I kinda noticed today....that somewhere in the vast amount of news relating to bin Laden.....our best and favorite former New Mexico Governor...Bill Richardson....stood up and spoke at a Climate Leadership Gala in DC. His basic comment? He was really hoping that the bin Laden's death and this decisive moment....would lead the president to promote climate change legislation. Quote: "My hope is that from this success in the foreign policy arena two days ago, that he will be emboldened to take once again to the Congress legislation - not just to increase a renewable energy standard - but climate change legislation that this country and the world need." I would be the first to admit that it's just about impossible to connect bin Laden, Earth Day, and global warming.....but if you did eat enough enriched dirt as a kid....maybe it's possible.
As of this evening....it is becoming apparent that not a single Arab guy in the compound of bin Laden....fired a single shot, and it's becoming obvious that not a single guy was even holding a weapon during the event. Now, a guy from Bama would eventually come to ask one stupid question....it would seem like you had the most wanted guy on the face of the Earth and should have had a dozen guys on rotational duty somewhere around the boss with weapons on themselves at all times. For some odd reason....they felt safe and secure enough....to not carry a weapon in such a manner. For that reason....there is something odd about the event. Wink, wink.....Pakistani government officials
In military operations....you always have code words. For some reason...military guys like to waste hundreds of man-hours in their life learning word X equals peanut butter, word Y equals worming medication, and Geronimo equals bin Laden. I realize it's a pain and just plain stupid that we don't say peanut butter, worming medication and bin Laden....but being in the military is a private club....sort of. Naturally, today....some American Indians got offended over the ID of Geronimo relating to bin Laden. It would have been better if we'd used "Skippy", but then it would have gone down in the history books forever and forever...."We got Skippy" as the President was briefed 8.5 seconds after the SEALs entered the bedroom. For some reason....."We got Skippy" just wouldn't be very historic. "We got Geronimo" sounds pretty important. I would suggest that the Indians trademark their important names and just ensure this never happens again.
Folks got around to admitting that one in seven Americans are on food stamps today. It's a fairly large number. Naturally, someone got real technical and put this on a special interactive map. I clicked on Bama....and learned that eighteen percent of Bama folks are on food stamps. Years and years ago....as I was a kid in Bama....there were three basic ways that my dad would talk down on folks. First, folks that lived "down in the hollow" were typically the folks who didn't know much about TV, radio, or get out very much....and usually they didn't have much to listen to. Second, there were the folks who were "taken by the revival" which usually meant that the only time a guy showed any religious tendencies or moral stamina.....was only during summer Baptist revival periods. And finally, there were the "food stamp folks" which meant someone wouldn't get up and haul wood, unload fertilizer bags at the county CO-OP, or flip burgers at McDonalds. Sadly, we've come to a point where food stamps is a necessity....and you probably know some relative that is rock solid on the program, and will never leave it.
Some journalists have awoken and decided it's time to compare the tornado episode from last week in Bama....very comparable to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The suggestion is....vast areas of Bama won't be rebuilt. Areas will be vacated. Folks might actually pack up and move to another region or another state....just saying adios like the folks in New Orleans did (losing thirty percent of its general population). I sat and read through this commentary.....pausing....and then realizing it's the best high school-related journalism that I've read in years. For a guy to compare Bama to New Orleans? You'd have to be standing there and eating alot of enriched dirt, and just looking for almost anything to say after you've said everything that makes sense.
Poll after poll has been taken this week.....and since we really have lost prospectives on life and the law of averages....some idiot included the question "is bin Laden in hell?" The astonishing answer is 61 percent of Americans believe bin Laden is in hell. They could have asked one hundred Republicans if Ted Kennedy is in hell, and the answer would have been hovering between seventy and eighty percent....so it's hard to say if the 61 percent means anything worth discussing here.
Some Europeans are upset, disturbed and embarrassed over all the American flag-waving this week. I sat and read over the Spiegel commentary and questions posed for intellectuals in Germany to focus on. I paused and pondered the intellectual argument....flag-waving is just not mature. After a while....it occurred to me that intellectuals sleep comfortably at night....mostly because "....rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell wrote that sixty years ago and it still renders true today. Intellectuals don't march into New Orleans after a hurricane and save people. Intellectuals don't show up forty-eight hours after being asked to a fairly active and radioactive nuclear location and move Japanese mountains in the literal sense. Intellectuals don't show up to fill sandbags at floods, provide assistance in the midst of chaos, or settle the mind of folks who need someone to back up words with actions. I don't see a problem Spiegel's commentary.....at the end of the day....no one will remember who wrote their article, what it was about, or the intellectual argument it discussed.
Finally....somewhere in the midst of news today....there was this little short 12-line commentary from a report released over folks in Detroit. Apparently, almost forty-seven percent of residents from Detroit.....can't read. Yes, ”functionally illiterate". Sadly, they are not even capable of reading government forms to provide government assistance, food stamps, twitter comments from the President or Speaker Boehner, written analysis from Charlie Sheen, or even able to read the approximate sodium on the side of a Pepsi can (mandated by law, if you remember). So, almost half the adults in Detroit can't function in a modern society. After you pause and ponder upon this fact.....you start to wonder, how did this all occur and why is this readily accepted in a modern American society? It is a lost generation. And the sad thing....someone will convince congress to pump $100 million into an adult literacy program for Detroit.....which three hundred folks will benefit from.....and the rest of the money will flush down into Lake Erie. Just my humble opinion
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
The $299k House?
