Entitlement spending........

 I was surprised to see this on CNBChttp://www.cnbc.com/id/41969508

Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

“The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients. “Consumption supported by wages and salaries is a much stronger foundation for economic growth than consumption based on social welfare benefits.”

The economist gives the country two stark choices. In order to get welfare back to its pre-recession ratio of 26 percent of pay, “either wages and salaries would have to increase $2.3 trillion, or 35 percent, to $8.8 trillion, or social welfare benefits would have to decline $500 billion, or 23 percent, to $1.7 trillion,” she said.

Last month, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a $61 billion federal spending cut, but Senate Democratic leaders and the White House made it clear that had no chance of becoming law. Short-term resolutions passed have averted a government shutdown that could have occurred this month, as Vice President Biden leads negotiations with Republican leaders on some sort of long-term compromise.

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“You’ve got to cut back government spending and the Republicans will run on this platform leading up to next year’s election,” said Joe Terranova, Chief Market Strategist for Virtus Investment Partners and a “Fast Money” trader.

Terranova noted some sort of opt out for social security or even raising the retirement age.

But the country may not be ready for these tough choices, even though economists like Schnapp say something will have to be done to avoid a significant economic crisis.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last week showed that  less than a quarter of Americans supported making cuts to Social Security or Medicare in order to reign in the mounting budget deficit.

Those poll numbers may be skewed by a demographic shift the likes of which the nation has never seen. Only this year has the first round of baby boomers begun collecting Medicare benefits—and here comes 78 million more.

Social welfare benefits have increased by $514 billion over the last two years, according to TrimTabs figures, in part because of measures implemented to fight the financial crisis. Government spending normally takes on a larger part of the spending pie during economic calamities but how can the country change this make-up with the root of the crisis (housing) still on shaky ground, benchmark interest rates already cut to zero, and a demographic shift that calls for an increase in subsidies?

At the very least, we can take solace in the fact that we’re not quite at the state welfare levels of Europe. In the U.K., social welfare benefits make up 44 percent of wages and salaries, according to TrimTabs’ Schnapp.

“No matter how bad the situation is in the US, we stand far better on these issues (debt, demographics, entrepreneurship) than other countries,” said Steve Cortes of Veracruz Research. “On a relative basis, America remains the world leader and, as such, will also remain the world's reserve currency.”

For the best market insight, catch 'Fast Money' each night at 5pm ET, and the ‘Halftime Report’ each afternoon at 12:30 ET on CNBC.

______________________________________________________


John Melloy is the Executive Producer of Fast Money. Before joining CNBC, he was an editor for Bloomberg News, overseeing the U.S. Stock Market coverage team.

______________________________________________________

20 Anniversary of Desert Storm

it has been 20 years since Desert Storm, it has been 20 years since the world changed...some say for a new world order.  The Soviet Union was collapsing, Germany was 1 nation again, not 2 facing across across mines and barbed wire.  I was stationed in Germany when unification happened.  I had spent several years patrolling the border between West Germany and the warsaw pact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_pact. 

    I saw how the other side lived, I had gone to Berlin in 1987 to do a 90 day tour with the brigade there, I went to east Berlin in my class A uniform.(Berlin was governed by the 4 powers, a holdover from WWII, it was the Americans, British, French and the Russians)    West Berlin was a 24 hour party, she was alive and humming, East Berlin was somber, dour and even though I saw scaffolding everywhere, I still saw the bulletholes in the wall and statue's from when the Russian armies crashed into the city in April of 45 and had to take the city block by block.   I remember walking by 10 story building with colorful murals on the wall at the top, I noticed the cameras on the corners monitoring the population, then I saw a panel move from the mural and a guy with a camera that was mounted on what appeared to be a rifle stock, he aimed the camera, take some pictures and go back inside.  I was stunned to see such a thing.  It again reminded me that east germany was controlled by a police state and the populace was kept in line by the STASI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi the dreaded secret police.  Seeing such things makes you appreciate the freedoms that we have and many people take for granted.  Seeing the unification happen on AFN while we were confined to barracks to prevent a possible incident from the soviets during this time.  We were glad to see the wall fall and the joy of the German people was a palpable thing.

 After things settled down and the chain of command realized that the Soviets were not going to interfere with the reunification process. we were allowed to travel in West Germany only.  I got used to seeing the Trabbis's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant puttering on the autobahns.  They were packed with East Germans coming over to the west to see how the west lived.  They were amazed at the luxuries that the West Germans had and took for granted.

    

Saddam Hussain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein  had the bad luck of invading Kuwait right after the wall fell and there was a huge American army in Europe that had no enemy to face as the Russians were starting to pull back out of Eastern Europe.  Saddam had just fought the Iranians in a 8 year old war that generated millions of casualties on the scale of WWI.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War     and bankrupted his country with most of the money owed to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
 
      We were watching the invasion through AFN in the barracks and heard rumors of us being sent to the Gulf.  We didn't get the actual deployment orders until veterans day 1990.  We drove our vehicles to a depot near Frankfurt Germany, where the equipment would get loaded on trains to get shipped out of Bremerhaven.  This was billed as a reverse REFORGER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REFORGER 

We left Germany on a C5A for Dammon Saudi Arabia.  We left Germany that had the best ski weather in a generation to the chagrin of the ski bums in my unit.  We got to Dammon and it was 72 degrees and sunny.  Talk about a shock.  Seeing the middle east for the first time, it was totally different than Europe or the States.  We still had our green BDU's.  We didn't get the popular chocochip pattern DCU's until the war was over.  You would tell a soldier from Germany from one from the states, they had the desert uniform

and we had the BDU's  Even our equipment was all forest green, we didn't have a chance to paint them before we got deployed. 

