Is Washington DC on the brink of civil war?

Iraq is safer.

Speaking truth to power

An Australian soldier embarasses MSM:

Australian commander in East Timor Brigadier Michael Slater appeared this morning in a live cross from Dili to the Nine Network's Today show, with helmeted and heavily armed Australian soldiers standing behind him.

He was pressed by Today host Jessica Rowe about whether Dili really was as safe as the Australian military claimed, given the presence of armed soldiers at his shoulder.

Pausing briefly, Brig Slater replied: "Jessica I feel quite safe, yes, but not because I've got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good.

"I don't need these guys here....

From dissectleft.

I don't believe this

No, no! Tell me you're joking.

Annoyed Librarian

I love this librarian: A sample post:

Dear Western Mission Community Water Closet District,

I recently read that you were looking for pre-qualfied people to join your potential pool of possible candidates for potential possibly future work on a temporary, plausible basis. Well, sign me up, baby!

You want qualifications! I've got qualifications out the wazoo....

And I see you want copies of all my college transcripts. I can send them right over, since I always keep copies on me, just in case an exciting job opportunity pops up and nobody believes I went to college. There's college, library school, and my PhD from ULC. I think it's a good idea to ask for actual transcripts. It weeds out those lowlifes who lie about their genuine ALA-accredited MLS, or perhaps never even went to college! If they didn't provide those transcripts, how would you ever know? Would you like my high school transcripts as well? I can also give you the phone number of my high school algebra teacher, Mrs. Laughingstock? She can verify that I was never good at math, so you'll be able to slip that salary by me.

It looks like you want someone who'll be able to come in at a moment's notice at any time of the day or night and do every possible task in your library from maintaining your servers to checking out books to cleaning out the filthy toilets. I'm your gal! I took a special class in library school on cleaning filthy toilets the Dewey Decimal way!

I see you're offering top dollar for my potential possible services as well. $22K! (Mom, I told you library school would work out!) Are these the jobs I keep hearing about that only the immigrants from Guatamala will take? Just kidding! But seriously, don't worry about the money. I've got my trust fund. How else could I afford to be a librarian?

She's going on my blogroll right now.

A favorable review of Bush's speech at West Point

From wizbang. To me, the most interesting thing about the post was the comments, which attack his immigration plan. A sample:

His opinions about illegal aliens still suck, so I really can't say I care how good a speech he gives.

People, this is your life at stake here! Our country's future is at stake! I don't agree with Bush's views on immigration, but apparently a majority do, as shown by the polls. Anyway, Congress will sort it out. Maybe the House will show some gumption, who knows?

All I care about is defeating, punishing, killing our enemies before they do it to us. My priorities:

1 through 10. War on terror, in all its manifestations.
10 through 1,000--immigration, gay marriage, tort reform, school uniforms, in any order you like. Who cares?

In the words of Dr Johnson: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Well, 9/11 concentrated my mind, and apparently Bush's too.

We are in great danger, and Bush knows it and understands it. Survival comes first.

A monument to African-American fighting men in Wilmington DE

  

Blueberries and hardboiled eggs

Friday I took a hard-boiled egg out of the refrigerator and put it on the kitchen counter. As round objects do, it rolled, in this case onto the floor, where it disappeared into an undisclosed location. I looked for it. I'd rather find it now than on a later occasion, when the location would be disclosed by a mighty stink.

Okay, said I to myself. The kitchen floor needs washing anyway, and the egg might appear. The floor looked better though, so I thought I would wash the floor in the two upstairs bathrooms. I did. They looked better.

So last night I took some blueberries out of the refrigerator. The little cellophane case came open and the kitchen floor was wall-to-wall blueberries. I got down on my hands and knees and picked up all the blueberries, I thought. Stood up. Saw three more under the refrigerator. Picked them up. Another was in the corner by the sink. Got it.

Now wait--I am going to connect this all up, as they say in the courtroom scenes I have seen on television.

