(reprinted forwarded e-mail stuff):

You know you are a true Wyomingite when:

1. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.

2. “Vacation” means going up north past Worland for the weekend.

3. You measure distance in hours.

4. You know several people who have hit deer more than once.

5. You often switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again.

6. Your whole family wears brown and gold to church on Sunday.

7. You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.

8. You see people wearing hunting clothes at social events.

9. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

10. You think of the major food groups as beer, fish, and venison.

11. You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them.

12. There are 7 empty cars running in the parking lot at Big R Ranch & Farm at any given time.

13. You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

14. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

15. You refer to the Bronco’s as “we.”

16. You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.

17. You can identify a Colorado accent.

18. You have no problem spelling Meeteetse.

19. You consider Cheyenne exotic.

20. You don’t have a coughing fit from one sip of Coors.

21. Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.

22. You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.

23. Down South to you means Denver.

24. A brat is something you eat.

25. Your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new machine shed.

26. You go out to bull fry every Friday.

27. You know how to line dance.

28. Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

29. You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

30 You find 0 degrees “a little chilly.”

31. You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Wyoming friends
====

This is longer, but even better:

Wyoming State Barbies are finally available

Jackson Barbie: This modern day homemaker Barbie is available with a Mercedes 4WD SUV, a Prada handbag and matching Nike Yoga ensemble. She has a masters degree and double-majored, but has the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom with Ken’s generous salary. Comes with Percocet prescription and Botox. Starbucks mug and traffic-jamming Blackberry internet/cell phone device sold separately. Husband Ken is into fishing, golfing, baseball and is often “working late.” Available at all Seattle-area Starbucks retailers.

Teton Village Barbie: This princess Barbie is only sold at Nordstrom. She comes with an assortment of Kate Spade handbags, your choice of a BMW convertible or Hummer H2 and a long-haired foreign lapdog named “Honey.”

Also available is her cookie-cutter development dream house. Available with or without tummy tuck, facelift, and breast augmentation. Workaholic, cheating husband, Ken, comes with a Porsche.

Rock Springs Barbie: This recently paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, switchblade, ‘78 El Camino with dark tinted windows, and a meth lab kit. This model is available only after dark and can only be purchased with cash – preferably small bills, unless you’re a cop, then we don’t know what you’re talking about. Boyfriend Ken is in rehab. Available at many pawn shops.

Rawlins Barbie: This tobacco chewing, brassy-haired Barbie comes with a pair of high-heeled sandals with one broken heel from the time she chased Beer Gut Ken out of Auburn Barbie’s trailer. Her ensemble includes low-rise acid-washed jeans, fake fingernails, strawberry lip gloss and a see-through halter top. Purchase her Mustang convertible separately and get a Confederate flag bumper sticker absolutely free. Boyfriend Ken is in the State Prison. Available at Army Navy Surplus.

Cheyenne Barbie: This pale model comes dressed in her own Wrangler jeans 2 sizes too small, steel-toed cowboy boots, a Willie Nelson T-shirt and a Tweedy Bird tattoo on her shoulder. She has fake fingernails, a six pack of Budweiser, and a Hank Williams, Jr. CD set. She can spit over a distance of 6 feet and kick PRCA cowboy Ken’s ass when she is drunk. Also available is the gold-toned cubic zirconium ring that Ken gave her after another one of his “episodes” with his boss’s daughter. Comes with Barbie’s Dream Double Wide Trailer. Available at Wal-Mart.

Gillette Barbie: Pregnant at purchase, this Barbie comes with a stroller and bus pass. Also included is a G.E.D. and a completely filled out food stamps form. Construction worker Ken and his ‘82 Caddy are optional. Available at Value Village.

Laramie Barbie: This Barbie is made out of recycled plastic and tofu. She has long straight brown hair, archless feet, hairy armpits, no make-up, and Birkenstocks with white socks. She does not want, or need, a Ken doll. If you purchase the optional Subaru wagon, you will receive a free rainbow flag sticker. Available at REI.

Lander Barbie: This versatile doll can be easily converted from Barbie to Ken by simply adding or removing snap on parts. Walks to work. Likes to “experiment,” but will never commit. This model is being phased out and is only available from the manufacturer.

Cody Barbie: This Barbie is a transplant from California and moved into the area to “get away from the big city”. She comes with a 10 acre “ranch” on the South Fork and a 1-ton crew cab diesel truck that she drives the kids to school in. She moved here to live in the beautiful and low populated west, but now doesn’t want anyone else to move here because they will ruin the area. Retired lawyer Ken comes with his own cowboy outfit so he can act like he is a local and “fit in”. This model is sold at any main street art gallery in Cody, and there are several to choose from.

I don’t have anything political to write about now so I’ll just post about what’s been going on in my life.

