American Madness

You can’t make this up!

The NYTimes reports on the large peaceful uprising in Najaf.

The story includes this photo caption:

Col. Steven Boylan, an American military spokesman and aide to the commander of all American forces in Iraq, praised the peaceful nature of the demonstration, saying Iraqis “could not have done this four years ago,” the A.P. reported.

So…the peaceful nature of the protest is…wait for it!….wait for it!…evidence that our occupation has been fruitful! I love it!

I guess if the Iraqi rebellion were to build an atomic weapon and detonate it on a major U.S. city, the Bush administration would praise it as a sign of increasing Iraqi technological sophistication under our occupation! “It’s a clear sign that we’ve made inroads in improving the educational system,” says Col. Ima Flunky.

Guantánamo Detainees Stage Hunger Strike
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/us/09hunger.html?hp

Torture continues. Say what you want about the Khmer Rouge, the Hutu/Tootsie massacres, even the Stalinist purges, at least many of these atrocities were carried out in hot blood. Not so the current U.S. policy for Guantanamo detainees, which reminds me of a line from the movie Payback: “I’ll make this last 3 weeks,” says a mafia boss to a man from whom he is trying to beat information. “I’ll give you a blood transfusion to keep you alive.”

Even as detainees attempt to protest their horrendous, inhumane, sadistic treatment with hunger strikes, as they perhaps attempt to end their lives, our government does not allow that to happen. While not bringing charges against these men, they instead strap them into full body restraint chairs and force feed tubes down their nostrils. Does anyone doubt that this is yet another form of torture?

You know what? If this is what we’ve sunk to, if this is the state of our democracy, maybe we deserve what we get.

Bush no know about port sale.

Does it really matter whether this deal means Dubai will control security for our ports? If they control the ports, their personnel have access, and who is monitoring their hiring?

Does our security apparatus have the power to veto their hires if we believe unsavory elements attempt to infiltrate their presumably well-intentioned company? That’s the key issue here.

Obviously, foreign ownership of a port is not in and of itself a national security issue, else we wouldn’t allow the British to currently control the ports in question.

But this issue is further evidence that the Bush whitehouse has a tin ear on these matters.

So now that the courts have rules that a Pennsylvania school district cannot teach Intelligent Design (a lovely concept that says some “things” were created by a supernatural being), we can now ask the questions that need to be asked.

First of all, is it intelligent design that a sewage pipe runs through our recreational area? What kind of supernatural being would design such a thing? A supernatural engineer who flunked out of MIT?

Plus, why only one mouth? It is very difficult for some people to talk out of both sides of their mouth, and if they had two, hypocrisy would move along that much faster.

Finally, why do some male genitals hook to the left? I haven?t actually seen this phenomenon in action, but some women I know swear that it?s true. They also seem to think this model hits the G-Spot much more efficiently. This is confusing. Does this mean the G-Spot is on the right? Can?t we all compensate by moving a bit to the left? Is this more information than anyone needs to know?

Questions, questions.

I really wanted to pose these and other queries to the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania. But now that the school board’s decision has been termed ?breathtaking inanity? by a federal judge, I?ll just have to ask my priest or rabbi or legalized Nevada hooker. Unless they overturn her, too.

I was in Greensboro, North Carolina when I noticed the man wearing a Waffle House camouflage tee shirt.

I asked, ?Is that from the Waffle House that makes waffles? Or is this a new code word for AK47s.?

The Waffle man laughed, put his gun down, and said, ?yernot from roundhere, ryoo??

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Good news! Now you can help advance the cause of medical science, even after you’re dead!:

A biological anthropology professor at the University of Northern Iowa, Tyler O’Brien, envisions turning some prime pasture in the Midwestern state into a body farm, where human bodies — buried, stuffed in car trunks or exposed to the elements — can provide scholars and criminalists with new benchmark data on human decay.

“This idea has strong scientific value,” O’Brien said. “To answer the question of how long a body has been dead, how long a person has been missing, is critical to criminal investigations.”

O’Brien is seeking a grant of $400,000 to $500,000 from the National Institute of Justice and other organizations to obtain the land and set up the project.

This is big! And it brings up a number of valid concerns:

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Ever eat a lemon?

Picture a series of lemon-eating, funky-lip faces, a wonderful Andy Warhol montage. I would pay $400 Zlotys to see it at New York’s Whitney Museum. I would pay $280 Zlotys to see it at the San Antonio Museum for the Arts. In Burkina Faso you might have to pay me to see it, as there is no direct flight and the rebels have captured all the artists.

I once read that Texas dentists were trying to get children to stop eating lemons. There is a tradition of Southwest lemon eating that goes back generations: cut a hole in a lemon, shove in some dried, salted piece of fruit called “Chinese candy,” and then squeeze the tangy, salty juice all over your tounge and your fringed rodeo shirt and your alligator boots and everything else you?ve got on.

Well it seems lemon eating plays hell with your tooth enamel, and Texans have been urged by their dentists to cease and desist and watch Lemony Snicket movies instead. Which is not to say that Jim Carey is a favorite of Lone Star dentists either, but at least he doesn?t promote tooth decay. They think.

On the other hand, a chat room poster I know named Green Hell reminds us that ?lemons rock, brilliant when your slamming tequila and you just eat one! Gobble…?

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To: Heads of Sales & Marketing

Re: Keeping your jobs and our pricing strategy

All:

It has come to senior management’s attention that we’re spending tens of thousands of dollars a year trying to figure out how to price our items. People, I don’t care if that’s what they teach you at Harvard, Yale, or Wharton. At dear, old Pace University’s night business program, we learned business is all about moving product, and recent figures show me we’re not doing that. To that end, CFO de Krook and I want to roll out our new, more aggressive pricing plan. Let’s call it “Operation Undercut.”

Instead of pulling your chins and scratching your heads trying to work out toe the penny what our logistics and infrastructure costs are, here’s what I want you to do. When you quote a price to a retailer or wholesaler, casually ask what our competitor is charging for the same item. If the price is lower than the one you quoted–say forty-seven cents per item, compared with your offer of fity [sic] each–cough twice, slap your forehead with your palm, and say, “Oh, did I say fity cents a unit? I meant forty-six cents, because you’re such a good customer.”

I know you all work on commission, based on the size of the sale you’ve made, so I understand your fears that shaving margins will also sharply reduce your commissions. That’s why this memo is circulated on the same day that we’ve just introduced our new “Overpriced Executive Line,” basically the same office-supply garbage we already sell, produced at the same places and for the same cost, just stuck in nicer gold-colored and silver-colored boxes with ribbons on them, designed to make executives feel important and willing to pay 40 percent more.

So be of good cheer and keep those expense accounts down. Go forth and sell, sell, sell!

Onward and upward,

The Guy Who Writes The Checks

Today I visited the Motor Vehicle Division to renew my driver’s license. I thought the photo came out a little better than most:

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There is the old joke about a couple of men at a party watching the dog of the house as he licked his private parts.

?I wonder why he does that,? one wondered.

The other smiled and said ?Because he can.?

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