Post office efficiency

Around Thanksgiving, I called and asked for some special military addressing package the USPS has for sending packages to troops stationed overseas.  Customs forms, all the right versions of whatever the frig documentation I needed.  “7 days, sir.”

Bastards.  Christmas rush my ass.  This is ridiculous.  Fucking government.  Even when they privatize they suck.  I’ll just hit my local branch and ask them to help.  Somehow I lucked out and the branch is full of helpful, generally cheerful and friendly people. 

I often wonder which one of them will snap first, and will they turn their rage inward at their fellow workers, or will it be us, the public, on whom they unleash their fury?

Posted by JimK at 03:34 PM on December 21, 2007
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Categories: News,  The Federal Government
Tags: post office

Escape from Union County, Shawshank style

It seems too ridiculous to be real.

Two jail inmates used photos of bikini-clad women to hide holes they used to escape and left behind a thank-you note, signed with a smiley face, for a guard they claimed helped them, officials said Monday.

Jose Espinosa, 20, and Otis Blunt, 32, squeezed through the openings sometime before dawn Saturday in a high-security unit of the Union County jail, jumped onto a rooftop below, and made it over a 25-foot-high fence topped with razor wire, authorities said.

Authorities withheld the name of the officer the inmates said was involved. The note, found in Espinosa’s cell, read, “Thank you Officer ... for the tools needed. You’re a real pal. Happy holidays.”

Authorities are investigating the claims. The guard named in the note has not yet turned in a report, and disciplinary action has not been taken against any guard, said county prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said, whose office is overseeing the escape investigation.

How bad must your security be for two dumbasses to pull a Shawshank on your prison?  I swear, if New Jersey didn’t exist, we’d have to make it up.

Just when you think that the details are laughable enough, that there is no way this could get any more cliched…

They also laid out pillows and sheets to make it look like men were sleeping under blankets, authorities said.

Oh Sweet Hay-zeus on a motorcar.  Somebody is getting fired for Christmas.

Posted by JimK at 02:17 PM on December 19, 2007
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Categories: News,  Crime and Criminals,  The Stupidity Of Man
Tags:  Otis Blunt Union County escape

Seven for Seven in Iraq

Doh.

Add this bogus report with the other 6 that were found out to be false and you have 7 bogus slaughter reports from Iraq in 7 weeks since October 29, 2007.
The MSM keeps it perfect.

Oh, that liberal media.

Posted by JimK at 09:45 PM on December 18, 2007
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Categories: News,  The Middle East,  The Fourth Estate,  War
Tags: military war iraq media

‘Tis the season, so shut up

Question: WHEN DO THE POLITICIANS GO ON CHRISTMAS BREAK?

I may not be posting about much of it, but I *am* reading it all, and I am so well past fed up that if some crazy bastard rode through my town on a horse yelling that the revolution was on, I would probably frigging join him.

Posted by JimK at 01:18 PM on December 18, 2007
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Categories: News,  Politics

The “Protecting Children from Indecent Programming” Act

Well here’s a real doozy of a bill that needs defeating.  The name alone makes me hate it. PCIP?  Is this supposed to somehow align it with SCHIP and other “for the children” legislation?  It;s all a load of billshit.  That’s right, billshit.  That’s my new word for legislation that is utterly full of crap.

This bill is designed, and I quote, “To require the FCC, in enforcing its regulations concerning the broadcast of indecent programming , to maintain a policy that a single word or image may be considered indecent.” Wow.  Just...wow.  That entirely removes the concept of context altogether, and gives them the power to declare the word “ass” indecent when used to describe a pack animal used for ferrying goods.  Hell it can render the double entendre dead in the water.

This is just ridiculous.  Are we so pathetic that we are determined to roll over and become servants to a small group of overly moralistic nannies, determined to filter the world through whatever narrow prism they’ve decided is right and good?

ENOUGH.  When you vote for candidates that support crap like this - and immediately Hillary leaps to the forefront as she is the leading Presidential candidate on either side supporting censorship legislation of all kinds, although I will freely admit she is far from alone in this - you are enabling AND SUPPORTING censorship.  You are personally destroying the concept of free speech.  There is no way around it.  If you know about this and you still support politicians like this, you are personally eroding the First Amendment.

Think about that.  Maybe Ron Paul isn’t so crazy.  Well, not all crazy, anyway. :)

Totalitarian legislation is not just the purview of the right wing, my friends.  This little “minor” alteration to Section 16 of the Public Telecommunications Act of 1992 was crafted by a Democrat.  You know who wants it passed, though?  Donald Wildmon and the “American Family Association.” That alone should be enough to make you oppose it.  I just got an “action alert” from them.