   We were told much later that we were feared by the Iraqi's because we had defeated their trainers,the Soviets in Europe.  I don't know if that was true,.but it did make us feel better.  We kept hoping that the Iraqi's would pull out of Kuwait and we wouldn't have to attack them, we are soldiers and will do our jobs, we were well trained, but we were told that there would be a lot of casualties because Saddam likes to use chemical weapons and mass wave attacks.  Life is less valued over there than to a western based society, we will use technology and firepower rather than mass wave attacks.  But the Iraqi's were trained by the soviets, and we wern't sure that the air-land battle concept would actually work.  We had gamed it many times but there is no substitute for practical use.   I am a student of history and I knew that the Iraqi's use mass attacks....that is what they used against the Iranians, so I had an older e-tool, the kind with a wooden handle.  I put a sharp edge on it in case I had to hack somebody with it.   Like I said, we were facing the unknown and didn't know what to expect. 
      After we got to our holding areas at Dammon, we waited for our equipment to arrive by ship so we could go assemble at the marshalling point.  We drank a lot of water and trained hard in an NBC environment.  We had to deal with the occasional SCUD alert while we were there.    Christmas time there was very depressing, we got together with other units and groups of soldiers would walk around and sing Christmas carols.  For some reason the slower ones were more popular, especially "Silent night"

     I will post more tomorrow, I have to organize my thoughts.

NPR Biased....You don't say.....cannot be true.....I am shocked!!!

Apparently this is just hitting the blogosphere, BretBart of busting ACORN fame has a video of an executive from NPR(national prolateriat radio) talking to who he believes is a representative from an arabic group wanting to donate about $5 million dollars.   Here is the story courtesy of www.biggovernment.com

http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/08/npr-executives-caught-on-tape-bashing-conservatives-and-tea-party-touting-liberals/

A man who appears to be a National Public Radio senior executive, Ron Schiller, has been captured on camera savaging conservatives and the Tea Party movement.
“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,” declared Schiller, the head of NPR’s nonprofit foundation, who last week announced his departure for the Aspen Institute.
In a new video released Tuesday morning by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, Schiller and Betsy Liley, NPR’s director of institutional giving, are seen meeting with two men who, unbeknownst to the NPR executives, are posing as members of a Muslim Brotherhood front group. The men, who identified themselves as Ibrahim Kasaam and Amir Malik from the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC) Trust, met with Schiller and Liley at Café Milano, a well-known Georgetown restaurant, and explained their desire to give up to $5 million to NPR because, “the Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere.”
On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”
Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. “In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,” he said.
Watch the video:

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/08/npr-executives-caught-on-tape-bashing-conservatives-and-tea-party-touting-liberals/#ixzz1G4YQlzJr

More Airplane stuff

Again my favorite airplanehttp://www.airliners.net/photo/Corsairfly/Boeing-747-422/1554354/L/

 Just check out the countries on these councils.....what a joke, the sooner we tell the U.N to get out....go to haiti or something...the better.   The U.N started out as a good organization with its heyday during the Korean war.  It has become an organization that regularly bashes the United States and Israel and offers our enemies a friendly forum to spout their propaganda.


 This from infidel blogger alliancehttp://ibloga.blogspot.com/





U.N. Hypocrisy On Full DisplayBy Anne Bayefsky
Published March 04, 2011

Today, Iran officially becomes a member of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. Only three days ago, the U.N. General Assembly voted to suspend Libya’s membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council in a desperate bid to save the Council’s tattered reputation and itself.
But not a single state, including the United States, has indicated anything but smooth sailing for today’s membership of Iran on the U.N.’s top women’s rights body.
The double-talk surrounding the Libyan maneuver was breathtaking. It was only nine months ago, after getting to know Qaddafi over four decades, that the General Assembly had elected Libya to serve on the U.N.’s top human rights body. And Libya still serves on the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the U.N. Commission on Information, and the Executive Board of U.N. Women.
The U.N. has no intention of really cleaning house, since there would be no baby left with the bath water. Here is just a glimpse of the authority figures that the UN system currently has in place to run its global operations on human rights, women’s equality, protection of children and refugees, free flow of information, social and democratic development and crime prevention.
U.N. Human Rights Council
Mission: "…responsible for promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all….”
Members: Saudi Arabia, China, Vice-Presidents: Cuba, Angola
U.N. Commission on the Status of Women
Mission: “…set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide."

Members: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran
U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
Mission: “…set…out global strategy to prevent crime and promote stable criminal justice systems...and improving the efficiency and fairness of criminal justice administration systems."
Members: Libya, Russia, Sudan, Iran, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan
U.N. Women
Mission: “…support, address and contribute to gender equality and the empowerment and the advancement of women…”
Members: Executive Board: Libya, Saudi Arabia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, China
U.N. Economic and Social Council
Mission: “…responsible for: promoting higher standards of living, full employment, and economic and social progress…encouraging universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms…"
Members: Saudi Arabia
U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development
Mission: "...to promote dialogue and build partnerships for sustainable development with major groups include[ing] women, youth, indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations, local authorities, workers and trade unions, business and industry, the scientific community, and farmers…"
Members: Angola, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia
U.N. Commission on Social Development
Mission: “….promoting full employment and decent work for all...Improving public sector effectiveness....National and international cooperation for social development..."
Members: Cuba, Egypt, Zimbabwe
U.N. Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations
Mission: “…The consideration of applications for consultative status [with the UN]…submitted by NGOs…”
Members: Sudan, Cuba, Pakistan, China
U.N. Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT)
Mission: “…promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all…security of tenure and equal access to economic resources for all, with a specific focus on gender equality.”
Members: Governing Council: Iran
U.N. Committee on Information
Mission: “To promote the establishment of a new, more just and more effective world information and communication order…based on the free circulation and wider and better-balanced dissemination of information…”
Members: China, Libya, Kazakhstan, Iran
U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Mission: “….advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential…”
Members: Executive Board: Sudan, China
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
Mission: “…safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees.”
Members: Executive Committee: Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan
U.N. World Food Programme
Mission: “advocate policies, strategies and operations that directly benefit the poor and hungry."
Members: Executive Board: Sudan
Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

daily cartoon

 With thanks to http://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/

 

Sunday, March 6, 2011

HnC Vault: You Want A Peace Of Me?