I've seen the pictures....the video....and the maps of the compound. Personally, I can tell you this...in Huntsville...some compound like this....would not go for more than $300k max. With only a couple of windows and a 18-foot fence? No trash pick-up and the folks burn right there? An mostly fading white concrete surrounding the place?
You know, there is a perfect movie here. Take those ‘re-sell’ house guys on the Bravo channel and fly them into Pakistan to remarket and sell this house. The challenge is to fix it up and market it for $1 million.
We could do ten shows....maybe bring in the Housewives of Atlanta for a weekend to size up the house...maybe even bring Dog the bounty-hunter in to catch a couple of locals while staying at the house. We could put Charlie Sheen up for a week and let him give us his honest opinion. Heck, we could even fly in ex-celebrity types from the 1970s (Hasselhoff, Flava Flav, and Bill Murray) to discuss the old days.
All in all....this house is a legend and a rather-cheap looking place. And it'll be forever remembered as a mansion in Pakistan that housed the bin Laden
The Second Most Happiest Folks After the Americans
Thanks to the President keeping Gitmo open....thanks to the President for keeping a hardline on gathering intelligence using methods best left unmentioned....thanks to the President for keeping the Pakistani government as "best friends".....thanks to the President keeping intact a significant military force, bin Laden was taken down.
Somewhere in Europe....some folks are shaking their heads over this deal arranged for the Nobel Peace Prize and the various understandings they had two years ago that the US would be eased back into a wussy European-style government. I would imagine some folks in Stockholm are gritting their teeth....things just aren't going the way that they had imagined.
So off on the streets of Paris today....there's this French liberal arts professor....sipping coffee with his friend Doctor Huns of Norway. The conversation will be pointed over the shape of liberal arts, fine Parisian coffee, the shape of French women today in modern society, and the failures of President Obama. The duo will go on and on for three hours arguing about failed promises....drinking up to six cups of fine Parisian coffee and both gentlemen getting a bit upset about things beyond their control. At the end....with a high dose of caffeine in their system....they will both stand up....pay their bill and leave with a bit of negativity.
The happiest folks after the Americans today? Mostly folks who own European coffee cafes and are seeing all these whiners come around and drink triple the amount of coffee that they would normally drink. This will go on for weeks as the liberal arts "anti-American" intellectuals discuss the terrible state of American enthusiasm and sip cup after cup of coffee. And frankly, the coffee cafe owners would like more American action like this.
Just a humble opinion.
Somewhere in Europe....some folks are shaking their heads over this deal arranged for the Nobel Peace Prize and the various understandings they had two years ago that the US would be eased back into a wussy European-style government. I would imagine some folks in Stockholm are gritting their teeth....things just aren't going the way that they had imagined.
So off on the streets of Paris today....there's this French liberal arts professor....sipping coffee with his friend Doctor Huns of Norway. The conversation will be pointed over the shape of liberal arts, fine Parisian coffee, the shape of French women today in modern society, and the failures of President Obama. The duo will go on and on for three hours arguing about failed promises....drinking up to six cups of fine Parisian coffee and both gentlemen getting a bit upset about things beyond their control. At the end....with a high dose of caffeine in their system....they will both stand up....pay their bill and leave with a bit of negativity. The happiest folks after the Americans today? Mostly folks who own European coffee cafes and are seeing all these whiners come around and drink triple the amount of coffee that they would normally drink. This will go on for weeks as the liberal arts "anti-American" intellectuals discuss the terrible state of American enthusiasm and sip cup after cup of coffee. And frankly, the coffee cafe owners would like more American action like this.
Just a humble opinion.
When Dirt is Dirt
There's this guy.....an NFL player.....Rashard Mendenhall.....who decided to come out and criticize folks who had celebrated the bin Laden's death. If you watch around on various channels.....every journalist was able to find that one guy out of a thousand who took this position. For the Pittsburgh Steelers....who Mendenhall plays for....it kinda embarrassed the team a bit.
Somewhere in the midst of Mendenhall's comments.....he even went on to have doubts about bin Laden being the guy behind the 9/11 attacks. His words: "We'll never know what really happened. 'I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."
Yesterday.....I sat on a bus here in Arlington and heard a gentleman attempt to give a 90-second intellectual commentary that lined up with Mendenhall’s comments. He was talking to his associate and I sat there listening to this. I think it’s mostly an intellectual game that you could see him playing....taking the opposite position and hoping to convince people that you have a point.
An intellectual kid would do the same thing by eating dirt and then trying to convince you that it actually has taste and nutrients. You listen to the kid for moment, watch him eat the dirt, and then simply shake your head because in your heart of hearts....you know that dirt is dirt. Somehow, with Mendenhall.....you know his comments equal dirt as well.
Somewhere in the midst of Mendenhall's comments.....he even went on to have doubts about bin Laden being the guy behind the 9/11 attacks. His words: "We'll never know what really happened. 'I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."
Yesterday.....I sat on a bus here in Arlington and heard a gentleman attempt to give a 90-second intellectual commentary that lined up with Mendenhall’s comments. He was talking to his associate and I sat there listening to this. I think it’s mostly an intellectual game that you could see him playing....taking the opposite position and hoping to convince people that you have a point.
An intellectual kid would do the same thing by eating dirt and then trying to convince you that it actually has taste and nutrients. You listen to the kid for moment, watch him eat the dirt, and then simply shake your head because in your heart of hearts....you know that dirt is dirt. Somehow, with Mendenhall.....you know his comments equal dirt as well.
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