Got this email from a friend this morning:
My friend’s husband is telling her that because he was a tanker in Iraq, he 1) may not be able to have children, and 2) if he can they may be deformed. This guy bleeds bs, so I wondered how much of this is?
My response:
Probably true, I never met a tanker with any testicles.
Then I remembered that Chuck Z was a tanker, and asked more info. This is what she sent me, discussion between her and her friend:
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I am about to head out of here, but I did want to wish all of you who served a Happy Veterans Day.
My Internet Wife is for some inexplicable reason addicted to CBS Sunday Morning. So, since she is currently out of the country I was watching it for her this weekend. And I saw the video which I have posted after the jump. I’m a pretty sensitive guy to begin with, but this seems the perfect piece to watch as you prepare to enjoy your day off of work.
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It all boils down to this: I want to know that the people leading me are better people than I am.
I’ve never claimed to be a good person that I am aware of. I am far too judgemental, far too opinionated, and far too passionate to really qualify. I’ve always like GWB, not because I thought he always made the right decision, lord knows I disagree with roughly half of what he has done. But he always struck me as a decent man deep down inside.
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My friend Claymore sent me this morning. I may forgive him early next week, but I doubt it.
Writing this post without using VERY bad words is a chore. But, I will try.
Dear boomers: We’re sorry for rolling our eyes at you all these years. We apologize for scoffing at your earnestness, your lack of self-deprecation, your tendency to take yourselves a little too seriously. We can go ahead and admit now that we grew tired of hearing about the ’60s and the peace movement, as if you had to live through those times to understand anything at all. It’s true, we didn’t completely partake of your idealism and your notions about community. Frankly, it looked gray and saggy in your hands, these many decades later….We couldn’t help it. It’s just who we are.
Heather you ignorant slut, you don’t speak for me, or anyone I know. But let’s go further into this steaming pile of corn and peanut ensconced diatribe.
But when we watched Barack Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday night, we looked into the eyes of a real leader, and decades of cynicism about politics and grass-roots movements and community melted away in a single moment. We heard the voice of a man who can inspire with his words, who’s unashamed of his own intelligence, who’s willing to treat the citizens of this country like smart, capable people, worthy of respect. For the first time in some of our lifetimes, we believed.
“We” did? As my sainted grandfather might say, “What is this “we” shit? You got a turd in your pocket?” And some more from this whorebag:
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Holy hungover. My IQ is currently in Richard Wheeler territory, so a few quick items.
* Did the panel yesterday, went well, and by “well” I mean Chuck Z talked non-stop and I just got to sit there, which is the best kind of panel.
* The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So why on Spongebob’s green earth did I actually think I could go out with Matt “Blackfive” Burden and not feel like my liver would fall out today? As if the Guinness lunch didn’t set the tone, one tip might have been walking through the metal detector with Matt and he had to deposit his flask of Scotch in the plastic bin. That flask would play a part in my evening later on.
* The Soldiers Angels Gala was a class act. From top to bottom, they are phenomenal. The 3 main guests were Reps Blunt and Steny Hoyer, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mike Mullen. I’ll be honest, I didn’t hear a word they said, more on that later. The event took place in the Ronald Reagan building, and was a perfect venue. The open bar was great. I flirted with the bartender, and she rewarded me with Beam and Cokes that had precisely 2 molecules of coke in them. I spent more the time before dinner assaulting my liver from the front and flanks, while talking to Chuck Z and his lovely wife, and Laughing Wolf. The Wolf is the man. Wore a kilt, we talked some Sci Fi, and very much enjoyed his company.
* Matt had informed me that a young lady would be attending, and he asked me to sit with her and keep the lecherous masses at bay. The logic on this one escaped me, but I guess with his other option being Jimbo, and me having a girlfriend/internet wife, I was the best choice. But holy Toledo. “Army Girl” is probably the most attractive girl I’ve ever seen in the military. Distractingly so. I actually ate the centerpiece on the table not realizing it wasn’t food. When she put on lipstick and then said she liked it because it made her look “pretty” I think I started eating the table cloth and my napkin as well.
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My good friend, coworker and brother in arms Superbowl6Romeo over at the Sniper chose as his poem of the day The Second Coming by William Butler Yates.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
For my selection, I will go with Percy Bysshe Shelley, who although an Englishman and a Karl Marx enthusiast always struck me as turning a good phrase.