October 10, 2010 - It was exactly one year ago that Barack Hussein Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - not because of anything he'd done, but because hopes were so high that he would create peace with his promises to speak reasonably and without preconditions to any politicians in the world, including blood-drenched anti-American lunatics.

Now, Obama's "year to create peace" has passed...and not only has the world gone to hell in a handbasket, but the president and his administration are now personally threatening politicians in our own capitol with physical violence.

Vice president Joe Biden told an audience that "if I hear one more Republican tell me about balancing the budget, I'm going to strangle them."

Not to be outdone, Barack Obama has declared that "a Republican majority in Congress would mean hand-to-hand combat for the next two years."

Of course, the Republicans aren't exactly worried about these threats, which can only be compared to being warned of a potential ass-kicking from Pee-Wee Herman and Barney Fife.

Meanwhile, the Nobel Prize Committee is undoubtedly and justifiably embarrassed by their gullibility in believing the president's meaningless promises. Which is why next year's peace prize should be for "No Bull."
-

When the going gets tough, getting tough gets hilarious.

Update 3/6/11 - In selecting cartoons for these weekend retrospectives, I try to make them relevant to recent stories. This week, one of those stories which didn't get much coverage was about a Wisconsin State Representative - a Democrat - who turned to a female Republican colleague after she voted in favor of a budget-balancing bill and said: "You're fucking dead!"

Not exactly the sort of rhetoric politicians are supposed to be using following Jared Lee Loughner's shooting spree in Tucson, and Barack Obama's suggestion that we use "words that heal rather than wound."

Of course, as the original cartoon points out, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden were only too happy to suggest (or perhaps even instigate) physical violence for their political opponents before their recent (and not entirely believable) change of heart.

Crude humor....the best kind

  I shamelessly borrowed this fromhttp://ogdaa.blogspot.com/

 

Another "Aw Fuck" moment in time

Open letter to NYC

This is from Jews For The Preservantion Of Firearms Ownwership.
This is a very powerful and true letter. Feel free to share it.

from Rabbi Dovid Bendory, Rabbinic Director,


Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

Copyright 2011 JPFO





Dear Mayor Bloomberg:



I am an Orthodox rabbi who lives in New Jersey but works in New York City. Approximately half of my waking life is lived under your laws and jurisdiction. Like everyone who lives or works in New York City, I have the right, even the obligation, to confront some of your policies regarding so-called “gun control”.



Why do I place the phrase “gun control” in quotes? Because this innocuous-sounding phrase, this expression that sounds like common sense, is in reality a dangerous bit of semantic trickery.



“Gun control” actually (and historically) means letting government, whether benign or ruthlessly evil, disarm certain sectors of society and allow others to remain armed. It means letting the government know where every gun owner lives and the number and types of firearms that he or she owns. It means putting the authority to decide who has the right to defend him or herself with a firearm into the hands of a government bureaucrat.



The honest definition of “gun control” is actually “victim disarmament”. Because the person with the gun will always control the person without the gun. Without the personal firearm as an “equalizer”, the stronger will always control the weaker. (Please see this “Genocide Chart” )



Mr. Bloomberg, our Jewish tradition tells us that righteous self-defense is not only permissible but an obligation: "If a murderer comes for you, strike him down first." (Talmud Sanhedrin 72a)



In your own New York City, hand guns are illegal for all practical purposes, yet the murderers, drug dealers, gangs, and other criminal predators in your City manage to acquire them nonetheless. How do you expect civilians to defend themselves against those who would harm them if we cannot use the most practical tool at our disposal -- the handgun? You tell us to “Dial 911”? And then wait ten minutes or more for police rescue? (See "Dial 911 and Die")



It deeply troubles me that I -- along with millions of others who live and work in your city -- are on your “disarmed” list. Mr. Mayor, this is not only immoral, it goes against the fundamental precepts of Judaism that you and I both honor.



The Torah teaches: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:16), which Rashi explains means that one who is able to help another escape harm and fails to do so is held culpable in the Heavenly Court for the harm he failed to prevent. You, Mr. Mayor, by disarming your citizens, place them in harm’s way every day.



Jews are commanded by G-d to value all human life. How can you, a religiously committed Jew, say you truly value human life? Every second you stand as Mayor you advocate laws that strip millions and millions of people in your city completely defenseless in the face of the criminal predators who roam your streets.







Photo: Yeshiva World News. Used with permission.Mr. Mayor, your citizen disarmament is an act of hypocrisy. Unlike nearly all the rest of us, everywhere you go you are surrounded by official armed guards, police escorts, and your highly trained personal private bodyguards. (See adjacent photo). Mr. Mayor, is your life worth more than the lives of your fellow citizens? Or are we mere “subjects” in your eyes?



As Jews, Mr. Mayor, we believe that all life is precious, not just the lives of our leaders. Have you ever, in your time as Mayor, walked the streets of New York City alone and unarmed?



I am nearly certain you would have to answer “no” to this question. Therefore I must further ask you: How, in clear conscience, do you require the rest of us to do so? Would you willingly live under this prejudicial burden? Can you recognize and admit the arrogant hypocrisy this attitude displays?



Additionally, you are no doubt aware that the Jewish people have been at the wrong end of the gun barrel for far too long. America is one of the few countries in the world where Jews are entitled to embrace firearms as the most practical means of our own self-defense. And you would strip us of the right to defend ourselves? With all due respect, Mr. Mayor, this is shameful.



