Kerry trails by 11 pts., Washington Post gets into gear.

In a series of articles this morning, The Washington Post enters the fight with all guns blazing in a desperate attempt to salvage John Kerry's presidential campaign, last seen listing heavily to port.

In this article, someone named Jeffrey H. Smith, identified by The Post as a former general counsel for the CIA (boy, now that fills one with confidence, doesn't it?) has the following to say regarding the Swift Boat Veterans;

But the central charges have largely been discredited by the Navy's records and by serious reporting in the mainstream media. (me: Beldar is going to be pissed to realize he has been wasting all this time.)

I did not serve in Vietnam, but...
We have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, which is a great achievement, but...

In 1971 Kerry recognized that we needed to change our policy. In 2004 he recognizes the need to change our policy. That is the issue. Who is better equipped to lead us: Bush, who rigidly insists that he is right, or Kerry, who has charted a new direction? (me: towards Paris, right? Oh, and what should Bush be doing, rigidly insisting that he is wrong?)

Then there is this;

President Bush opened the Labor Day weekend with a bus cavalcade through Ohio for the second Saturday in a row, and said that peace and prosperity -- which largely eluded him in the first term -- would be his mission in a second.

But this one is the topper. In It's Still Nixon's Party, a weepy, sputtering Harold Myerson offers these tired old spitballs;

...public mugging of John Kerry.
and
...Zell Miller's ferocious and largely fictitious diatribe...
and
...after whom he modeled himself was Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
and
...Dick Cheney's more low-key falsifications of Kerry's record...
and
...Miller's crazed sermon...
and
...would be hard to construe as decency...
and
...the hallmarks of their campaigns against Michael Dukakis, John McCain and now John Kerry have been slander and lies.
and ...Bob Dole, old hatchet-man...
and ...

well, you get the idea, right? (All emphases mine, because...well..it's my blog.)

Why Bush is America's natural leader, stupid

Writing in The Telegraph, Charles Moore takes an interesting look at George Bush and America. My favorite parts;

You could scarcely be more New England Anglican (or, as they call it, Episcopalian) posh than the Bush family. The reason the President is called George is that one of his great-grandfathers, George Herbert Walker, was named after George Herbert, perhaps the greatest poetic voice of Anglicanism ("Teach me, my God and King…" etc).

Methodism was a purifying movement within Anglicanism. Eventually, it broke with its mother Church and claimed an independent existence as a cleaner, simpler, more personal faith, one that rejected worldly status. Bush junior's conversion follows that path - a turning away from personal failure (in his case drinking and getting nowhere) through a direct experience of God, a journey away from social grandeur to something that seemed more rugged, a journey from Connecticut to Texas.

If he hadn't put down roots in somewhere like Texas (silly phrase, sorry: there's nowhere like Texas), he would for ever have been vulnerable to the jibes about being an effete East Coaster. Now he can make a good joke about his "swagger" being what, in Texas, they call "walking".

Once one understands how this works, the suggestion that Mr Bush is stupid looks, well, stupid.

The Democrat candidate has to prove something to conservative America, whereas the Republican has to prove nothing to the liberals.

Looked at in this way, I find the Bush story reassuring. It shows that Mr Bush is not the half-witted fanatic of the BBC's imagination. He is an absolutely mainstream figure in a country that has always gone very big on God and Mammon and does its best to see if the two can't achieve peaceful coexistence. It is a country that believes very deeply in freedom, but its idea of freedom is so strongly related to its sense of itself that, when it feels external threat, it reacts with unified fury.

(emphasis mine)

Read the whole thing. It is an interesting read although I don't know about the "unified" part (see Kerry, Kennedy, Laufenberg, Michael Moore, et al).

Bad, bad, bad. Children, for God's sake.

100 Die in Russian School Siege Shootout

Sept. 3, 2004 — By Richard Ayton and Oliver Bullough

BESLAN, Russia (Reuters)

One hundred or more people were killed when Russian troops stormed a school Friday in a chaotic battle to free parents, teachers and children who had been held hostage for 53 hours by Chechen separatists.

Naked children ran for safety, screaming amid machinegun fire and explosions while attack helicopters clattered overhead.

Julian Manyon, a reporter for Britain's ITV television news, said his cameraman had seen into the gutted gymnasium of the school in Beslan, in the North Ossetia region adjoining Chechnya, after the hostage-takers left.

"Our cameraman ... told me that in his estimation there are as many as 100 dead bodies, I am afraid, lying on the smoldering floor of the gymnasium where we know that a large number of the hostages were being held," he said. The Russian Interfax news agency reported a similar number.

Tass news agency said there were more than 400 wounded, and agencies said at least seven people had been dead on arrival at hospital.

Rebels fled with soldiers in pursuit.

The authorities said events forced their hand after insisting from the outset they would not resort to violence.

Manyon said police had told him some children had tried to escape, and that when the captors fired and chased them, the troops opened fire and the battle began. Moments earlier, authorities said they had sent a vehicle to fetch the bodies of people killed in Wednesday's seizure of the school.

"No military action was planned. We were planning further talks," the regional head of the FSB security service, Valery Andreyev, told RTR television.

CHAOTIC SCENES

In the ensuing chaos, children ran from the building or were carried by soldiers. Stripped to their underwear after two days without food or drink in a stiflingly hot and crowded school, they gulped bottles of water and waited in a daze for relatives as gunfire crackled around them.

"I smashed the window to get out," one boy with a bandaged hand told Russian television. "People were running in all directions ... They (the rebels) were shooting from the roof."

The outcome of the siege may have repercussions for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who came to power in 2000 on a promise to restore order in Chechnya after years of violent rebellion and hostage-takings similar to the one in Beslan.

Some 129 hostages and 41 rebels died when Putin sent troops to overpower Chechen rebels who had seized a Moscow theater in 2002. But the violence in the region and elsewhere in Russia has continued.

A North Ossetian Interior Ministry source told Interfax the guerrillas, believed to number about 40, had split into three groups. About five had remained in the school while a larger group had tried to break out of the city, and others tried to flee by merging with the hostages.

Interfax said more than 10 of the captors were killed.

Officials had said some 500 people were being held in the school in North Ossetia, but released hostages said the number could be nearer to 1,500 people lying on top of one another in increasingly desperate conditions.

Izvestia said 860 pupils attended School No.1. But the number of people on the campus would have been swollen by parents and relatives attending the first-day ceremony traditional in Russian schools.

INDEPENDENCE DEMAND

Alexander Dzasokhov, president of the province of North Ossetia, said earlier the masked gunmen had demanded an independent Chechnya, the first clear link between them and the decade-long separatist rebellion in the neighboring province.

One unidentified woman freed Thursday told Izvestia that during the night children occasionally began to cry:

"Then the fighters would fire in the air to restore quiet. In the morning they told us they would not give us anything more to drink because the authorities were not ready to negotiate."

Attacks linked to Chechen separatists have surged in recent weeks as Chechnya elected a head for its pro-Moscow administration to replace an assassinated predecessor.

Last week, suicide bombers were blamed for the near-simultaneous crash of two passenger planes in which 90 people died. This week, in central Moscow, a suicide bomber blew herself up, killing nine people.

Russian media have speculated that the gunmen could belong to separatist forces under Magomed Yevloyev, an Ingush who is believed to have led a mass assault on Ingushetia in June.

A representative of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in London repeated denials of involvement by forces loyal to him and condemned the hostage-takers.

"This is a monstrous act ... There is no way to justify what they have done," Akhmed Zakayev, the representative, told Channel 4 news.

Up to 16 people were believed to have been killed in the early stages of the assault.

Update: I don't know what happened to this post. It should have appeared here early this morning. When I returned home and checked the blog, it was not here. If it had been one of my usual dopey half-wit posts, I wouldn't have minded, but this is serious as hell.


Update 2: The Russians are saying that among the dead terrorists (if anyone calls them "militants", they are misinformed, stupid assholes) are 10 bodies identified as Arab. What a shock is that?

Mozol tov!

Congratulations to Daniel W. Drezner:
Lauren C. Drezner
seven lbs., zero oz.

Not being a Zionist, I hope Mozol tov! is more or less correct.

