Being frustrated by the goings on in 'foggy bottom' I decided to take an extended trip to a country where english isn't spoken by every third person and my spanish isn't good enough to allow me to take off on some tirade about how badly things got screwed up in the U.S.of A. and who was responsible for the screw up. Costa Rica. The general consensus, Bush loco.
Just prior to my departure Sara "The Simple" Palin descended on the small hamlet I grew up in to spread the gospel to a throng of true believers. With the fervor akin to an Aimee Semple McPherson/ Elmer Gantry Revival she apparently whipped them into a euphoric frenzy and assured them that she was one of them, the "little people". If a factual I.Q. test had been given to her and the aggrieved crowd they most assuredly would been on equal footing.
Facts are funny things. In business we used to say, "numbers never lie" but with her type they just ignore the facts and head straight for the feelings. Their motto must be something along the lines of, "Say it loud enough and often enough and it will become the truth".
This reminded me of a guy I knew in the service when I was a mere pup who really knew how to shoot billiards. Most people would have called him a "pool shark" and they would have been correct. I don't ever remember seeing the guy loose. He would propose a wager that I could break the rack (take the first shot) and if I didn't sink the 8 ball on the break, he could remove all but one of my billiard balls of his choosing and still beat me. I never won. He was one cool customer and watching him play pool was a thing of beauty.
Sometimes he'd actually make a remark regarding another persons play but for the most part, just took their money.
Once while playing someone who obviously didn't understand the game of billiards and was trying to make something happen by hitting every ball as hard as he could prompted a remark from my friend, the shark, that I found very profound. "If you can't shoot, shoot hard".