It couldn’t be clearer that the broadcast networks are irresponsible stewards of the public airwaves and the FCC needs passage of S.1780 to have the authority to reel them in.

Wildmon wants everyone to “Please call Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) at 202-224-3934 and Ranking Member Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) at 202-224-3004” and puch for this bill.  I say call them and tell them how much you oppose it.  In fact, contact all your Congresspersons.  You will find a box at the top right-hand corner of that site.  Enter your zip code and get the latest contact data for your Senator(s) or Representative(s).  Let them know that enough is enough with this faux “protect the children” crap.  Old people in Washington should not be the arbiters of what writers can (or even should!) put on TV.  YOU are supposed to be that arbiter.  YOU decide with your viewership and your spending habits.  You should have the freedom to decide what is appropriate for your child, not some old people in Washington.

Parents of this country, I beg you, stop asking the government to parent your children, and if you are not asking, then stop allowing it to happen.

Posted by JimK at 04:29 PM on December 03, 2007
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Categories: Entertainment,  Television,  News,  Politics
Tags: Protecting Children from Indecent Programming Congress Politics FCC

Robert Novak’s “Prince of Darkness”

I needed a new bathroom book, so I threw the “uncorrected proof” copy of Robert Novak’s ”The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington” into the bathroom.  I’m about a third of the way through this ponderous tome.  Here’s what I know so far.

1. Novak is seemingly proud of the number of times he’s subverted journalistic integrity in order to cultivate as a source, protect or destroy any given politician.  I’m only up to 1968 and he’s done it any number of times.  Bragged about it, in fact.  Shown remorse for falsifying a single fact in a single story exactly once.  Amazing.

2. Bob Novak can’t write to save his life.  If the stories being told were not compelling (and potentially false or exaggerated, I suppose) then I would have thrown this book in the trash a week ago.  The book, like his life’s work, is packed full of opinion and information, but it’s also very poorly written.

3. He’s amazingly cavalier about meeting, marrying and divorcing his first wife, and routinely tells stories about abandoning his second wife, or dragging her through South America while she was three minutes from labor, all to get a story. 

4. Most of his reporting in those days was done over drinks and feasts and so forth as he so constantly reminds the reader.  Trips to Vegas, long liquid lunches at DC eateries.  Oh, and also he uses the word “luncheon” all the time.  I know it’s technically correct, as “luncheon” literally means noon meal designed to meet or entertain guests.  What I am saying is the constant use of the word is ponderous and pretentious, much like Robert Novak himself.

There’s some interesting stuff in there about Nixon, LBJ, The Kennedy boys (John & Bobby) and Barry Goldwater though.  It’s a bit hard to figure out what’s true and what’s invented and what is simply an old man’s memory creating a reality he can live with, though.  The problem I now face is, aside from struggling through the rest of this thing, is that I will have to read other books by other writers about each of these men just to try to figure out what’s real.

He starts the book with an account of the Plame incident, if that interests anyone anymore.  If Novak is telling the truth, the whole thing was just a bunch of people that assumed the open secret wasn’t a secret anymore.  Valerie Plame had long been declassified, so to speak, and wasn’t managing any assets in the field.  He’s no fan of her hubby either.  It’s another side of the story, in any case.

The really odd thing is, as bad as the book seems to be so far, I can’t stop reading it.  I suppose that counts for something…

Posted by JimK at 02:44 PM on December 02, 2007
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Fourth Estate
Tags: Robert Novak media memoir

Bill Richardson has probably been anal-probed

Wow.  And people think of voting for this guy for anything?  I mean, I wouldn’t elect him dog catcher.

If he wins his bid for the White House, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson may be just the man to get to the bottom of the 60-year-old Roswell UFO mystery.

Answering questions at a townhall meeting Friday, a Dell employee asked Richardson about the 1947 incident in which many people still believe a flying saucer landed near the eastern New Mexico town.

“I’ve been in government a long time, I’ve been in the cabinet, I’ve been in the Congress and I’ve always felt that the government doesn’t tell the truth as much as it should on a lot of issues,” said Richardson, who is governor of New Mexico.

“When I was in Congress I said (to the) Department of Defense ... ‘What is the data? What is the data you have?’ “

He was told that the records were classified.

“That ticked me off,” he said, as the crowd laughed.

“What do you want me to do? You want me to open up all those files?” he asked the alien enthusiast, who answered that he did.

“I’ll work with you on that.”