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
OK, so I rolled out of bed at my customary 0520. Out the door at roughly 5:23, ran to the polling place about 700 meters away. Elementary School. I was 40th in line, but as I waited for 0600 the line started getting just preposterous. I live in a pretty affluent area, right on the outskirts of Mount Vernon. It’s politically just to the left of Havana, although my particular enclave seemed slightly better.
For whatever reason I found myself wedged between a McCain couple in front of me, and a guy who seemed to be a McCain supporter behind me. That means absolutely nothing, but it shocked me to see any. Some lady from the Democratic Party was walking up and down the line trying to hand out sample ballots, I didn’t see a single person take one. Not because they were GOP, but, as the guy behind me commented “If you don’t know by now who you are voting for, should you really be here?”
Apparently Fairfax County has gone to a dual system where you can select either paper or computer voting. As I went down the hall to where we would actually vote there was a video playing explaining how to vote. Some of the faux candidates on the video were Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earheart. Isn’t she dead? This is a new take on the dead people voting, atleast now you can select dead people as you dead vote.
On a side note, Children suck at art. I mean they really REALLY suck at art. Apparently, the kids had to do pictures of themselves. I think all the children in my neighborhood come from the Chernobyl region. They have serious issues with macro-cephalia and are either hirsute or suffer male (and female) pattern baldness. Seriously, they got the noses and ears and stuff right, but hair was a significant issue. I must live in a land of Slestaks. And don’t even get me started on the crappy pumpkin things they had on the other wall. Pumpkins are still coming in the same pumpkin coloring aren’t they?
Anyway, I made it in the room and there were 5 campaign monitors checking off names, and 3 people doing the actual checking in. That made little sense to me but so it goes. Anyway, got my name checked off which went fine, chose the electronic voting method and walked up. Only 4 things on the ballot, so fairly easy. McCain, check. Warner, check. Finian, check. No on parks. Reread. WOW, why the hell did I vote for Warner? OK, uncheck him. Attempt to write in “Diamond Joe Quimby” for Senate. I mean hell, since no one else is taking the election all that seriously, I won’t either. Well, typing in Quimby will take too long, I can’t in good conscience vote for Jim Gilmore. He’s a nice enough guy, but honestly I didn’t see a single ad, not a single sign, and no presence at all. So I voted for some third party candidate.
Pushed teh VOTE button, and off it went to wherever my vote goes or doesn’t go. Got the little sticker and moved out to run home.
Frankly, the whole thing was a bit of a let down. I didn’t feel any excitement at all. Not a tinge. None of my candidates will win, and that is almost a foregone conclusion. Plus, after working during the Afghani elections, where every voter stood in line for hours, with the pervasive and REAL fear of being killed by some lunatic, just voting seems a bit boring. I think it is all the TV shows where morons talk politics with the electorate and you suddenly realize that as a society we are screwed.
That video of the lady talking about how she won’t need to worry about gas and her mortgage when the Messiah is elected has taken it all out of me. If a representative democracy is predicated on an informed voting body, that ended long ago in this country. Now it’s more like American Idol than who will do the right thing. Oh well, so that was my morning. Figured I would share.
ON EDIT: My brother just checked in from New Jersey. Said the lines were long and ridiculous. Said that at his polling site at 6 am there was an elderly lady who was sobbing on the lawn and yelling that finally she had a reason to vote. Said there was also some dude with a sign as people drove in that read “Your choice is simple: War Hero or Terrorist.”
A yes, the sights, sounds and smells of Democracy. Obama is not really a terrorist, and any CHANGE an elderly woman HOPES he will make ain’t gonna happen. Seriously, hyperbole has taken over. Tomorrow, after the fires have gone out in urban areas, taxes will still get paid, football games will go on, and we’ll still be in 2 wars. It will not be Eden or Armageddon. It’ll be more like Newark or Scranton, which sucks bad enough.
EDIT x2: It could be worse.
LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. (AP) – A nudist community on Florida’s west coast wants to establish the first clothing-optional polling site. The Caliente Resorts, located in Pasco County north of Tampa, has approached election officials about the idea.
If so, I need to move residences. Are there any all girls campuses in Northern Virginia?
EDIT x3: SGT Doug from Ohio checking in (a former Team Leader of mine):
I voted in Avon Ohio. Very long lines. VERY VERY long. Hearing that machines are broke in Columbus and people are abandoning the lines. Beautiful Day in Ohio, my suburb went fine.