Last Thursday, March the 4th, Machina Infernus broke up, this time it’s for good.  At least, if guitarist and founding member Rich Kovacs decides to start it up again, I will not be a part of it.  I am disappointed in the way this was handled and it’s kind of knocked me off-kilter for the last few days, it preoccupies my thoughts and just bums me out.  I think it’s caused me to have a writer’s block, as I haven’t been posting much at all anywhere these last few days.

I’ve been irritated at WordPress because I can’t get my embedded YouTube videos to show up in my posts, I have to go to Michael and beg him, PLEASE, will you help me embed this video.  PLEEEEEEEEEEASE.  And he does it for me, but we can’t figure out why it’s not working when I try to do it myself.

Washington DC now has legal same-sex marriage.  The city council passed a bill and the mayor signed it, and Congress, who oversees the District’s laws, declined to review the law.  They had 30 session days to do so and, as is typical of Congress, didn’t make the deadline.  The response by residents has been largely positive.  Catholic Charities, however, is now finding ways to cut services.  They’re ending foster care outreach and spousal benefits for their employees.  How Christ-like.  Whatever, I’m just going to get pissed off again if I go down this road, maybe another day.

They say we’re in a recession, but people keep ordering take-out and going to the movies.  I saw Alice in Wonderland (in 3-D) the other day, and my advice to Tim Burton is to stop trying to make Tim Burton movies.  Other than that it was just okay, visually stunning but I am tired of Johnny Depp playing the same charatcer in every Burton flick.  The 3-D was just aight, dawg.  Felt like it was shoehorned in, whereas in Avatar, it was meant to be that way from the beginning.  Oh, and the takeout- 34 deliveries today in 9 hours, I was busy from the time I clocked in until the time I left.  Maybe this recession is completely media-driven because I don’t see people not spending money, just the opposite.

Why is Justin Bieber famous, and who wants to take bets on when he gets his first arrest, when he beats his first girl, and how long before they find him overdosed in a seedy hotel?  Well, we can hope, right?

Speaking of pop-culture garbage, if you haven’t seen the new version of We Are the World, you have to search it and watch this abomination.  It’s pure douche-chill theater, most notably Jamie Foxx impersonating Ray Charles and Kanye West’s line at the end, and the autotune… oh the autotune.

That’s all for me for now.  This week I’ll be back on politics.

~Matti Frost

–Michael W. Dean

Charlie looking like a chicken or a llama:

Wyoming beeoches!…. (note…this is a joke, I am not a gangsta):

Peanut in his favorite position:

Fuzzy enjoys a “frink”:

Peanut plays:

Kurt Russell in Tango & Cash with the Ruger GP100 with a 4-inch barrel and some huge 1980s laser site:

But most days, it becomes a “burrito flag” within hours:

I go outside several times a day and un-burrito it:

We had a flag up in California the last few months there, but someone stole it off our house. (Probably to perform some Satanic ritual with it, or to disgrace it in some way and call it “art.”)

We are patriotic. Not in a “my country, right or wrong” way. More in a “love it or leave it” way. I don’t trust my government, but I love my country.

And I love Johnny Cash. I’m listening to him right now. Seems to fit somehow.

We are just loving every moment in Wyoming. It’s what we always wanted but just didn’t know it existed. Here are some photos:

DJ happy:

Below: on the left is the Dick Cheney Federal building. To its right is the William Jefferson Clinton post office. (Do you think they fight when no one’s looking? Or….if you’re a NWO conspiracy theorist, do you think they drink blood and sacrifice virgins together?)

DJ happy downtown:

Me happy downtown, with a gun on my hip under my coat, in front of some REAL public art:

More Wyoming public art:

(Compare to some California public “art”):

Meanwhile, back in AMERICA, downtown Casper:

Our favorite museum, Fort Caspar:

Inside Fort Caspar:

Back home….Fuzzy get your gun!:

Daddy get your gun!:

Babydoll happy with Peanut:

Is the president being impeached? (I hope so.)

I have been watching a lot of C-SPAN lately. It’s basically the only thing worth watching, now that all TV pretty much sucks.

Not a lot of people watch C-SPAN. So I’m one of the small percentage of Americans who know, at this moment, that Representative Dennis Kucinich is on the Congressional floor presenting his resolution calling for Bush’s impeachment. It’s a list of 35 charges, (list here) mostly Constitutional violations and Geneva Convention violations, and he’s been reading it for about an hour, and he’s about halfway through it. A member of the House of Representatives presenting a resolution detailing charges is one of the first steps in impeachment proceedings.