I am walking around my newly cleaned domain, feeling pretty smug. Kitchen floor--clean. Bathroom floors, check. Polish the faucet and prepare to take a shower.

All of a sudden I notice this smear on my bathroom floor. It looked like an extremely repellent smashed bug. Cleaned it up. Went into the kitchen, and there was another obscene smear. Looked at my slippers.

I had a couple of blueberries stuck to the bottom of my slippers.

Happy Memorial Day!

  

Men are happier.

If you are a man:

Car mechanics tell you the truth. The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress: $5000.00. Tux rental: $100.00. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is not only appreciated by your friends, but practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks.

Read the whole thing. It certainly convinced me.

Meaningless text messages

Stephenesque complains about receiving unwanted and unwelcome text messages:

My phone may have just received its first spam text message. The communication certainly makes no sense to me, nor can I discern from what source it originates. Fortunately my service plan provides me with free text messaging. After all, who wants to be charged time and money for worthless and unwanted data? But such a travesty of networking will befall someone soon.
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Obviously, as cellular telephone technology develops itself into yet another branch of the web, the more prone our wireless,mobile devices become to those afflictions that are the scourges of the internet: spam mail, viruses, idle browsing, wasted time, ecetera.
In fact, almost anything with a microprocessor is at risk. Perhaps the artificially intelligent vacuum cleaners of 2009 will be attacked by computer viruses instructed these virtuous machines to suddenly act like the wayward brooms and mops of the Sorceror's Apprentice? Or maybe we will already have despairingly given up on the internet by then.

My stepmother, who will be 80 in August, received a text message which went something like this: 1 case of vodka, 1 case of bourbon, 12 sixpacks of beer, and a case of condoms. She was puzzled. I believe it is a joke about the recipe for a good party.

So these six librarians go into a restaurant...

They're at a Library Convention and they're really going to party down--on the expense account, no less. Sheer debauchery.

First up are drinks. We have two people here who want actual liquor, two who want soda, and two who want drinks with umbrellas in them.

Ordering food takes forever; "The bean soup sounds good." "What are you having, Marianne?" (Every other librarian in New Jersey is called Marianne, Mary, Mary Ann, Mary Rose, Mary Lou, Mary Jane--you get the picture.)*

Soup or salad? Steak or fish? Should we stick to our diet (every other librarian in New Jersey is on a diet) or go hog wild?

A consensus having been reached, the wait staffer (we librarians don't use sexist language, but she is a woman) takes all orders and disappears to the kitchen.

The festive meal arrives and is consumed, accompanied by catching up, gossip, and gripes. Zero hour has now arrived.

The lone male librarian ventures timidly that it would be nice if we split the check six ways. The suggestion is met with scorn, and the check is scrutinized by one and all.
Lib I: "Marianne had the soup."
Marianne: "Yes, but I only had salad; you had steak--24.95!"
Lib I: "Okay. Sheila had the chicken florentine."
Sheila: "All I had to drink was a diet coke--Susan had two beers."
Lib I: "Who had the red snapper?"

And so it goes. Finally, detente is reached. It is now time to calculate the tip.
Male librarian: "Tip should be $60--five dollars each. That's three times the tax, which is 6 percent."
Librarian III, who has hitherto been silent: "Yes, but you're not supposed to count the drinks when you calculate the tip."
Male librarian: (silently) Oy vey! (Throws money on the table.)
Marianne: You gave me too much. Here--take back three dollars. Wait--does anyone have change for a twenty?
Male librarian: (Unprintable remark, silently.)

*Many librarians also answer to the name of Marie. Or Anne-Marie. Oh, forget it.

Republicans! Democrats! who cares?

The Republican Party was supposed to be conservative. I was misled. They will spend all of your money, including the loose change under the floormats in your car.

The Democrats will also take the cigarette lighter, CD player, and air freshener. Moreover, they are going to subsidize research on methods of converting the lint in your belly button to clean, renewable energy.