Mayor Bloomberg, have you studied Jewish history? Are you aware that the Nazis disarmed Jews prior to Kristallnacht and that those same Nazi gun laws are the foundation of the U.S. Gun Control Act of 1968? Are you aware that Senator Thomas Dodd asked the Library of Congress to translate the Nazi Gun Control Laws into English for him, and that he incorporated language from these laws into the Gun Control Act of 1968 that he authored? How can it be that you, a Jew, are enforcing Nazi-inspired laws? (See "Gateway to Tyranny")



Tyrants like Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao “pioneered” the bloody trail of “gun control” in the 20th Century. Why do you so thoughtlessly, in effect, mimic the insidious actions of these monsters?



This apparent elitism on your part makes your recent publicity stunt in Arizona even more cynical. You sent NYPD agents all the way across the country to purchase guns -- but you can't deploy enough police to protect your own City residents?



And if you expose your city’s residents via such a manpower diversion, how do you justify denying these residents the right to protect themselves with a firearm?



Mr. Mayor, do you need a rabbi to tell you that your actions are wrong and immoral?



This nation’s Bill of Rights is a sacrosanct public trust. You are a public servant. You swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. As you blatantly disregard the Second Amendment, the actual “Guardian” of all the rest of the Bill of Rights, I must ask you: Did you knowingly lie when you took your oath of office?



Sincerely,





Rabbi Dovid Bendory

Rabbinic Director

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

(http://jpfo.org)







Rabbi Bendory is an NRA Certified Firearms Instructor.



The Rabbi's Archive page.



© Copyright Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.



Original material on JPFO is copyright, and so it cannot be used or plagiarized as the work of another. JPFO does however encourage article reproduction and sharing, providing full attribution is given and a link back to the original page on JPFO is included.

Michael Moore

HnC Vault: Moore or Less

Readers- Just a reminder that I'm now posting "golden oldies" on weekends, along with a brief word of current commentary from today's perspective. -Stilt



9/13/2009 - To the surprise of precisely no one, liberal darling Michael Moore has declared that his new documentary proves capitalism is "evil" and "you have to eliminate it." The movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story" is debuting in Venice, so that Mr. Moore's handlers will have access to enough water to frequently moisten his vast, wrinkly hide.

Update 3/5/11 - Michael Moore has just re-emerged from his watery seclusion to announce that Wisconsin isn't broke, and Washington isn't broke. There's PLENTY of money in rich people's pockets (and homes, and investments) but "We’ve allowed them to take that. That’s not theirs, that’s a national resource, that’s ours."
In other words, if you've earned money, saved money, created a business, invested in business, or otherwise made any money...Michael Moore says you're a thief who has stolen from the common people. But where would Michael Moore get the ridiculous idea that anyone is entitled to the money in other people's pockets? We think it came from his lifetime of stealing the food off of other people's plates.

humor

Something for us southerners....

Thermopylae

This is a worthy event to investigate, for anyone interested in the Warrior Ethos. http://www.stevenpressfield.com/   

    I read his book "Gates of fire"  the movie 300 was based on it.   It is one of my favorite books

The Battle of Thermopylae (Greek: Μάχη τῶν Θερμοπυλῶν) was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by Sparta, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes. The battle occurred during the second Persian invasion of Greece, at the pass of Thermopylae ('The Hot Gates'). The Persian invasion was a delayed response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece, ten years prior at the Battle of Marathon. Xerxes amassed a huge army and navy and set out to conquer all of Greece.

The Second Persion Invasion of Greece.

A Greek force of approximately 7,000 men marched north to block the pass in the summer of 480 BC. The Persian army (alleged by the ancient sources to have numbered one million but actually considered at between 100,000 and 300,000) arrived at the pass in late August or early September. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held off the Persians for three days in combat, before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most heroic last stands. During two full days of battle, the small force led by King Leonidas I of Sparta blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could pass. After the second day of battle, a local resident named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks by revealing a small path that led behind the Greek lines. Aware that his force was being outflanked, Leonidas dismissed the bulk of the Greek army, and remained in a rearguard element of 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans and perhaps a few hundred others, the vast majority of whom were killed.

I had the opportunity to visit the site of the Battle of Thermopylae, while training with Greek Special Forces prior to the 2004 Olympics.

Simonides Monument on the Kolonos hillock, believed to be the actual location of the Last Stand.

Ω ΞΕΙΝ ΑΓΓΕΛΛΕΙΝ ΛΑΚΕΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΟΙΣ ΟΤΙ ΤΗΔΕ ΚΕΙΜΕΘΑ ΤΟΙΣ ΚΕΙΝΩΝ ΡΗΜΑΣΙ ΠΕΙΘΟΜΕΝΟΙ
"Go tell the Spartans, Passerby, that here, in accordance to their laws, Three Hundred lie."


At the time of the battle, Thermopylae was actually a pass between the mountains and the sea; control of this pass was critical to the Greek defensive strategy. Due to seismic activity, however, the shoreline has shifted, and the seas have withdrawn. A modern highway roughly follows the ancient shoreline.

A modern view of the pass at Thermopylae, viewed roughly from the area of the Spartan camp northward toward the Persian position. The modern road marks the ancient shoreline.

Thermopylae shoreline changes over the course of history.


Thermopylae is viewed by scholars as “the battle that changed the world”. The clash between the Spartans and other Greeks on one side, and the Persian horde on the other, was a clash between freedom and slavery. The Greek victories at Thermopylae Marathon, fought some ten years earlier, were turning-points not only in the history of Ancient Greece, but also of World History; subjugation to the Persians would have snuffed out Western Civilization in its infancy. In the mid-19th century, the economist John Stuart Mill described the battle of Marathon as “more important than the battle of Hastings, even as an event in English history”.