The charges range from election fraud, including disenfranchisement, to illegal wiretapping to illegal torture, to lying about our reasons for going to war, to handing out padded military contracts to his buddies. And a lot more. I can barely keep up. And I’m as giddy as a kid in a candy store about this. So is Debra Jean. She’s glued to the screen. We both love the Constitution. A lot.

It’s history in the making, and it’s not even on CNN.com or Yahoo News yet. I think it’s an emergency meeting, because it’s 10:30 PM in DC right now. I remember seeing the effort to impeach Richard Nixon as news coverage on TV when I was a kid, but he was never actually impeached. (He quit before that could happen, and Ford pardoned Nixon as soon as he took office.) And Nixon was basically just going to be charged with, as I recall, one thing (conspiring to pay people to bug a hotel room). The charges being read against Bush are many, and many are far more serious.

Kucinich is quoting the US Constitution a lot. I wish Kucinich had made it to run for president. He’s smart, and has other things going for him.

I have a prediction: tonight on the Colbert show, Colbert will report this out of character, as he really is, not as his “alter ego” who would be outraged by this. He’ll just state it, and let people cheer.

Here’s a quick 20-minute podcast I recorded, and uploaded while the proceedings were still being read live. It’s about 17 minutes of the charges being read, and about three minutes of us commenting on it. We’re pretty much in shock. And pretty happy.

(behind every great short man is a smart, better looking, and often taller, woman)

Recently, I had an exchange with someone on one of the message boards I post on.  Someone complained that Republicans were abusing the filibuster and stonewalling Democrat-backed legislation in the Senate.  When I mentioned that the Democrats did the same thing to President Bush’s judicial nominees, I got a world of shit for it.  I was called an ‘apologist’ for the GOP, I was told that it was different since the Dems were filibustering nominees but the Republicans are just blocking everything.  I was even called a “traitor” to who I am, since the Republicans generally oppose same-sex marriage and the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.  Oh man, did I get pissed.  Here’s what I said:

“Who the hell do you think you are to tell me what my political ideology should be based on who I have sex with? Because I like smoking a pole or two, that means I have to support EVERY liberal tax me out the ass, welfare state-loving, illegal immigrant harboring, enviro-nazi chump-stain socialist douche nozzle who runs for office?

Again, fuck you, pal. I agree with what the Democrats SAY about marriage equality and ending DADT, now let’s see them actually DELIVER on it. Maybe then I’ll be more willing to put up with all the other bullshit that spews out of the DNC. Until then, I will support whomever the fuck I want and if you don’t like it, tough shit.”

I was slightly miffed.

The truth is that I can’t stand either major political party.  I think they’re both full of incompetent and/or corrupt people out for their own gain and their own power.  I don’t think they care one bit about average people.  TS, who responds to many posts here, believes that conservatives are selfish and liberals are compassionate.  Are they?  Or is that what people been led to believe by those who are trying to pose as compassionate?  Who or what defines compassion anyway, or selfishness for that matter?  Doesn’t anyone ever think that maybe, just maybe, there isn’t that great of a divide between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to their votes and their actions?  Put away the rhetoric and look at what they DO.

Both tend to favor big business over the individual.

Both supported bailouts and giveaways to failing industries.

Both were complicit in the signing of the Patriot Act and in sending our troops to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both parties used the filibuster as a cheap way to thwart the executive branch, and both parties even met to hammer out a compromise so they would be able to use the cloture process as a de-facto filibuster in the future.

Both support the massive confiscation and wasting of our tax dollars.

Both support, for the most part, the war on drugs.

Both supported NAFTA and all of the other so-called “free trade” agreements that only served to gut the American workforce and erode our national sovereignity.

Just because they pretend to be on polar opposites every election year doesn’t mean they really are.  They’re simply trying to get themselves elected, and the American public buys it, thinking that there are real differences at play.

As George Carlin was fond of saying,  “Bull-fucking-shit!”

Words of Wisdom:

Rest in peace, George.  A shame you didn’t live to see the final freak show.

Matti F.

TS asked on a comment on another thread: “Please explain how people are being ‘forced’ to give away their private assets to help others.” (in regard to progressives/liberals/Democrats).

This really is libertarianism 101, but deserves its own post.

But here ya go:

When you vote in people who want to increase social spending (welfare, for instance, or foreign aid), those people raise taxes. If someone who did not vote for that person disagrees, he has to pay those taxes anyway. If he doesn’t pay taxes, agents of the government will come to his house and arrest him. If he refuses to come out, they will come in his house and put a gun to his head.

Therefore, the social services you “benevolently” and “compassionately” vote for are paid for with taxes collected at the barrel of a gun. This is an initiation of aggression and a use of force and is NOT compassionate.

Moreover, Democracy is undemocratic, because 51% can tyrannize 49% with things like this.

This joke explains it well:

I recently asked my friends’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President what would be the first thing you would do? ‘

She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’

Her parents beamed with pride.