Katrina--what went right?

The answer: quite a lot.

Twenty-five thousand body bags were stockpiled; the latest computer model predicted 60,000 dead. Yet weeks after the storm, fewer than 1,000 bodies have been found in all of Louisiana. Which prompts the question: What went right?
The answer is: something massive. Largely ignored by the agenda-driven national media, one of the largest rescue operations in history saved more than 50,000 people by boat and helicopter. In this Dunkirk on the Mississippi, Coast Guard and other military units, volunteers, and state and local first responders delivered thousands from death by drowning, dehydration, heatstroke, fire, starvation, and disease. The three goats of Katrina — FEMA’s Michael Brown, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, and Mayor Nagin — had little if any role; in fact, because local communication was wiped out by the storm, they may not even have known about the scale and success of the rescue operation. []

[Coast Guard Officer] Huberty deeply resents TV’s characterization of the black residents of New Orleans. “As many bad stories as you hear about looting, there were plenty of people sacrificing for others, regardless of their demographic. I can’t tell you how many times a man would stay behind an extra day or two on the roof and let his wife and kids go first. It broke my heart. We’d go to an apartment building and you’d see that someone was in charge, organizing the survivors. We’d tell him, ‘We can only take five,’ and they’d sort out the worst cases. It happened many times that the guy in charge was the last to leave.”

LOCAL HEROES
At the state level, the Louisiana National Guard’s 1-244th Aviation Battalion and 812th Med-Evac unit moved helicopters — ten Black Hawks and six Hueys — into New Orleans behind the storm. “It was like a scene from a Stephen King movie,” says Capt. Shawn Vaughn, who piloted a Black Hawk. “We just got back from Iraq and saw nothing like this kind of devastation there.”
[]
The Black Hawk operation was a textbook example of quick-and-dirty improvisation: Lacking rescue hoists, crews adopted the nervy tactic of landing directly on rooftops to take on passengers, while applying power to keep the helicopters light so they wouldn’t collapse the storm-weakened buildings. Some stripped out their seating to increase capacity to 30 passengers standing, or to carry stretchers for the elderly and disabled.

Healthy evacuees were pulled from rooftops and transferred to nearby collection points. When they couldn’t maneuver in for a pickup, National Guardsmen called in the Coast Guard and smaller Hueys with rescue hoists. Individual Black Hawks pulled out as many as 250 people per day when the pressure was on. Vaughn estimates the unit saved up to 4,000 in the first week ....
Also on Monday, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries had 250 agents and their boats in the water, along with volunteers from inside the agency, according to Lt. Col. Keith LaCaze. His operation claimed 20,000 rescues by September 8 — at which point it suspended calls for more volunteers and boats. LaCaze says many of these rescues were of people facing imminent death. “There were a lot of people we rescued on the first night — in houses and in attics where the water was almost over their head. There were still many people the next day in danger of drowning and dehydration.”

It has been reported that two shifts of New Orleans firemen were not on duty, and that up to half of the police department went AWOL. Wrong on both counts: Efforts by these local rescuers were robust. According to Firehouse magazine, firemen had prepared for the emergency, with ample boats and supplies in place. Local first responders were fielding 100 to 200 boats in the first 24 hours, according to officials quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune....
SUCCESS STORY
The above account covers the most important responders, but it is by no means exhaustive. The Air Force reported 1,300 rescues and some 14,000 “transported” by September 4. By the end of Tuesday, August 30, the Navy ship Bataan — later slammed for inaction by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman — had five choppers flying rescue missions and had pulled out several hundred people. One Bataan airman, in an e-mail that was reprinted in his local newspaper, casually described how his helicopter had lifted 19 victims from the roof of a burning building. Other units on Day One came from as far away as Wisconsin, which sent two Black Hawks and three Hueys from the 832nd Medical Company and from the 1st Battalion, 147th Aviation unit. Three Hueys from the Georgia National Guard’s 148th Air Ambulance arrived Monday and flew nonstop from sunup to sundown. State Police and sheriffs’ departments operated rescue boats. Civilian search-and-rescue teams from out of state, and as far away as Canada, responded on their own. FEMA also operated search-and-rescue teams. A volunteer squad from Exxon Mobil pulled out 1,500 survivors all by itself. One pilot said he sighted a Chinook helicopter from the Republic of Singapore Air Force; improbably, such a craft was temporarily based in Texas, and, like exotic fauna washed in by a storm, may have become part of the aerial ecosystem.