He’s either pandering to nuts on purpose, which is pretty sad, or he is a nut in the style of Alex Jones and so forth.  Which means he’s not capable of leading a parade, much less the country.  Add this new lunacy to his untenable stance on immigration (amnesty, closer ties with Mexico’s government, more easily obtained visas and no border fencing) and you get a nutburger of the highest order.

Of course, being a Democrat, he’s got about as much chance of beating Obama as I do of winning Miss World.  And since Obama couldn’t beat Hillary with a hockey stick even if she were tied down and blindfolded, I think we’re safe from Bill “The Aliens Have Landed” Richardson.

Hat tip: Jules Crittenden via Ace.

Posted by JimK at 03:55 PM on October 28, 2007
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Categories: News,  Politics
Tags: Election 2008 Politics Bill Richardson

Holocaust survivor trumps Dutch

A Democrat with some balls.  Nice.

The Dutch are threatening to remove their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan to protest Gitmo. Dutch politicians face growing problems with Islamic youths and likely fear a L’Intifada like France suffered in 2005.

Peters said: “We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror.”

To which Lantos apparently replied: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”

Tom Lantos is a Democrat from California.  He’s also the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, and he’s not taking any Dutch crap over camps and wars.

Sure, he’s a fairly liberal Democrat, which means many of his policies are in opposition to the way I think, but credit where credit is due.  If the report is right and he really said this, I thank him and I hope he doesn’t even consider apologizing for it.  It needed to be said.  I respect him for saying it.

Imagine if this kind of thing happened all the time.  We could respect politicians again, even when we disagreed with them.  Wait.  Has anyone ever respected politicians?  I might be off on that.  ;)

Posted by JimK at 07:45 PM on October 27, 2007
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Categories: News,  International Events,  Politics,  War
Tags: Tom Lantos Holocaust Politics Guantanamo

Gas on the fire

I’m just making it worse with this, I know, but I can’t help myself.  I laughed at this and got the point...so I wanted to share.

Unattributed, passed around via email forwards, are the top ten reasons the U.S. cannot enact gay marriage:

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Posted by JimK at 12:59 PM on October 26, 2007
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Categories: Humor,  News,  Politics,  The Stupidity Of Man
Tags: Politics gay marriage

The online political radical is a sickness…

...and it’s the internet that has shown a light on what was formerly kept in dark basements and dank coffee houses.

this particular example of the disease of extreme political radicalism comes from the left side of the political aisle.  Don’t get too cocky, righties.  The right has its fair share of extremist nutbags too.  For this week, though, the glory falls to the far left and fans of AirAmerica. (can you believe that network is still on the air?  I think the in-house radio at any grocery store gets more listeners in a given week.)

Read the whole article for the backstory if you don’t know what happened to AirAmerica host Randi Rhodes.  The shorthand is, she probably tangoed with some vodka martinis and tripped over her dog leash.  This was initially reported as an attack (a hate crime!) by operatives of the right trying to silence her.  Then she tripped, then she was attacked but not in a hate crime.  But maybe she wasn’t.  No one seems to know, or have the sense to ask her.

Anyway, among other things, Shawn Macomber has this to say:

There is, however, something bigger going on here, encapsulated in the determination of Rhodes’ fans, against all facts to the contrary, to hold-tight to the pipe dream of right-wing fanatics hiring Blackwater agents to beat her as she walked her dog: They so wish it were true. As with global warming alarmism, these sorts of messianic martyr fantasies about neo-Nazi conspirators aligned against liberals’ salvation program for the masses are delusions designed to assure people clearly desperate for meaning in their lives that they are historically significant figures living in historically significant times. History, sadly, is not made within the virtual walls of online echo chambers.

Ouch.  By the way, please take not that Shawn Macomber is not comparing these idiots to global warming alarmists because he’s saying global warming doesn’t exist; he’s saying that the alarmism is hyped to the heavens, just like the ice age alarmism from 30-odd years ago, and the hole in the ozone from hairspray alarmism from a couple decades back, the DDT issue, and any other of a long list of “the sky is falling RIGHT NOW!” alarmist issues from the last 30 or 40 years.

Some people need crisis in order to feel alive.  If crisis doesn’t exist, they will create it, and then declare themselves protest warriors who will fight the crisis until it has been “solved.” And then they will create a new crisis that can give them a sense of purpose.  And so on, and so on.  It’s not the exclusive purview of the far left.  There are plenty of far right radicals too.  This week, however, it’s the other side’s turn to be a bunch of Chicken Littles.

Posted by JimK at 03:44 PM on October 18, 2007
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Fourth Estate
Tags: air america Politics media