More Liberal Whining

Since I showed the new Missouri quarter last night, Ralph Gizzip thought I should put up the Arkansas quarter tonight. Here it is.

My sister admonished me for using 'fucking' too much last night. "Can't you do a rant without using 'fucking?'", she asked. "Not if I'm pissed", I replied. And Sherry, do not go visit Venomous Kate since she cusses almost as much as I do. I do love her comments about blogspot's permalinks "Because the permalinks are permafucked!" Can I hear an Amen?

Tonight I'm not pissed. I'm just amused.

In Tuesday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation there was an op-ed, by Sheryl McCarthy who writes for Newsday titled We're in a mess, but (yawn) who cares?. The basic premise is that now that the war is over, can't we get back to trying to turn the United States into a socialist paradise?

Now that the war's over, Americans can turn their attention back to the problems facing us here at home.

And dontcha just know that there's a whole big shitload of 'em?

Like the more than 8 million people who are out of work

The gummint's got to do sumpin'! Anything! Except, of course a tax cut that might stimulate the economy. I know. Howza 'bout a jobs program? Or more welfare. Anything! What's the gummint for anyway?

and the more than 40 million who have no health insurance,

And the country screams for Hillary Care.

as well as the country's huge and growing national deficit and the countless cities and states that are reeling from serious budget crises of their own and are therefore slashing school budgets, laying off cops, cutting libraries, senior-citizen programs and scores of other services.

And soon there will be people jumping out of windows and starving people in the streets. And Gramma and Grampa will be eating dog food. Oh, the horror of it all!

When things are this bad, you'd think people would be leaning out of their windows, shouting, ''I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!''

Except, instead, they're jumping out of the windows. Look out below!

But there's a certain lethargy in the air.

Yeah. We're looking at the slate of possible Dimocrats running for president. At least we have Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely-Braun for comic relief. Oh shit! My racism is showing again.

Last week, Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri spoke to members of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents New York City's lower-tier health care workers, and released the details of the national universal health insurance program he would propose if he's elected president.

Be still my beating heart!

The lack of health insurance for all Americans is one of the great embarrassments of this country,

Right up there with Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Now, those are embarrassments!

and Gephardt, a pleasant, ruddy-faced, Howdy-Doody of a man,

You said it! I didn't. It does fit , though.

said all the right things. If elected, he would immediately repeal President Bush's tax cuts

Which would essentially be a tax increase. Just the thing to kick start the economy out of a recession. It really worked when Herbert Hoover tried it.

and use the money to fund the health insurance plan.

But I thought deficit reduction was the most important problem facing the country.

All the Democrats are pushing health care reform.

That's because they don't have any other issues other than being against the war and raising taxes.

The president has given only lip service to a health care plan for everybody, and his lackluster prescription plan for seniors, which would herd most of them into private HMOs, is more style than substance. But if I figured a speech on universal health care was going to light a fire under an audience of health care workers, I was wrong.

A liberal columnist wrong? I'm shocked!

They applauded politely, but there was no excitement. Even I struggled to stay awake. He just didn't reach me.

To be fair, Gephardt is no William Jennings Bryan.

The event seemed to be an analogy for the Democratic presidential campaign. The candidates are saying all the things you'd think Americans would want to hear. Americans say that health care is their No. 1 concern. But with a mere 19 months to go until the presidential election, it's hard to see any of these candidates rocking anyone's boat.

Like the rest of the Dimocratic Party, the candidates are clueless idiots. Maybe you didn't notice that we've been fighting this war in Iraq? It's been all over the TV news and in all the newspapers. I bet even Newsday had a few articles about it.

Is it lack of charisma, or of simple appeal?

Howza 'bout being out of touch with the American people?

For a while it looked as if Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was sure to catch fire, what with his war record and those wonderfully slanting eyebrows.

Until people got tired of his patronizing, patrician bullshit. Plus, he started acting like he was French.

But who's paid attention to him lately?

No one.

Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is getting the most attention and raising the most money, but do you know anyone who cares?

Not really.

I don't.

Good for you.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut comes off as a pleasant oldster, while Edwards and Sen. Bob Graham of Florida seem like ciphers at this point.

At least Lieberman was for the war.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is sure to add spice to the primary race,

Like I said, comic relief.

but it's an embarrassment that former Sen. Carol Mosely Braun of Illinois is even running.

How dare you say that about Mosely-Braun! You must be a racist!

It's a sad day for the country when things are going so poorly at home and not a single Democrat seems able to give Bush a run for his money.

Only for the blue part. We people in the red area are pretty happy about now.

It could be that the war with Iraq, and Bush's success there, are overshadowing everything else.

You have somehow stumbled upon the truth. Congratulations!

Perhaps in the excessive coverage of the war, the media have shut out coverage of the Democratic contenders.

Right again. After all, the first primary is almost a year away.

Or, having gone through Sept. 11, the anthrax scare and a war in a mere year and a half, Americans are just all burnt out and are feeling very conservative right now. Instead of demanding change, even from our current president, they're prepared to dig in and go along with this guy.

Maybe they like our president. Maybe they enjoy having an adult in charge. And they know Dimocrats are not real big on national security.

But apart from our recent victory in Iraq, the country is in a mess right now. And the president's response is more tax cuts and more platitudes. My question is: Hasn't anybody noticed? And doesn't anybody care?

Nothing more to see here. Just more libral bullshit. Move along.

Shakin', Showin', and Tauntin'

So there I was sound asleep, and all of a sudden, I'm awake. I hear sumpin' striking the side of the house like hail and my bed started rocking. It's the wind, I thought. But why is the bed rocking? I look around. Nope. I'm alone except for my two cats. I went back to sleep. On the way to work I heard that we had an earthquake. An earthquake? In Georgia? Holy shit!

My sister, who lives in California, sent me a note about what a bunch of pussies we were making a big deal about an earthquake that only measured 4.9. Oh yeah? What would y'all do if a tornado hit San Francisco? Huh?

On a lighter note, someone sent me a picture of the new Missouri quarter. I guess they don't call it the Show Me State for nothing.

I was listening to the news on National Proletariat Radio and damned if I didn't hear a story about Vladimir Putin inviting Tony Blair to his house in the woods and, I am not making this up, in the words of the NPR correspondent 'taunting him' about not finding any weapons of mass destruction. Taunting? Thinking I was hearing things, I went to the NPR web site and caught the rerun, and sho' nuff, that's what the guy said. They update the hourly news, and that blurb is no longer available, but let's see what the New York Times has to say. Putin is quoted as saying:

"Where is Saddam? Where are these arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, if they were there?" Mr. Putin asked. "Maybe Saddam is sitting somewhere in a secret bunker with weapons of mass destruction and is preparing to blow up all this stuff and put thousands of people's lives in danger."

"Maybe nothing of this sort will happen," he said. "But we have to think about it and react somehow."

Hey Vlad! Blow me! Where is the fucking money that Iraq owes you. If you keep acting like that, you fucking dipshit, you can kiss it goodbye. And speaking about where are things, where is the fucking Soviet Empire. Remember that, you commie bastard? Guess who won the fucking Cold War? You wanna do some fucking taunting? OK. How's your fucking economy doing? Maybe you should go to France and ask them for some economic aid. Guess what? Their fucking economy is in the shitter almost as bad as yours is. Oh yeah, that's because they're a buncha commie bastards also. You assholes deserve each other. You hear that Matthew? Oh yeah. I guess Matthew doesn't troll here anymore. We were too mean to him. We used facts.

So Vlad, how does it feel to be the ruler of a Third World country? You wanna hear some taunting? Wait until Bush invites you to his ranch again, if it ever happens. Do you think we need to go to the UN to get permission to sell Iraq's oil? We didn't need to get your permission to take out Saddam Hussein. We sure as fuck do not need your permission to sell his oil. You gonna try to stop us? You and what army? Compare what you did in Afghanistan to what we did. You're a bunch of fucking losers.

I heard you said sumpin' about restructuring the debt. Yep. We're gonna restructure it to zero. You wanna make sumpin' of it? I hope Tony Blair told you to kiss his ass. Don't try that taunting bullshit with us. That shit might work with Bill Clinton or Jimmy fucking Carter, but the cowboy from Texas ain't gonna put up with that shit.

And all you Hollywood dipshits can go piss in your pants and wet your fucking beds, but I think the world is gonna start respecting us again. And you know what? I don't give a shit if the rest of the world likes us or not, just so they respect us.

And Vlad, once again, blow me.

I'm a Racist

But first.

The folks at StrangeCosmos have struck again. And damned if they still didn't get it right. Natalie only wishes she had boobs that big.

Last week Rachel Lucas wrote about how ridiculous it was that Janeane Garafolo called Bush a Nazi and what Nazism really is. Overuse of the term Nazi has done nothing but cheapen it. In fact, we now have Godwin's Law which states that "whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. "

I have coined a new law, called Addison's Law, after one of my frequent commenters that states "Whenever anyone mentions that Bush stole the 2000 election, the argument is over and everything that follows is total bullshit."

I think we may need some sort of law about the use of the word racism.

A few weeks back, a Dimocrat state senator from Gwinnett County (How the hell did a Dimocrat in Gwinnett County get elected? It's solidly Republican.) called Sonny Perdue a racist because he had promised to hold a referendum on the state flag. She said this in front of a bunch of black politicians, including Shirley Franklin, the mayor of Atlanta, who gave her a big hug.

Now I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought this was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. I wrote last night about how ridiculous I thought the flag issue was, but calling someone a racist over a piece of cloth takes me off into Monty Python land.

Calling someone a racist or crying racism at the drop of a hat like the stupid people here that I wrote about in this post detracts from real racism. It cheapens it.

I think Al Sharpton is a buffoon. I'm a racist.

I think Jesse Jackson is a RWPP (Race Warlord Poverty Pimp). I'm a racist.

I think Sheila Jackson Lee is the dumbest person in the House of Representatives. I'm a racist.

I think affirmative action is wrong. I'm a racist.

OK. Just for argument, let's say affirmative action is good. OK. I'll play that game. Let's apply it everywhere to 'level the playing field'. Jesse Jackson says there should be more black baseball managers. OK. Let's do it by quota. Since blacks make up 13% of the population, we should have 13% of the baseball managers be black. That means that 13% of the baseball players should be black. And since Hispanics just passed blacks as the largest minority, and I'm not sure of the percentage, but let's say 14%, 14% of the managers and 14% of the players should be Hispanic. We'll need to get some Asians in there also. And let's not forget disabled people. Hey, basketball is way overrepresented by blacks. I wanna play point guard. Affirmative action says that I should be able to to 'level the playing field'. I wanna be the first disabled point guard in the NBA. Who cares if I can't play? This is taking affirmative action to its logical conclusion.

Sound ridiculous? As far as I'm concerned so is affirmative action. Oh shit! I'm a racist. Affirmative action says that you have to hire someone or admit someone into college who may be less qualified, because of skin color. Doesn't that sound uh, like, racist?

So why is that person unqualified? Low SAT scores? Doncha just know that the SAT is 'culturally biased'? Now if that isn't a big ol' load of bullshit, I don't know what is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the SAT is made up of two parts: math and verbal.

1+1=2 is the same no matter what color your skin is so I don't see how the math portion of the SAT could be 'culturally biased'.

What about the verbal. It is designed to test English skills. Do we not teach English to black children in our schools. Maybe it's a Republican plot that English is only taught to white children. Or maybe black children are too dumb to learn English. Uh oh! here come's my racism showing again.

I don't believe that black children are too dumb to learn English, although that's what the so called self anointed black leaders are telling them in calling the SAT 'culturally biased', and demanding lower standards for black students. Now that is racism. That's also disgusting!

Another problem is, and oh boy, I'm really a racist when I say this, the anti-achievement mentality in the black community. This is the mentality that says anyone who tries to learn how to read and write proper English and do well in school is an oreo, an Uncle Tom or is 'acting white'. Is it any wonder SAT scores are low? So maybe there is a cultural bias. A bias against succeeding in America. I got news for y'all. That ain't my fault and that ain't whitey's fault.

But, fortunately, the NAACP is on the job. All we have to do is make sure the Confederate flag is removed from the Confederate War Memorial on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds and the Georgia flag has nothing to do with the Confederacy and all of our problems will be magically solved.

See, I'm a racist because I believe that black children are every bit as smart as white children, but they are being betrayed by their 'leaders.' It is so much easier to blame everything on whitey rather than taking a look in the mirror and saying, 'What can we do to succeed?'

The black 'leaders' don't want Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice to be role models because they 'just ain't black enough! They be sellouts!' And the fact that they are all Republicans makes them traitors to their race also.

The three above mentioned people are proof that hard work pays off. It is possible for black people to succeed. But it takes hard work to get there.

And I guess saying that makes me a racist.

The Flag

Dammit! I was gonna do a rant on racism, but damned if Acidman didn't beat me to it. I've said many times how black "leaders" like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Maxine Waters, and useful idiots like John Lewis have totally betrayed the black race. If the KKK had planned it they could not have done a better job in keeping people in poverty and on "the plantation". More on that later.