By Wednesday, August 31, as the media screamed for troops to deal with the over-hyped breakdown.
[]

“As tragic as every death is, there were less than 1,000 in Louisiana,” Congressman Peter King, a New York Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, told me after a trip to New Orleans. “Every study beforehand said a hurricane of this kind would kill at least 10,000. Obviously, there were a lot of rescuers; obviously, first responders and the Coast Guard did many, many more rescues than has been reported.” The death toll in New Orleans will rise, but it will never come close to the ghoulish early estimates. That doesn’t absolve authorities from responsibility for some of the deaths; King says that his committee will be looking at the city and state role in failed evacuations and the breakdown of supply to survivors.

But the narrative of Katrina needs wholesale revision, and mainstream news organizations are starting to work on it. There were not 200 murders at the Superdome; there appear to have been exactly zero. Local authorities did not lose control there or at the Convention Center. The more than 30,000 residents at emergency shelters during the first week of Katrina were tired, hungry, miserable, and without proper sanitary facilities — but were in no danger of dying. As for the rest of the city, help was rarely late, delayed, or inadequate. That’s the true story — and there are tens of thousands of rescued people who will testify to it.

U S Postal Service issues stamp in honor of Hiram Bingham

He was truly a hero.

Washington, DC - The United States Postal Service will issue a stamp honoring an American diplomat who helped Jews escape the Holocaust.
The stamp will honor Hiram Bingham IV, who provided fake visas to journalist and scholar Varian Fry, who helped Jews pass into safety. Bingham also hid Jews in his home after he was posted in southern France in 1940.

After German and French officials complained his activities, Bingham was transferred to Argentina. In 1946, he resigned from the U.S. Foreign Service in protest over the U.S. refusal to investigate how war criminals were being given safe haven in the South American country.

Bingham is the only U.S. diplomat “that we know of who risked his career, indeed sacrificed his career, in order to save Jews from the Holocaust,” Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, said.

Only one diplomat cared enough about the Jews to risk his career--that is so sad!

Analyzing Al Gore

This blog is called Al Gore is a fraud, and it certainly proves his point:

Al Gore has stated the he "has presented his global warming powerpoint presentation over 1000 times, all over the world". Hmmm, interesting. I wonder how Gore got to these cities throughout the world? Did he ride a horse? Did he walk? Did he ride a bike? No---He flew in a private jumbo jet, and when he arrives with his entourage they all jump from their jet into large, you guessed it, SUV's. In fact, recently it was noted that Gore and his group jumped in their fleet of over-sized SUV's to go to one of these tree-hugger rallies when they only had to travel 500 yards! How much fuel do you think a jumbo jet uses criss crossing continents--more than your Tahoe or Explorer perhaps? Well, for example, a Boeing 767 requires 11,526 gallons of fuel. For longer trips, or for trips on which Al decides to increase his traveling tree-hugger entourage, an A380 may be used. The Airbus A380 is a newer generation that is actually capable of much longer range and greater fuel efficiency. Oh, but there is one slight drawback, this flying behemoth requires a staggering 81,890 gallons of fuel to top off the tanks! This is how big Al rolls around the world spreading his "love the Earth" message. It is so ridiculous it could only happen in America. Al Gore will burn more fuel in a day than the average person will burn in 10 years......
Yet Gore wants us to drive hybrids or walk. Typical Gore. An elitist senator's son who thinks the rules only apply to the commoners, not those in positions of power, like himself.