The modern monument of the Spartans with the bronze statue of Leonidas. An inscription reads Molon Labe; King Leonidas' reply to Xerxes demand that the Greeks lay down their arms: "Come and Get Them."

high speed rail

 I got this from http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/  A great site.   I always wondered why leftist politicians have a fixation with mass transit.  I guess it has to do with collectivism.   I remember a movie called "the last chase" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082642/  At the end the government politician was furious "because of the car, people will want to make their own decisions, go where they want!! it will be chaos!!"

George Will, writing in Newsweek, advances an intriguing theory as to why high-speed rail networks are so popular with the Obama administration.

... why is America’s 'win the future' administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.

Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons - to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.

To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they - unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted - are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.

Time was, the progressive cry was "Workers of the world unite!" or "Power to the people!" Now it is less resonant: "All aboard!"

There's more at the link.

I tend to agree with Mr. Will on this; also with John Mica, Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the House of Representatives, who famously said of President Obama's high-speed rail initiative: "This is like giving Bernie Madoff another chance at handling your investment portfolio."

However, vested interests and entrenched 'establishment' politicians are fighting to keep the program alive. I can only assume that's because they see a way to get power, patronage or bribes 'campaign contributions' out of it. Most recently, two veteran Florida politicians - from both sides of the aisle - have sued that state's Governor for refusing to accept Federal funds for high-speed rail. They're trying to force him to take the money. To that I can only say, it's time the people of Florida elected themselves a better class of representative! (The same battle is being fought in England, where politicians want to spend tens of billions of pounds on a high-speed rail network that's been branded 'a complete waste of taxpayers' money'.)

I guess, even more than collectivism, the real reason for this push for high-speed rail is money, plain and simple. It greases politicians' palms, and lets them advertise to their constituents that they've 'brought home the bacon' according to the ancient and time-honored practices of pork barrel politics. The fact that our children, and our children's children, will be saddled with paying for this technological white elephant, doesn't concern them at all. After all, they won't be in office when our children reach voting age - they'll have retired, rich, fat and happy.

Politicians! Grrr!

More Airplane stuff

That had to have been a wild ride

The last WWI vet has passed on.

Monday, February 28, 2011

The last known survivor of World War I, Cpl. Frank Buckles, died of natural causes at his West Virginia farm on Sunday, February 27, 2011. He was 110.

Remembered as a cordial fellow of gentle humor, he was one of the dwindling numbers of eyewitnesses to history that many will only read about in schoolbooks. "I knew there'd be only one someday," he said a few years back. "I didn't think it would be me."

A remarkably reverent obit at The Washington Post recounts how Cpl. Buckles was born by lantern light in a Missouri farmhouse, quit school at the age of sixteen and bluffed his way into the Army. As the nation flexed its full military might overseas for the first time, he joined 4.7 million Americans in uniform and was among two million U.S. troops shipped to France to vanquish the German Kaiser.

[snip]

[He] was just a naive schoolboy chasing adventure when he enlisted Aug. 14, 1917, after the United States joined a war that had been raging for three years, with millions dead. "I knew what was happening in Europe, even though I was quite young," he told a Washington Post reporter when he was 105. "And I thought, well, 'I want to get over there and see what it's about."

After the armistice, he traveled the globe as a purser on commercial ships and was caught in Manila when Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941. He endured 38 months of cruel deprivation as a civilian prisoner during World War II before being freed in a daring military raid.

In 1953, he and his wife Audrey bought a cattle farm with a Colonial-era stone house near Charles Town, WV and there he quietly spent the rest of his life, his doughboy tunic hanging in a closet.

You can read the rest of his obituary here and view a photo gallery of him here.

"We have lost a living link to an important era in our nation's history," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki. "But we have also lost a man of quiet dignity, who dedicated his final years to ensuring the sacrifices of his fellow 'Doughboys' are appropriately commemorated.”

U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller called Buckles "a wonderfully plainspoken man and an icon for the World War I generation" and said he will continue fighting for the memorial Buckles wanted.

"He lived a long and rich life as a true American patriot," said U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, "and I hope that his family's loss is lightened with the knowledge that he was loved and will be missed by so many."

The family asked that donations be made to the National World War One Legacy Project. The project is managed by the nonprofit Survivor Quest and will educate students about Buckles and WWI through a documentary and traveling educational exhibition.

I am reminded of something C.S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man published in 1943: "We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful."

Frank Buckles was a man with a chest and today’s young men could learn much from his long and storied life.

Our nation barely noticed Frank until the list of World War I veterans was reduced to one. It was then that the public took notice. This should not have been.

Sound the call of Taps.  Day is done.  Rest in peace soldier.

Read more: http://nosheepleshere.blogspot.com/#ixzz1Fh0EgORd

It is 3:00 AM....and the phonecall comes in.

Missing His 3 Am Call

This is from Town Hall.

I shamelessly borrowed this from Daddy Bearhttp://daddybearden.blogspot.com/   A great site and a good blogger.  To expound on the article, I noticed that people who have served, usually served because of love of Country inspired by a family member.   I joined as my dad before me.  My brother still serves persuading helicopters to fly violating all the natural laws.  And if I am lucky my son will also serve.  I believe that we who enjoy the benefits of citizens of the republic must pay in service because the freedom isn't free and somebody must walk in the dark places to protect us.

Tam, mistress of kewlness on the InterWebs, has a good post up about how the Roman military was eventually made into a hereditary service.  The soldier watching the Rhein border region was sitting in forts built and maintained by his father and grandfather, and would train his son to take his place.  Eventually these armies lost their connection to the empire they were sworn to defend.  This was brought on by this article, which is by the way the best written thing I've seen written about soldiers and their families in a long time.