The Georgia Legislature just finished their session for the year (On a side note, wouldn't it be nice if the US Senate and House only met for three months a year? That would give them less time to pass stupid laws that fuck up this country.), and fortunately, they didn't accomplish much. They didn't pass the ethics law that the governor wanted. Yeah! Politicians with ethics. Next thing someone's gonna tell me is that Bill Clinton has shut the fuck up. They did do sumpin' about the biggest problem facing the people of Georgia: The fucking state flag! I am so fucking sick of this bullshit. Can't someone make 'em stop?

It's gotten so bad that it's gone national as evidenced by this post by Christopher Johnson from my home town of Webster Groves Missouri.

This shit started a while back. The blacks were offended by the St. Andrews cross being part of the Georgia state flag. The flag was changed in 1956 for the sole purpose of pissing off the civil rights folks. Now that blacks have attained more power they wanted it changed. I, myself, think it's a waste of time, but what do I know? I'm from Missouri.

One of the arguments for being offended was that it was a symbol of slavery™. For example, they say, what if you were Jewish and the state flag had a swastica on it. Wouldn't you, as a Jew, be offended. Probably, but if Jews had an illegitmacy rate of 70%, and Jews made up 13% of the population, but made up 50% of the prison population, and if the majority of crimes were Jew on Jew crime, and if there was an anti-achievement mentality among young Jews that studying and doing well in school was acting gentile, the swastica on the state flag would be the last thing on my mind.

But, threatened with boycotts by the NBA and NFL for special events and by other organizations, our previous governor, Roy Barnes, worked out a deal, in private, and changed the state flag. Was that the end of that? Hell no! Now we had to listen to the southern heritage bullshit. Attention everyone! The Civil War ended almost 140 years ago. The South lost. Civil rights laws were passed in the 1960's. Deal with it. The old flag had nothing to do with southern heritage. It had everything to do with pissing off the civil rights movement.

Anyway, one of Sonny Perdue's campaign promises was to hold a referendum on the state flag. People were bitching about how the new flag wasn't voted on by the electorate. Got news for y'all, the 1956 flag wasn't either. So now we get to vote on the current flag against another flag that isn't the 1956 flag, but still has some Confederate symbology. You'd think that some people could just get a life.

It's only a piece of cloth! Let's just adopt the French flag: A white cross on a white background. That wouldn't offend anybody.

I guess y'all know that as soon as the flag flap is over the next thing we'll hear about is the sculpture on Stone Mountain.

Arrrgggghhhh!

Stupid Letters and Ted

I love getting a newspaper. There is just sumpin' about reading stuff off dead trees rather than reading from a computer screen. As such, I subscribe to the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation. Sure it leans to the left. I did sumpin' a few months back called Meet the Staff where I posted the eitorial staff's political views in their own words. I also get a kick out of reading the letters to the editors. Some of these people are so fucking stupid I'm surprised they can even write. Case in point.

Real 'homeland security' is medical insurance

This has just gotta be rich. You can't hurt me Osama! I got medical insurance! Yeah, universal health care would have saved the WTC and the Pentagon. Put down those box cutters Mohammed. We got health insurance!

France, Canada and Germany can't be all bad. At least all their citizens have health care

Well so does Cuba. And guess what. Lots of Canadians come to the United States for health care they cannot get in Canada.

--- and live longer than Americans.

Please cite your statistics here. Matthew, if you're still trolling, would you give me a link to the data on this?

Maybe they figure that universal health care is more important to their national security than deposing a dictator in a small Arab country.

They don't have to worry about their national security. Ever since WWII we have been doing it for them.

The presidential candidate of any party who makes health care reform his or her main campaign issue will get my vote hands-down. All I want is a choice between employment-based, private insurance with its maddening hodgepodge of co-pays, deductibles, managed care, network physicians and pharmacies, and escalating premiums, and a simple, quality-controlled, tax-based, single-payer system that provides necessary medical services, including prescription drugs, even if I lose my job, go back to school or choose self-employment. That's real "homeland security."

LAURIE CRAW, Cave Spring

Laurie be careful what you wish for. When (not if) the gummint does implement a gummint run health care system (and it's coming) it will be worse than dealing with an HMO. Trust me on this. Think IRS. You want the same people who have given us our tax code to design a single pay health care system? You are a fucking idiot!

Oh, and here's another good one.

Too late for Bush's request for support

MOHINDER L. JERATH, Canton

Where do I start? Of course there's anarchy you ignorant dickhead! We just toppled a gummint. Why don't you take your head out of your ass and watch the news. Ask the children released from the children's prison what they think of the "GOP cabal of Reagan/Bush, white elephant-dinosaurs" who just toppled an evil repressive regime. Did you see the Iraqis toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein? Did you see the Iraqis cheering us for overturning their evil repressive gummint? I guess you think that we can just snap our fingers and bam(!) there's a new perfect gummint in place.

And guess what? If the rest of the world doesn't want to help us rebuild Iraq, we'll do it ourselves using Iraqi oil to pay American companies to do all the work. We're used to rebuilding countries. We rebuilt Europe and Japan after WWII, but you are such an incredibly ignorant asshole you probably aren't aware of that. Jesus! I hate stupid people!

And now, from Saturday's Peach Buzz Ted Turner mouths off in a speech given in San Francisco. Scroll down a ways to find this item.

Ted Turner, founder of the Cable News Network, said Rupert Murdoch helped start the U.S. war against Iraq by using his News Corp. media outlets, such as Fox Television, to advocate an invasion.

Omigawd! It's not about the oooiiiillll! It's about the N-E-W-S! Whoda thunk it?

Murdoch ''promoted it because it's good for his newspapers and good for his television stations,'' Turner said Thursday night during a speech in San Francisco. ''I call it Murdoch's War.''

Well holy shit! Rupert Murdoch, the William Randolph Hearst of the 21st Century. Stay tuned. Coming up next, brought to you by Fox, the war on Iran and Syria. And next season, also brought to you by Fox, we bomb France and Germany.

I don't make this shit up folks.

I wish I could.

Let Dave Say It

But first.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I didn't make this. I stole it from here.

It really pisses me off that some people can just say things so much better than I can. Den Beste has talked about the failure of Arab culture and how the cure is to totally humiliate them to prove just how much they suck and then they can start to rebuild their culture and leave the 7th Century and join us in the 21st Century.

And here's another e-mail from Dave Francis who gives some advice to the Arab world. Many of us feel this way. Dave states it well.

I will spell it out for you. Apparently some of the people in the Arab
world don't quite get it.

The US supports Israel. It does not want to see Israel destroyed. It will
not, under any circumstances, allow that to happen.

That may be wrong, it may be unfair, but in case you haven't noticed, the
world is unfair. Get over it. It is the world you were born into. Make
the best of it.

Israel says that it just wants its physical integrity protected, and that it
is only protecting itself. Whether true or not, you can debate in your
coffeshops, newspapers, mosques, and wherever else you choose to. Americans
believe the. We believe them because the face we see of the Arab in the
Arab world is an ugly, screaming mob, burning flags, cheering bin Ladin,
supporting Saddam, and killing Americans. You will NEVER get America's
sympathy as long as you continue to present that face. America respects
groups and leaders who have won their freedom, and if you think you can
militarily defeat Israel, with the full and total support of the US
military, then go for it. Good luck. More likely you will weaken
yourselves, embarrass your armies, and continue your cycle of backward
living for an other few centuries.

If you want to see Israel's support in the US cut back, take my advice.

1-Come out against terrorist acts. Killing civilians, guerilla fighting,
all of it. Come out against violence. Don't allow it, don't spread it, and
don't do it!

2-Show that you are thoughtful, instead of just some disgusting, bad
smelling, nasty mob screaming in unison. Be a group of individuals, come
together for a single purpose, and make that purpose the establishment of a
peaceful existence for Jews and Arabs alike.

3-Denounce the hate mongers among you. Cut them loose like they are your
ex-wifes relatives. Get them far away from you. Do not let them be on TV.
Or radio. Or magazines. You get the idea.

4-Take responsibility for yourselves. Quit begging for others to solve your
problems. Solve them yourself. What has Israel, for example, got to do
with Iran? The lives of Saudi youth are not affected by Israel at all, but
they spend their time bitching about Israel, instead of getting a job.
Understand that you, the Arab street, are being played for the suckers that
you are. Not by Tel Aviv, not by Washington, but by Cairo, Riyadh, and
Damascus. As long as they can keep you in the streets screaming about
Israel, you aren't screaming about the TRUE problems in the Arab world.

5-Apologize for the past. Now, I know, with the inflated sense of pride
that exists throughout the Arab world, this is a particularly tough one, but
face it. You people have behaved like asses for the last couple of years.
Hold on, did I say couple? I meant to say for the last THOUSAND years. You
have let what was once a promising culture be hijacked by leaders who have
run you into the ground. I mean, look around you. Your lives suck, and
they suck because of your apathy toward your leaders robbing you blind, your
laziness in advancing, and your hatred of the civlizations who have blown
past you like so many Corvettes passing old ladies in walkers. Apologize to
the Arab street, if you are a leader. To the young if you are old, to the
world if you are a hate monger. Ask the west to forgive you, admit that you
have done a lot wrong, and get on the path of doing the right thing.

The west in general, and America in particular, are very kind, forgiving
places. After you do these five things, you will find that your lives will
get better, America will begin to pay true respect to you and your
societies, and your social structure will finally be worthy of some respect.

In the end though, it is up to you, the Arab street. You can do these
things now, and get on the path to joining the civilized world, or you can
continue to watch bigger, stronger, better nations kick you around like you
are a bunch of little girls. You will never be able to defeat Israel
militarily, as long as the US stands behind it. Never.

Dave Francis
The Dave Francis Show
Radio Roks 102 FM-Now Live on the Internet!

Yeah, I know. I'm getting lazy when I let others do my work for me. It's not like I'm getting paid for this. Rants will return shortly. I'm getting pissed off again about racism.

Baghdad Bob Hits the Big Time

The Ditzey Clucks are worried about their future so they hired a new manager.
Here he is:

Shamelessly stolen from Michael M. Bates

And, I'm sure you've seen the nude picture of the Blixie Chunks floating around the internet. They say that the camera adds ten pounds to people. In Natalie's case it subtracted about 40 pounds. Jesus H. Christ! She's more of a porker than my cat Ashley. I mean, to get her pregnant her husband had to roll her in flour and .... Ooops! Not gonna go there.

Besides managing the Dixie Skanks (Y'know, I really like their music, even though they don't write much of it, and I liked the last CD because it was mostly bluegrass based, but how dumb do you have to be to piss off your core fans?), Baghdad Bob was hired to do PR for TCIDNN.

Click for readable text.

Thanks to my brother-in-law, Ryan for his Photoshop skills and thanks to someone whose name will not be revealed (to protect the guilty) for sending me the original that Ryan altered.

I got a note from the project manager in charge of the German project. The owner of the purse strings, who is a Belgian, wrote back and said there were some problems with the proposals that she wanted to discuss in a meeting on Monday. Maybe I should call in sick. We have presented two proposals: One is for $1.5 million and the other is for $1.75 million. Our only competition has bid $2.5 million. But, since my manager has a boner for this project, next week, we will probably have to go through another rehash of the numbers. Let's see, what can we cut here? What can we cut there?

What I have to keep telling myself: "My name is Wally. My name is Wally. Do not say a word. Smile. Look stupid. Nod yes."

Call their fucking bluff! Sign with us or fuck off! How hard is that? Arrrggghhh!

My Job, Elian, and France Sucks

My friend, Brian, who always gets mad at me when I use fuck in my posts Instant Messaged me this afternoon and asked if I still have a job. Well, yes, I do. My boss returned to work today and didn't say anything about last Friday. I saw him in our Wednesday Inquisition Meeting (Where we discuss problems from last week and whether we're ready for next week. This meeting is a colossal waste of time and goes on forever. I really need to learn how to sleep with my eyes open.) and everything seemed normal. Maybe he's biding his time and will spring a surprise retirement party on me.

I had dinner Saturday with my friends Michael and Cindy at their house and regaled them with my tales of mismanagement. Since they both manage people they are amazed at what a jerk my manager is. Michael, who is the wine buyer at Greens in Atlanta (and he says his French wine business is down. Hmmm. Imagine that.), cannot comprehend how my manager is botching the negotiations on our project. Michael negotiates contracts for a living. Like me, he would call our Axis of Weasels' bluff.

Anyway, I figgered out my problem. My manager successfully changed me from Dilbert to Wally, but, every now and then, Dilbert pops back out and I say sumpin' stupid. Gotta fix that.

I don't know where Ralph Gizzip keeps getting these things, but he sent me the following picture to commemorate the anniversary of scaring the shit out of Elian Gonzalez and sending him back to live in a totalitarian state.

And where would we be without a little French bashing? A guy I used to work with sent me this poem.

Subject: A French Poem
Ralph Gizzip found the origin. It is here. And when you get there scroll up to see the French Army Special Ops training. In case you can't tell, it was lifted directly from Monty Python.


Who Stands Alone

Eleven thousand soldiers lay beneath the dirt and stone,
all buried on a distant land so far away from home.
For just a strip of dismal beach they paid a hero's price,
to save a foreign nation they all made the sacrifice.

And now the shores of Normandy are lined with blocks of white,
Americans who didn't turn from someone else's plight.
Eleven thousand reasons for the French to take our side,
but in the moment of our need, they chose to run and hide.