Arnold's Speech - Excerpts

Because I actually have to work for a living and am all the way down here in old Mexico, I am happy to report that Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom provided these interesting excerpts from The Governator's speech tonight in New York City before the Republican National Convention:

A Protein Wisdom exclusive! 9 lines / phrases cut from the final draft of tonight's Arnold Schwarzenegger address to the RNC:

1. [...] unlike John Kerry, who couldn't lift one of Michael Moore's man boobies.
2. Am I the only one who thinks John Edwards looks like a woman?
3. Then Nancy Pelosi got drunk and tried to grab my enormous package.
4. How about those Bush twins in their little party dresses, eh? Does anybody else have a chubby?
5. And then there's Cruz Bustamante, who I pounded into paper and used to wipe my ass.
6. Because were Teresa my wife I would have given her a smack a long time ago. But then, I'm not a Massachusetts pussy, either.
7. I pick scabs with bigger balls than Terry Mcauliffe's.
8. [...] or as Adolph Hitler might say, "mein kampf."
9. I'll be back. and Hasta la vista, baby.

Interesting speech, I'd say.

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp!


No further comment needed.

OK, a-one and-a-two and Commence Whining!

From PoliPundit: "I expect they will be accusing the GOP of being behind the Swiftie ads, although I would think they would want to take advantage of the GOP convention to change the subject, however, Susan Estrich already brought this up on Brit Hume's show last night. She said that if Bush wins it will be an 'illegitimate victory' due to the Swift Boat Vet ads. "

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Wah.

(All new parents will recognize the aforementioned.)

And it's only August, and they haven't even lost the election...yet.

A Sailor Under Fire

This letter written in February, 1968 from John Kerry to his girlfriend puts into words all of the anguish and fear felt by a young naval officer under constant threat of death from enemy fire:

Judy Darling, There are so many ways this letter could become a bitter diatribe and go rumbling off into irrational nothings.... I feel so bitter and angry and everywhere around me there is nothing but violence and war and gross insensitivity. I am really very frightened to be honest because when the news [of the combat death of his college friend, Dick Pershing] sunk in I had no alternatives but to carry on in the face of trivia that forced me to build a horrible protective screen around myself....

The world I'm a part of out there is so very different from anything you, I, or our close friends can imagine. It's fitted with primitive survial, with destruction of an endless dying seemingly pointless nature and forces one to grow up in a fast - no holds barred fashion. In the small time I have been gone, does it seem strange to say that I feel as though I have seen several years experience go by.... No matter [where] one is - no matter what job - you do not and cannot forget that you are at war and that the enemy is ever present - that anyone could at some time for the same stupid irrational something that stole Persh be gone tomorrow.

In February, 1968, John Kerry was an Ensign aboard the missile frigate U.S.S. Gridley, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 6000 miles from Vietnam.I have always thought that the "whose turn is it in the barrel" thing was a joke. Apparently not. It was "whose turn is it behind the protective screen?" Some vicious sailors aboard the Gridley, no? And that downtown Honolulu? Hoooo boy! Duck and cover! Duck and cover!

No Illusions about why the French are so easy to hate

All one has to do is read this and one will understand why the French are beneath contempt. The best part;

June, 2004:

...Mr. Chirac described Iraq as a place where "disorder prevails," adding that he did not share Mr. Bush’s view that the liberation of Iraq from Mr. Hussein was comparable to the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. "History does not repeat itself," he sniffed.

August 28, 2004:

Mr. Chirac said nothing about the violence and terror in Iraq, except to say that the restoration of sovereignty was "merely the start of a long and what is proving to be an arduous and hazardous process. But at least we have embarked on it."

We? We? This reminds me of the old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto finding themselves surrounded by 1000 hostile Indians. The Lone Ranger turns to his faithful companion and says, "Well I guess we are finished, old friend." To which Tonto replies, "What you mean we, white man?"

That's right, what you mean we, Chirac, you pompous gasbag? We have a 1000 dead heroes (real heroes, Mr. Kerry) and you have none, because you, A. have no guts, B. have no moral compass, and C. have no real influence on day-to-day events in a world which long ago left you behind.

The more that I think about this, the more it pisses me off. With a few hardy exceptions, the cowards of the world are happy for Americans to shed blood to defend them. Like the old radio show, "Gunsmoke", we're the first they run to, but the last they want to meet. When they are in trouble, whom do they call? To whom do they run weeping for rescue? Whose money and blood are they willing to expend to extricate themselves from one self-inflicted disaster after another? And then, whom do they band against, call war mongers, call cowboys, call irresponsible, call Ugly Americans? Why, WE, of course.

Want more? Here's more.

The Victory of the French People : In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris, Le Monde has a special 8-page insert on Paris the Insurgent, the main article of which is called The Victory of the People and of the Tanks ("the people", as in "the people of France" or "the French people", not as in "person" in the plural).

In those eight pages, replete with photographs, there is not a single picture of an American (or a British) soldier (although one can spot American or British flags in a picture or two...

In the article The Men of August 25, there is not a single non-French allied leader mentioned (the four main "actors" being Charles de Gaulle, Philippe Leclerc, Rol-Tanguy, and Germany's Dietrich von Choltitz)

Of nine titles proposed in the suggested reading section, only two books concern the Allies as main characters, and one of those is in effect a book about the story of Robert Capa's D-Day pictures.

Not until the eighth and final page do we see articles concerning the United States, and they are ambivalent at best. The first concerns the common interests and the ambiguous relations between Paris and Washington, the second is an interview of historian Denis Peschanski, a research director at the CNRS, concerning the fact that "the way it was carried out, the liberation of Paris was not in the plans of General Eisenhower". Charles de Gaulle managed to change that, Dieu merci!

How many Americans, British, Australians and others died on French soil during WWII? WWI? Combined? And WE don't even get a mention from the sissified, pompous, self-rightous, sniffing French. They did not deserve our help then, now or in the future. But when they have again mired themselves in another scummy pukey cesspool of their own making, to whom will they run, shrieking for rescue? Why, to WE, of course. And will We ignore them and leave them to the fate which they deserve? No, WE won't. WE never have, WE don't, and WE won't. It wouldn't be...Christian.

Wow, that really jerked my chain, didn't it?

Not enough? OK, how about this?

June 5, 2004 (60th D-Day commemoration:

There is not a single American flag in Paris.

Not on the Champs-Élysées, not anywhere.

I don't care what the French think of Bush's policies. The minimum of respect would have been to put out the Stars and Stripes for the US president's arrival. It is not Bush who is arriving, it is the president of the United States.

The Champs-Élysées are filled with flags when any other leader arrives, no matter what their régimes' policies or what their leaders have done. They even turned the Eiffel Tower red...

Or this.The CSA polling company has released the results of a survey which found;
50% of the French public feel that France has no moral debt to the United States.
This opinion is shared by;
63% of those aged 18 to 24 years
58% of those 25 to 34
54% of those 35 to 49
48% of those 50 to 64
32% of those 65 and older.

Among the professions, farmers thought this in the greatest majority (62%) while retirees and the self-employed were the least likely to share this view (39%). The study also found that 82% of the French felt that France was sufficiently grateful to the US and that as little as 3% admire the US.

Worse yet, the Figaro reports in a survey it commissioned which finds that 82% of French feel that Germany is France's strongest ally while only 55% feel that the US is a trustworthy ally. Thirty-seven percent (and 61% of National Front, i.e. fascist, voters) now feel that Iraq is the country that threatens them most (a head of Iran and North Korea.)

I'm off, now, to strangle my cats.

Enter Contest - Win Millions!

Enter Mark in Mexico's "Find Jeff Goldstein" Contest

All you have to do is correctly identify the real Jeff Goldstein in the photograph below and you might win an I.O.U from Mark in Mexico for several million dollars. All entries must be accompanied by certified check or money order for, say, $1000.00 US, each, and we'll notify when we have determined a winner. Feel free to send as many entries as you like! All proceeds will go to Mark in Mexico's favorite charity.

