Don Knotts 1924 - 2006

Well, what can be said that hasn't been said already. The man was a comic genius. And even though Knotts was from West Virginia, his character of Deputy Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show will always be one of North Carolina's favorite sons.One of the best roles he had was this really nervous corporal in No Time for Sergeants (in which he appeared with future co-star...

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America, the ports, and Napoleonic France

Remember those six American ports that Dubai is set to take over?Well, it ain't six ports at all.It's twenty-two ports.This makes a lot more sense if you start thinking of America as being post-revolutionary France, with Napoleon Bonaparte running things. Being so overstretched in our "empire" we are now selling off some of our holdings to fund it all, like when France sold the U.S. the Louisiana territory. Sorta makes Iraq our own version of Borodino...

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About the story that USED to be here

After some reconsideration, I decided to pull the article about the Mohammed cartoon. No, nobody threatened me or anything like that (which would have only made me keep it up even more). It's because I'm in the process of "switching over" my more political/op-ed stuff to a separate blog, and keep The Knight Shift for my more "happy/upbeat" material. That's not to say that there won't be "heavy" stuff in this space though. But I do want to keep...

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So y'all went looking for Taylor Hicks and found me :-)

According to the stats, about 85% of this blog's new visitors lately are coming in from search engines after they've entered "Taylor Hicks", "Under the Radar", "Hell of a Day", "MP3" and other terms related to Hicks. This blog has suddenly become a magnet for fans of Taylor Hicks to come and find stuff and maybe congregate around. Can't help but feel might proud at that, hope that I can do my share of spreading the good word out about our man Taylor...

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The boys rocked tonight's Idol

We watched the girls last night on American Idol and tonight's show and between the two, we felt most entertained by the guys tonight. Last night it was Paris Bennett and Mandisa that I was still thinking about this morning. Tonight... ooh-boy. So many good performances. Being a Carolina boy I might be biased when I say that Chris Daughtry and Bucky Covington did well. Gedeon McKinney and Jose "Sway" Penala definitely have moves in their acts....

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NOW he threatens to veto something: Bush wants foreign control of American ports

Why in the name of Valhalla is our President Bush hot to sign away control of several American ports to a foreign company run by the United Arab Emirates? He's even threatening a veto if legislators try to block the transaction... which would be the very first time that he's used the veto since he took office in 2001.He didn't veto McCain-Feingold, and he does nothing about our borders being flooded with illegals and who-knows-what-else... but he's...

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An American original passes away: Bill Moran re-discovered centuries-lost secret

Of all the sad news that I've had to pass along in this space lately - and there's been more than its fair share - this is by far the most heartbreaking...Word reached me earlier this afternoon that Bill Moran, the "Master of the Forge" and knifemaker extroardinaire who over thirty years ago re-discovered the long-lost secret of how to make Damascus steel, died last week at...

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Rep. Ron Paul on "The End of Dollar Hegemony"

A little over a month ago I wrote here about how the value of the American dollar was being underwritten by how it is used on the global oil trade. Countries such as Iran and now, as of last week Syria, are beginning to make the transition from the dollar as the standard unit of exchange to the euro, which may dramatically increase the euro's value while significantly decreasing that of American currency.Now Ron Paul, member of the House of Representatives...

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Government quashes independent dairy farmers

I'm posting this because as a former independent dairy farmer, this is an issue that I've some passion for and I think it matters to most Americans more than they probably realize. It's about how the government - at the urging of bigtime agricultural co-ops - is putting the squeeze on independent dairy producers, forcing them to adhere to needless and overly burdensome regulations that have nothing to do with the quality of the milk they produce....

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"Red Riding Rashomon": We get Hoodwinked

It snowed at a pretty good clip for most of the day, which made the outside look really beautiful... while it lasted. When we got to the theater it had started getting too warm and what snow had stuck to the ground soon melted. It was gone entirely by the time we came out of seeing Hoodwinked.This was a far better movie than I was expecting when we first went in. The animation style is different than what you'd come to expect if you've only had...

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Got a fix for some Taylor Hicks? Lookee here!!

EDIT 08:01 PM EST: Looks like Blogger is finally working again. I had to republish the index though and doing so made the original Taylor Hicks post (and its unique URL) disappear, meaning I had to repost this again (which is what the post you're looking at right now is). Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused someone...But anyhoo, if yer like me, and especially...

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Late night snack: Putting two BBQ giants together

I am somewhat of a barbecue connoisseur. Over the years I've visited many different restaurants, tried every style there is, and sampled just about every kind of barbecue sauce on the planet. Think the most unique place I've ever been was The Dinosaur in Rochester, New York (it is exactly what it advertises to be: a real honkey-tonk joint). And I never ate at his restaurant...

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"Shout hallejulah c'mon get happy!"

Power Line is making hay of a Pew Research study indicating that, apparently, Republicans are happier than Democrats. It also says that only 29% of us independents are happy... but hey nobody polled me so what do I know (and I like to consider myself a pretty happy guy).Here's where Power Line demonstrates considerable narrow-mindedness:That conservatives (Republicans) are...

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My favorite Idol contestant

We watched American Idol last night, the one where the judges picked the top 24 contestants (12 guys, 12 gals) who'll go on to be judged by popular vote. Yah, I though I wouldn't be getting caught up in this again, but so help me this crop of singers has some people I really, really want to see go far. This might be the best group since Season 2 (the one that produced Ruben...

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Tonight's Lost...

...was intense.I found it to be darkly ironic that Mira Furlan's character Rousseau hands Henry Gale over to Sayid for torture... when it was Furlan's character Delenn who was mercilessly tortured in the "Comes The Inquisitor" episode of Babylon 5. Anyone who watched that show will know what I'm talking about (and this is the 2nd time in 24 hours that I've linked to the Lurker's...

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Wait a sec... so Cheney WAS drunk?!

From my first post about Vice President Cheney shooting a fellow hunter a few days ago:Part of me is wondering if alcoholic beverages were involved in this thing...I'll admit that it was a joke. A bad one at that. And then it comes out in an interview today that Cheney really was under the influence of alcohol:Cheney on TV: Takes Blame for Shooting But 'Unapologetic' About Aftermath, Admits Drinking One Beer at LunchBy Joe Strupp and Greg MitchellPublished:...

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Outbound Flight: Star Wars novel soars with Zahn at the helm

Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn is one of the best Star Wars novels I've read in a very long time.But first: Has it really been fifteen years?I mean, there's now been more time elapsed since Heir to the Empire, than there was between its release and the premiere of Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977. And even then that seemed like an awful long time.It was a morning in May of...

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