Chirac said every war means loss, perhaps for France that's true,
for they've lost every battle since the days of Waterloo.
Without a soldier worth a damn to be found in the region,
the French became the only land to need a Foreign Legion.

You French all say we're arrogant. Well hell, we've earned the right--
We saved your sorry nation when you lacked the guts to fight.
But now you've made a big mistake, and one that you'll regret;
you took sides with our enemies, and that we won't forget.

It wasn't just our citizens you spit on when you turned,
but every one of ours who fell the day the towers burned.
You spit upon our soldiers, on our pilots and Marines,
and now you'll get a little sense of just what payback means.

So keep your Paris fashions and your wine and your champagne,
and find some other market that will buy your aeroplanes.
And try to find somebody else to wear your French cologne,
for you're about to find out what it means to stand alone.

You see, you need us far more than we ever needed you.
America has better friends who know how to be true.
I'd rather stand with warriors who have the will and might,
than huddle in the dark with those whose only flag is white.

I'll take the Brits, the Aussies, the Israelis and the rest,
for when it comes to valor we have seen that they're the best.
We'll count on one another as we face a moment dire,
while you sit on the sideline with a sign "friendship for hire."

We'll win this war without you and we'll total up the cost,
and take it from your foreign aid, and then you'll feel the loss.
And when your nation starts to fall, well Frenchie, you can spare us,
just call the Germans for a hand, they know the way to Paris.

Too bad Matthew isn't trolling here anymore.

CAIR Sucks

Dammit! Neither of my cats, nor do I look like this:

Thanks to Ralph Gizzip. Y'all have seen Scooter. This is Ashley:

Click for bigger picture.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. She's a porker. I'm working on it. Ya gotta remember, she's a holocaust survivor. Some day I'll relate her story and how she is lucky to be alive.

Let's go see what the bozos at CAIR are whining about today.

Let's see we have Muslims call for understanding.

Well this oughta be a hoot. We have the most intolerant religion in the world asking for tolerance.

Muslims in Flagstaff and at NAU are distraught because their cultures have become scapegoats for fear, misunderstanding and war.

Maybe it has to do with all the turbans yelling "Death to America! Death to Israel!" Maybe Islam is the Religion of Death.

"Man is an enemy to what he ignores," said Mohammed, a Syrian exchange student who wished to be referred to by his middle name. "The media is selective in what they present and Americans seem to be satisfied with what the media's decision is on what is important for people to know."

Maybe if you would condemn the spewing of hatred that comes from the Middle East or disavow bin Laden or condemn the suicide bombings in Israel we might take a more favorable view of Islam. It was radical Islam that declared war on us on 9/11. It was practitioners of radical Islam who were responsible for the first WTC bombing. It was practioners of radical Islam who blew up two United States embassies. It was practitioners of radical Islam who blew up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. It was practitioners of radical Islam who blew up the Cole. What the fuck do you expect us to think Mohammed?

He said Islam teaches its followers to use reason and logic to discover truths, but when he gets into debates with people in America, he said they sometimes get hostile with him because they think he is being too confrontational.

That's because you putzheads think blowing up innocent women and children in Israel will get you a ticket to paradise and a chance to boff 72 virgins. Your friends in the Middle East also seem to be obsessed with spouting "Death to America." I got news for you Mohammed, you asshole, them's fighting words.
And maybe they think you might blow up.

NAU Applied Indigenous Studies Professor Peter McCormick speaks to his AIS 101 class about the troubles United States and British colonialism introduced to the Middle East following World War I...

Yeah it's all the fault of the fucking Brits and the fucking Yankees. Kiss my ass!

"The irony of the current situation is that the media does not focus on the fact that Saddam Hussein was helped into power by CIA and it was U.S. companies that sold him the weapons of mass destruction," McCormick said...

What? He doesn't read the New York Times or the Washington Post. My ex-Troll Matthew had the links. We provided Saddam with weapons when he was fighting Iran. Remember Iran? That was the nation which took 52 American diplomats hostage in violation of international law (Where the fuck was the United Nations and the rest of the fucking international community when that happened? And you want us to follow international law? Fuck you!). Isn't an old Arab saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Hey assholes! We were just acting like good ol' Arabs. Anyway, if you check out the records, France, Germany, and Russia supplied more weapons to Iraq than we did.

And now let's look at Hate Crimes.

(Albor Ruiz, New York Daily News) - Zakir H., a young Muslim immigrant, was walking home in Midwood in January when five men assaulted and stabbed him. The reason? His Middle Eastern looks.

Some Pakistani friends took him to the hospital, but mindful that police could report to immigration that his visa had expired, Zakir did not tell the truth. He said that his wound was self-inflicted and, to this day, has not filed a crime report.

Oh golly. He is an illegal immigrant. Let's check out the sympathy meter. Nope. Reading zero. Just think, if he had left when his visa had expired he would have been OK.

Zakir's case is not unique. Violence against Arab and Muslim immigrants increased after 9/11, and the war on Iraq seems to have exacerbated it.

Actually, I think it might have more to do with 9/11. Maybe if the Muslim community would act more like Americans and less like Jew hating anti-American assholes, there might be less violence against Muslims.

Besides, many immigrants believe the NYPD is now more involved in immigration enforcement. Consequently, they think twice about going to the police for help or to report a crime.

Especially if they are illegal immigrants.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports more than a dozen serious new incidents in March alone. Because victims do not dare go to the authorities, most of the crimes go unpunished.

And they don't go to authorities because they are illegal immigrants.

That's why a group of diverse immigrant community leaders and civil rights advocates have come together to condemn violence and find ways to end it.

I wonder if they condemn violence against Jews? Bet they don't.

They cite the case of Larme Price. This is the deranged Brooklyn man who, blinded by ethnic hatred, allegedly killed four immigrant merchants in Queens and Brooklyn, in a six-week killing spree that ended with his March 28 arrest. It was one of the worst series of hate crimes against immigrants in recent history.

What about the Muslim who went on the rampage at the El Al counter at the Los Angeles airport and killed a bunch of Jews. I wonder if CAIR condemned that as a hate crime? Yeah. Sure. That'll be the fucking day!

"This is not about a single deranged killer. This is about a climate of hatred against Arabs and Muslims," said Patrick Young, a lawyer with the Central American Refugee Center and board chairman of the New York Immigration Coalition...

And what about a climate of hatred against Jews. You fucking hypocrites make me sick to my stomach. The rise of 'hate crimes' against Muslims did not go up after 9/11 no matter what you dickheads might want to make us believe. You happen to live in the most tolerant nation on earth. Y'see we have freedom of religion in this country. Contrast that with the heart of Islam, Saudi Arabia, which does not allow other religions.

I'm sick of hearing all this whining bullshit from CAIR. Any place that has a large Muslim community causes nothing but problems. Look at all the violence in the Middle East due to the insane hatred of Israel. Look at all the synagogue desecrations in France. There have been no comparable mosque desecrations here in the United States. Listen fuckheads, get your fucking religion, the fucking religion of hatred, in order, before you start whining about how bad Muslims are treated in this country. Muslims are treated much better in this country than Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, or any other religions are treated in Muslim countries. It was Muslims who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing over 3000 innocent women and children.

I am an atheist, but I fevently wish that there is a God so you bastards can roast in Hell by so perverting a religion and turning it into an evil force that knows nothing but hatred. You people at CAIR make me sick to my stomach.

Go peddle your false tolerance bullshit somewhere else. I'm sick of your fucking whining.

Read This Article

As long time readers know, I tend to be a writer (or I attempt to be) and not a linker. That said, go read this article. Now. Right away. I could excerpt stuff such as

Along with the academics and the clerics, the third group of big-time losers are the prestige media. The mission of the media is to provide accurate information. Yet for much of the war--indeed until the army and Marines broke into Baghdad--the New York Times was often as full of misinformation as the Iraqi minister of information. And not nearly as funny.

or

It was indeed painful to see that despite rapid advances through the desert and the remarkable steps to avoid civilian casualties, the BBC and CNN tried to portray the invasion as a disaster in the making, or an "acid flashback to Vietnam," as the unintentionally amusing Maureen Dowd put it.

or

Hollywood, like the other dishonored institutions, has much to answer for in this war (not to mention much before). Where were the famous Hollywood conservatives or the hairy chested heroes who play military supermen in the films? Not offering to take the next C-17 out to Kuwait to entertain the troops, and perhaps a bit scared of being on the reverse blacklist of the limousine leftists who control the likes of Miramax and Dreamworks.

But you should read it all.

What an Idiot!

Look what Phil sent me.

Click for larger picture.

And this ties right into what's coming next. My sister, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area quit getting the San Francisco Chronicle because it was too much like reading Pravda. This op-ed confirms it.

Secession!
Why stick around? The Bay Area is already a nation unto itself

G. Pascal Zachary Sunday, April 20, 2003

The German computer scientists were talking heatedly about the war in the lobby of a University of California research lab where I was a visitor. I listened to them with curiosity because the government of Germany has condemned the U.S. campaign against Iraq, earning it the enmity of official Washington.

"I tell my friends I'm safe in the Bay Area," one German said. "People here even apologize to me for what Americans are doing in Iraq. They say they are sorry."

That's because there are so many fucking anti-American communists in the Bay Area. That's one of the reasons my sister is moving to Asheville, NC in June.

"Berkeley isn't America, and neither is San Francisco or Oakland," a second German added. A third interjected, "I don't think I would live anywhere else."

No shit, Sherlock. Lots of bastards out there were rooting for Saddam.

The views of these Germans -- and my own views of official American power -- are heretical in America, highlighting the wide gulf between the iconoclastic Bay Area and the rest of the United States. This gulf, always present, seems more intensely felt now. There are no American flags waving on my street, or any of the streets I pass each morning when I bring my children to school.

Can you believe this asshole? He's definitely anti-American. Hey buddy! If the flag in the picture above offends you, you're welcome to leave any time. Howza 'bout Cuba? They could use some help with the sugar cane harvest.

A recent Field Poll notwithstanding, the people of the Bay Area seem more deeply opposed to the war on Iraq than anywhere else in the United States. Elsewhere in the country -- say, in New York City or Washington, D.C. -- critics of our government strive to be viewed as "responsible." In the Bay Area, dissenters are idealistic, stubborn, unpredictable -- and often seem irresponsible to the rest of the nation. Remember the vomit protest earlier this month? In Bay Area terms, it was an example of inspired street theater, but the rest of the country saw it as completely weird.

You're also a bunch of fucking communists, like a whole big bunch of other people in Kalifornia. Why do you think your economy is imploding and you have a budget deficit larger than most states' budgets? It's because you're communists. Communism was an abject failure in the Soviet Union. Why do you think it's gonna work in Kalifornia? Oh yeah, the right people weren't in charge in the Soviet Union. Y'all got Grayout Davis and Willie Brown. There's one hell of a fucking management team.

Of course, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley are cities full of weirdos --

Now that's a real big fucking shock! Whoda thunk it?

misfits who relish turning respectable behavior upside down. Not surprisingly, the anti-war movement is fractious in the Bay Area.

They're also a bunch of fucking idiots.

Rather than presenting a "responsible" alternative to Bush's war

They don't have any. Their platform is "I hate America. America bad. Everyone else good." Let's go stage a vomit in.

-- say, for instance, by calling for hard sanctions, but no invasion of Iraq -- dissenters here are more likely to question the entire project of decapitating Saddam Hussein, pointing out that some of our closest allies (Pakistan, Israel) already have secretly acquired nuclear weapons and that the United States helped build Iraq's military arsenal in the 1980s when the country went to war against our archenemy Iran.

So let's just be like France and do nothing and wait for a city to be nuked. I nominate Berkeley. We wouldn't even miss it.

Bay Area people are more willing to accuse Bush of rank disloyalty, for selfishly trying to improve his re-election chances by going to war with Iraq in order to distract attention from the government's failure to smash al Qaeda.

These are the same people who thought it was all right to kill goats in Afghanistan and bomb an aspirin factory to distract us from Bill's blowjobs. And Monica Lewinsky has a television program? Jesus! I thought her 15 minutes of fame was up.

Dissenters here see the illogic of capitalism at play in the world, the drive for oil and profits coloring the government's behavior rather than Bush's self- professed obsession with bringing freedom and democracy to the Arab world.

These people see the "illogic of capitalism" that has made the United States the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of this planet and I guess they don't see the logic of socialism that has failed everywhere it has been tried. Prime example: the Soviet Union.

By raising uncomfortable questions about the "American empire,"

There is no fucking American Empire! Godammit! Where are our fucking provinces paying us tribute? We don't do a very good job of this empire shit when we're giving money away rather than taking it from the rest of the world.

Bay Area people guarantee their marginalization in what passes for the national conversation.

That's because they don't have a fucking clue as to what the national conversation is. They're too busy saying how much they hate America.

Being ignored hurts.

Get used to it.

One of my closest friends, a veteran Democratic activist,

And probably a fucking communist.

badly wants to engage the body politic on the issue of Bush's failed diplomacy, but he gets nowhere.

I thought Bush's diplomacy worked pretty well. I think the Arabs might be afraid to fuck with us now.

"I've never felt more out of step with the rest of America," he tells me.

You have a firm grasp on the obvious, dipshit!