Family members and employees of Mark in Mexico, Celluloid
Wisdom, any and all bloggers, and big-mouthed fat-asses
such as Oliver Willis, Michael Moore and Al Sharpton are
inelligible. The aforementioned may seem redundant, as most of those
mentioned couldn't find their asses in the dark with both hands, but local
social mores require said caveat.

Kerry's magic flying dog - VC - found by Mark in Mexico

The Washington Times reported:

In a 2004 presidential candidate questionnaire for Humane USA, Mr. Kerry was asked whether any pets have had an impact on his life.
"I have always had pets in my life, and there are a few that I remember very fondly," Mr. Kerry replied. "When I was serving on a Swift Boat in Vietnam, my crewmates and I had a dog we called VC. One day as our Swift Boat was heading up a river, a mine exploded hard under our boat," he continued. "After picking ourselves up, we discovered VC was MIA (missing in action). Several minutes of frantic search followed, after which we thought we'd lost him. We were relieved when another boat called asking if we were missing a dog." Said Mr. Kerry: "It turns out VC was catapulted from the deck of our boat and landed, confused but unhurt, on the deck of another boat in our patrol."

No military records on Mr. Kerry's Web site, which aides say is a complete accounting, mention a mine exploding under his boat or any dog. The only report of a mine detonating "near" Mr. Kerry's PCF 94 was March 13, 1969, when Mr. Kerry says he was injured and a man knocked overboard.

Lucianne asks,"What, did this guy even lie about being a member of Triple A?

Lucianne, he most assuredly did not lie about VC, the magic flying dog. I know this because, after an exhaustive search of some 20 minutes duration, I have found the dog. See his photo below. I know it is VC, because the photo caption says so.

We have met the VC, and he is I. 

Steyn ON-LINE!

Mark Steyn, writing in The Telegraph, in Kerry: strange, stuck-up... and
stupid, says the following;

Switch on the TV these days and you'll see John O'Neill, principal spokesman for the hundreds of Swift boat veterans who oppose their old comrade Kerry, talking calmly and patiently about the facts, citing chapter and verse and relevant footnotes, while some deranged interviewer is going berserk.

The other day it was CNN host James Carville, former skinhead-in-chief to Bill Clinton, yelling and howling all over O'Neill's answers before brushing him aside with, "I've got no use for this man."

And, in reference to Pat Oliphant's cartoon depicting Swiftboat vets spending their Viet Nam tours in latrine maintenance, he says;

Maybe he's got in mind fellows like Paul Galanti, who appears in the latest anti-Kerry ad and whose plane went down over North Vietnam in 1966. He was held in the "Hanoi Hilton" Viet Cong POW camp until 1973. That's seven years getting tortured by the gooks, only to be mocked by some lame-o cartoonist as a redneck latrine operator.

Commenting on Kerry's overall campaign stategy, he says;

Since I'm on an alliterative roll, let me add that he's too stupid to be President. What sort of idiot would make the centrepiece of his presidential campaign four months of proud service in a war he's best known for opposing?

and

And even if he'd never slimed his comrades, there's something ridiculous about a fellow with four months in Vietnam running as Ike, the Duke of Wellington and Alexander the Great rolled into one.

and

If this campaign were any more inept, Michael Moore would be making a documentary claiming Kerry's a Republican plant secretly controlled by Karl Rove and the House of Saud.

And beeeeeeeeg oil and ZionistIsraeliJewProtocols and Texasfundamentalists and fascistnaziBushhitlerbrownshirts,and per Goldstein, Abu Ghraib.

HMMM...This is very interesting

The Command Post says that Kerry's website has been revised this morning.

From the Boston Globe :

The Kerry campaign removed a 20-page batch of documents yesterday from its website after The Boston Globe quoted a Navy officer who said the documents wrongly portrayed Kerry’s service. Edward Peck had said he — not Kerry — was the skipper of Navy boat No. 94 at a time when the Kerry campaign website credited the senator with serving on the boat. The website had described Kerry’s boat as being hit by rockets and said a crewmate was injured in an attack. But Peck said those events happened when he was the skipper. The campaign did not respond to a request to explain why the records were removed.

Are someone's presidential aspirations beginning to crumble?

Who declared this "Jackson Family Day"? I thought I was in charge of this blog.

Surgeon used Jacko's ear to fix nose

Professor Werner Mang told how the superstar's nose was falling apart so badly by 1998 that he was called in to rebuild it with a piece of his ear.

'We decided that Michael Jackson, in reconstructive surgery of the nose, should get ear cartilage,' Professor Mang told American TV documentary-maker Daphne Barak.

'You make a cut on the skin of the ear and then you take out a big piece of the cartilage on the side. Then you make a cut on the nose and put the cartilage there. It's a wonderful material to reconstruct noses and repair them.'

Yeah, but you should see how his ears flap on a windy day.

BUSH WHITE HOUSE USED MY BOOB TO DISTRACT FROM IRAQ

DRUDGE REPORT says Janet Jackson now claims that her "Nipplegate" Super Bowl incident was used by the Bush administration to distract people from the war in Iraq!

Well, I was distracted....weren't you? Ann Althouse, you need not reply.

I am further enraged by his use of last year's World Series, the Stanley Cup Finals, The Laker's meltdown, the Enron investigation, Tiger Wood's slump, and his own daughters' graduation exercises to distract us. Tiger Wood's slump, too? Bushitler has no shame.

Kerry Reacts To Swiftboat Vets Accusations



When in deep shit, send in the lawyers. In a statement released to reporters, Kerry's campaign announced it had "filed a legal complaint against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) before the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for violating the law with inaccurate ads that are illegally coordinated with the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign."

This is, of course, hilarious.

(Photo borrowed from Charles Johnson at LGF. Don't tell him I took it.)

From the Newsmax Subgroup, Today's News Group, News of the Day Division, Underdepartment of Hilarity, Department of Where the hell is our money going?

Federal Bureaucracy Creep

The Washington Post notes one way that federal bureaucrats have been able to grow their numbers -- they simply create more titles.

In the past few decades, Uncle Sam has accumulated untold numbers of these: "deputy associate deputy secretary," "deputy assistant assistant secretary" and "principal deputy deputy assistant secretary."


from Newsmax

From the "Why didn't I think of that" Department

or

the "I would have-could have-should have said that" Department

"And to you sir, may I ask, don't you see the irony of the Democrats using 'restore trust' as their slogan. Did you not see their lineup of speakers?

"Let's count: we had Ted Kennedy, who lied about trying to save Mary Jo Kopechne. We had Hillary Clinton, who lied about her billing records, about her commodities trading prowess, about kissing Arafat's wife right after Arafat accused the Israelis of poisoning Palestinian children. We had Al Sharpton, of Tawana Brawley fame, who later incited an anti-Semitic riot in Harlem with fatal consequences--funny how you blindly embrace these leaders of liberty, isn't it?

"And then we had your sweetheart, President Clinton, who never saw a big hairdo or a little lie he couldn't resist. We had John Edwards, who made his fortune convincing juries of the evils of doctors, and finally, Kerry himself, who is living the biggest lie of all--marrying rich, then richer, and feigning empathy for the downtrodden as he jets from home to home to home. Are those the men and women in who's hands and hearts you want to place, if not restore, trust?"

Read all of it. It's good, trust me. But he left out the Hildabeast's most hilarious lie of all, how she got her name (she claimed that her mother named her after the famous Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to scale Mount Everest, when, in fact, she was born several years before his feat, when he was still an anonymous beekeeper in New Zealand).

More potato chips, honey?
No thanks, I'll pass.

600 pound woman in Florida dies after being surgically removed from her couch wher she had been lying, it is estimated, 2 to 5 years.

Yeccccch!

MY MAGIC HAT




The Story of the Hat

I never go anywhere without my magic hat, just like John Kerry. However, my magic hat is much too large to fit in a secret compartment in my black valise, or any compartment, for that matter. Therefore, I must carry it secretly hidden away in a Maytag side-by-side refrigerator shipping box, which I am never without.

This hat was a gift given to me by Pancho Villa himself, during a top secret "black ops" dropoff up the Blue Nile. This type of dangerous secret mission is usually not referred to as "drop off", but Pancho objected to using the word "insertion", especially when it was just he and I alone on the river.

