61 Stars Over America!

Down in Texas....this guy went into a Dollar Tree store....and wanted a flag for the 4th...to hang up. We can imagine that he is a bit cheap....and just wanted something...nothing fancy...nothing grand...just a plain old flag.

So he buys this flag, and ends up going home.

He opens the box....pulls out the flag. And for some odd reason...he just felt something was wrong. Most folks....would just hang it up and would have just never said anything. I'm guessing he is an engineer or something....because he got around to counting the stars....and there were 61.

In case some of you were wondering....there's only supposed to be fifty stars. So yeah, eleven more stars than what's supposed to be there.

He went back to Dollar Tree and commented about this. The best they could say...from the big headquarters....it was a banner...and not a 'flag'. There's apparently a difference between a banner and flag....and you can add as many stars as you want. Naturally, Dollar Tree doesn't want to admit that they paid some cheap-ass Chinese company to manufacture these for 30 cents each.

Now, if you were of a political nature.....you could argue that this is a flag destined for America in five years.....as eleven more states are added.

My choices?

1. Cuba (after Castro dies of course)

2. Puerto Rica (even if only 30 percent of the PR folks want statehood, it doesn't matter)

3. Guam (it'd help to know which ocean it's in)

4. Chicagostan (they deserve their own senators....it'd help to finance the government there)

5. American Somoa (they make the best wrestlers anyway)

6. Virgin Islands (There would be debate over the meaning of the state name)

7. Commonwealth of Northern Bama (from Demopolis north to the Tenn border, our own state)

8. Austinstan (the free and heavily democratic state carved out of Texas)

9. Green Bay (big enough to haul their own NFL team, big enough to carve out as a state)

10. Arlington (highest per capita state within the US, if created, and likely run by former El Salvadorians from day one).

11. District of Columbia (yeah, give it to the losers, and then let them fail as a state in the first year)

Yeah, maybe this was only a mistake....or maybe it was a Chinese conspiracy to start with. You just can't be sure. The thing here....is that we ought to all shop at Dollar Tree....if we want to cheap-ass stuff to hang up. That's my advice.

A Friend From High School

One of my close associates from high school...apparently died in the last day or two. Circumstances are rather odd...as my brother tells it...the guy was riding on the tailgate of a SUV...and somehow fell in some fashion...with punctured lung and a brain injury.... immediate death (so thought by the description).

It was an odd end to this guy...who cheated death over a thousand times before turning eighteen.

In the last three years of high school....I came to know this guy and considered him a friend. His adventures, with his brother...were legendary.

The two of them invited a game where they had an open field of around 1,500 feet...and then got a pick-up running where both got out and into the back of the truck...then raced to get back into the truck before reaching the ditch at the end of the field. They mastered this completely and repeated it often.

The two also mastered this trick of driving a tractor blind-folded.

All you had to do was suggest mixing explosives and gas...and using some vapor lock idea from a Mechanics Illustrated magazine....and they'd attempt the act.

There's at least a thousand of these 'events' that they accomplished, and shouldn't have made it to 18....but they did. This end down in Gulf Shores, Bama....is rather odd to contemplate....but knowing him...there was some risk to start with. That was his character and his 'charm' in life.

Robert Byrd of West Virginia

I will offer this observation of Senator Byrd of West Virgina, who passed away this morning. By the early 1990's....Senator Byrd was already in fragile health and should have considered retirement then. By the late 1990s, most...if not all...of the management in the office....was being conducted via the chief of staff that worked for the Senator.

The great attendance to voting that the media likes to brag about? Well...I think if you really got down to it....someone carried the card with the chip in it....with the password....and voted for the Senator. For the past two years....he's been in extremely bad health and barely ever came out for a Senate meeting.

It reached a point in the past three years where the Democratic leadership actually removed Senator Byrd from his influential leadership positions on committees....which should have been a sure sign that he wasn't exactly respected in the same fashion that he had been in the 1970s or 1980s.

His purpose in life for the past decade? Just to strong arm the Senate and ensure the right money got to the state.....and little else.

Who will get the temporary nod to cover his position until the election? For some reason, I'm betting on his chief of staff.

How many other Senators are in such frail health? That might be a curious question to ask. I'm betting at least two.

Another "Positive Sign"

Today....Department of Homeland Security Secretary....Janet Napolitano....told her audience that “You’re never going to totally seal that border.”

I sat and read the text...and then kinda wondered...why bother paying the Border Patrol guys then? Why even put a penny of investment into trucks, helicopters, technology, guns or even radio gear?

If there is no aim for sealing the border...then we are saying a half-ass border is better than nothing. In that case...I'm all for hiring 18-year old kids...and just giving them a horse and a rifle to maintain the protection of the border.

I'm guessing that I'm stirring up an argument....but it's hard to imagine how you can proceed with your job in this case.