Join the club. No one is listening to people in the Bay Area.

That's because a whole big bunch of people in the Bay Area are full of shit!

No one ever listens, actually. The Bay Area is out of sync with the United States on every political metric.

Once again he displays his firm grasp on the obvious.

Indeed, the people of the Bay have more in common politically and culturally with the geeks from Germany.

And the assholes from France. Congratulations!

Bay Area politicos would fit comfortably under the rubric of European "social democrats,"

Communists.

favoring a humane welfare state,

Communism.

multilateralism and a ban on offensive military force.

Be like France. Surrender early and often.

Yet in the skewed political structure of America -- where minority political parties are effectively silenced at the national level by the country's winner-take-all system -- the distinctive voice of the Bay Area vanishes into thin air.

And that's a good thing.

Unlike Germany, where the minority Green Party has a stake in the ruling administration, there is no left-liberal party on the national scene. Ralph Nader may have grabbed enough votes to tilt the last presidential election in Bush's favor, yet he has no role in national government -- not in Congress, the administration or even in a federal agency.

And that would be bad because...?

I wish to propose an immodest remedy for this sorry situation: We, the people of the Bay Area, need to leave the United States. We are held prisoner by a foreign power, colonized by an alien civilization. We require cultural and social self-determination. We demand, in short, a declaration of independence -- and our own nation.

Be still my beating heart! I agree! I agree! I'd vote for this in a minute. Take the rest of Kalifornia with you. No Nancy Pelosi. No Barbara Boxer. No Diane Feinstein. No Maxine Waters. No Henry Waxman.

I realize that my suggestion is a delicious fantasy.

Ahhhhh! But what a fantasy! Imagine no more commies. It's easy if you try.

Americans since Jefferson have been attracted to the myth of the sturdy individual, the self- reliant small town.

Oh man! I want some of what this guy is smoking. Does he think San Francisco values the individual and self reliance? Hello! Wefare state.

For alternative thinkers, "small is beautiful" remains a rallying cry. While American pluralism allows for experimentation on the state and local level, for some more radical autonomy is desirable. The historian Arthur Schlesinger bemoaned in the 1990s "the disuniting of America," but radicals see the United States as too big, too unified, too homogeneous. Independence is a rational response to a loss of identity.

I would like to see San Francisco try to succeed on its own with no money coming in from the federal gummint. Now there's a fantasy.

Of course, hard-headed "realists" scoff at independence movements, saying they would create unsustainable small nations. Yet look around the world; there are many prosperous small nations: Singapore, the sophisticated city- state, in Asia.

But Singapore practices the "illogic of capitalism" If it adopted the socialist policies of San Francisco it would be a disaster in about ten years. Probably less.

None of these nations is home to more than 5 million people. Some successful nations are even smaller. Ireland, which boasted Europe's fastest growing economy during the 1990s, has fewer than 4 million people.

Did you know that Ireland has the lowest tax rate of any nation in the European Union? It also has less regulations against business. That's why it's thriving.

OK. He's about to really get wacko now.

Indeed, small countries are increasingly economically secure because of the power of world trade.

Most of them are capitalist with free trade economies and they actually produce sumpin' other than bullshit. All right. If he's including all the Bay Area they actually do produce stuff, but if they seceded, all the defense contractors and the military would leave. For the productive cities to support San Francisco the taxes would have to be raised so high that Oracle and the rest of the high tech industries would be movin' to Arizona. Have fun in your socialist utopia.

Does anyone doubt that the Bay Area, if an independent nation, would be economically viable?

I doubt it and probably any rational thinking person would agree. See above.

On its own, the Bay Area would have a diversified economy, strong universities and the kind of scenic beauty that assures a steady stream of tourists.

I forgot about tourism. As an independent entity you would really have to soak the tourists, especially after all the high tech businesses left due to the high taxation. And you could be just like the French in Paris and be rude to the tourists.

Of course, an independent Bay Area would have to reach some kind of military treaty with the United States, which would not want a Bay Nation to pose a security threat.

What kind of a security threat could the Bay Area pose? Look out! We're being attacked by a lot of vomiting nitwits! We'd close all the bases and all the defense contractors would leave.

But we wouldn't mind. We would be like Switzerland, a neutral country that tries to help people. We, the Bay Nation, would try to prevent conflicts, not make promoting conflicts an aim of national policy.

Maybe we could talk Jimmah Carter into moving there.

To those who say that an independence drive would be fruitless, even wacko,

I pick wacko.

I reply that the people of the Bay Area have a better shot at withdrawing from the United States than winning over the political mainstream.

And I would love to see you go. Hell, take the rest of the state with you. Then we wouldn't have to worry about the Dimocratic Party anymore.

Look at the evidence. Nancy Pelosi may be the second-most powerful Democratic member of the House of Representatives, but what influence does she -- or even the House -- have over a national government bent on war,

And am I thankful for that? You bet I am!

the gutting of civil liberties

But gutting the Second Amendment is OK.

and destructive tax cuts?

Whereas he supports confiscation of capital for the glorious welfare state.

Opponents of the war can wave flags and express sympathy for the soldiers in Iraq, but the powers that be control the symbolism of patriotism. Rather than out-wave the flag wavers, radicals in the Bay Area -- and I mean most of us -- would do better to seek self- determination for our region.

Goodbye. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Think of the advantages of having our own country. We wouldn't have to apologize to people of conscience for being Americans any more.

If you were a real American you wouldn't have to do that now, you fucking asshole.

We wouldn't go to war against Arab dictators (or anyone else).

Give peace a chance. Kumbaya.

We wouldn't suffer through any more rogue national elections.

GMAFB! Bush won. Give it a rest already. I invoke Addison's Law. Wait a minute! Speaking of rogue elections, wasn't it San Francisco, where they found all those ballots in the Bay? And talking about bogus elections did you know that Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey was selected, not elected, by the New Jersey Supreme Court?

We would finally have a government that shared the concerns of its people.

I think our gummint shares my concerns. You are in the minority. Live with it.

It gets worse. I'm sorry. Even I have to stop fisking here. I don't even think the New York Times or the Washington Post could publish something this ridiculous. Or, maybe the Chronicle has a sense of humor and this was satire.

I know Kim du Toit agrees with this butthead on his idea to secede. In fact, Kim would like to take the idea a little further. Here's Kim's proposed map for the United States.

Works for me.

More Fun With the Germans

Well, I'm in trouble again. We're still working on the German project at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). It's getting ridiculous. Long time readers may remember that we submitted a proposal for $1.9 million. The only other outsourcer submitted a proposal for $2.5 million. Should be a no brainer, right?
Wrong.

They came back to us and said they could only afford $2.5 million this year and $1.5 million for each year for the rest of the contract. Now a rational person would think that what we would deliver for the money would be negotiable, right? Wrong again.

My manager who has been walking around with a big ol' boner at the prospect of our data center supporting the world is beginning to write checks that his staff won't be able to cash. We have been having three meetings a week trying to figger out how to give the Germans exactly what they want for $1.5 million. Fortunately my manager has not been in most of them. My team lead, who wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful, has been trying very patiently to explain why we can't duplicate and support the identical environment that the Germans use for $1.5 million because we couldn't support the additional hardware and staffing. My manager pissed off my team lead a few weeks ago when we were talking about staffing the project when he bragged about laying off 50% of our overall support team and still was able to deliver support. Asshole! He bragged about laying people off! Un-fricking-believable!

I took off early on Friday and about 4:00 PM, I was taking a nap when my phone rang. I ignored it. My answering machine doesn't have a greeting on it anymore. I don't know why it quit working but I just left it that way. My friends know to leave a message, but half the telemarketers who call think it's out of order and hangup. As we say in the progamming world, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Whoever was on the phone hung up. A minute later, my cell phone rang. It was my manager, the project manager, and my team lead.

I am usually grouchy when awakened. My manager said, "Explain to me why we cannot bring this particular portion of their environment across and run it on our machines." I have explained this to him many times already, but he only hears what he wants to hear. So, in frustration, I asked him, "Why are we performing this exercise? The Germans have already told us they will only pay $1.5 million. We have no competition. The only other organization that can support their environment will charge $2.5 million. Call the Germans' bluff."

Well that did it. Out came the managerize bullshit: You don't understand the big picture. You are not a team player. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah. Arrrggghhh!

Yeah. What I don't understand is why we are letting Hans jerk us around, and while we are expending energy on trying to expand my boss's empire, we are letting our existing users suffer. When I asked him what we were gonna do about that, the shit really hit the fan. He blamed me for our users' complaints because I had told them about the German project. I explained that I hadn't, but the project manager had in discussing how we were holding off on updating our infrastructure until we found out if the German project was a go.

So I got another bullshit lecture. Fortunately, my team lead has heard me explain the problem that this particular environment in its existing form was not supportable (It runs on obsolete hardware and the operating system is off support) and he was able to successfully explain this to my manager. We will actually give them a better environment.

So I'm in my manager's shit house. I've been on his shit list for two years for calling one of our users incompetent, which he was as he was fired about two months after that incident. Fortunately, my boss is off Monday and Tuesday, so I won't have to see him again until Wednesday. On the biright side I can retire anytime I want, but with the stock market down, I'm not sure if I can live off my pension and my investments.

So this week oughta be interesting. By the way, France sucks.

France Surrenders to Itself

I have created a new category called French Bashing. The next few days I will be going back and finding my posts related to that category and add 'em to it.

Steven Den Beste is probably one of the most intelligent and best writers in the Blogosphere. Also, I have written him on occasion and he has always taken the time to respond which also makes him a great guy in my book. He even published one of my letters and commented on it. We share many views altho' I am a bit more conservative or libertarian (with a small l) than he is. Thus, even tho' I'm not one to gloat (yeah. That'll be the day), I'm glad to see that one of his latest posts agrees with an e-mail I sent to him a while back:

In regards to France being against the war, possibly it is because of their large Muslim population and the fear of riots and terrorism. Chirac has to know that we are going to war no matter what France says. Maybe he thinks that if he opposes the war, the Muslims will not riot. I think I read somewhere that Muslims make up 20% of the population.

His reply that if that were the case, the French would be stationing soldiers and police around the Muslim neighborhoods in anticipation of that made sense at the time. Being an engineer, he was basing his opinion on facts in evidence at the time. Little did he realize that not only were the French good at surrendering to other nations, they were even better at surrendering to their own citizens.

I think I'm older than Den Beste and have been observing the French and their backstabbing duplicity much longer than he has. I remember growing up in the 50's and asking my father why the French hated us so much. His reply was that it was human nature to hate someone to whom you owe a lot. After all, we saved their asses in two world wars (three counting the Cold War). Yeah. Yeah. I know, they helped us out in the Revolutionary War but that was more to hinder England that it was to help us, but we were grateful. And we were a damn sight more grateful to them than they have ever been to us. We paid our debt in WWI and our soldiers said when entering WWI, 'Lafayette, we are here!'

We had many brave young Americans die on the beaches of Normandy to free France from Germany. And we spent a lot of money rebuilding France after WWII. We also rebuilt Germany. Has there ever been a country in the history of this planet that has spent so much money rebuilding the economies of defeated enemies? And these were economies that would later compete with us.

And of course,, that trend continues. While we were waging war in Afghanistan, we were dropping food to the citizens. Right behind our troops in Iraq were aid trucks with food and water.

But back to France. France is like an old whore who time has passed by. She likes to think that if she puts on enough makeup and foundation garments and the room is dark, she can still be successful. But all the makeup and girdles cannot hide the fact that she is an old washed up whore.

As Den Beste points out

Since the American revolution, France has been convulsed by political unrest and has gone through several kings and two emperors, not to mention five republics and two periods of foreign military occupation (or three or four, depending on how you count).

Hey Matthew, if you're still around, do you understand now why we Americans hate being lectured to by the French? Your last years of glory were in the 19th Century. France has been putting on makeup and trying to convince the world that she is still beautiful but everyone knows that France is a washed up old whore that will sell herself to anyone for anything as long as the price is right.

The economy sucks. Business is shackled by gummint mandates. More Den Beste:

So, for instance, it's nearly impossible under French labor law to lay employees off during an economic downturn. The theory behind this was that it would lead to a larger workforce. The reality is that it forces businessmen to tune their hiring for the worst economic conditions they might face instead of the best ones, and thus they don't aggressively hire during booms for fear of being stuck with excess employees during a bust.

The French economy is nearly stagnant. Most of the job creation during the last 25 years has been in government employment, not in the private sector. Taxes are too high and the regulatory burden too great; entrepreneurs are being given no incentive to create jobs, and as a result they aren't doing it.

The French gummint's response was to mandate a 35 hour (or was it 32 hour?)work week hoping that would make companies hire more workers.

Listen to me carefully. Socialism has eventually failed everywhere it has been tried.

France is now trying to accomplish politically via the European Union, what it failed to do militarily during the 19th Century. What the rest of Europe fails to realize (Listen up Tony Blair) is if France does come to dominate the European Union, it will take all of Europe down the drain with it.

Back during the Cold War, the United States was in favor of the EU because a European super state would have been a good defense against the Soviet Union and would have also been a good European counterweight to the Soviets. Now, however, with the growing socialism in Europe, the EU has a real good chance of being another Soviet Union but without a military. The bad thing is France does have nuclear weapons and a radical Islamic state with nukes is a nightmare.