This operation took place in 1942, on direct orders of then president Andrew Johnson, and we had been given this assignment in spite of the constant threat of hostile fire from members of the American Expeditionary force, under the command of Gen. Anthony Wayne, who had been sent there by President Andrew Jackson. Complicating matters more was the neverending danger of wounds by the ever present rose thorns, which had also been sent by President Jefferson.

I must warn you that all parties "in the know" about this assignment will deny all knowledge of it, including President Hayes, Gen. Xerxes, Col. Doolittle, King Herod, Col. Custer (deceased), Peter Pan as well as Zapata himself, who, as I mentioned above, gave me the hat.

In fact, if you are reading this, I'll have to kill you. POW!

Update: This memory is, of course, seared, seared into my memory.

It's The Movie, Stupid!

Rent, if you don't have a copy, "Apocolypse Now" or "Apololypse Now, Redux". Now, before viewing it, make the following list.
1. Shooting up a sampan on the river.
2. Minor shrapnel wounds to various crewmembers
3. USO show in the middle of nowhere.
4. Illegal crossing of Cambodia border by boat.
5. Black Op insertion of a CIA agent
6. General mayhem at night at the border (Christmas Eve Shoot'em up)

Now, pop in the movie and place a check mark beside each item on the list as you see it occur in the movie. Notice when the movie concludes that all 6 items on your list are checked.

What an incredible coincidence that John Kerry's remembrances of his four (4) months' service in Viet Nam so closely parallel the movie.

What's next, dinner with Kurtz?

On Krugman:

Now Paul Krugman is smarter than Alan Greenspan!

What a truly rat-faced little weasel he is.

O'Reilly (the quasi-murderer) put him in his place. I seriously doubt that Mr. Krugman will be appearing in any more debates soon with Kill Bill.

Another one, albeit easier to pronounce.

Blorg chulavista spaz mocha:

READY FOR A LITTLE GIGGLE?

lgf: CLICK HERE and scroll down to comment #8. Put down your hot cup of coffee, first, and you don't want to have a mouthful of anything.

About comment #8, I have no comment.

SWIFTBOAT VETERANS RETURN FIRE, FOR EFFECT

Captain's Quarters has a complete copy of Swiftboat vet's legal answer to the threatening letter sent out to radio and TV stations by Kerry's attorneys. Note that the letter addresses each claim made in the commercial, point-by-point, followed by sworn affidavits and other evidence, names, dates, congressional records, Kerry's own words, etc.. This is as opposed to the Kerry lawyers' letter, which simply stated "pack of lies".

One of the Captain's commenters, who says he is an attorney, notes that the exhaustive detail of the Swiftboat vet's response indicates that they anticipated and were well prepared for the Kerry legal gambit and are, no doubt, several steps ahead of Kerry's legal team on this.

Another commenter asks the simple question, "Why not simply release his service records to clear all this up?"

Indeed. We'll wait.

JOHN KERRY'S MESSAGE FOUND

Dave Barry finds Kerry's message.

"Making America Stronger through the Strength of Strongness."

And while he was at it, he discovered the Democrat's message, also.

SPEAKER: . . . and THAT, my fellow Democrats, is why we must defeat this lying fascist criminal war-mongering scum-sucking vermin toad, who, in the interest of remaining positive, I am not going to mention by name.

Ponce de Leon was right!

The Quixotic search for the mythical Fountain of Youth by Ponce de Leon ended in failure. However, its existence has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by El Duque, Orlando Hernandez of the New York Yankees. Given up for dead just two years ago by the Montreal Expos, El Duque underwent rotator cuff surgery, then went to Florida where he found the Fountain of Youth so desperately sought by de Leon.

El Duque just shut out, that's right, shut out the Toronto Bluejays to hike his record to 4-0, with the Bombers winning all six of his starts. His ERA, which was hovering around 3.00, will surely dip below that into the rarified atmosphere (for a 95-year old starting pitcher) of 2.90+/-.

His age is reportedly either 45 or 55 or 95, depending on which forged immigration document you wish to quote. Two years ago, he couldn't bend over to pick up his morning newspaper without requiring physical therapy to be able to straighten back up by noon. Now, he mows'em down like Randy Johnson, or Walter Johnson, or maybe Charles Johnson (the LGF CJ, not the catcher CJ). Roger who? Never heard of'im. Expect to see Ernie Banks return at any time.

Kerry's Secret Plan Exposed

Allah asks, "Is Kerry a moron? Or is he an evil genius chimp moron who wants to turn our soldiers into terrorists?"

We will add 40,000 active duty troops – not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct terrorist operations.

Hell of an idea. Send the Special Forces to start blowing up mosques, tombs, Muslims! That does it. I'm votin' for'im!

Hit them first, or wait to be hit?

9/11 Commission Report: "Once the danger has fully materialized, evident to all, mobilizing action is easier--but then it may be too late."

Kerry-Edwards book, "Our Plan for America: Stronger at Home, Respected in the World": The book's main text has one reference to pre-emption: "And his (Bush) doctrine of unilateral pre-emption has driven away our allies and cost us the support of other nations."

Driven away what allies and cost us the support of whom? No one about whom we should give a damn. We are supported in Iraq and Afghanistan by the likes of Australia, Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Russia and many, many others.

As for those who do not support us, so what? Is France our ally, or is France our rival? France ceased to be our ally when DeGaulle marched into liberated Paris at the head of Free French forces (who did little to liberate it). France became our dependent, just as the rest of whimpering Europe did, protecting them from the Soviet bear. France ceased to be our dependent when the bear crashed and became our rival. Who cares? France was a useless ally in WWI, WWII and during the Cold War, effective only at blowing up isolated Pacific atolls and the occasional Greenpeace boat.

Gawd! Would I like to see someone with real international stature stand up and repeat what I just wrote. Rudy? Rummy? Slick Willy? (heh heh, just kidding, might hurt book sales). Joe Lieberman? John McCain? (naw, he's too busy trying to defend Kerry from a gathering avalanche). Who? Well, there is no one, I guess. Maybe Dennis Miller? Oops, he already has, repeatedly. It needs to be done, even if privately, by Colin Powell.

"Look, you guys (France, Germany, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, et al), we know and you know and we know that you know and you know that we know that you know that, in the end, you are irrelevant. We strike when we strike, where we strike and at whom we strike. Do not interfere in any way. Got it? Have a nice day."

This is starting to heat up, folks.

This from The Drudge Report:

The following statement from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth concerns an article appearing in morning edition of the BOSTON GLOBE, written by GLOBE reporter and author of the official Kerry-Edwards campaign book, Mike Kranish.

"Captain George Elliott describes an article appearing in today’s edition of the BOSTON GLOBE by Mike Kranish as extremely inaccurate and highly misstating his actual views. He reaffirms his statement in the current advertisement paid for by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Captain Elliott reaffirms his affidavit in support of that advertisement, and he reaffirms his request that the ad be played.

“Additional documentation will follow.

"The article by Mr. Kranish is particularly surprising given page 102 of Mr. Kranish’s own book quoting John Kerry as acknowledging that he killed a single, wounded, fleeing Viet Cong soldier whom he was afraid would turn around.

"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has more than 250 supporters who are revealing first hand, eyewitness accounts of numerous incidents concerning John Kerry’s military service record. The organization will continue to discuss much of what John Kerry has reported as fact concerning his four-month tour of duty in Vietnam."

Current status: The Swift Boat vets have released an ad for their book which sounds devastating. The DNC and Kerry '04 lawyers have sent out a fax to hundreds of TV and radio stations which, in effect, threatens legal action against any station that airs or continues to air the ad for the book. The book is #1 on Amazon and has not yet been released. The Boston Globe reported this morning that George Elliott, one of the Swift Boat vets has retracted his story. The Swift Boat vets respond (above).

This is going to be as nasty as it gets. The story is all over the blogoshere and, I believe will destroy Kerry. Keep in mind the following; Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame and Michael Moore have all been shown to be liars (with documented proof, eyewitness accounts and even in their own words). The Bush-lied gambit has been shown to be patently false. The Bush-AWOL gambit cannot be proven, either by available documents nor by one single eyewitness (in fact, all eyewitnesses, including an ex-girlfiend, all pretty much agree that he was there and active): The economy is roaring, Iraq is democratizing itself, Afghanistan is democratizing itself, the murdering Islamists have not been able to strike us again, and a poll released today shows that 90% of Vietnamese-Americans support GW.