EDIT x4: My internet wife checks in from Deepest Red Texas.
cranked it out early today to go vote before work, everyone said the lines were going to be terrible. There was one person in front of me and he had a very hard time filling out his registration form. I spent the 15 minutes it took him to fill out his name and address checking out the ZZ Top Guitarist who was checking in the M-Z line, I think it’s great that they give back to the community! I will now never go anywhere without my camera because I’m sad that I can’t share him with you all. Finally it’s my turn and I sign in he stamps my card and I go about filling in my bubbles. Feeling certain I have chosen correctly I insert my ballot into the machine and ask for my sticker….Evidently precinct 1411 in Carrollton TX does not get stickers…I feel so gypped, I don’t know that I feel like my ballot is in safe hands, I think I need to vote again.
EDIT x5: Just got off the phone with my buddy David Bellavia. Bells tells me that he waited in line 2 hours in the Buff-burbs to vote. Said his precinct was all conservatives. Said he was unsure about his House race though as the GOP candidate has been hit with some late dirt that may derail him. (Ed Note: Good, GOP deserves it, and hopefully in 2010 we can welcome Rep Bellavia into the House.) Said OPERATION MURTHAPALOOZA went well. Said Murtha has fallen to taking credit for everything in Jonestown. He said every building in Town is the “John P. Murtha something-or-other.” A Russell victory would make David a happy former SSG.
EDIT x6: My battlebuddy from the Army just called me. He voted in Montgomery Village, Maryland. He apparently hasn’t showered, shaved or changed clothes in three days. He took the liberty of telling everyone present that he was very excited to cast his vote for Obama so he could immediately see his Gov’t checks go up. He’s just to the right of Attila the Hun, but I guess when you look like a bum, you go with what will work.
Another day, another ridiculous endorsement from a Veterans Group. Today’s nonpartisan veterans endorsement comes from Veterans and Military Families for Progress.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — By vote of the Board of Directors, Veterans and Military Families for Progress (www.vmfp.org) proudly endorses Senator Barack Obama in the upcoming United States presidential election. Founded in 2005, VMFP is dedicated to ensuring that the rights and needs of veterans, those currently serving (including national guard and reservists), and their families are understood by the American public, endorsed by our elected officials, and protected by legislation, regulation, and public policy initiatives.
As the grandson of a veteran of World War II, his appreciation of veterans issues is underscored not by words but by actions. He serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, has shown leadership by introducing several non-partisan bills, some of which have been enacted into law, for the benefit of veterans. He shares the values of our military forces, and fights to ensure our forces are well-rested and properly equipped. Of particular interest to VMFP, Senator Obama shows superior support for veterans coming home issues such as accessible physical and mental health care, expanded educational benefits and job opportunities, and reduction of homelessness and suicide within the ranks of Americas veterans.
Well gee TSO, what’s wrong with that? Nothing, except that the Executive Vice President of this group is a guy named Bill Dooling. And who is that? My friend google tells me that:
First Lt. Bill Dooling, Sen. Barack Obama’s veteran affairs adviser, will lead discussions Tuesday in Indianapolis, Anderson and Fort Wayne on the Democratic presidential nominee’s plan to build a 21st-century VA, which including fully funding for VA medical facilities, expanding the number of veterans centers, and ensuring veterans have opportunities following their service.
Any ties to other phony groups we talked about before? Glad you asked TSO, why yes, yes there is:
VMFP President Matt Cary will appear on the Pacifica Radio Network on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26th at 10AM Eastern time….Appearing with Matt will be Retired Col. Richard Klass of the Veterans for Alliance and Security (VETPAC) organization. The discussion will focus on Memorial Day and what it means to our veterans.
That would be the same Col Klass who is Co-chair of Vets for Obama, and himself did the endorsement for VETPAC. The similiarities are uncanny, no?
In case you need more red meat, I give you this:
Recent efforts designed to smear an honorable, patriotic veteran like Congressman John Murtha (PA-12) are an attack on all of us. Because Congressman Murtha speaks out based on his experience as a decorated veteran and faithful steward of military matters in congress, some, unable or unwilling to debate the merit of the issues he raises, attack him personally. Such a tactic is an attack on freedom and democracy itself. These efforts are designed to prey on Americans’ fear, and are an abuse of Americans’ sense of reason, in an effort to link fear to people’s personal patriotism.
“Such attacks inspire veterans, current military service members, and military families to stand up and stand with Congressman Murtha,” Matt Cary, President of Veterans and Military Families for Progress (www.vmfp.org) said recently. “For veterans, military service members, and military families, the color of politics on this issue is red-white-and–blue, it is American, blind to political party, clear and perceptive in its connections to our founders’ sense of freedom.”
To which I respond:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!