Maybe all this talk about invading France next wouldn't be a bad idea.

Hey Brian, I just did a whole post without once saying fuck.

Bush Can't Swim

I heard a joke the other day. It seems that Bush and the Pope were in a boat when the Pope's hat flew off. One of the secret service agents was getting ready to dive into the water to retrieve the hat when Bush stopped him. Bush calmly got out of the boat, walked on the water and retrieved the Pope's hat. The Pope was inpressed. The next day's headline in the (insert favorite liberal newspaper name here) was Bush Can't Swim

OK why is this joke relevant? On the front page of Thursday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation was the headline War costs rocket and right below that was $20 billion and counting for U.S. Here is the article.

Washington --- The United States has spent about $20 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, and probably will spend about $2 billion a month more in Iraq through much of 2003, a top Pentagon official said Wednesday.

OK I admit it. I'm confused. Here's a war that leftists like Nancy Pelosi claim will cost $100 billion and we did it for $20 billion down and $2 billion a month and this is bad news? Someone help me out here.

Not included in the estimate, according to analysts, are the costs of bringing U.S. troops home.

Which will actually decrease the $2 billion a month cost. I mean, Bush asked Congress for $70 to $80 billion to fight the war and we did it for $20 billion which is less than Nancy Pelosi's $100 billion and this is War costs rocket?

After that ominous start, the article actually does go positive. And

Bush called for an end to U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq, imposed after the country's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Administration officials said the United States would submit a U.N. resolution to that effect.

France is against removing the sanctions because Iraq may have weapons of mass destruction although France was originally against the sanctions because France didn't think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Hello!

And, oh yeah, let's get the UN on board. That's all we need.

The Pentagon said the U.S. military death toll rose to 125 --- 107 of those from hostile action. Three people were listed as missing, and 495 as wounded in action.

Where were the thousands of Americans that were supposed to be killed, especially the ones in the street to street urban warfare in Baghdad?

In a separate search, troops discovered what they described as an extensive terrorist training camp south of Baghdad that had been recently abandoned. The compound included 20 buildings on 25 acres and was operated by the Palestine Liberation Front and the Iraqi government, officials said.

But I thought Iraq had no connection to terrorism. First that terrorist camp in northern Iraq and now this? This is Tom Dasshole's and Nancy Pelosi's worst nightmare. But that's all right. Our massive carpet bombing of Iraq must have surely killed over one million innocent Iraqi citizens.

It's a shame that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have lost their freedom of speech, or they would be telling us all about 'em.

Where's Cynthia?

So where has Cynthia McKinney been hiding? Phil sent me this picture:

This was created by those wonderful folks at StrangeCosmos.com.

Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe

Awright! I'm back! I mentioned I had the blahs last night. These were a result of having to write checks to the federal and state gummints for my taxes that both gummints are gonna waste anyway. And to you fucking anti-war assholes who want to withhold the portion of your taxes that go to the military, can I withhold the portion of my taxes that go to West Virginia? Can I withhold the portion of my taxes that supports a crack whore who only knows how to download babies that she wants me to support? Can I withhold the portion of my taxes that go to the Department if Education whose only claim to fame is desroying the public school system?

And besides having to pay my taxes, I have a big Visa bill as a result of Doofus' medical expenses. So, I couldn't afford to buy a gun for the April 15th Buy a Gun Day. Dammit! I'm really pissed about that.

But here's sumpin' that really pisses me off.

A Southwest Airlines flight attendant's use of a popular children's rhyme - "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe" - has resulted in a federal racial discrimination lawsuit against the airline filed by two African American women asking for unspecified financial damages.

Huh? What's this all about?

One of the two women suing over the allegedly offensive nursery rhyme claims hearing the rhyme caused her to be bedridden for three days and suffer from "unexplained memory gaps," according to court documents.

Yeah. The unexplained memory gaps are a result of one of her two functioning brain cells being unable to communicate with the other functioning brain cell. Let's read on.

Southwest Airline passengers Louise Sawyer and Grace Fuller allege they suffered racial discrimination on the flight in February 2001 when flight attendant Jennifer Cundiff said over the plane's intercom, "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe; pick a seat, we gotta go." The two women say they were the only passengers standing in the aisle at the time.

OK. I actually know why they think they were offended. But I'm in my fifties. Let's have a show of hands of anyone under the age of forty who has the slightest idea of what these thin skinned idiots are bitching about. Anyone? No? OK let's read on.

Sawyer and Fuller said that as soon as they heard the rhyme, they were reminded of the racist version that starts with the phrase: "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe; catch a n***** by his toe ..."

So, naturally, the flight attendant is a racist. Calling Jesse Jackson. Calling Al Sharpton. Where the fuck is Johnny Cochran? Jesus H. Christ! This is as bad as the Washington DC city council accusing the guy who carped about the niggardly budget as racist. Will you people get a fucking life?

A more modern version of the nursery rhyme substitutes the offensive phrase with the words, "Catch a tiger by the toe." The rhyme is traditionally used by children to pick someone who will be "it." According to at least one word and phrase historian, the original rhyme using the n-word dates back to about the mid-19th century.

Yeah, and I heard both of them, but if I were to have recited 'catch a nigger (Holy shit! I'm in big trouble now. I wrote nigger. That's all right. I'll just claim to be a Dimocrat. Then I can use any racial slur I want.) by his toe' my parents or any of my teachers would have knocked me into the middle of next week. Back when I went to school, teachers were allowed to discipline students and they did.

Anyway, here we have an example of people just looking to be offended. This just pisses me off. Oh yeah, I know it's all about slavery™ and the 400 Hundred Years of Oppression™ bullshit. Can't y'all just give it a rest? Do you not realize just how stupid it makes you look? Guess not.

Sawyer and Fuller, who are sisters, had also originally alleged physical and emotional distress as a result of the nursery rhyme but earlier this year, Judge Vratil dismissed that aspect of the lawsuit, narrowing the complaint to the issue of discrimination.

Ok Listen to me closely. Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. Especially when no one has even called you a fucking name!

"The court agrees with the plaintiffs that because of its history, the phrase 'eenie, meenie, minie, moe' could reasonably be viewed as objectively racist and offensive," Vratil stated in court papers. "The jury, however, must decide whether Cundiff's remark was racist or simply a benign and innocent attempt at humor."

Or if these two incredibly thin skinned and stupid women are fucking idiots! I know how I'd vote. This is one jury I would love to be on.

Cundiff, who is white, disputes that Sawyer and Fuller were the only ones standing on the crowded flight. Cundiff said she had been using the rhyme on several different flights as a humorous way to get passengers to sit. Southwest Airlines employees are known for their folksy manner and casual atmosphere.

And in an earlier statement said she had never heard the other form of the nursery rhyme.

Scott A. Wissel, the Kansas City, Mo., attorney representing Sawyer and Fuller, declined to comment for this article.

Probably because he realized just how incredibly frivolous this lawsuit is. He's probably practicing keeping a straight face while litigating.

But according to court documents, Sawyer said she was "infuriated by the [nursery rhyme] comment" and said fellow passengers giggled after it was said, making her feel alienated.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They probably realized you were a fucking idiot. But, wait. It gets better.

Fuller believes Cundiff intentionally singled out her and her sister. "It was like I was too dumb to find a seat," Fuller complained in the court papers.

I don't make this shit up folks.

Fuller, who has epilepsy, said she was so unnerved by the nursery rhyme that her hands trembled during the trip and she has experienced "unexplained memory gaps" about the flight ever since.

The two functioning brain cells not being able to communicate.

Fuller also maintains that the nursery rhyme incident caused her to be bedridden for three days because she suffered a "grand mal seizure." However, Fuller said she could not medically verify the incident because as a result of lacking health insurance, she did not seek medical help for the seizure.

Is this great or what? Now she can also blame the gummint for not providing health care.

Cundiff wrote a report about the incident as part of a Southwest Airlines' internal investigation.

"The statement I made on Flight 524 was not racist or discriminating, and I am offended that because I have white skin, suddenly I am a racist," Cundiff wrote. "Maybe those that run around pointing fingers yelling racist should stop and turn that finger around."

Oh no! It sounds like this person needs to go to Diversity Training. Doesn't she know that only white people can be racists? Look out Southwest Airlines! You're gonna be hearing from Jesse Jackson.

Southwest agreed with Cundiff and does not believe the phrase was racist or that she acted inappropriately. Even though Southwest did not ask her to stop saying the rhyme, Cundiff said she stopped because of the controversy.

Did not believe the phrase was racist? Oh man, you guys are gonna be in deep shit now. Jesse's gonna be all over you.

Wissel said he is trying to get the courts to prohibit Southwest Airlines employees from using the nursery rhyme and force the airline to provide employee training to prevent future racial controversies.

See. What did I tell ya? Here comes Diversity Awareness Training.

If I were the judge in this case I would say to the plaintiffs,"Eenie, meenie, mine, moe, get your worthless asses out the do'".

And I would say it with a straight face.

Got the Blahs

For once, I don't have anything to write. At least nothing of any interest. And my own personal troll, Matthew, seens to have taken the day off. I wish I had a copy of the Book of Lists, because supposedly on page 49 it says that France has the lowest per capita use of soap of any developed country. Who'd a thunk it?

A while back I posted a picture of a helicopter in a rear view mirror. It came from here.

Remember Heywood Jablome? I said that he fooled lots of people and his name actually got by some editors. Well the folks at Palmetto Journal have a link to this guy who links to an article in the Post and Courier in Charleston, SC. An excerpt:

Throughout the morning, law enforcement officers stood on the perimeter of the five-acre field. At no point did the protest turn violent, though officers escorted Heywood Jablome away after he held up a sign directly in front of Burk that read "Make me dinner" before shouting "Oprah rules."

Wyethwire continues the story:

The arresting officer was Aiken County Sheriff candidate Mike Hunt. Jablome, no doubt, will be represented at trial by attorney Dick Hertz, of the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I just love the Blogosphere.

I got the following e-mail the other day. This oughta piss off a bunch of people.

Ya know, I was thinking about something. All this bitching and whining you
hear about 'humiliating' the Arabs. They whine, cry, carp and bitch about
how they are being humiliated by the west. First of all, they humiliate
themselves. They dress like freaks, refuse to do any kind of real work, and
treat each other like crap. Their whole way of life is a humiliation. I
wouldn't put one of those outfits on a dog! By the way, they don't like
dogs, and that is another reason they are worthless slime, but I will save
that for another day.

We try to be sensitive. We try to be concerned about their fragile egos.
Well, I for one am tired of it. They want to bitch about humiliation, let's
tell them how it REALLY is. Let's give them reason to be humiliated.

First of all, all of you Arabs and Islamists out there, forget about
competing with us. The US is one bad mutha! We are Shaft, James Bond, and
Dick the Bruiser all rolled into one. We took on the Iraqi army, plus
mujahadin from all over the world, and went through them like a hot knife
going through butter. Actually, it was more like a hot knife going through
air. It is unreal how easy it was. Especially when you consider this.

We didn't just fight Iraq. We didn't just fight the visiting towelheads.
We took on Allah!

We were assured, over and over, by good, loyal Muslims that big bad Allah
was going to weigh in on this one, and that the US stood no chance, because
Allah would step in and kill us all. We were going to be drowned, murdered,
defeated, and sent home with either our tail between our legs or in body
bags.

Guess what? We kicked Allah'ss ass! Allah is a punk! A bitch! A bunch of
basically 19-25 year old guys, AND GIRLS! GIRLS! Got that, GIRLS! kicked
the holy crap out of one of the most sophisticated armies the Arab world
could muster, with the support of the entire Arab population, and the help
of Allah!! Now, I understand why they say "peace be upon him" after they
say his name. Cuz he SUCKS at war. If you plan on fighting with us big
dogs, you really may want to consider finding a new god to count on. Last I
heard, Huitzilopostle was available, but he got his ass kicked by a couple
hundred Spaniards last time out. He's had some time to rest up though, who
knows. One thing is for sure. Allah didn't help a damn bit. I mean, even
the FRENCH held out against the Nazi's longer than you did against us. The
French laste 40 days or so, and the best you AND ALLAH could do was 3 weeks!
Jeez! Lucky for you we just used nintendo players on you. Had we broken
out OUR god, you would have been toast. Our god don't play. We ain't got
no sissy-god like you guys have. Our god's de MAN!

I mean, to an Islamist, a successful military operation is when you kill a
couple of schoolchildren while blowing yourself up. What a bunch of losers!
If this is the best you and Allah can do, you really may want to consider
pacifism. You are to war what Andy Kaufman was to pro wrestling.

You fight like a bunch of whiny little girls. It is ridiculous. The next
time one of your crappy little countries acts up, howz about we send a troop
of boy scouts to put you in your place. After all, it isn't like we have to
worry that you are going to have any sort of..... I dont know... effective
divine intervention or anything.

Now, do us all a favor. Go get on your sheets, mount a camel, ....Uhh..
hang on. Let me rephrase that. Get on a camel, and ride around so some
western tourists can get your picture. When you are done, go eat some
hummus and pray to Allah that we don't ever really WANT your damned oil.
The day we want it is the day we ride into town and TAKE IT! Got that?!
Take it!