‘Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. ‘

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘ Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? ‘

I said, ‘Welcome to the Republican Party.’

Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.

Another quick explanation is found in one of my lyrics, the Right Arm of Wyoming song “Freaky Liberal Mammal Sex“:

If my neighbor had three cars and I stole one
I’d rightly go to prison
If this “progressive” gub’ment mugs my neighbor for his car
to tax-support crack babies
Liberals think that’s justice

–Michael W. Dean

RUSH HOUR GOING INTO BUFFALO, WYOMING
9 AM, MONDAY, JUNE 8, 2009:

I’ve always been very anti-authority, since I was a little kid, got in trouble arguing with teachers, scout masters, etc. I basically voted Democrat until a few years ago because I didn’t understand politics, and thought that liberals were compassionate and conservatives were selfish.

My road to libertarian had a lot to do with my road to Wyoming. My wife and I had wanted to move out of California since soon after we met, but it had more to do with not having neighbors than anything in specific.

Then we bought a gun, and I bought some gun and legal books, one was “You and the Police”, that was a big influence. I’d never encountered anything by a non-leftie non-criminal that told you how to stay out of the way of the police. It kind of blew my mind. That book was also the first place I ever heard of legal open carry….I had no idea such a thing existed. At that time I was going nuts with the thought that I couldn’t get a carry permit in Los Angeles, and Wyoming was on our short list of states we wanted to move to…..(It was Washington, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Wyoming and Idaho, in no special order at that time).

I finished “You and the Police” in one night, got on this forum that night, and nine months later we were living in Casper.

we’ve lived here seven months now and LOVE IT! And I got my carry permit last week, but it was a little anti-climatic after open carrying so much!

I guess there were a lot of influences….my Republican/libertarian wife, my Republican dad, my Goldwater Republican father-in-law, Boston, this board, the Free State Project (NH) board, and just “if you’re young and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you’re middle-aged and not conservative, you have no brain.” 

I am registered Libertarian Party, but vacillate between Republican, libertarian, minarchist and anarchist, depending on my mood (and how much Fox News is irking me that day.)

Here’s more about my “journey”
http://libertarianrepublican.blogspot.com/2009/12/punk-rock-california-liberal-buys-gun.html

And there’s more on the spoken word thing called “Letter to a Young Me” on the Right Arm of Wyoming CD. It’s me reading a chapter from this book I wrote:
http://www.lifeamp.org

I know that when I mention politics, some say “It’s all useless, all politicians are snakes”, but when I read older things by those people, some of those same people were involved in politics. Maybe I’ll get to where they are in a few years, but it’s new and hopeful to me now.

I got involved with the Republican party at a pretty hopeless time, and a couple months later, a Rep took Ted Kennedy’s seat, then all this cool stuff happening in the Wyoming state Gov, I feel excited about it.

Hope that helps explain.

MWD

The younger people are, the more they think their own rules are set in stone. The older you get, the more you realize you have to sometimes re-evaluate them.

Personal “moral” rules change. It’s not selling out, it’s evolution.

• When I was 10, I thought it was immoral to smoke pot.
• When I was 13, I was a vegetarian, and thought it was immoral to eat meat.
• When I was 14, I was a born-again Christian and thought it was immoral to say “Goddamn.”
• When I was 15, I was a pacifist and thought it was immoral to hit back if someone hits you.
• When I was 21, I thought it was immoral to carry a gun. And I thought it was immoral to deal with major corporations or vote Republican.

And I believed it was immoral to deal with major corporations until my late 20s, and believed it was immoral to carry a gun or vote Republican until I was in my early 40s.

You get old the moment you stop being teachable.

–Michael W. Dean

—-

I’d love to hear how your “absolutes” have changed with age.

The back story.  Last year, a number of Log Cabin Republicans split from the group and formed GOProud.  Apparently, LCR was too liberal, too Washington establishment.  Personally, I think gay Republicans are gluttons for punishment, but hey, that’s just me.

It seems that GOProud was invited to be a part of CPAC, and initially, many other participants threatened to back out.  However, they didn’t, and all was going well until this douchebag Ryan Sorba took the podium and began trashing CPAC and going off on his silly rant about natural law.  Look at his face.  Go on.  Look at that smug little kisser.  Don’t you just want to punch him repeatedly?  Now, I am not advocating that anyone do it, but oh does he have a punchable, arrogant puss.

What surprised me, though, is that CPAC booed him off the stage.  I expected perhaps a tepid response, or nervous clapping, but no, they took him down, and it’s likely he won’t come back next year.  It’s a faint glimmer of hope that perhaps some mainstream conservatives are getting over their tendency to reject anything LGBT.  It’s not much, but it’s a start.

~Matti Frost