The fact is Gore clings to this issue because it is the only thing that keeps him in the news. I think losing to Bush did real damage to Gore, at a very personal level. I do not think he has recovered. Gore was, is, and always will be second rate. That has got to be tough to live with. The fact that he was VP for eight years is almost poetic. A thematic reminder that he can be good, but never great. The bridesmaid, but never the bride. So close, alas, yet so far. Gore uses the environmental propaganda to find a voice, any voice. Even if the voice that he finds doesn't speak the truth.

Moonbats under a full moon

at the British House of Commons, no less.

A tall young man, with a la-de-da accent... said how North Korea had avoided invasion by developing nuclear weapons and Iran too should do the same. Just to clear any confusion, I asked him "Sorry are you in favour of North Korea?" and bloody hell, he said he supported the North Korean government wholeheartedly!

I thought to myself here is someone who calls his organisation "Liberation" and wants to "liberate" the world to become like North Korea!

He stood by the door trying to flog his Liberation publication after the meeting was over. As I went past him, I asked him laughingly "How is the Great Leader Kim-il-Sung, and our dear leader, Kim-il-Jung?". His comrade ...replied "Have you ever been there?", to which I replied "Have you ever been to Iran?"

Solving Russia's population problems

I heard on the radio (on NPR so it must be true) that Russia is losing population at the rate of 700,000 a year. People are dying young, especially males, and nobody is having babies.

On the other hand, we have maybe 12 million illegals and are planning to admit 300,000 more every year.

Do you see what I am getting at? Suggestion for Vicente Fox: start teaching Russian in your school system, if you have a school system. Also, institute cheap direct flights to Moscow. I'm sure the Russian people could use fruit pickers, gardeners, fish processors, and nannies. Well, maybe not nannies, considering the birth rate.

It's easy to solve the big problems if you are creative.

Anyway, it beats a guest worker program and amnesty.

This employee wins the award for the worst,

at least in attendance.

Wait, there's more. And still more.

News flash: Aruban male not arrested...

and he feels left out.

Explaining women

airforceguy wants to know what's up with women. Some of his concerns:

1) Why do women go to the bathroom together? What the hell goes on in there that requires 5 other women?

We're talking about you! In private! In a place where you are not allowed!

Do women fart? According to my wife, every bad smell in the house or outside comes from my backside. Even if it’s clearly a skunk or rotten lettuce, it must be from me. It’s not....

If we do fart, which I by no means admit, we do it in a ladylike way. And it smells like perfume.

7) Do the giggles women produce have an actual linguistic meaning, or are they something to do with pressure relief?

Definitely pressure relief. We cope with guys every day. Take men away--no giggles. Have you ever heard a nun giggle?

How many shoes is enough? I have a lot of shoes for a guy -- boots for BDU’s, boots for DCU’s, low quarters, dress shoes, hiking boots, and running shoes. My mother had 1,000,000 pairs of shoes. I’m not exaggerating. My daughters are on their way there. They have 100,000 pairs each.

All the shoes in the world are not enough.

I've given this a lot of thought: why are men so different from women? A woman's ideal man is Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Smoldering with concealed passion. Chivalrous. Noble. Devoted to her, and her alone.
He never farts, talks about farting, or scratches his balls, or insists on watching the game when her mother is visiting. He doesn't sit around with his friends, downing too many beers and talking about chicks or cars. It goes without saying that he never throws his socks on the floor. If she wants to go to the movies, he is eager to take her, even to see a chick flick.

The ideal woman for a man: 20 years old. Cute butt. Big tits. She might have the brain of Einstein, but never says anything except how wonderful he is. And she always cooks his favorite food. And cleans up afterward. And is willing to have sex anywhere, at any time.