There are still a lot of people joining up whose family hasn't produced a soldier or sailor in generations, but there is a significant minority of people whose "daddy, granddaddy, and his daddy before him" joined up.  My family has been in the military since my mother's Irish ancestor* got off the boat in New York and joined up, at least twice, for the bounty.  I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of my kids ended up in the military, and I'm trying to raise them to go in with their eyes open and with at least a few skills to ease their transition to life in the barracks.

The civilian population is, for the most part, disconnected from the military in general, and those who are or have been deployed to combat in particular.  To them, the military is either something they see in a movie or a video game, or a half-remembered uncle who went to Vietnam or a grandfather who fought in France.  A couple of times a year, they donate a quarter to the VFW guys in front of Kroger, maybe fly the flag on the 4th of July, and have a barbecue on Memorial Day.  If they have time, they'll watch "Saving Private Ryan" on cable and cry at the end.

When the vast majority of the country has absolutely no connection to the military, and the military becomes an almost hereditary silo apart from the people they defend, bad things start to happen.  Military leaders start to look at the politicians who give them their marching orders as unworthy to lead, and the rank and file stop identifying with the country and start identifying with their commanders.  Remember, the best sheep dogs are raised with the sheep, and identify with them.

On the flip side, the civilians start to look at the military as either a money pit to be starved, as happened to the U.S. military in the 1920's and 1930's, or to be used as an international "feel good" force used to react to the crisis of the moment, as happened in the 1990's.  In this case, the sheep stop feeding the dog, or get him barking at all the little noises in the pasture until he is too exhausted to fight the wolves when they invariably come over for dinner.

Again, I see this as a big city/little town issue.  Louisville may have ceremonies at Cave Hill and Zachary Taylor Cemeteries for Memorial Day, but Bardstown had a chunk taken out of it a generation ago, and still remembers her sons every day.  Kids may go to the Patton Museum at Fort Knox every so often on a field trip, but a school that has 20 or 30 fathers, mothers, and teachers deployed with the National Guard is reminded of the war every morning.  I'll bet that the recruiters in the small towns and cities around the United States have an easier time getting recruits than those in San Jose or Chicago. 

One good off shoot of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is that there is now a good leavening of veterans entering the work force and politics.  Even if they are still a small minority of society, they can influence the rest of us to remember those who protect us.  The large use of National Guard and Reserve forces, while disruptive, will force communities to recognize that their peace and stability is bought at the cost of the lives and sweat of their fellow citizens.  Even though there will always be the "my daddy, and his daddy, and his daddy before him" soldiers, hopefully there will always be a majority of young people who join just because they think it's a good idea.

duplicates are ok......

Years ago, the brilliant comedy troupe Firesign Theater postulated the existence of a government office called "The Department of Redundancy Department." Which would be a really funny joke if it wasn't costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

So says a new report from the Government Accountability Office, which has discovered (surprise!) that our bloated bureaucracy has so many duplicate and overlapping programs and supervisory agencies that taxpayers are paying many times over to do a single job...and that the multiple agencies not only make things more expensive, but more confusing and less effective.

There are so many duplicate agencies, and so little oversight, that no one even knows which agencies are accomplishing anything. For instance, there are 47 different job training programs, but only five have been evaluated for effectiveness since 2004. There are 18 food assistance programs, but 11 of them have virtually no documentation of effectiveness. Need help getting transportation for the handicapped? No problem...as long as you can figure out which of 79 agencies to call.

Teacher effectiveness programs? There are 80 of them...and as nearly as we can tell, none of them are working. And there are 100 different funding programs for highways and rail, which is why you now need a GPS just to find your way through the maze of offices.

Although most Republicans and Democrats agree that the GAO report gives a good map of potential budget cuts, the Whitehouse is a bit less enthusiastic.

In reaction to the news that hundreds of billions in savings are available, Presidential Spokesman Jay Carney cautioned "The question is where do you cut in a way that doesn’t harm the economy, doesn’t throw it in reverse, doesn’t reduce job growth, job creation, and it protects the investments that are so key to longer-term economic growth in this country."

Which seems to indicate that Mr. Obama believes such overspending and redundancy are actually good for the economy, and should be repeated as necessary. And repeated and repeated and...

Defination of insanity: Do more of the same and expect different results

This article on higher education – despite using my absolute least favorite metaphor in its title – is worthwhile. It’s not an overtly political article, but these question got me thinking:

"What good does it do to increase the number of students in college if the ones who are already there are not learning much? Would it not make more sense to improve the quality of education before we increase the quantity of students?"

On so many issues, the Obama administration has approached problems by just insisting that if we do a lot more of the same, things will work out. Education is one example: Our children is not learning? Send them all to college. There’s no concern about the quality of education, that students carefully select what career and educational path suits them, or that education costs too much. No, simply having more of it will fix the problem.
This is the preferred solution in other areas: Healthcare costs too much and not enough people have insurance? Well, we could address the underlying issues that are forcing the price of healthcare too high (hard), or we could just make everybody buy insurance (easy). Our massive deficit spending is draining capital from the economy and inhibiting growth? Well, we could analyze the budget and keep those programs that are genuinely productive while making cuts elsewhere that will free up capital and spur growth (hard), or we could just borrow more for investments while leaving current deficit levels alone (easy). The most heavily regulated industry in America, banking, has an utter meltdown and millions of people lose billions of dollars? Well, we could take a serious look at how the regulators failed and rearrange our system to reflect the understanding that the government cannot adequately monitor every single aspect of a free market and it shouldn’t let investors think that it can (hard), or we can blame it all on the greedy bankers, ignore the failings of the government, and add on significantly more regulation while telling everyone that we’ve fixed the problem and the market is safe again (easy).
It’s even apparent in the president’s political activities. Failing to convince the American people that your signature legislative policy is a good idea? Well, we could slow down the process, schedule a few carefully crafted speeches that take our opponents’ arguments seriously, and gradually advance a convincing argument (hard), or we could just have the president on every channel half a dozen times a day repeating the same talking points for months on end (easy). Trailing badly going into a midterm election? Well, we could consider the things about our administration that people don’t like and carefully coopt the issues that we think we can sensibly address without ticking off our base and make rational arguments for why our policies are a success (hard), or we could insist that we’ve done everything right and send the president out every single day to hammer into the minds of the American people the most important facts of this election: D stands for Drive, R stands for Reverse, and Republicans drink a lot of slurpees (easy).
Time and time again we see that this administration has an utter lack of imagination. Obama should be near the top of modern liberal intellectualism: two Ivy League degrees, married to a woman with two Ivy League degrees, community organizer, civil rights lawyer, race-conscious author, with his pick of advisers from among the most celebrated academics in the country. Every tenet of the modern Left tells us that this man should be among the most able men around.
And yet, I’m not sure I’ve seen a spark of original thinking, or a hint that he’s open to creative solutions, since his inauguration. There’s nothing wrong with the status quo that more of the status quo can’t fix.

