Posts
November 28, 2009
Congressman David Obey
First Star Plaza
401 5th Street #406
Wausau, WI 54403-5468
RE: “While the light is left to burn the vilest sinner may yet return.”
Congressman Obey,
I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to your office in Superior, Wisconsin. Who knows? Maybe one of them will get through.
As I mentioned in the first letter it is possible to have your cake and to eat it. The problem for Progressive Congressmen who were/are/shall be Roman Catholics is that you can’t eat it and have it.
I know neither the condition of your soul nor do I know the condition of Congressman Kennedy’s soul.
There are some things I do know.
#1 – For a sin to be mortal 3 things must be present. It must be a grievous matter; there must be sufficient reflection; there must be free consent of the will.
#2 - “Those things that I bind up on earth my Father will bind up in heaven.”
The reason why modern American Liberal politicians are always in need of chiropractic assistance is because of the positions they take trying to square the circle of abortion.
Governor Mario Cuomo, Catholic born, Catholic raised, Catholic educated, gave a speech at a Catholic university.
He said that while he was personally opposed to abortion he could not let his private beliefs trump the law of the land.
About 1000 years ago the Catholic Church, our Church, began to address the constructs of such a statement. Rational thought is based, inter alia, on the Trivium. The Trivium is a three legged stool that is a building bloc of what is called Western Civilization.
If Governor Cuomo had been the Governor of New York in the 1850s he would have no choice but to fill up the trains with runaway slaves. However much he personally opposed slavery he could not permit his private beliefs to supersede the law of the land.
The faulty Logic that enables him to justify abortion would compel him to truss up any anti-Bellum Negroes and send them back to the tender mercies of the slave masters.
[As an aside, my father’s father had two uncles who helped to repeal the Dred Scott decision. Both were members of the Irish Brigade. Both marched line abreast into the Wheat Field at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. One of them is still there “wrapped in his faded coat of Blue”.]
Is your back starting to hurt?
A lot of modern American Liberals find inspiration and direction in the writings of John Rawls. When I first read him I thought he was writing tongue in cheek. Alas, intentional humor is not a strong suit of mALs. They are far too busy trying to find something new to hector us about.
Rawls said in his “A Theory of Justice” that for a law to bee good the benefits must be extended to the most venerable members of society. Those least able to defend themselves must have the law to protect them.
Sometimes some analgesic balm can help. Sometimes not. Try to avoid bending over. Losing weight can help. Maybe some medicinal single malts. Saint Paul, my favorite rabbi, enjoined us to “take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and other ailments”. Still good advice.
Logic is not a parabolic curve.
The Catholic Church, with all its warts and human imperfections, asks little of its members. The poet said, “Everything”. Your choice is simple.
There are many wonderful Protestant churches that would love to have you as a member. You can sit around humming Kumbaya, singing “We Are the World”, worry about drowning polar bears, grumble at WAL*MART, and try to convince yourself that Hugo Chavez means well and that Cuba, whatever its faults, has universal health care.
I hope the Hound gets to you before the race is over.
God Bless.
Kevin Smith
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Beth Reinhard The Miami Herald
November 28, 2009
Beth Reinhard
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Eureka! One more glass ceiling for the ladies to crash through. How about your daughters? A comment on your column in today’s Miami Herald.
Ms. Reinhard,
First, I say to you that my gratitude is limitless. You managed to get through an entire column without mentioning Broward’s leading goniff, Scott Rothstein. He was turning up in stories about the weather and race results. I hope you started a trend.
Second, you mention, in typical modern American Liberal mode, the man-made obstacles the today’s chicks face in getting through the glass ceiling. You mention several ladies who are vying for state wide office in a misogynistic world filled with despoilers of bearded clams. It is irrelevant if they are qualified for public office. Lord knows that the males aren’t. It is just that they must first cut their way through the testosterone aura that evil males have put in their way. God bless them.
Third, you speak with proper maternal pride of your daughters. You use their asking if they can live in the White House as a metaphor for hope and change.
Some old soldier [male] said “Audas, audas”. Audacity is not limited to Chicago community organizers. There is a glass ceiling your daughters can crash through.
It can be seen form the White House.
Arlington Cemetery.
If ever there were a male only institution that needs to be opened for the girls this is it. The ladies have a 135 year numerical imbalance to overcome. Shall we have a special “set aside section” for them?
Get them cracking.
Kevin Smith
Beth Reinhard
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Eureka! One more glass ceiling for the ladies to crash through. How about your daughters? A comment on your column in today’s Miami Herald.
Ms. Reinhard,
First, I say to you that my gratitude is limitless. You managed to get through an entire column without mentioning Broward’s leading goniff, Scott Rothstein. He was turning up in stories about the weather and race results. I hope you started a trend.