PERHAPS THEY WOULD PREFER THE .45 ACP?

In "Mexico angry over border weapons - (United Press International)", the Washington Post says,

"The Secretariat of Foreign Relations directed the Mexican ambassador to the United States in Washington to demand an explanation from the State Department and Department of Homeland Security on Thursday on the use of pepper balls along the border."

The Post goes on to explain,

"A pepper ball is a projectile containing a powdered chemical that hurts the eyes and nose. The U.S. Border Patrol uses an air-powered device similar to a paint-ball gun to launch the pepper balls that burst on impact."

However, it would appear that Pres. Vicente Fox and Pres. Bush agreed to implement this program some time ago.

"One component of the plan was the initiation of a pilot program on the use of non-lethal weapons by Border Patrol agents to reduce incidents of aggression against Border Patrol agents, prevent assaults against migrants and border authorities, and deter migrant detentions by civilians. The use of the pepper-ball launch system in the place of firearms is one outgrowth of the initiative."

Let's see if I understand this correctly. Mexican citizens, whose weak and corrupt governments over the past 180 years have been and remain unable and unwilling to provide them with economic, health or educational opportunity nor physical security, violate American law and sovereignty. Then, when confronted by our law enforcement officers, attack those officers with stones, clubs, knives and guns. Now come representatives of that weak and corrupt government to demand that we desist from using this non-lethal means to protect our citizens and law enforcement officers. OK, go with the ACP.

One must ask, "Who are the only real people to be seen in the photos below?"

Him: "And this, honey, is called 'corn'. This is what it looks like to the clodhoppers before our chef takes it out of the can. "
Her: "With those green thingys on it is that what they call 'cornpone'? And, oh my God, is that pubic hair?"




Prez: "Munch, munch, munch...(cornpone...pubic hair)...munch, munch...(silly bitch)...munch, munch, munch.
Spectator: "Hot dam! That sumbitch's gotta powerful hongry on, don' he? Think ahm-uh-gonna git me sum, too."


Thanks to Rush Limbaugh.

For "mornin":

Now, don't you actually HURT anyone while you're over there, y'hear?


From Charles at LGF

"The Marines - two in uniform and two off-duty - were polite but curt while chatting with Kerry, answering most of his questions with a "yes, sir" or "no, sir."

But they turned downright nasty after the Massachusetts senator thanked them "for their service" and left.

"He imposed on us and I disagree with him coming over here shaking our hands," one Marine said, adding, "I'm 100 percent against [him]."

A sergeant with 10 years of service under his belt said, "I speak for all of us. We think that we are doing the right thing in Iraq," before saying he is to be deployed there in a few weeks and is "eager to go and serve."

My question would be, what would John Kerry say to a United States Marine?

"I'm sorry."?

Trust me, it takes some practise to say it, error-free.

Mo Rocca Mocha Ocarina Macarena

Tee Shirt of the Month

I AM A BOMB TECNICIAN. IF YOU SEE ME RUNNING, TRY TO KEEP UP.

from Jeff Jarvis

Gillette disposes of common sense.

In a marketing coup, Gillette handed out 30,000 gift bags at the Democratic National Convention this week. Included in each gift bag was a Mach III razor. Small problem: Razors are on EVERYBODY'S list of prohibited items EVERYWHERE but your store, your car and your bathroom. Hence, every single one of them (30,000) had to be discarded by the delegates during bag searches prior to entering the convention floor. No doubt Gillette Corp. will be doing some shaving of their marketing staff in the near future.

From: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via News Forum

Hey, I know. Start handing them out at airport, bus and train terminals!

Balloons, Must have more balloons! 


The curse of the Bambino lives:

As broadcast live on CNN last night;

DNC convention centre director Don Mischer, 'No confetti. No confetti yet. Go balloons. Go balloons. More balloons. All balloons. All balloons. Come on guys, let's move it," began a relatively calm Mr Mischer.

"Jesus, we need more balloons. I want all balloons to go, goddamn. No confetti. No confetti. No confetti. I want more balloons. What's happening to the balloons? We need more balloons. We need all of them coming down... balloons.

"Go balloons, balloons... what's happening balloons, there's not enough coming down. All balloons - where the hell - there's nothing falling," Mr Mischer said, before finally exploding: "What the fuck are you guys doing up there?"

According to
NEWS.com.au

Update: Should it have been hell instead of hell?  Or maybe hell?

"I was there, before I wasn't."

Casper Kerry? 


NASA ordered to pull Kerry's photos from the Web, per Drudge.

The Cover 


Drudge Report: Buy This Book!

Drudge says,

Swift Boat Veterans began to fume after Kerry's campaign used a photograph of John Kerry and 19 other Coastal Division 11 Swift boat officers [taken at Ton Sun Nuht Air Base on January 22, 1969] in a pro-Kerry advertisement.

William Shumadine, a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pictured in the photograph, explains in UNFIT: "John Kerry's use of a photograph with his nineteen comrades, with knowledge that eleven of them comdemn him and six who cannot or do not want to be involved, is a complete misreprentation to the public and a total fraud."

We need to take a look at this, because:

A new bombshell book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations (#1 and #3) resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire.

The startling Purple Heart accusations, outlined in detail for the first time, are found in UNFIT FOR COMMAND, Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

Self-inflicted? If this is true, or cannot be disproven, then Kerry is toast.

Esquire: The Case for George W. Bush, i.e., What if he's right? A Liberal Has Second Thoughts

In Esquire today,the most intriguing article. A confirmed Bush hater ("What an asshole. Ah. That feels better. George W. Bush is an asshole, isn't he? Moreover, he's the first president who seems merely that, at least in my lifetime.") begins to think, I mean really think.

The writer is Tom Junod, about whom I know little. After reading this, I will do some research. He writes after viewing a photo taken of Mr. Bush at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony and relates his first impression.

He not only has led us into war, he seems to get off on war, and it's the greedy pleasure he so clearly gets from flexing his biceps or from squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw or from landing a plane on an aircraft carrier-the greedy pleasure the war president finds in playacting his own attitudes of belligerence-that permitted me the greedy pleasure of hating him.

Then, Mr. Junod reads the speech that Mr. Bush gave.

Then I read the text of the speech he gave and was thrown from one kind of certainty-the comfortable kind-into another.

and

Still, I have to admit to feeling a little uncertain of my disdain for this president when forced to contemplate the principle that might animate his determination to stay the course in a war that very well may be the end of him politically.

more,

The people who dislike George W. Bush have convinced themselves that opposition to his presidency is the most compelling moral issue of the day. Well, it's not. The most compelling moral issue of the day is exactly what he says it is, when he's not saying it's gay marriage.

and

We were attacked three years ago, without warning or predicate event. The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about death-that honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and global-and if it does not warrant the expenditure of what the self-important have taken to calling "blood and treasure," then what does? Slavery? Fascism? Genocide?

and

If we do not find it within ourselves to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evil-and to pronounce ourselves morally superior to it-then we have lost the ability to identify any evil at all, and our democracy is not only diminished, it dissolves into the meaninglessness of privilege.

Read it all, but pour a cup of coffee first, because it is a long one. You may want to read it a couple of times, so as not to miss any salient points.
Warning: It is neither pro-Bush nor anti-Bush, neither Left nor Right, neither liberal nor conservative (disappointing everyone, I suppose.) Mr. Junod simply makes the following observation;

I have to admit that when I listen to him speak, with his unbending certainty, I sometimes hear an echo of the same nagging question I ask myself after I hear a preacher declaim the agonies of hellfire or an insurance agent enumerate the cold odds of the actuarial tables. Namely: What if he's right?

Photo Mania!

I am using a program from Picasa called HELLO to post photos to my blogs (this one and Aviones America Latina). There follows a copy of a note that I sent to these people today. I seldom complement someone on a job well done, but this is a glaring exception. If you already have it, use it, and if you ain't got it, get it!