Bradley Manning Faces Possible Death Penalty

The treasonous weasel deserves nothing more than a fair trail and a fair execution. he betrayed his oath, he is a traitor to the regiment and he shafted every fellow G.I.   For what?  15 minutes of fame on youtube?

The Army on Wednesday filed 22 new charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of illegally downloading tens of thousands of classified U.S. military and State Department documents that were then publicly released by WikiLeaks, military officials told NBC News. The most serious of the new charges is "aiding the enemy," a capital offense that could carry a potential death sentence. Pentagon and military officials say some of the classified information released by WikiLeaks contained the names of informants and others who had cooperated with U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, endangering their lives.

What Manning deserves and what he gets, however, could be two vastly different things. The overwhelming preponderance of evidence is that Bradley Manning is guilty; no one actually argues Manning isn't absolutely guilty of disclosing hundreds of thousands of files. Some extremists are trying to manufacture whistleblower status for the imprisoned leaker, but the simple fact is that Manning ignored the established protocols whistleblowers have that would have afforded him protection, and instead intentionally decided to attempt to damage U.S. military and foreign policy.
Others may chose to scapegoat Manning's sexuality, but I find that unfair to the legion of gay servicemen and women that served this nation honorably over the history of the Republic.
Manning is a traitor to his nation and his service who intentionally put the lives of U.S. citizens and allies at risk. He is an information terrorist. No amount of spin by left wing zealots can spin that ugly truth away.

islamic attack on U,S,soldiers in Germany

SUSPECT IN DEADLY GERMANY ATTACK CONFESSED TO TARGETING AMERICANS

Stars and Stripes staff and wire reports
March 3, 2011

Flags fly at half staff on RAF Lakenheath, England, on Thursday as the 48th Fighter Wing community mourned the deaths from the Frankfurt Airport shootings.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY — The suspect in a deadly attack on U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt airport has confessed to targeting members of the American military, a top security official said Thursday.

Two airmen were killed and two others seriously wounded in the Wednesday shooting, which German officials are investigating as an act of Islamic terrorism.

Hesse state Interior Minister Boris Rhein told reporters that the suspect, identified as a 21-year-old ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, acted alone, the DAPD news agency reported. According to German newspapers, the suspect Arid Uka portrayed himself as an Islamist on the Internet, the BBC reported.

He saw “himself engaged in Holy War with infidels,” according to Die Welt, while Frankfurter Allgemeine reports that there were rumors he had planned to embark on a “killing spree.”

The suspect, who is being transported to the federal supreme court in Karlsruhe, Germany, is scheduled to be brought before a German judge later Thursday, said Juergen Linker, a German police spokesman. His uncle, Rexhep Uka, told the AP that the young man worked at the Frankfurt airport and was a devout Muslim. The suspect’s grandfather was a religious leader at a mosque in a village near Mitrovica, Kosovo, Rexhep Uka said.

A cousin, Behxhet Uka, said he spoke to the suspect’s father, Murat Uka, several times by telephone from Frankfurt on Wednesday after the family was contacted by Kosovo police. The father said that all he knew was that his son did not come home from his job at the airport Wednesday.

At least three of the airmen killed or injured are from a security forces team based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom. The airmen were heading to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, en route to Afghanistan.

“It is with heavy heart that I confirm that airmen from this Wing were involved in the shooting incident,” said Col. John Quintas, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath.



When I heard about the attacks at Frankfurt, it hit home. I've been in and out of that airport on business so many times; both in and out of uniform.  I remember flying out of there as a dependent when my Dad was in the service, and later when I donned the green suit to join the long green line. I remember being corraled by the NCO's at the repple depot for my first permanent duty assignment  to Cooke Barracks with the 1st Infantry Division(fwd) and later flying home for a end of tour break before going over for a second tour with 207th MI  bn.  Also the many trips there to pick up other soldiers, I always saw the busses there to pick up troops coming into theater.  And later I flew off to war from that airport in a C5A.  This really hits home for me.


