Thanks to a dirty, overweight dog, yours truly, THE aging and out-of-shape Michael, has once again sustained a back injury (pulled muscle) and am at home on painkillers and muscle relaxers instead of at work injuring my back the smart way. Thus, I am burning PTL (paid time off) on my own dime and using my own insurance rather than billing the good folks at workman's comp.

I woke up with my back on fire, which means I did something yesterday, and the only thing I could think of was picking up this fat canine and hauling him to the bath tub. Shiloh does not like baths, so he does not rush headlong into getting clean, thus I have to drag or carry the beast, and now that he's in his elder, crippled condition he has been putting on the pounds (Just like his daddy.....groan), which is probably how I hurt myself. You never know you did it WHEN you do it, thus I have been rudely awakened to the injury today and will have to undergo another two weeks of light duty and physical therapy. Oh.....joy.

It's a few hours later and I am in a fog and I think the pain has receded. When did I take that last pill? What color is that cloud? I love the world, it's so cute.............

The non-resident twin made it back from a road trip to Georgia. It's raining now and the mercury has dropped. Boy, you'd think it was winter around here or something........



OK, so it's the next day, I'm still here recuperating, and the weather has taken a turn for the wet. It HAS been wonderfully warm these past several weeks, but now another one of those damn Canadian cold fronts has passed thru, sucking all the moisture out of the warm air here and dumping it while dropping the temperatures to the just cold enough to be miserable zone. According to the weather widget here on my desktop, it's supposed to freeze tomorrow night, so I'll have to go out and turn on that light bulb hanging with the water pump, as well as drag some of our more delicate plants inside. I think maybe Winter is sort of here. OUR version of it, at least.

There's been a lot of hue and cry about the mounting civilian casualties that the Palestinians are suffering during the incursion by Israel into Gaza. Yes, those civilians that the brave and mighty warriors of God called Hamas are hiding amongst. Yep, those brave boys who began this mess by firing rockets into Israel and refusing to cease even as the Israelis came in to put a stop to it. The same militant terrorists who can't ever seem to do wrong in the eyes of the international community no matter what they do to Israelis while stating in no uncertain terms they wish to kill as many of them as they possibly can, down to the last man, woman and child. But of course, we're supposed to forget all that and condemn Israel for their "disproportional" response to being attacked. I know, many will complain that these unguided rockets rarely hit anything of consequence, and the actual death toll due to these attacks is miniscule in comparison, but Hamas knows this. The real value of these rocket attacks is that they provoke terror on the Israeli side, and they have been all along hoping to provoke Israel into responded with force so that they can use their predictable use of overwhelming force against them for propaganda purposes. Well, as usual, it's working; more civilians die so that Hamas can scream and yell about Israeli aggression. The bread is being buttered on BOTH sides, my friends.

Look, I have just about had my fill of Israel and it's entitled behavior over the decades, and I would cut off all this support first chance I got, especially in response to their illegal settlements and continuing oppression of Palestinians. But a spade is a spade and Hamas has no justification for it's actions. If the Palestinian people want to be free from danger, then perhaps it's about time for them to stop harboring these killers and then maybe they would not suffer the consequences for it. There is just no way that Israel can hit back at these cowards without hurting the so-called innocents so long as the "innocents" are used as human shields, which is really the despicable act being perpetrated here.

We need to end this thing once and for all, forcing Israel to make the necessary concessions in return for a Palestinian homeland that is NOT full of crazy people constantly shooting at them. Obama has the chance...maybe he can make a difference where no one has before.

Meanwhile, back here at Pendragon Hold, we are fortunate to have Shiloh, the intrepid lard-ass dog protecting our borders. Hey, ho, way to go, oh-Shiloh.........