Dave
The Dave Francis Show
Radio Roks 102 FM St. Petersburg, Russia
WWW.Francisnet.com


Hey all you assholes at CAIR, Fuck off!

Tax Time

As it write this it is April 15. Whoever said that April is the cruelest month was correct because that is when my taxes are due.

Every year at this time, Neal Boortz, our local Libertarian talk show host asks his listeners to ask two questions of their friends and/or co-workers:

1. How much tax did you pay?

2. How much money do you make?

The most common answer to question 1 is, "I didn't pay anything. I got money back." The most common answer to question 2 is, "I take home xxx amount of dollars." And so goes the success of gummint education in this country.

I'm going off on a tangent here. Have y'all been watching the Centcom briefing done by Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks? Since he''s black, I'm sure the liberals think he is an Uncle Tom or is the result of affirmative action. From the Q & A from Tuesday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation.

Brooks, 44, was born to an Army family in Anchorage, Alaska, and led an itinerant Army life.

As a career soldier, he has been posted in Panama, Europe, Korea, the Middle East and Kosovo. Promoted to brigadier general in 2002, he was handpicked by Gen. Tommy Franks to be the face of the U.S. military in Iraq.

Jesuit High School huh? I'll tell ya, even though I'm an atheist, if I had children I would want them educated by Jesuits.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Take a close look at your tax form. Rachel Lucas was bitching about the tax forms yesterday and blaming the IRS. As much as I hate the IRS, and I have my own horror story about that, the state of the tax form is not the fault of the IRS. It is the fault of the Congress and our insane tax code. Our politicians keep promising to reform our tax system and all they ever do is make it worse and shovel more money off to West Virginia in the ongoing project of naming every bridge, road, building, and parking lot after
Robert Byrd. Even the IRS doesn't understand the tax code. How bad is that?

Now, how much tax did you actually pay? OK. Take your state and federal tax returns. Don't look at how much you owe or get back, look at the actual amount that you paid. That is line 61 on the 1040 tax form. Now look at your state tax return. Look at the total amount of your state tax. For those of you from Georgia, it's line 18 on the 500 form. Now, look at your W2 form and see how much FICA Medicare tax you paid. If you are unlucky enough to work in city that has a city earnings tax (I lived in St. Louis where it was 1 per cent) note that tax as well. Now add them all up. Next, look at your FICA OASDI tax on your W2 form. Double it. What? Why? Because, your employer has to match whatever you pay. The dirty dark secret that socialists Dimocrats do not want you to know is that business does not actually pay any taxes. All the taxes they pay are passed on to the consumer or worker. It's actually worse in Europe where they have sumpin' called the Value Added Tax. Ask someone like Rachel Lucas who is self-employed how much she has to pay for FICA OASDI. It ain't 7.15%, it's 15.3%. That extra 7.15% that business pays is actually money they could be paying you.

So, I just performed this exercise, and it turns out that I have to work one more month to earn enough income to pay last year's taxes.

Now, let's talk about withholding. It was started during WWII to increase tax revenue flow for the duration of the war. As with many gummint programs, once started it never ended. Once again, take a good look at your paycheck every month. Look at what you are paid and look at what you take home. It really is disgusting as to how much is withheld. Let's go back to Rachel Lucas. She is self employed. That means she actually gets paid everything that she earns. Then, she has to write checks to the gummint for her income taxes and FICA taxes. The gummint makes people in her situation pay estimated taxes quarterly. If you choose to write one check every year, as she does, you have to pay a fucking penalty! See, it's all right for the gummint to borrow money tax free from you via withholding, but you have to pay estimated taxes quarterly or they come after you. And, by the way, if there is a dispute, there is no due process. The gummint does not have to prove your guilt. You have to prove your innocence. They can seize your property and you have to go to court to get it back. Is this right?

I haven't even talked about sales taxes, gas taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, ad valorem taxes, or any of the other sneaky ways gummint has of getting their hands on our money. I guess it could be worse. France and Germany both have even higher taxes than we have. Of course, that's one of the reasons their economies are in far worse shape than ours.

Hey Matthew, how's the unnemployment rate in France? I guess if we had higher taxes, we wouldn't have 10% of our population starving. I just wish those immaciated bastards wouldn't pass out in front of my house. I've complained to the Homeowners' Association about that, but they said they would have to raise the fees to cart off the dead bodies.

Bastards!

Heywood Jablome

Dammit! Still waiting on updates. My federal is all done, but I'm missing a form which is why I have to download the updates. If only our tax code wasn't so fucking complicated. More on that tomorrow night.

Anyway, as I was driving in to work this morning I came across one of the morning shows who had sent someone to Augusta to protest Martha Burk's protest. Go here.

You can listen to some of the sound bites. When the press interviewed him, he gave his name as Heywood Jablome (which he pronounced ja-blome and spelled for them). I'm sure you can guess what the correct pronunciation should be. According to Rick, the name, Heywood Jablome, actually got past a few editors and made some news web sites before it was corrected.

Freedom From Speech

I'm waiting for TurboTax to download some updates and cruising around and I came upon this gem by Craig over at mtpolitics. Go ye forth and check it out.

A Letter

I have to finish my taxes tonight so I don't have time to write anything. Instead, I will post a letter forwarded to me by a friend. I don't know if this is a real letter or if the person who wrote it was real, but I agree with the sentiments.

After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and injured
1,000; President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted
down and punished.

After the 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed five U.S. military
personnel; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down
and punished.

After the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19
and injured 200 U.S. military personnel; Clinton promised that those
responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 and
injured 5,000;  Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted
down and punished.

After the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 and injured 39
U.S. sailors; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted
down and punished.

Maybe if Clinton had kept his promise, an estimated 3,000 people in New
York and Washington, D.C. that are now dead would be alive today.

And, now that Bush is taking action to bring these people to justice, we
have opponents charging him with being a war monger...

  AN INTERESTING QUESTION:

This question was raised on a Philly radio call-in show. Without
casting stones, it is a legitimate question.

There are two men, both extremely wealthy. One develops relatively cheap
software and gives billions of dollars to charity.  The other sponsors
terrorism.  That being the case, why was it that the Clinton
Administration spent more money chasing down Bill Gates over the past
eight years than Osama bin Laden?

THINK ABOUT IT!

It is a strange turn of events.  Hillary gets $8 Million for her
forthcoming memoir.  Bill gets about $12 Million for his memoir yet to
be written.
This from two people who have spent the past 8 years being unable to
recall anything about past events while under oath!

Sincerely,
Cmdr Hamilton McWhorter
USN(ret)

P. S. Please forward this to as many people as you can!
We don't want this woman to even THINK of running for President.

  Remember:
  The Alamo
  Pearl Harbor
  9-11-01
  The Clinton Years
  All Truly American Disasters!!!

The American Empire

What an incredibly beautiful weekend we had here in Beautiful Dunwoody. It rained the entire time my sister was here, so I only got one of my outdoor projects done while they were here. I was hoping to get lots of weeding done and plant some more bushes. Alas, it wasn't in the cards. So after they left, the weather turned beautiful. Today I weeded the Great Berm of Dunwoody. I was also able to plant some more creeping phlox and scatter six bales of pine straw.

As I was working, I got to thinking about our new budddy Matthew. Matthew thinks there is an American Empire. For example, he thinks that we have conquered Canada and Mexico. Here are his exact words:

America has already conquered Canada and Mexico, it's called NAFTA and the FTAA.

I'm sure Mexico and Canada would be surprised to hear about that. It's too bad we couldn't get them to help us in the UN. But he's not done.

It's been established that the coup against Hugo Chavez is linked to Bush, so I guess the American government has already tried to take over Venezuela as well.

And we have space aliens at Area 51 in Roswell.

Since Matthew is so fond of giving us definitions, I looked up empire in the dictionary. An empire is a nation having sovereign power over a group of nations.

So, let's look at some of our provinces. Let's see, there's Canada. Dammit! Why are we paying for their oil? Let's just take it. What about Mexico? Same thing.

I'm sure Puerto Rico is also an example. Puerto Rico holds periodic elections to decide whether it wants statehood, independence, or to remain a US possession. I guess we rig the elections. Since Puerto Rico has no oil, why do we even bother with it?

He also states that we're an empire because we have troops stationed in other countries. Didn't see that definition anywhere, but let's address that.

In WWII, we kicked the Germans out of Matthew's country, France, (You're welcome), so I guess you could say we 'conquered' France. Any troops stationed there? We were asked to leave. We did. We're really fucking up this empire bullshit.

We do have troops in Germany, which we 'conquered' in WWII. I guess Germany must be another one of our provinces. Now if we were a half-assed decent empire, dontcha think we would be making the Germans pay for our troops? And why was Herr Schroeder against us? Jesus, we can't even install decent puppet rulers in our provinces. Dumb Americans. We don't do anything right.

What about the Philippines? We used to own them. We gave them their independence. And a few years ago they asked us to vacate the Subic Bay Naval Station. Guess what? We did.

How about our province of Japan? We have troops stationed there. We're not charging the Japanese anything for those troops. And we run a balance of trade deficit with them. Not a very well managed empire. The damn provinces are supposed to pay for themselves and they ain't doing it.

Now, let's talk about the Middle East. I won't even ask the obvious question about what would France do if someone flew a Concorde into the Eiffel Tower because everyone knows that they would try to find someone to surrender to.

Contrary to what we have been telling y'all, we did not go into Iraq for WMD's. That was just an excuse. We went in because it is a state that sponsors terrorism. The prime example is paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers $25K. I'm sure we will find that Iraq sponsored other forms of terrorism.

By taking down Iraq, we have made the other Middle East states realize that we are tired of being fucked with. If you kill Americans we will get pissed off and we will respond. And Matthew, I do believe an American life is worth more than an Arab life. We don't brainwash our children to grow up and strap on explosive belts and blow up women and children. They are evil. They are depraved. They are fucking cowards.

We will do the same thing in this war that we have done in our other wars. We will rebuild Iraq, just like we rebuilt France (You're welcome. The Marshall Plan was paid for by American taxpayers. By the way, where is the money you owe us from WWII you ungrateful assholes?) and Germany. We will try to leave Iraq a better place than we found it. Maybe an Arab country will not be able to have a democratic form of gummint. Yeah, I know, I said a democratic form of gummint. In this context, I mean self rule. And, then we'll go home. Before that, we may have to have a little talk with Syria and Iran. We may have to clean up the entire Middle East. Why us? Because we're the only counrty with the power to do it. We're the only country willing to do it.

And, if we succeed, we'll pack up and go home.

There will be no American Empire.

Captain Steve's Wish List

If y'all haven't been reading Captain Steve's From The Sandbox at Kim du Toit's site, go there immediately and read this entry. This is what he wants from the American people:

• Let us return to a nation that respects the near-sacred duty of selecting its representatives, and doesn't sell its votes for others' property.
• Let it be a place where courts evaluate laws in light of the Constitution, instead of vice versa.
• When we return with the coffins of our friends, let it be to a land that knows about George Washington, and where teachers understand that a child's self esteem is proportional to his self-discipline.
• Let our homecoming be to a healthy republic, maintained, as Jefferson said, by a "virtuous, educated" populace.
• Let us come back to a government that does not deny the existence of the God its founders worshipped openly.
• Let us return to a nation that does not squander what we will have bought so dearly, that does not turn over what we have won with our blood to the United Nations and agents of hostile governments.
• Let us be honored not with parades and speeches, but with policies that reward those who helped us and punish those who made our mission more dangerous.
• Let us return to a nation whose State Department honors the principles we risk our lives for.
• Let us return to citizens who recognize that they are responsible for their own government.

Do you hear that Howard Dean, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton? Do you think you could just shut the fuck up, Bill Clinton?
How about you, Tom Daschle? And, Janeane Garofolo, when are you gonna "go to the White House on my knees on cut glass and say, hey, you were right, I shouldn’t have doubted you?" And Martin Sheen and Mike Farrell and the rest of you fucking socialists in Hollywood, when do you think you will quit blaming America for all the problems in the world? What do you assholes have to say about the Iraqis tearing down the statue of Saddam Hussein and welcoming the American troops?

Thanks Captain Steve. Us real Americans in flyover country are behind you 100%. As I watched the Iraqis tear down the statue of Saddam Hussein, I was proud to be an American. And I am extra proud of Americans like you, PFC Lynch, Air Force Captain Kim Campbell, and all the other grunts, squids, jarheads, and airedales who have made this war an historic success. Bless you all!

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Dammit! I thought the title of this blog was a quotation from Disraeli. I googled it and found a bunch of references to the West Wing. I went to Bartlett's and searched and had no luck. I'm sure one of my erudite readers will find the source and enlighten me.

My sister and her husband have moved on to Westville, South Carolina, where they will be attending a family reunion. They will leave their pickup truck there and fly back to California. They have sold their house, so they will be transporting another car east in June and will stop by then. They will be living at my brother-in-law's mother's home in Westville until they can find or build a house in Asheville, North Carolina. So, if it weren't for Toren Smith and Bill Quick, it wouldn't bother me too much if the big one hit and dropped California in the ocean. Good riddance to Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein.

As you can tell, now that my sister has left, I can now get on my computer for an extended period, and I'm fixin' to revert back to my grouchy old self.

