By the way, your debate coach is in a little trouble...

That was my Mom said in a phone conversation back in the 80's. To say she was understating his predicament would be to say BP was underestimating the anger of Americans after the gulf oil spill.

My old debate coach was indeed in trouble. Having been removed from his teaching job after one of my classmates returned from California and accused him of sexual impropriety, he turned to being the coke don of Seattle. After that an ugly divorce, a child custody battle and then an armed man attacking on his wife resulting in the death of their young son ended up with my old debate maestro ending up in jail on drug and murder charges.

It's a very convoluted story to tell so I'm just going to leave the link to the story here and let all of you read what happened.

http://www.seattlepi.com/archives/1986/8601250648.asp

As I told my Mom at the time, that's more than a little trouble. That's whole sheetpile of trouble.

Recently I started talked on Facebook with one of my old debate buddies from back in the day. (Another Facebook miracle as my new/old friend Laura Nooney replied the other day.) it brought back some of the old memories.

Our debate team was the stuff of sitcoms, actually. We were from a white trash town up north but we consistently ranked at the top of the state rankings.

Most of the other top teams were from the upper middle class suburbs of Seattle (Newport, Woodway and Sammamish High Schools) or the top private schools in the area (Gonzaga, Bellermine, Holy Names) and the sight of a bunch of rugrats from Lynnwood winning trophies and winning championships really frosted their hides. It was real life Good Will Hunting scenario and we rubbed their noses in it every chance we got. We were incredibly obnoxious, cheated whenever we could get away with it, and we were lead by a coach who looked and acted like he was the spawn of Satan.

Seriously, dude looked like Satan. Goatee and all.

Then the came the 80's. John Hughes was the rage in films and cocaine was the rage in the clubs of Seattle. That's when everything fell apart for our coach. As you can see from the above article.

Lynnwood's a lot different now. Our hometown got paved over to install hotels, shopping malls and fast food restaurants. Our high school became a haven for the children of Southeast Asian refugees. (At one point in the mid-90's half of the Cambodian presidential cabinet residing in Lynnwood, WA.)

But at one time, a bunch of hick kids dominated the awards stands at debate tournaments all over the state of Washington. And it was good.

Pictured above. Our beloved old Lynnwood High School as me and my friends knew it and the brand new 100 million dollar Lynnwood HS that opened just last year. Almost makes me want to go back to High School.

Why Progressives always lose.

One of my biggest faults is my continued belief in progressive politics. Since the player on my team always seem well read and educated, I consistently underestimate their ability to be manipulated into believing that a conservative is a progressive.

Many of my friends are currently angry with our president and for what? Barack Obama hasn't disappointed me because I actually listened to what he said in the 2008 campaign . It's the people who didn't listen to what he said that are disappointed.

Now I just watched Move-On Dot Org raise tons of money for conservative candidates in Pennsylvania and Arkansas to oust two older conservative candidates. because they think the new candidates are somehow on the left.

I know the simpleton talking heads keep saying Sestak and Halter are on the left. But that's mostly because they are getting funds from groups like Move On.

Halter is hardly a liberal. He wouldn't have survived in a state like Arkansas if he was. And Joe Sestak is actually to the right of Arlen Specter. Plus, he's a jerk who mistreats his staff to boot. But Move On Dot Org didn't research Sestak and Halter because they were so busy hating on Specter and Blanche Lincoln.

That's pretty typical of Move On, a bunch of Silicon Valley activists types who learned how to raise money on the Internet before anyone else and who have never taken the time to learn anything about politics. Not only that but they're bullies and creeps to boot.

Unfortunately, they're early success has continued to make them a name to be reckoned with despite their lack of any real credentials in politics.

I don't know what will happen in the fall, but from the looks of it the Dems will once again shoot themselves in the foot. With a lot of help from progressive activists.

Thank God for Arizona!

I went to Arizona last week to find out what was really going on over there, instead of the nonsense I was getting from unreliable news sources like NPR and the New York Times. I especially wanted to find out the truth about what law enforcement thought of the new law that was enacted in regards to illegal immigrants that has everyone up in arms.

I ended up talking to an Officer Renfro of the Phoenix PD at a local Circle K and asked him about the law. Renfro said he loved the new law and said he had already used it to detain a couple of "bad guys" and get them out of the country.

He told me he was patrolling his usual beat in Phoenix last week when he came across a couple of young men that he quickly realized had no business in the state of Arizona. "I was thinking to myself, if only some of those liberal commentators were here so they could see what is really going on. The fact is, here were two men who I was sure did not belong in this country and if it wasn't for the new law I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it."

How did Renfro know these two were illegals?

"It was obvious. Liberals will say it's profiling but I prefer to call it good police work. I think I first noticed the pasty skin, but it was mullets that gave them away. As soon as I got a look at them I said, unless they are a couple of carpet munchers they're from Canada. And they most assuredly were not carpetmunchers."

So, what did Officer Renfro do then?

"In the old days I wouldn't have been able to do anything. But with this new law I just went over and started asking some questions. I asked if they were with the Coyotes, eh? You know, the local hockey team. They said they weren't. Then I asked for some ID."

Then what happened, I asked.

" Well, first they say some BS about leaving their wallets at home. How they thought you didn't have to carry ID according to the US Constitution. Yeah, that's right they tried that constitution crap on me. Like I don't know my rights as a police officer. Then the little one says to me, Is there a problem Officer?"

Renfro was starting to get angry all over again as he told the story.

"I says, There sure is, Gord. I don't think you two are Americans. I just called BS on those two cheeseheads. That's when they came clean and admitted they were down from Medicine Hat trying to stay warm for the winter. And I get that. I understand what they were doing. But it's not right for a couple of hosers like that to come down and illegally soak up American sunshine that should be going to actual legal snowbirds from right here in the good ol' US of A.It's just plain wrong. And it's something that we as a nation should abide by. Not is we're going to continue to be a strong country."

I nodded as Renfro explained the situation.

"That's why I am so glad to be here in Arizona where the politicians gave us some tools to take care of the situation. Let's face it, if we wait for that crowd in DC to do something we'll all be saying things like oot and aboot and eh after every word. Heck, we might even end up speaking that gutter French they speak up in Quebec. If that happens even the Frogs will be making fun of us. And I'm not gonna let that happen on my watch."

I told Renfro I was proud of him. Proud of the people of Arizona, too. You see, I, for one, do not want to have to read cereal boxes in two languages any time soon. It's just plain un-American.