To our brothers in the Big Blue:

"RESPECT"

 I got this from Stratforhttp://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110302-gunman-targets-us-soldiers-frankfurt-airport   They send links to my phone every day.  If you ain't on their free e-mail list , it is worth signing up.
     I will intersperse bold prints for my opinions on this article


Two people were killed and two were injured, at least one critically, in a shooting attack on U.S. military personnel at 3:20 p.m. local time March 2 at Germany’s Frankfurt International Airport. According to breaking news reports, an armed attacker boarded a U.S. military bus idling in front of Terminal 2 and began shooting. The two killed were a U.S. soldier and the driver of the bus, whose nationality is unclear. The perpetrator is alleged to be from Kosovo, of Albanian ethnicity and 21 years old,(probably a radicalized muslim) according to German media sources. According to news reports, the U.S. forces involved in the attack were on their way to Afghanistan.
There have been plots against U.S. military targets in Germany in recent years. The attack fits in the category of “armed jihadist assault” similar to what American-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki called for in mid-2010 in jihadist Internet chat rooms. Al-Awlaki had been tied to U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was charged with the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
The attack in Frankfurt appears to have been a soft-target attack. Soft targets are vulnerable to attack due to the absence of adequate security or standoff distance. Areas at airports outside the security check-in points are such targets. STRATFOR has for some time predicted that militants would seek out such targets, especially considering their fixation on airplanes. The recent bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow, for example, targeted the international arrivals area where families, friends and drivers awaited travelers emerging from the terminal. Such areas are difficult to secure because doing so would require essentially cordoning off the entire airport.
If reports of the attacker’s ethnicity are true, this would not be the first time ethnic Albanians have joined international jihad. A number of Albanian individuals were part of the Fort Dix plot in the United States in 2007. U.S. authorities broke up a militant cell in North Carolina that involved an individual of ethnic Albanian origin. In 2009, a U.S. citizen of Albanian descent from Brooklyn, New York, tried to go to Pakistan for militant training. Albanian militants fighting in the Kosovo Liberation Army, however, largely eschewed militant Islam during their fight against Serbia in the late 1990s and in fact allied with NATO against the regime of then-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. Recent jihadist plots, however, indicate that the diaspora in the West has had a considerable number of cases of radicalization.  The failure of multiculturilism is also to blame.  The new immigrants have no incentive to assimilate with their host country.  They stay together in poverty ridden areas of the city and keep their own beliefs.   The French have this same problems with the groups of muslim youth that start riots in Lyon and Paris.  

Read more: Gunman Targets U.S. Soldiers At Frankfurt Airport | STRATFOR

Facebook reply....

This was a response to a friend I have on facebook, this person was commenting that there is no outrage about the money being wasted in Afganistan and Iraq, we need to waste the money on our kids instead.  Well I went on a bit of a rant.......After I finished, I decided to cut and paste this rant.   Usually I don't have a good rant, but this one was worth saving;)

We need to cut all the money going overseas...we are racking bills up that our kids will have to pay for.  You want to improve our kids education...get rid of the dept of education on the federal level.  We spend more on our education than any other industrialized nation and get less for it.  We are teaching a generation of drones and self absorbed entitlement challenged kids.  Leave the schools at the local level.  When schools take money from the feds, it has strings attached(see no child left behind)  the schools have to prepare the kids for testing, not teaching.  If the schools don't do well on the federal mandated tests, the funding gets cut.  The teachers cannot deviate from the plan set up from administrators who have eyes on funding, not teaching.  Right now the interest on the national debt is $45,000 per person, man, women, and child.  If we don't get the spending under control, our currency will be devalued heavily and we finance the chinese military with the interest paid on the debt.   In order for our fiscal house to be put right, all programs including the big ones, medicare, medicaid and social security  will have to be cut along with defence.  We have an entitlement mentality here in America, people want all this free stuff from the government, well it ain't free, the government took the money from somebody else by force to give to people wanting " freebee's"   You can not run a household budget being continually running a deficit, the money has to come from somewhere.  That is what the federal government is doing now. 50 years ago, the act of taking welfare or being on the dole was shameful, now people are proud to say" the government is paying my bills"  Where is the pride of us being Americans?  We had a reputation of being self starters, doers, and people that can do anything....what are we now?  I see several generation of people that expect government to take care of them, they will not do anything unless the government tells them.  When does a faceless bureaucrat have the ultimate decision making on how or when I live my life? 
    I am neither a republican or a democrat, I am a fiscal conservative teapartier

Islamic union vote..threatened a strike

Breaking news............

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike next Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda have so far failed to produce an agreement. The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death would be cut by 25% this February from 72 to 60.

A company spokesman said increases in recent years in the number of suicide bombings have resulted in a shortage of virgins in the afterlife. The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational Martyrs (BOOM) responded with a statement saying the move was unacceptable to its members and called for a strike vote. General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't ask for much in return, but to be treated like this is like a kick in the teeth".

Speaking from his shed in Tipton in the West Midlands , Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained, "I sympathize with our workers' concerns, but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day Jihad in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditures or laying people off. I don't like cutting benefits, but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up."

Spokespersons for the union in the North East of England, Ireland, Wales, and the entire Australian continent stated that the change would not hurt their membership as there are few virgins in their areas anyway. According to some industry sources, the recent drop in the number of suicide bombings has been attributed to the emergence of Scottish singing star, Susan Boyle. Many Muslim jihadists now know what a virgin looks like and have reconsidered their benefit packages.

Trooper Humor

Comments made by state troopers taken from car videos:
1. "You know, stop lights don't come any redder than the one you just went through." 

2. "Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch after you wear them a while." 

3. "If you take your hands off the car, I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document." 

4. "If you run, you'll only go to jail tired." 

5. "Can you run faster than 1,200 feet per second? Because that's the speed of the bullet that'll be chasing you." 

6. "You don't know how fast you were going? I guess that means I can write anything I want to on the ticket, huh?"


7. "Yes, sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I'm the shift supervisor?" 

8. "Warning! You want a warning? Okay, I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket." 

9. "The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not: Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?" 

10. "Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go on rides and eat cotton candy and corn dogs." 

11. "Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven." 

12. "In God we trust; all others we run through NCIC." (National Crime Information Center)
 
13. "Just how big were those 'two beers' you say you had?" 

14. "No sir, we don't have quotas anymore. We used to, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we can." 

15. "I'm glad to hear that the Chief [of Police] is a personal friend of yours. So you know someone who can post your bail." 

16. "You thought we don't give pretty women tickets? You're right, we don't. Sign here."