Matthew and I have been trading comments about the war and other topics. I realize he is French and, is therefore suffering from an inferiority complex because France ceased to be a world power after the Vichy gummint welcomed the Germans into France. Ever since, from Charles De Gaulle to Jerque Sheetrock, they have been trying to become a world power with no success. Now, it seems they have picked the losing side in the war with Iraq, and are now demanding to have a say in the reconstruction. Too bad. Y'all lose. Fuck off!

In his last comment, Matthew was actually polite so I won't call him an idiot. I will try to explain to him exactly why he is wrong.

He said The question still remains, is America the best candidate for setting up a successful democracy in Iraq? Does America even have what could be considered a successful democracy?

Nope. America does not have a democracy. America has a constitutional republic. Our founders planned it that way. A democracy is two wolves and a chicken voting for what is for dinner. Democracy is mob rule. We do hope we can set up some form of representational gummint.

He then puts out some voting statistics about why America is unqualified to set up a gummint in Iraq.

Here's a comparison to voter turnout elsewhere in the world:

Italy : 92.5
New Zealand: 86.2
Uzbekistan: 86.2
Netherlands: 84.8
Australia: 84.4
Portugal: 82.4
Germany: 80.6
Spain: 77.0
United Kingdom: 74.9
Turkey: 73.5
Venezuela: 72.2
India: 60.7
Syria: 58.0
Russia: 55.0
United States: 48.3
Thailand: 47.4
Zambia: 40.5

I agree that our voter turnout is low, but what does that have to do with us setting up a gummint in Iraq? One of the reasons we have low voter turnout is, unlike most of the western industrialized nations, our election day is not a holiday.

Now it's on to hunger. Matthew stated that 33 million people in the United States (over 10% of the population!) suffered from hunger and, by golly, he had the statistics to back it up. Since he accused me of pulling statistics out of my ass, I asked him what methodology was used to come up with those figures. He was nice enough to give me the link to his source.

What is food security?
Food security for a household means access by all members at all times (emphasis mine) to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).

OK. That's food security. Let's look at two questions on the survey.

In the last 12 months, did you ever not eat for a whole day because there wasn't enough money for food?

When I was in the Navy, in 1965, and I was married, I could answer yes to this question. Did that mean I would have been one of the 33 million?

In the last 12 months, did any of the children ever skip a meal because there wasn't enough money for food?

Look closely. This is one day out of 365. Anyone reading this want to say they have fallen into this category and yet, were surprised to find that the Department of Agriculture thought that they were starving?

Notice that every question specifies the time period (last 12 months) and specifies lack of resources as the reason for the behavior.

Ooops! Ran out of money. Looks like it's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches until payday.

I want to thank Matthew for providing the link to the survey and I suggest that my readers go out and look at it and the methodology used to determine our 'hunger crisis'.

Yep. We got people dropping like flies due to starvation in this country. And, still, we have people who are doing everything in their power to get in to the United States. I guess all those people must be fucking idiots.

By the way Matthew, what did you think of the Iraqi people tearing down the statue of Saddam Hussein?

I bet they were glad that we liberated them. And guess what they did to the German embassy and the French cultural center?

So Matthew, do you want your crow baked, grilled or fried?

Osama Swing Set

My sister is still here and we're having company for dinner so it's just another picture again courtesy of Ralph Gizzip. I also want to thank Matthew for sending me to the site that refutes his argument about hunger in America. I will write about that and also why we are not a very good empire next week.

So tonight we have the Osama bin Laden swing set.

Oh, and to my sis' neighbor, I'm making my sister bake an apple pie tonight. As you know, she does make the best apple pie in the world.

Jihad This

I know. I know. I'm not writing stuff. I've got company and have to spend time with 'em. So I'm just posting another picture coutesy of Ralph Gizzip.

Click on picture for larger image.

Humanitarian Aid

Now that we've almost won the war, it's time to send some humanitarian aid to the last holdouts.

Sent to me by Ralph Gizzip. And Matthew, I think Iraq needs some human shields. You are definitely qualified for that job.

Confused Protestors

Posted withou comment.

Thanks to Ralph Gizzip.

Name That Cat

I would like to thank everyone who wrote me and posted in the comments offering condolences over my loss of Doofus. To many of us, a pet is a beloved member of the family.

Yesterday afternoon, Cindy and I went to the DeKalb Humane Society (With one exception, all my cats but two have either been strays or Humane Society. Ashley was a research cat. ) so I could give another kitty a good home. Here is the kitty I picked out.

He's about one year old and reminds me a little of a black cat I had about six years ago named Oscar. I have not given him a name yet. I gave Ashley her name because she is a Beautiful Dunwoody princess. I'm thinking of giving this guy a Dunwoody name, but I haven't come up with a suitable one. Usually, my cats do sumpin' that suggests a name. I had one cat, Tiffany, a full week before I named her.

When we got him home and let him out of the cat carrier, he immediately disappeared. We searched high and low with no luck. This went on for about 45 minutes. Finally, I noticed that Ashley was looking at the wall unit in the great room. On a hunch, I looked closely at the television and there, behind the television I saw one green eye looking out at me. Aha! Found you.

I had Cindy and her husband Michael over for dinner, and the nameless one was all over Michael. And, today he has followed me around the house. At first, he was a bit frightened by my wheelchair, but he's getting over that.

Ashley keeps trying to make friends with him, but he growls and hisses when she gets too close. Doofus did that when I brought Ashley home, but Ashley is a very persistant cat and I'm sure she will break down his defenses.

My sister is arriving tomorrow for a five day stay and I'm sure she'll suggest some names for the nameless one.

Not sure how much posting I'll do for the next few days. In the meantime, here is a picture sent to me by many readers demonstrating the Navy's new Terrorist Catch and Release Program.

Goodbye to a Friend

How does one say goodbye to a four legged friend? How does one decide when it is time to say goodbye?

I first met Doofus almost 15 years ago when he was a little kitten. He and his brother, who was also black used to come into my yard. Doofus was the friendly one. His brother was shy. I never found out where they came from.

In September of that year, 1988, I broke my back and I was in the hospital and rehab for over two months. When I came home, it was winter so I never saw Doofus and his brother the rest of that year.

Come Spring, when I was going outside, I saw Doofus again. He was now a big cat (If it were really Doofus, and I think it was.). Since I had a cat door, he started coming inside to see me. I had two other cats at that time, but Doofus was just such a friendly cat, he let them push him around. It soon was understood that he would live with me, so it was off to the vet to get neutered.

My friend Cindy, always called Doofus the Golden Retriever of housecats since he would always come down the driveway to meet her when she would come to see me. He would always like to jump up on my friend Wahoo's lap (Wahoo didn't particularly care for cats) and lay on Jeanella's (Wahoo's significant other) coat.

My house was next to a wooded area and Doofus liked to hang out in the woods. He was an excellent hunter and I'm sure that's how he fed himself until he adopted me. Often at around three in the morning I would hear him coming up the stairs meowing with his mouth full of some prize that he wanted to share with me. It could be a frog, or a mouse, or a lizard. If it moved, it was prey.

Almost five years ago, I moved from my old house in the northern suburbs of Atlanta to my current one in Beautiful Dunwoody. Doofus howled the whole time on the ride over. I waited a few days before letting him outside and the first few times he stuck around the house. Then, one day, he disappeared for a whole day. Cindy and her daughter Maureen spent a few hours looking around the neighborhood. They were building houses in this subdivision and they checked all of them. They even drove around nearby neighborhoods looking for him. I finally walked across the road outside my subdivision and walked by the woods calling his name. Soon I heard an answering meow. I guess he thought the woods were his old woods and if he went into them he could find our old house.

The road outside my subdivision is a rather busy one and, since Doofus was black, I could just imagine him getting hit one night crossing the road. From then on, he was an indoor cat.

For the first few weeks he was not very happy. Me neither. He meowed often during the night and I didn't get much sleep. But, after a while he adjusted.

Then, a few months later I got Ashley. He wasn't all that happy at first, but since Ashley is such a sweet cat, he let her live. Ashley loved Doofus. She loved to rub up against him and lick his face and head. When they played, he was always very gentle with her.

Last October, Doofus was diagnosed with diabetes. Since then, I have been feeding him (and Ashley too since she's a little porker) a special diet. I've also been giving him insulin shots. Ever since then, I've realized that Doofus was living on borrowed time and I would soon have to decide whether I was prolonging his life for him or for me.

For the last few months his kidneys have been failing. Last Sunday, he went into insulin shock, and after two days at the emergency hospital they told me that it might be time.

Cindy offered to take him to the vet for me, but I said I should really be there for him. This morning we took him. I did not use the cat carrier. I carried him on my lap on the drive over. At the vet's, I said goodbye, hugged and kissed him and he died very restfully in my arms.

I know it was the right thing to do but that doesn't help the grief I feel. He lived with me longer than any of my other cats. For 14 years he was a very good friend.

Why do they have to live such short lives?

I miss him terribly.

New Scud

Courtesy of Ralph Gizzip:

Breaking News--Kuwait. Iraq has launched a new type of Scud missile at the
Allied Forces deployed in Kuwait. Details are sketchy at this time, but it
appears to be a new and improved Scud type missile. The CIA is
investigating just how and from whom Saddam has acquired this new
technology.

Fisked

Well, by golly, I've been fisked by Mathew in the comments section of my We're Gonna Fail in Iraq post. Ironies abound. He takes my sis' neighbor to task for saying that someone else had to write the op-ed because no way Arabs could write that well. He then makes fun of my sis neighbor's sentence construction. Matthew, it just so happens that my sis' neighbor is Chinese and English is his second language. I think he writes very well. And, as I pointed out, one of the writers lives in Dawsonville Georgia and I suspect he has an excellent command of the language. But let's address some of your other points.

Just like Americans will use any pathetic excuse to kill Muslims in the Middle East.

First off, we are not told by our religious leaders to kill Muslims. The Muslims, on the other hand, are told by their religious leaders to kill Jews. Check out Little Green Footballs when he posts excerpts from sermons at Friday prayers. As for using any excuse to kill Muslims? What a crock of shit.

Iran, in violation of international law, took 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days. That was a pretty good reason to kill some Muslims. We didn't.

Back when Israel chased the Palestinians into Beirut in the 80's, it was the United States that called the Jews off and put Marines in to protect the Palestinians and let them escape. Hezbollah thanked us by blowing up the Marine barracks. I thought we should have gone into the Bekaa Valley and killed us a few Muslims. We didn't.

After the first WTC bombing we didn't go into the Middle East and kill us some Muslims. After the Khobar Towers bombing we didn't kill us any Muslims. After the embassy bombings we didn't kill us any Muslims. After the USS Cole we didn't kill us any Muslims. It wasn't until 9/11 that we said that enough was enough. We have been very restrained. And lest you forget, it was the Kuwaitis who invited us in, and the precious United Nations, that backed the first Gulf War.

Remember the Americans have been heavily involved in what goes on in the Arab world for the past 50 yrs. It is now impossible for any American to look at the Middle East without taking partial responsibility for the problems. That's what you get for having the CIA meddle in other people's business, you cannot claim innocence from the resulting problems.

GMAFB! What have the Arabs done with all their oil money. The rulers build palaces and live high while the ordinary people are ignored. Why haven't the Arabs done anything about the 'Palestinian problem'? Why do they leave the Palestinians in the squalor of the refugee camps? So they can piss off the Arab street and use the United States and Israel as scapegoats for their failures. If it weren't for the oil, the Arabs and the Iranians would be third world pissant countries. Wait a minute! Even with the oil, they are third world pissant countries. Nice try Matthew. Arab culture was a failure even before the creation of Israel and before the United States was involved in the Middle East.

Case in point, Reagan's man in the middle east Saddam Hussein. First we have Reagan arming Saddam and vetoing a bill that would put sanctions on Iraq for the gassing of the kurds, then we have Bush (another Repulican president) saying 15 years later Saddam has to be punished for the same incident.

You've been reading too much Robert Fisk. Reagan did arm Saddam Hussein but that was when he was fighting Iran. And, the gassing of the Kurds (BTW Kurds should be capitalized.) was deplorable. So was what Saddam did to the Shi'ites. We should have overthrown Saddam during Gulf War I, but it was the precious United Nations, and the Arabs who stopped us. When the Shi'ites in the south revolted we did nothing and watched as Saddam slaughtered them. That was a mistake. We are not making that mistake this time.

Are you suprised the people of Iraq don't want to "liberated" by a country with a schizophrenic foreign policy? Can the Repulicans find any consistency in where they stand? Someone should tell Bush that arriving 15 years late for a genocide doesn't gain you anyone's respect, in fact it makes your motives look very suspicious.

I will grant you the schizophrenic foreign policy, but that's what you get in a democracy. And remember, in that 15 years, we had 8 years of Bill Clinton. And, due to the other Arab nations in the coalition, we didn't overthrow Saddam back in Gulf War I when we should have. We are rectifying that mistake now. And maybe you should stop watching al-Jazerera and reading al-Guardian. As soon as Saddam's thugs leave a town, the people are very happy to see us.

Democracy is destined for failure in the middle east because it's being implemented in a violent imperialist way. It doesn't matter how good the democracy is at it's core, if you have to kill the people of iraq to implement it they will interpret it as another in a long line of attempts to control their their oil potential.