Hello to Hello,

I am a new blogger (6 months) and even newer user of Bloggerbot (3 weeks) and I want to tell you folks that this is the neatest thing since hollow-point bullets. If you object to that analogy, please disregard in favor of the following; It is the neatest thing since round spaghetti (The Chinese invented it square, so it stacked up on your plate, but Marco Polo said,"Hey! No way! We'll make it round so that it swirls onto your plate". Of course, it also slides off of your fork or out of your spoon directly into your lap, but that's another story. Lady and Tramp loved it.)

Seriously, although I have little influence, if you ever need a testimonial, feel free to contact me.

Shocked, just shocked!

Arabs Shock Europeans, Refuse To Condemn Anti-Semitism

Shocked about what? What planet do these Euros live on? It must be in a galaxy far, far away.

YOU WOULD VOTE FOR THESE?

Nyaaaa, What's up, Doc? 


I was OK 'til that house fell on my sister. 


I thought the Dem's mascot was a donkey. I see now that it is a jackass.

Update:

The Kerrytubbies! 


PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!

I in 32 Americans

One out of every thirty-two people in the United States is in prison, on parole from prison or on probation, one step away from prison. Incredible statistic. Why?

SHOVE WHAT, WHERE?

Teresa Heinz Kerry gives a speech begging for civility and respect during this presidential race, then does a flip-flop of which hubby would be proud. Immediately after the speech, she pushes her way through the crowd to tell a reporter to "shove it".

Matt Drudge and The Pittsburgh Channel have both eyewitness reports as well as video. So as to eliminate the usual suspects; BushliedVastRightwingConspiracyZionistPlot,etc.,etc.,etc..

Oh, by the way, this is my first attempt to use "Blog This" from my Google toolbar. What do you think?

Update: I screwed it up. Got the text but not the link (added the links from the post edit window). Oh well, I'll try again.

Hello, I'm back!
 
I've been down with a vicious cold.  I have now been on ampicillan to the tune of 1500 mgs. per day for 9 days and it's still with me.  I guess I'm not going to die, so I may as well blog, no?

Lessee, The Lance has won the Tour de France, again (sixth straight).  His opposition this year, including the feller who last summer said that he would "squash Lance Armstrong like a toad", melted away like the French defending Paris.

The Yankees are out in front of the Red Sox by 8 1/2 or 9 1/2, depending on what day you check.  Don't blink or it will be 15.

Bush will squash Kerry like a toad (is there an echo in here?).

Our good friends and allies, like the Filipinos, are running, shreiking, from any confrontation that might cause a little blood to flow (unlesss, of course, it's American blood, in which case they are right behind us all the way).

The camel jockies are threatening to send a line of car bombers to make the sreets run red.

The BUSHLIED crowd is frantically searching for something about which he may actually have lied, since the 9/11 panel has concluded that Clarke lied, Joe Wilson lied, Valerie Plame lied, etc., etc.

Kerry visits the auto capitol of the world, Detroit, to speak to the people who assemble the Rolls Royce.  Rolls Royce?  Where is that assembly plant?

So, I see that absolutely nothing has changed since I last blogged.  Maybe I'll take another sabbatical. (The noise you hear is from my many devoted fans screaming, No! No!)

Bye.

LILEKS BLOWS IT!!!!

James Lileks, whom I thought had one of the better minds in all Blogosphere, has, apparently, had the wheels come off. He says, laughably, ridiculously, falsely and libelously, the following, concerning Mad Magazines's Don Martin:

Don Martin wasn’t all that funny, but it looked funny, and in his case that was enough.

Oh, really? Fester Bestertester and Karbunkle were not all that funny, huh?

What about the time that the halitosis-suffering Dr. Fester Bestertester, DDS, drills into Karbunkle's one and only giant front tooth with a hi-speed drill, just as the city suffers a power failure? Remember Karbuncle's face as the drill's rpm's slowed and the bit stuck in his tooth? Not funny? Heh!

And the time that Fester Bestertester and Karbunkle are standing, innocently, on the sidewalk awaiting the military parade when the heavy office safe gets accidently pushed out of a window 30 stories above them. The safe comes screaming down upon the unsuspecting pair and lands, corner first, exactly atop poor Karbunkle's headbone. He is crushed to the ground and his tongue goes lolling out all the way across the street. Just then, the parade arrives with troops, tanks, heavy armor, etc., marching over his outstretched tongue. Not funny? Heh!

I bought a paperback of Mr. Martin's finest Fester Bestertester and Karbunkle work and got thrown out of afternoon studyhall for uncontrollable and unstifleable laughter. Well, maybe that looked pretty funny, too.

HEY! THAT'S US!

...portrays Americans as hog-fat, gun-waving simpletons whose wilful ignorance of the outside world is matched only by their bullying arrogance towards it, and whose pious sentimentality co-exists with a reverence for violence.

Paul Thomas in The New Zealand Herald comments on "anti-Americanism".

An irony here is that one of anti-Americanism's gurus, the film-maker and polemicist Michael Moore, is himself a prime example of Slobbus Americanus.

"Hog-fat gun-waving simpletons" and "Slobbus Americanus." I like that. Read the whole thing, it is really not so critical of us.

You Can't Beat Tradition

To all those disparaging of the Hollywood entertainers' vociferous, obscene and insulting comments at the Kerry/Edwards fundraiser: You really have no right to criticize Whoopi, Billy, John, Chevy, Susan, et al when you remember that they all belong to a long and distinguished line of politically active performing artists which traces its roots all the way back to, uh, John Wilkes Booth.

And do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden time.
-- Churchill on Munich Oct 5, 1938

This from Wretchard at The Belmont Club.

There is lots to read, think about and discuss in Hugh Hewitt's new book, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends Upon It. However, you will NOT find this quote there.

"Lick Bush and Dick in '04"

That would reportedly be from Whoopi Goldberg. Another reason I'll not be voting for the Jackasses this year.

Another reason to increase defense spending

Bush Is Creating Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them

Bumper sticker reportedly seen in Washington.

Hmmm, I had never thought of it this way.

Muslim women, it seems, can't win. In Islamic countries they may be flogged for taking off the veil; in the west they can be denied a public education or harassed in the street for putting it on.

Geraldine Brooks in The Financial Times makes a very interesting point.

She also makes it a point to mention the vast difference between growing up a Muslim woman in North America with those in North Africa.

As the mother of one nose-ringed, tongue-studded teenager explained to me: "People in this society are going to have to recognise that a Muslim woman with a nose ring can be just as Muslim as a woman with a headscarf."

And later;

For the immigrant generation, who often grew up in repressive, if not tyrannical, societies, the idea of putting one's head above the parapet and participating in public political discourse can come hard, but this is not so for the American-born, whose background noise has been the in-your-face debating style of Fox News shows and the discourteous demands of rap lyrics.

Take a look at this article. Food for thought.

"we survived Carter and we'd survive Kerry."
Mickey Kaus, July 5, 2004

This is support? Excuse me while I... HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

READ LILEKS NOW, I MEAN RIGHT NOW!

My question is, "How does he do that?" I don't mean the writing because he is a gifted writer, as is well known. I mean, how does he come up with names, dates, places as well as "where they are now"? Incredible. I could have, I suppose, found the names of the KIA from Davisson, MI after a few hours of work. But the American flag poker and the pokee? I wouldn't know where to begin such a search. But Lileks knows.

WOW!

One little problem. He doesn't offer a permalink to any particular post, at least that I can find. So, if you click on the link above, say, tomorrow, you won't see this post, no, this bleat, no, this essay. You will see his newest. If the essay that you find is not about Michael Moore, read the one that you find, then go to his archives for the one about which I am oohing and aahing.

Talk the talk, but...

Mexico's tin-pot military faces down heavily armed Marines.

At the funeral in Mexico of Marine Lance Cpl. Juan López, killed in Iraq, the fearless tin-pot warriors of Mexico's vaunted army showed no fear whatsoever of the U.S. Marine contingent sent to honor their fallen comrade. The Marine Assault force (all two of them) were armed with ceremonial rifles (clubs) and the Marine Reserve force ( all seven of them, armed with bare hands) were in violation of the tender sensibilities of local tin-pot Mexican military forces.

