A photo from our Memorial Day visit to the Como Zoo yesterday. We stood and watched the orangutans for quite a while..

Playing Kubb in Forest Lake last night. Pictured are my wife, my mother-in-law and my wife's aunt.

What is this world coming to? Now John Thune is saying he won't vote for Bolton? I am beginning to think i shouldn't have donated to his campaign! Ugh..

Argus Leader - News: "Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday that he would vote against the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations, hinting his vote is a protest against the Pentagon's recommendation to close Ellsworth Air Force Base."

Here are my entries for the captainsquartersblog.com not one dime campaign contest. Find out more about it here: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004573.php
and here:
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004570.php

Here is an eerie storie about a murder that was solved by the victim's last blog entry. He was killed minutes after posting it.

Anime News Network Reader Murdered

We were a part of my friend Nathan and Maria's friend Jeny's wedding on friday. Their wedding held special meaning for my wife and I as we were the ones who introduced them 4 years ago. My wife and I met at an online chat room for Christian singles in 2001, and on our first date, Nathan and Jeny came with us so that it would be more comfortable for us meeting for the first time. Well - Maria and I fell in love and got married in 2002, and after meeting that night in 2001, Nathan and Jeny finally tied the knot this year. So congratulations guys!



You can find galleries of their wedding here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/onebigswede/sets/366898/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/onebigswede/sets/366776/

A robin I sighted yesterday after work. Now if it would only stop raining!

FBI: Grenade at Bush Rally Was Live

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - A grenade hurled in a crowd during last week's speech by President Bush in the Georgian capital was live and considered a threat against the president, though it failed to explode because of a malfunction, the FBI said Wednesday.

PoliPundit.com » Quote of the Day:

Harry Reid to Bill Frist on the Senate floor, while debating judicial nominees this morning: “It’s as if we’re retreating 50-60 years where, if you keep telling these falsehoods, enough people start believing them.”

The original quote from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

You know the Democrats have lost it when their most powerful elected official likens Republicans to Nazis on the Senate floor.

Finally we are having some of the Judicial nominees move to the Senate floor. It's time for the republicans to put up or shut up.
Musing Minds: Bill Frist on the Senate Floor:

Mr. President as always we will take into consideration all suggestions and be happy to talk to the leadership on both sides of the aisle as to whether that suggestion is the most appropriate way. We have engaged in negotiations in attempts to satisfy both sides for the over the last really four months, five months since these these unprecedented filibusters came before this body after 214 years of a threshold of fifty votes, all of a sudden the last congress it was radically changed by the last congress to become 60 votes denying the sort of people like a little bit what we've heard over the last few minutes, trying to move to a qualified nominee, Priscilla Owen, and we hear these attempts to delay even right now and to sidetrack and consider somebody else, and that's the challenge. That's why we're on the floor of the United States Senate, with the light of day, with the American people watching at this point to take it to the body of the United States Senate and ask that fundamental question. Is Priscilla Owen out of the mainstream? Eighty-four percent of Texans think she's in the mainstream, are eighty-four percent of Texans out of the mainstream? And if the answer to that question is no, they're not out of the mainstream, then all we want is a vote, an up or down vote. Accept, reject, confirm, yes, no. That's all that we're asking for. We don't want the Constitutional Option. We didn't ask for the Constitutional option. What has happened, because of the other side of the aisle in shattering the Senate tradition for 214 years where filibuster was never even contemplated, now it's being used on a routine basis. One out of every four of the President's nominees that have come over for the circuit courts are filibustered, blocked. Not given that responsibility or given that courtesy of a vote, when it's our responsibility to give advice and consent. So in response to my good friend Democratic leader, yes, let's consider, as proposals come forward, we'll consider all the two leaders spent 50 minutes as the papers reported today talking with people who are trying to come to some reasonable conclusion and we'll continue to do that. I'd be happy to consider another idea. I think what's important now though is to come to the floor of the United States Senate. Let's shed light on this, let's do take this, yes it's an inside the Senate decision, and we make our traditions and rules, but it is important for the American people to see. Is Priscilla Owen, is Janice Rogers Brown, deserving of a vote, yes or no, on the floor of the United States Senate. So what I would recommend is that we continue discussions, but let's proceed with this nominee, continue debate over the course of the day and it may a day, it may take two days, and let's answer that question. Is she qualified, does she deserve an up or down vote?

On Saturday we went out for my buddy Nathan's bachelor party. Nathan's brother Joel put together a fun day of paintball, food and beer. We started the day in Wisconsin at a place called Splat Tag to play paintball. It was a ton of fun, although by the end of our time there we all had a few pretty good sized welts on our bodies.. Here is a picture of us after the gun battles.

My Grandma in 1953

While I certainly hope this news is true - I won't believe it until i see a body.

IRAQ: AL-ZARQAWI SERIOUSLY INJURED, SAYS IRAQI OFFICIAL

Baghdad, 11 May (AKI) - The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is 'serious injured, possibly dead' according to Colonel Fouad Hani Hassan, commander of the fifth division of the Iraqi armed forces, cited by 'Elaph', a popular website in the Arab world. Al-Zarqawi, considered al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, is believed to have been injured in the major offensive US-led forces have been carrying out in the western Anbar province over the last few days.

Got a new lawn game for my birthday this year - it's called "Kubb", and is supposedly an ancient Swedish game (although recent investigations seem to suggest that it is of more modern origins). I painted my Kubb set just for fun - although they usually come in a plain wood look. Interested in finding out more? Click on the links below to find out the rules of Kubb, buy Kubb, or play Kubb online:

Kubbin.com
Get Koob
Old time games
Kubbgame.com (the Micki Kubb set is the one i have)
Brama Kubb
Kubb Blog
Kubb World Championships
Play Kubb Online!
Play Kubb Online Again!

Review of the new Star Wars

THE LAST STAR WARS [John Podhoretz]
It opens next week. I saw it, and here's the thing: It's unbelievably bad. O I'm telling you this because movie critics won't. So far all the early reviews -- all of them, from Variety to the Hollywood Reporter to Time magazine -- have been favorable. Why? Because while the movie critics of my long-ago youth were middlebrow snobs suspicious of populist entertainment, today's critics have turned into toadies. They are afraid of being on an audience's bad side, afraid that a movie they will pan might really strike a chord. Since it's a foregone conclusion that the final Star Wars is going to make a jillion dollars, the safe thing for critics to do is say nice things about it. The only nice thing I can think to say about it is that it's not quite as mindspinningly wretched as its predecessor, Attack of the Clones, but it's plenty awful anyway. Even Yoda gives a rotten performance. Go see it if you must when it opens next week, but at least you got one fair warning here.

On the heels of the release of the new movie "Kingdom of Heaven", for which I was excited, I've began to hear some troubling things - mainly that the history behind the crusades has been glossed over. One thing that many of the reviewers have been saying is that the muslim Jihad is made to look as if it was merely waged in response to the Christian Crusades. The article linked below looks at that fallacies put forward by the movie in detail. Read the whole thing.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
insert link

The American Thinker:

More Links and reviews:

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