If democracy fails in the Middle East it will be because Arabs are incapable of it. Do you remember WWII. It seems to me we implemented democracy in Japan in a 'violent imperialistic way'. And it seems to be working in Japan. And as for imperialistic, show me the American Empire. We always pack up and go home.

The dictionary definition of democracy says "the commmon people, considered as the primary source of political power" & "The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community."

Something that we do not see in the Arab world in the way that women are treated as chattel. Check out some of our women like Jessica Lynch.

Is this what we are demonstrating to the common people of iraq right now when we bomb them? Can we say we consider the common people of iraq as the source of their own political power when we don't even give them the basic choice to say "no thanks" to a violent implementation of a so called democracy?

Iraq should be capitalized, Matthew. The common people in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein had no choice. As we always do, we will rebuild the country, turn the gummint over to the Iraqi people, and leave. I defy you to find any country in the history of this planet that after winning wars, rebuilt the countries they defeated and went home. We have and we will.

America was built by the English Empire, making it fall into the category of "countries that used to have "empire" attached to them."

So, because we were once part of the Engish Empire, that makes us an imperialist power? Huh? And, once again, show me the American Empire.

America wants Iraq for the oil, France wants Iraq for the oil, and Russia wants Iraq for the oil. What's the difference? France and Russia do business, America kills civilians in B-52 bombing raids.

It's all about oil!!!! If all we were interested in was oil, it would be far easier to conquer Canada, Mexico, or Venezuela. Why go all the way to Iraq? Matthew this is WWIV (WWIII was the Cold War). To root out terrorism, we need to defeat the countries that sponsor terrorism. And when all the facts are in, we will find out that American bombs killed fewer Iraqis that Saddam Hussein. If we were really interested in killing civilians why aren't we carpet bombing Baghdad? We have soldiers being killed because they don't want to harm civilians as proven by the two car bombings. Saddam's thugs are using our humanity against us.

But why am I not surprised that Matthew is so deluded? He has a link to a Robert Fisk website 'documenting' all the Iraqi civilains harmed by the 'indiscriminate' Anglo-American bombing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Matthew is a troll and he is obviously an ardent disciple of Robert Fisk. With any luck, he can go to Iraq and get the shit kicked out of him by some of Saddam's thugs and like his idol Fisk, he can say he deserved it.

And, by golly, he would.

Sandstorm in Iraq

Sent to me by an old Navy buddy. As always, if anyone knows who created this let me know so I can give that person credit.

Dear Jerque

It's Thursday night and that means another Fax From Babs.

To: Jacques Sheetrock
From: Barbra Streisand

Dear Jerque,

I would like to apologize for all the Americans who are badmouthing you and the rest of the noble French people. After all, we owe you a big debt of gratitude for helping us in the Revolutionary War. Who was that guy who came over and helped us? Was it the Marquis de Sade or Voltaire? Whoever it was, he was a big help.

I've always liked France and especially Paris. I'm from New York City and the people who live in Paris are so much like New Yorkers I feel right at home. By the way, what does manjay merde mean?

At least you are an elected, not selected, president. Our president was selected by the Supremes. I don't know why Diana Ross would have selected Bush over Al whats-his-name. And he is such a cowboy!

If only Al whats-his-name, our rightful president, was running the country, we wouldn't be in this quagmire in Iraq. I mean this war has already dragged on for three weeks. How long can our country put up with these massive casualties. I mean 40 people have already been lost. This is worse than Viet Nam. Under Al whats-his-name, we would have been able to use the diplomatic skills of Jimmy Carter. He's admired the world over and has a Noble Peace Prize.

I'm just hoping Bush comes to his senses and starts listening to you and the German guy and we can extricate ourselves from this unwinnable war in Irock. You French are just so much more civilized than most Americans, especially people from Texas.

Hope to see you next time I'm in France for the Canned Film Festival.

Amorez vous (Luv ya),
Babs

He's Alive!

Omigawd! He's alive!

We're Gonna Fail in Iraq

Well, golly. We're doomed! At least that's what Issam Mufid Nashashibi and Abdelatif Rayan wrote in Monday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation in an op-ed titled Brits failed in Iraq in the '30s; Bush likely to fail, too.

Pentagon observers are predicting a U.S. victory over Saddam Hussein's rusty military machine and expounding on the "Bush Plan" for a post-Saddam era. But will President Bush's Iraq policy bring a real victory to crown America's hegemony in the Middle East and elsewhere? Could history be our guide?

I dunno. I guess you guys are gonna tell us why.

Bush's Iraq policy is reminiscent of the 1930s British "reoccupation" of Iraq.

Oh? Tell me more.

By March 1921, almost four years after they invaded Mesopotamia, the British created Iraq as a new entity managed by "a suitable Arab" who was a member of the Hashemite clan, King Faisal I. In addition, the British supported and promoted narrowly based groups such as tribal leaders over the growing, urban-based nationalist movement.

In pursuing this policy, the British were attempting to achieve their military objectives of securing their route to India and controlling strategic oil sources. By the mid-1930s, Iraq exported oil via a pipeline to refineries in Haifa, Palestine.

Oh no! It's all about oil!!!!!

Palestine was in turmoil. Palestinian Arabs were rioting against the Zionist-promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine. Faisal was alarmed about Jewish immigration and expected that "bloodshed would certainly result" from such a demographic change. However, his concern was mostly centered on the negative effect of any bloodshed in Palestine on Iraqi-British relations.

Oh no! It's all about Israel! I never saw that coming.

Although public sentiment supported Arab Palestinians against such foreign encroachment, Iraqi governments were careful not to shatter Iraqi-British relations while repeatedly warning Britain about the destabilizing effect of Iraqi public opinion's pro-Palestinian sentiments. Their official policy on Jewish immigration to Palestine resembled walking a tightrope: It avoided offending British sensibilities without inflaming public opinion.

Yep! It's all the fault of them damn Jews!

To mollify public sentiment, Iraqi government fostered unofficial support for the Arab cause in Palestine. As a result, Iraq became the center of pan-Arab, anti-British activities and a mecca for Egyptian, Syrian and Palestinian nationalists.

In other words, a center of hatred for Jews and the Brits. Something like Iraq is now. Is that their point?

Despite these strong nationalistic, anti-British public sentiments, the British managed to coerce the Iraqi government into entering World War II in support of Britain. The immediate effect of this British political pressure was riots in Baghdad and the killing of several hundred people, mostly Jewish Iraqis.

At least they were on the winning side, and what the heck, Arabs can always find some sort of an excuse to riot and kill Jews.

Perceived as a threat to their interest, the riots were countered by British military intervention and the resignation of the Iraqi prime minister, Rashid Ali, in favor of a new "suitable Arab." With Britain's blessing, martial law was established and the new government started to act against the "subversive" nationalist forces that dominated Iraqi public life.

Keep in mind that this was not a democratic gummint.

Thus started what the nationalists described as the "second British occupation of Iraq," which also included efforts to restructure Iraq with complete British and American supervision. The British resumed full control of the education system while the Americans dominated the media. All nationalist and militaristic materials were banned. In addition, the army was purged or neglected.

And this was not a democratic gummint.

Clearly, there is nothing new in the current U.S. military scenarios, especially what Bush administration officials allude to in their post-Saddam plans. Such policies confirm the administration's intention to conquer and occupy Iraq. They also call for disarming Iraq and downsizing its armed forces while getting Iraq ready for a democratic transition and the removal of senior officials of the governing Baath Party.

Wrong! This is sumpin' new. We are gonna try to institute a democratic gummint in an Arab country. This is a radical idea.

Iraqi opposition groups have signed on to the administration's plans and are fully cooperating with their Washington handlers to create a "federal, non-Arab demilitarized Iraq," as Kanan Makiya, the group's ideologist, envisioned post-Saddam Iraq in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute symposium.

And hopefully a democratic Arab state. Can it be done?

For Bush, who has not conveyed any convincing argument to justify waging war against Iraq,

I dunno. He convinced me. But, then, I'm not a Jew hating Arab apologist.

the success of his Iraqi adventure must be more than eliminating Saddam and his cronies. It is nothing less than crafting a new Iraq that is divorced from any Arab concern, especially the Palestinian cause.

Gotta get Israel back in the picture. Remember, all the problems in the Middle East are caused by Isreal.

For Bush and his hard-line advisers, removing Saddam presents the United States "with a historic opportunity" that is "as large as anything that has happened in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the entry of British troops into Iraq in 1917," Makiya said.

We were able to create a democratic gummint in Japan and Germany after WWII. It will be interesting to see if it is possible to do that in an Arab country. Who knows? Maybe a democracy could function in an Arab country. It's worth a try. Couldn't be any worse than what's going on in the Arab world today.

If history is our guide, the Iraqi people will defy this plan just as they resisted the British 1930s plans that failed to maintain a "suitable Arab regime" because the original British sin, creating the Palestinian problem, is still with us.

See. It's all the fault of the Jews. If the Arabs could just wipe them off the face of the earth, Arab democracies would spring up just like daffodils in the Spring.

Issam Mufid Nashashibi is an Arab-American political activist living in Dawsonville. Abdelatif Rayan is a Washington-based Middle East consultant and journalist.

And they are both full of shit.

Swen Checks In

Last week I posted an interesting way to deal with peace activists. As I always do, I promised to link to the original if I found it. Thanks to someone who commented on Toren Smith's site, here is where it came from.

Sven commented on my original post and also took the time to send me an e-mail very courteously disagreeing with me. I am gonna post his argument along with my argument. Because he is sincere in his beliefs and he is not French, I will clean up his grammar and spelling. I did not offer Pierre the same courtesy (and I will be revisiting Pierre shortly) because I have found the French to be total assholes when it comes to people trying to speak their language. It may come as a surprise to Pierre, but I have been in about 28 different countries. In almost every country I have visited, I have tried to learn a little of the native language. The only country where I have ever been ridiculed was in France. In every other country, the people appreciated my attempts to speak their language and went out of their way to help me. Not so in France.

Sven wrote:

Hi,

I have added my comments in the original text .

Following is my original post:

1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.

2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in the nose.

3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you, so be careful.

4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.

5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.

Sven: I call the police (U.N) and have you arrested for assault . I have witnesses and I will have my day in court. You will get free and come back.

GOC: OK here is the problem. We called the police (UN). Unfortunately, the police were corrupt. Where were the police (UN) when the Iranians, in violation of international law, illegally took 52 American diplomats and held them hostage for 444 days? Where were the police (UN) when genocide was going on in Rwanda? Where were the police (UN) when ethnic cleansing was going on, in full sight of the UN peacekeeping forces in Kosovo? It was NATO who put a stop to that. If the police (UN) did their job, we wouldn't have to.

6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square in the nose.

Sven: Once again I have you arrested and ask a court order to keep you out of my business

GOC: Now you have to assume that the court has the power to enforce its rulings. To end Gulf War I, Saddam Hussein agreed to disarm. He did not. He jacked the UN weapons inspectors around and eventually, in 1998, threw them out of the country. The court (UN) did nothing. As long as the police (UN) and the court (UN) does nothing, I can punch you in the nose as much as I want.

7. Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid of an argument he/she is making.

Sven: Repeat until you are behind bars after the majority of the people have decided you are a real danger and things should be done to stop you.

GOC: Or, if you are Saddam Hussein, and you realize just how useless the police (UN) and the courts (UN) are, and what a wimp Bill Clinton is, and how the majority of the world hates the United States because of our wealth, freedom, and success, you know that as long as you pay off the French, Chinese, Germans, and Russians you can get away with murder. In effect, you've paid off the police and the judges.

8. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is unacceptable and must be dealt with. Perhaps at a high cost.

Sven: I had a few hits in the face and a few days in court but I kept my beliefs and the problem was solved. Futhermore every peace basher has seen that violence doesn’t solve anything (Sven, I am afraid you are sadly mistaken there) ( there is always somebody stronger or with more friends).

We owe our military a huge debt for what they are about to do for us and our children. We must support them

Sven: totally agree

and our leaders at times like these. We have no choice. We either strike back, VERY HARD, or we will keep getting hit in the nose.

Sven: The harder you hit them, the harder they will try to hit you. Give them something to live for instead of making them so desperate that they are willing to give up their lives for any cause. Lead by example

Sven, we were attacked on 9/11. I read that when Osama bin Laden saw us leave Somalia with our tails tucked between our legs, that's when he thought that we could be beaten. We had embassies blown up. We did nothing. We had the first WTC bombing. We did nothing. We had the USS Cole. We did nothing. Radical Islam, which has declared war on us does not respect restraint (which it interprets as weakness), diplomacy (ditto), international law, or the United Nations. It only respects one thing and one thing only: strength. You don't wish problems away. You don't hope that by doing nothing that people will leave you alone. If they fuck with you, you make them pay and you make them pay big time.

We fought a bloody war with Germany and Japan and after the war, we rebuilt their countries. What we did after WWII was totally unprecedented in the history of the world. No other country in the history of this planet has ever been as powerful yet as benevolent as the United States.

The United States saved Europe three times in the 20th Century: WWI, WWII, and WWIII (the Cold War). Now, we are doing it again. It would be nice to have a little help.

Lesson over, class dismissed.

And, have you seen the French Army Knife?