The outgunned Mexicans (twelve of them) bravely fired strong words and later fearlessly blockaded the heavy-armor (a passenger van) of the Marines for some several minutes, before declaring a unilateral cease fire and withdrawing from the field. Stoically enduring the potentially deadly verbal attacks from family and friends of Lance Cpl. López, the tin-pot warriors would say that they were authorized only to interrupt the funeral service, not to explain why.

In all fairness to the Mexican forces, they do not understand the concept of "ceremonial" weapons as opposed to "real weapons that go "Bang-Bang-Bang..." because all of the Mexican Army's weapons are considered ceremonial in nature.

In epochs to come, this episode will no doubt take its rightful place in the near mythical tradition of a long line of Mexican embarrassments, such as;

Emperor Moctezuma (Montezuma in the Marine Hymn), killed by a rock thrown by a rioting subject, not by Hernan Cortez, as taught in the schools)

Emperor Iturbide, shot by firing squad after declaring himself emperor of "free" Mexico upon independence from Spain.

Gen. Santa Ana, captured wearing a woman's dress, without firing a shot, at San Jacinto by Gen. Houston.

Emperor Maximilian, shot by firing squad after being declared emperor by, then not defended by, the French (no surprise, there).

Pres. Porfirio Díaz, after declaring himself President-For-life-with-"free"-elections-every-six-years-whether-you-like-it-or-not, rounded up thousands of Mayas in the Yucatan and shipped them to Cuba as slaves for the sugar plantations, then went north to round up thousands of Yaquis and shipped them south to the Yucatan to replace the Mayas because he needed them to work in the hemp industry (hemp for ropin', not for smokin').

Gen. Victoriano Huerta, who murdered Pres. Madero (who had overthrown Pres. Díaz (President-For-Life-With-etc.-etc.-etc.)), then murdered Emiliano Zapata, then declared himself president, then was exiled to Europe by Carranza, who then murdered Pancho Villa, who was then murdered by ???? (it gets confusing with who shot whom, when, why, and who declared whom presidente, emporador, etc, etc., but they all wore tin pots).

Pres. Pedro Lascur de Paredes, president for less than an hour, who replaced the freshly shot Pres. Madero and was in turn replaced by the aforementioned Gen. Huerta, no doubt brandishing the still-smoking pistol.

Pres. Cárdenas, who nationalized (stole) all property, facilities, equipment, etc. from private oil companies with legal contracts signed by his own government, thereby creating PEMEX, the most inefficient and corrupt oil company on earth (with the possible exception of Nigeria's).

Pres. Echeverría, whose presidency was awarded in return for his ordering the 1968 pre-Olympic massacre of students, police and soldiers in Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City. Either 20 were killed, if you believe the government, or 300 if you believe the lying eyes of survivors. To demonstrate his sense of fair play, Echeverría had the tin-pot army round up some 300 of his own gunmen, all of those who could count higher than 20, and execute them all to preserve the government's census calculations, as well as his future presidency.

Sec'y of the Interior Manuel Bartlett Díaz, who, with a single keystroke, created the computer crash that delayed the presidential election vote count for twelve hours, resulting in the miraculous victory of his boss, Carlos Salinas, over Cuahtemoc Cardenas, son of the aforementioned founder of PEMEX.

Pres. Carlos Salinas, now living in seclusion in Europe and whose brother, Raul (known affectionately during Carlos's term as Mr. Ten Percent), a mover and shaker during the administration of Carlos, is serving a 30 year or 40 year or 50 year stretch for murder and corruption. (Every time Raul's lawyers get a judge to reduce the sentence to 30 years, the government comes back to the table with more charges and gets another judge to jack the sentence back to 50 years.) Carlos artificially propped up the flimsy peso which caused its value to finally crash down on the head of his successor.

Pres. Ernesto Zedillo, who, still reeling from the aforementioned peso crash, appoints the first Mexican Drug Czar, then ten (10) weeks later has to have him arrested after being presented by a library full of evidence by the U.S. ambassador that Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was, truly, a drug czar. Gen. Rebollo is serving a 500 or so year stretch, as we speak.

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.

Conditions of Employment

According to The New York Post, thesmokinggun.com has obtained a five (5) page list of demands that must be met before Sharon Stone will show up for her first day of work. These demands include;

Pilates equipment (Pontius Pilate's? Call Mel.)
a $3,500/week per diem
armed bodyguards
a prohibition against on-set cigar smoking
a chauffeured car with a nonsmoking driver approved by her
a convertible for Stone's personal use
three nannies, two assistants
multiple cell phones and pagers
the presidential suite at a top-drawer hotel
first-class travel (if a private jet is unavailable)
a personal chef
deluxe trailer with air conditioning, heating, private bathroom, shower, TV, VCR, refrigerator, telephone, stove, sofa, bed, stereo and fax machine
She also gets to keep all the clothing and jewelry she wears in the film.

I sympathize with Ms. Stone, as for some time I have had my own five (5) page list of demands which must be met before I will show up for work, to wit;

Page 1: A Job
Page 2: Pages 2,3,4,5 are irrelevent (if a private jet is or is not available)

IT'S SATURDAY AND I AM TEACHING

Saturday is my day to teach at my school in Puebla. What I am teaching today is BLOGS. The wonderful world of the Blogosphere and my own little blogospheroid. I have with me a student named Juan Manuel Romero who is duly impressed with my vast knowledge of the net, etc. Juan says, "Incredible!" and "My teacher is intelligent." As you can see, Juan is one of my very best students and is sure to score well on any and all ESL tests that I grade.

Dings, Dents and Dog Poop

Laura Billings gets all weepy about the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. This has to be a joke, right?

I wonder if this is truly true?

Reuters says that there are reports now being checked by the US military that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been captured. If these reports are true, I would suggest that he be turned over to the Iraqis to have his heart and mind separated, so to speak.

Something like this, I would suppose.

Even in a country ravaged by 15 months of war, the scene was horrific: a woman's head had been placed on a box containing the ashes of her cremated body. This was her punishment for working as an interpreter for US forces in Iraq.

Important Announcement

It was discovered today that Blogspot.com and Blogger.com are NOT idiot-proof nor have they received anti-moron innoculations. When I ran into the debacle with my MSN Passport account, I immediately changed the EmailMe! and Write Me! links on this page to a Yahoo email address. While congratulating myself on my mental prowess and quick reaction time, I failed to note that, in both links, I keyed in markenmexico.yahoo.com. That is . as in DOT, you big dummy, where it should be @ as in AT. I think I have the problem fixed now.

UPDATE: Innoculations has only two "n's", one towards the front and another towards the rear, in case you really cared.

Bright Sunshine Today in Toronto

While cruising around the net, today ( I dislike the term "surfing), I found this fellow, who, while appearing to be a bright chap and a very logical thinker, may also have a suicidal bend to his character. His name is Salim Mansur and he is a professor of political science at The University of Western Ontario. He also writes a column for The Toronto Sun which appears on alternate Thursdays. This is what may get him into trouble.

Here is a sampling of his last few column titles with links;

Reagan: A regular guy ( Jun 11 )

Buying 'ethnic' votes ( Jun 8 )

Democracy: The devil is in the details ( May 27 )

Beheading, prison abuses can't be linked ( May 13 )

The U.S. has been true to its mission ( May 8 )

U.S. torturers will be brought to justice ( May 6 )

Canadian politics reek of anti-U.S. stench is his latest column and is the one I linked to in this post's title. I sent him an appreciative email which included the advice to head for Port Huron before he gets himself shot. What with Sharia law being slowly but surely implemented in Canada, I fear that getting shot would be welcome compared to what those people prefer which is the separation of one's mind from one's body, so to speak.

Visit the links and read what Mr. Mansur has to say. Hey! I just thought of something. Maybe there will be an opening in the Political Science Department at The University of Minnesota some day, like when Fidel dies.

UPDATE

Prof. August Nimtz, Jr. of the University of Minnesota, mentioned prominently in my "Village Idiot" post yesterday, is the proud author of "Class Struggle Under 'Empire': In Defence of Marx and Engels", published in Issue 96 of the International Socialism Journal, 2002.

