Dale Peterson is trying to get the Republican nomination for Agriculture Commissioner of Alabama, and he REALLY wants it. In what may be the greatest political TV ad I’ve ever seen, Peterson conjures the spirit of John Wayne to rail against the criminals and illegal aliens who are stealing Alabama’s farms. I’m not sure if I got those facts right; I got kinda swept up in the moment. As The Smoking Section says:

According to this amazing display of Americanism, Dale Peterson has been a farmer, a businessman, a cop, a Marine during Vietnam, and, as I imagine, a patient at St. Mary’s Hospital for the Clinically Intense.

Seriously, Dale Peterson farts thunder and craps lightning. But that’s bound to happen when this is your breakfast:

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There isn’t a whole lot of meat to this story, but what I’m excited about most this morning is HBO’s announcement that “The Pacific” — the epic miniseries about Marines in World War II — has a premiere date. The ten-part series will debut on Sunday, March 14th and will be the most important thing in my life every week until May 16th. I’m spreading the word now so that you poor people who don’t have HBO can save up to pay for premium cable for two months. I mean, c’mon: Marines. Flamethrowers. Gratuitous use of the word “Jap.” You don’t want to miss that.

Now, I’ve posted both of the trailers before, but I understand that not everyone has been refreshing Warming Glow on the hour since June (people with “jobs,” whatever those are), so I’ve got them both below. If it doesn’t make you want to run a bayonet through Yamamoto and nail an Australian chick between campaigns, then you can just hang out alone with your vegan bran muffin, you goddam hippie communist queer.

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Hey everybody, happy Veterans Day. I hope you’ve got the day off. I’m not sure if I technically have the day off or not, but I’m taking it off, because… hell, it’s my holiday. And although I have a nice day of walking around the park and going to a matinee planned, I do have some posts set to go live later on, so there will be some new content throughout the day. Warming Glow will chug on without me, as long as you keep coming back.

For anyone who’s curious about the picture: that’s your fearless television blogger six and a half years ago (middle right), much leaner and balder than he is today. That was in Kuwait before the war started; back then, we had the luxury of celebrating victories in our little bunny ring toss game. Nowadays I’m more comfortable, but I miss carrying a nine-mil and the authority to give orders.

You know, that’s the real sacrifice veterans make: not the horrors we suffer while serving our country, but the loss of the world we know when we re-enter civilian life. I don’t want to be thanked for what I did; I just want to be normal. I want my command of a tank company at age 25 to count as much as running an 80-person department when people look at my resume. I want employers to treat veterans like people with exceptional job experience, not as otherworldly beings who insanely took a different path. I don’t deserve pity or awe, and I don’t want one day of reverence followed by 364 days of nonchalance. I don’t want yellow ribbons on cars. I want every person to challenge himself or herself, to pursue a life they deem honorable, to make the most of the few short years they have on this planet. Those who have been to war know that it can reveal the worst of humanity. Strive to make it better.

The Marine Corps’s ass-kicking birthday continues at Warming Glow with this video about HBO’s “The Pacific” — an epic miniseries that, as I’ve said before (more than once), will be the greatest thing ever televised. No, YOUR expectations are too high!

Anyway, this is just Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg giving us no information that we haven’t already gotten before, but it’s set to moving music, and they talk about Marines, and there’s an old M4 Sherman tank, and God damn it’s days like this that I miss shooting my .50 cal. What an amazing weapon. The way it’s mounted on an M1A1 tank, you can put steel on steel from defilade 1800 meters away. One of the rarest pleasures in life is sending hot steel at unsuspecting enemies of America. It’s one of the few things in life I enjoy more than cats in wigs.

[The Live Feed]

Today’s the 234th anniversary of the day that the Continental Congress first issued the order for two battalions of Marines, sparking  the recruiting process at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. Since that day the Marine Corps has grown a great deal, lost the powdered wigs, and added helicopters, but the ass-kicking attitude and selfless service to country have stayed the same. To anyone who has proudly worn the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor: happy birthday.

Ordinarily, today’s the day where I take a break from relevant news to tell you about giants of the Corps like John Bobo and John Basilone and even my old classmate Brian Chontosh, but in keeping with the TV theme — and my soft spot for animals — I’ve embedded a couple clips from last night’s Conan featuring Major Brian Dennis and his dog Nubs. Dennis befriended Nubs — named because an Iraqi cut his ears off as a puppy — while patrolling the Syrian border in Iraq and helped nurse him back to good health after the dog was stabbed in the side with a screwdriver. After Dennis patrolled the area for the last time, Nubs followed Dennis and his unit back over 70 miles to the Marine camp.

If these clips don’t make you want to salute the flag while hugging a puppy, just go away. I don’t even want to look at you.

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