A disabled man flees the hurricane and heads to Kansas City with his dog, Shuma. He finds refuge at a shelter which doesn’t allow animals. Man has to put dog up for foster care. Man goes to return to home and find foster will not give his dog back and since he signed a release, she will likely keep the dog because “She has grown attached to him.”

There is a special place in hell for this woman. Yes ma’am, it can get worse than living in a run down trailer in Kansas City with everyone around you being disgusted at your selfishness.

KCTV5 - KCTV5 News Investigation: Dog Dilemma Update

Have I mentioned I hate drywalling? Well, it’s not the actual drywalling I hate, it’s the taping and floating that I abhor, unfortunately for me, it’s requird to finish off my office. I’ve managed to destroy two seams and had to start over after laborious sanding and even now it has peaks and troughs that rival Everest. My wife came out and did two corners with me and they, of couse, look as close as drywall mud can to glass…in one pass, no less. She says it’s like frosting a cake.

I don’t get it, I’m paying for service and food at these places and it seems more and more of them supply less options for either. My wife and I recently went to a restaurant that we have frequented in the past and they have a plate that I like. I really like a plate of fried oysters, fried shrimp and fried crawfish, which isn’t on the menu, but they have made the sub for me before. This time we were informed that the only way we could do this is by “buying” the fried crawfish ($6) in addition to the other two I wanted and the fried catfish, which I don’t like. The other option was to order the “Pick two” platter which could have any two of the 3 I prefer for $12. Neither option is what I wanted, so since we were there we picked a halfway point with my wife taking my catfish and me eating the shrimp and oysters. In the end, they didn’t get the add-on sale they were looking for and didn’t even get to sell two plates…we split one. Finally, we won’t be going back anytime soon since they have decided that I can only spend money there the way THEY want. WTF? I wasn’t asking for free food, hell, I would even pay a modest fee for what I wanted ($1-2). Oh well, less business for them.

We’ve noticed several other times lately from differing places and I just wonder, what is their motivation? Always play inside the rules someone made or take care of the customer and get them to come back and spend more money?

It’s penny wise and pound foolish in my mind…you may make money off of me this time, but I won’t be back and won’t recommend them. Who really wins in this scenario? If not the restaruant and not me, then who?

That’s just dumb.

By the way, it’s Clear Springs Cafe in Clear Springs, just outside of New Braunfels.

By Matthias Dopfner
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 7, 2005

A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, “Europe — your family name is appeasement.” It’s a phrase you can’t get out of your head because it’s so terribly true.

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreements. Appeasement stabilized communism in the Soviet Union and East Germany in that part of Europe where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities. Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo and we Europeans debated and debated until the Americans came in and did our work for us.

Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word “equidistance,” now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians. Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore 300,000 victims of Saddam’s torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, to issue bad grades to George Bush. A particularly grotesque form of appeasement is reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere by suggesting that we should really have a Muslim holiday in Germany.

What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians and directed against our free, open Western societies. It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than the great military conflicts of the last century — a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation but only spurred on by such gestures, which will be mistaken for signs of weakness.

Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Reagan ended the Cold War and Bush, supported only by the social democrat Blair acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic fight against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner instead of defending liberal society’s values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China. On the contrary-we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the intolerant, as world champions in tolerance, which even (Germany’s Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why? Because we’re so moral? I fear it’s more because we’re so materialistic.

For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt and a massive and persistent burden on the American economy-because everything is at stake.

While the alleged capitalistic robber barons in American know their priorities, we timidly defend our social welfare systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive. We’d rather discuss the 35-hour workweek or our dental health plan coverage. Or listen to TV pastors preach about “reaching out to murderers.” These days, Europe reminds me of an elderly aunt who hides her last pieces of jewelry with shaking hands when she notices a robber has broken into a neighbor’s house. Europe, thy name is cowardice.

“All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke.

Our local Pizza eatery, Mr. Gattis has great pizza. They use nice ingredients on well sized pizzas, in short, we really like them. The pizza is hot when you pick it up, comes with plenty of extras and is reasonably priced. So why the rant? It’s their customer service. You can generally call them without much issue, but once you go to the store to pick the pizza up the shit starts. First off, they have 4-5 people behind the counter, but only ONE of them is normally minding the cash wrap and pickup window. This person is taking walk in orders, taking phone orders AND trying to run the register for the people there to pickup their pizza. This single person is way overloaded and often makes mistakes as it seems the least senior person gets cash wrap duty. They grab the wrong pizza, they can’t work the credit card machine and have a gaggle of customers staring at them impaitently. Maybe, just maybe, they should get some of those other folks back there to move their lazy asses and actually help out at the front where the cash is being delivered for a pizza.

It’s not a huge thing, just make someone back there have dual duty in high traffic times, I mean WTF they have great product, just shitty customer service and that shitty service isn’t the fault of the poor teenager working the cash wrap, it’s the fault of a manager or higher who’s deemed that one person on the register is enough.