Ooookay.

I also found his course syllabus for "Political Development", fall semester, 2000, UofM, which included the following:

Castro: "Address to Group of 77 South Summit Conference"
Nimtz: "Marxism (2nd Edition)
Che Guevara: "Address to the Tricontinental Conference"
Nimtz: "Marxism" (1st Edition)
Clark and Barnes: "The Politics of Economics: Che Guevara and Marxist Continuity"
Nimtz and Prevost: "Cuban Revolution is alive and doing as well as can be expected"

Double ooookay.

Professor Nimtz seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in support and praise of Fidel, Raul, Che, Elian (or rather, his forced return to Cuba), Marx, Engels, etc. No doubt during those long and harsh Midwestern winters the dreams of palm trees swaying in the warm ocean breezes on the beach at Havana attract Prof. Nimtz to even further exertions in adulation of that failed and irrelevant dictatorship somewhere off the coast of Florida.

I think "irrelevant" is the keyword here.

STEYN STRIKES

OK, enough doom and gloom. We were having a good weekend, remember? So, I offer this from the irrepressible Mark Steyn on Bill and Sir Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If I were the big spenders at Knopf, I'd have said: "Look, we understand that a politician with legal difficulties has to say things like 'inappropriate encounter.' And, if you want to write a memoir in dead pol-speak, that's OK, we'll pay you 20,000 bucks. But for 10 mil do us a favor and lay off the 'I had an inappropriate encounter' stuff. Shoot for more of 'The shaft of light from the dying sun through the Oval Office window caught the swell of her bosom as she slid the extra-large pepperoni across the desk. I knew it was wrong. I'd penciled in that evening for bringing peace to Northern Ireland, but what the hell, the two sides of that troubled island's sectarian conflict were separated by as deep a divide as the plunging cleavage now beckoning from her low-cut angora sweater. Ulster could wait.' "

Hilarity rules!

HEY, VILLAGE, I FOUND YOUR IDIOT!

I knew the weekend was going too well to be true. I should have stayed at Winds of Change when I got there. This is Saturday, their good-news day. But, nooooo, I had to continue cruising around the net until I stumbled on this piece of, well, crapola.

It would seem that this fellow, August Nimtz, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota and member of the Minnesota Cuba Committee, has a few thoughts on real democracy. That is, the "real" democracy as practised by Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul.

I will excerpt a bit of this tripe for you.

Two related and bogus premises...One is that Washington has something to teach Cubans about democracy and, second, that there is a democratic deficit on the Caribbean island.

No deficit of democracy on the island, eh? So, bright and early Monday morning, any Cuban who so desires may launch an opposition political party and attack the rulers of the island by exposing their shortcomings and failings? This same person can then campaign against the rulers openly, post signs supporting his position, recruit supporters who will, by telephone and personal visits, seek support from the populace? And then take out advertisements in the free (oops, we haven't gotten there yet, patience, patience) press to denounce the aforementioned rulers and their policies? And have slobbering political science professors such as Mr. Nimtz write and have published in the free press attacks accusing the rulers of imperialism, lack of democracy, second rate health and educational programs, aching poverty in every city, town and village, bloodthirsty executions, and lack of a living wage paid? And this person and his supporters and the political science professor and the newspaper editor all would remain free to say anything they want to say and have printed anything they wish and remain out of prison?

I agree that gross human rights violations are commonplace in Cuba -- in the U.S.-occupied Cuban territory of Guantanamo!

Ah, yes, no political prisoners in Fidel's utopia of freedom. No torture, no kangaroo court executions, either.

The social gains that the Cuban people enjoy, as in education and health care, are possible because they possess political power -- in other words, real democracy. Precisely because U.S. workers lack such power, their social wages continue to erode.

Social gains? Education and health care? OK, the average life span of a Cuban has been increased from 35 to 40 years, congrats! (I know that's not true, but I couldn't help myself.) And education? Wow, let's count the latest Cuban Nobel winners in medecine, chemistry, economics, physics, etc. What? There aren't any? Tell me it's not true! And US workers "social" wages continue to erode. In relation to what? And what are "social" wages, exactly? How do US wages, social or otherwise, compare to those of the Cuban worker? And now that I think of it, "Cuban worker"? Working where? Working at the auto assembly plant? The steel mill? The Havana Wal-mart?

Finally, as the Amnesty International Web site confirms, three executions did take place in 2003, but they were carried out against armed hijackers, not political "dissidents."

Not dissidents? I agree that they were armed hijackers, but their plane was not aimed at an office tower. It was aimed at the tarmac of Miami International Airport. It was an escape, a flight to avoid abject poverty and hopelessness, a band of refugees. For this, they paid with their lives.

Briefly, the 1993 indictment against Raul Castro was based on testimony of a member of the Medellin drug cartel, and there was never any evidence to sustain an actual indictment. Further, the 1987 convictions in Miami of 17 drug traffickers with alleged connections to Cuba and Raul Castro is simply innuendo.

Hmm, we have a "1993" indictment but not an "actual" indictment. I'll check with Prof. Volokh and Prof. Bainbridge for an explanation as to the difference. And who would have testified against Raul concerning his ties to drug trafficking? Mother Teresa, Jesse Ventura, Garrison Keillor? If I am in the dock, any and all testimony against me is innuendo, yessireebob, you betcha.

One final remark, albiet in the interrogatory mood: Mr. Nimtz, could you have written a piece like this, modified to be anti-Castro and pro-USA, and had it published in Cuba? Go there. Try it. We'll see you on the outside in about, oh, thirty years.

Note to self: NO posting after the second Cuba Libre.

UPDATE! UPDATE!

I received another missive from MSN tech support. Much more encouraging. I quote (without their permission, but it is so nice that I'm sure that they won't mind).

Hotmail Customer Support wrote:
Dear Mark,

Thank you for writing back to MSN Hotmail Technical Support about your address book.

I regret for the delay in responding to your e-mail.

Mark, in order to assist you further I would require some more information from you. Please respond to this e-mail with the following information.

- Do you want to transfer your contacts from your old account to the new one?
- What do you refer to unanswered e-mail?

- Are you missing some of your contact addresses?

We are eager to resolve your issue on hand and look forward to receive your e-mail with the above requested information.

Sincerely,

Sirisha
MSN Hotmail Technical Support Representative).

And my slobbering response?

Dear Sirisha,
If you can fix all this for me, I shall light a candle for you in my personal sanctuary located in an isolated forest in central Mexico (well, actually, its a bar). Specifically,

(well, blah, blah, blah, a lot of highly technical terms, descriptions and instructions to Microsoft as to exactly what they need to do. I left out enough detailed technical instructions so that they would not feel completely useless.)

It sounds like you are going to help me. I have not yet opened a new account. Tell me when to GO!
Sincerely,
Mark in Mexico (Mark A. Moore)
PS.: Visit markinmexico.blogspot.com for blow-by-blow description of this issue

Heh, heh, see how I managed to cleverly insert a plug for the ol' blog? Imagine if every Microsoft employee visited my blog just once daily in order to update themselves on the latest technical developements in this now bipartisan effort to recover my missing Hotmail data. Why, I'd be hotter than, say, a well known Hollywood mystery novelist and screenwriter.

Sirisha is such a sexy name, too, don't you think?

Tune in tomorrow, same time, same station, for the latest developments in this rapidly heating relationship between Siri...uh, I mean, MSN and Mark in Mexico.

Party Poopers!


Final ---------1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
NY Mets -----0 2 0 6 0 0 1 0 0 9 12 0
NY Yankees- 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 06 1
W:A.Leiter(3-2) L:B.Halsey(1-1)
HR: NYM- C.Floyd (8) NYY- G.Sheffield (11), H.Matsui (14)

Well, Boston got shelled slightly worse;

Final -----------1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Philadelphia ---0 2 0 5 0 0 2 0 0 9 13 0
Boston ---------0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 14 4
W:R.Madson(5-2) L:B.Arroyo(2-7)
HR: PHI- J.Thome (26) BOS- None

Michelle is gagging.