhile. The first comment and the brilliant refutation by Mr Wright are the best of the lot.

It Looks Like Billings Has Some Catching Up To Do

This is something called a Faster Bassett Burger from Great Falls, a full pound! of ground beef with a bun too small by far. This notice comes from the blog Greater Falls. They of course call this the best burger in Great Falls and reserve the title best burger in Montana from some place called Square Butte, which is about 6 miles from Geraldine. The last and only time I've ever been to Geraldine had to do with an exhumation a long time ago. I must go again to check out this "best burger" business. Stay tuned my friends.

The Freedom Train

After the revelations emanating from the penumbra of the Supreme Court of the United States in the last  couple of weeks maybe we should resurrect the Freedom Train and build a high-speed track network to take it all over the country. Built by all those who don't have jobs because of President Obama's policies, of course started by Pres. Bush. What good will it do for a civilized country to have free medical care provided by slave labor without a first class free transportation system?

Maddox Hits 3! Long, High Flies. In Vain

This is an excellent picture by Paul Ruhter, photographer for the Billings Gazette. Maddox has just pulled another pitch over the right field fence at Dehler Park. Maybe the opposing teams could shift one of their players to the other side of the fence. See the accompanying article in today's Gazette, appropriately titled 3 Not Quite Enough.

Clearly the pitchers were not quite up to their usual best or even average on a steamy 4th of July afternoon after a long bus ride home from Missoula. Almost 4 thousand faithful were on hand to cheer their summer heroes on.

Greg Rachac mentions some controversial plays in his article. The one I wondered about was our center fielder apparently dropped a ball while crashing into the wall out there. It looked like everyone was safe but the base umpire apparently thought he caught the ball before crashing into the wall and held it long enough to be counted as an out. At least that is the only explanation I can think of that would make any sense. And yet our talkative announcer, who usually is only too happy to tell us about all kinds of useful companies and their products, when he could really be helpful, remains completely silent. Why could he not give us ordinary folks that pay him to keep us informed a short explanation, perhaps from the official scorer or even from the umpire if necessary between innings? What say you, Mr Roller?

Gonorrhea Lectim

I don't know if one of the chief opinion-makers at the Gazette, Ed Kemmick, ever reads hometown blogs. I doubt he does but here is another manifestation of the free speech that Kemmick rails against in today's Gazette. The Democrats talk about vote suppression when ordinary people suggest that an ID would be appropriate in order to vote. Kemmick talks about crude and simple humor as if it is the beginning of the downfall of Western Civilization. I wonder if this isn't his own form of suppression of political conversation.

A Portion of our Galaxy

This is a picture by astrophotographer Luc Perrot, of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, on a Sunday night, from the island of Reunion, a French island east of Madagascar. He says he waited for two years for just the right lighting. I''m not sure how long the universe has been waiting for Monsieur Perrot.

I found this on Pamela Geller's blog: Atlas Shrugs