Second, you mention, in typical modern American Liberal mode, the man-made obstacles the today’s chicks face in getting through the glass ceiling. You mention several ladies who are vying for state wide office in a misogynistic world filled with despoilers of bearded clams. It is irrelevant if they are qualified for public office. Lord knows that the males aren’t. It is just that they must first cut their way through the testosterone aura that evil males have put in their way. God bless them.
Third, you speak with proper maternal pride of your daughters. You use their asking if they can live in the White House as a metaphor for hope and change.
Some old soldier [male] said “Audas, audas”. Audacity is not limited to Chicago community organizers. There is a glass ceiling your daughters can crash through.
It can be seen form the White House.
Arlington Cemetery.
If ever there were a male only institution that needs to be opened for the girls this is it. The ladies have a 135 year numerical imbalance to overcome. Shall we have a special “set aside section” for them?
Get them cracking.
Kevin Smith
Congressman David Obey
November 27, 2009
Congressman David Obey
1401 Tower Avenue #307
Superior, Wisconsin 54880-1553
RE: Taxes, carbon foot prints, “The Hound of Heaven”, and you.
Congressman Obey,
I read this morning of your plan to increase income taxes on the hated, mendacious rich. It is your way to pay for the “good” war in Afghanistan as opposed to the “bad” war in Iraq.
Raising taxes is never a popular idea, Raising taxes in the middle of a recession is a head up your ass dumb idea that only a modern American Liberal could love. You may wish to consult History to see if any country was able to tax itself either out of a recession or into prosperity.
Despite bowing, scraping, and repeatedly kissing the proffered boot President B.O. was told by the fiendishly clever Chi-Coms that his allowance was being cut.
There may be another solution.
Your official bio and various press accounts say that you are a Roman Catholic.
May I suggest a tax on all Roman Catholic politicians every time they say something about abortion that conflicts with the teachings of Holy Mother Church? Amounts, like the Stimulus program and the proposed Health Care package will be worked out later.
If carbon dioxide is a bad gas – there goes photosynthesis! – think how many polar bears you’ll save from drowning if you button your lip when the subject comes up. They’ll probably eat more baby seals but, what the Hell, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Some dead White European male said “Free men speak with free tongues”.
I take that to mean that there can be no fetters on speech, particularly on political speech.
You or any politician - Why does Congressman Kennedy’s name come to mind? Your bio speaks proudly of your “blue collar” roots. Do think Congressman Kennedy and I hope he isn’t as dumb as he seems ever wore a “blue collar” that wasn’t from Brooks Brothers? – can say whatever they want about abortion. The boat Hell bent to Avernus has room for Speaker Pelosi and Senator Kerry.
The problem is when fraud politicians and your name heads the list want to eat their cake and have it too.
Christ himself said, “Thou art Peter. Upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”
Like it or not the Roman Catholic Church is not a Chinese menu. You can’t choose one item and discard another. You are in it or you aren’t. There is no such thing, forgive me, as being a little bit pregnant.
My favorite Christmas movie is the 1951 production of “A Christmas Carol” starring Alastair Sim. The story is about redemption. “It was said he could keep Christmas well if any man alive knew how to.”
Being a Roman Catholic and a politician are not mutually exclusive terms. It is said quite correctly that politics is the art of compromise. That is why honorable men can differ on things such as trade and tax policies.
As a Roman Catholic you know, or should know, that there are things on which no compromise is possible. Is this not one of them? Hopefully, the sound you hear is “The Hound of Heaven” gaining on you.
As we enter Advent my prayers are with you that you may be receptive to God’s grace.
Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year to those unborn who will see the New Year.
Kevin Smith
Congressman David Obey
1401 Tower Avenue #307
Superior, Wisconsin 54880-1553
RE: Taxes, carbon foot prints, “The Hound of Heaven”, and you.
Congressman Obey,
I read this morning of your plan to increase income taxes on the hated, mendacious rich. It is your way to pay for the “good” war in Afghanistan as opposed to the “bad” war in Iraq.
Raising taxes is never a popular idea, Raising taxes in the middle of a recession is a head up your ass dumb idea that only a modern American Liberal could love. You may wish to consult History to see if any country was able to tax itself either out of a recession or into prosperity.
Despite bowing, scraping, and repeatedly kissing the proffered boot President B.O. was told by the fiendishly clever Chi-Coms that his allowance was being cut.
There may be another solution.
Your official bio and various press accounts say that you are a Roman Catholic.
May I suggest a tax on all Roman Catholic politicians every time they say something about abortion that conflicts with the teachings of Holy Mother Church? Amounts, like the Stimulus program and the proposed Health Care package will be worked out later.
If carbon dioxide is a bad gas – there goes photosynthesis! – think how many polar bears you’ll save from drowning if you button your lip when the subject comes up. They’ll probably eat more baby seals but, what the Hell, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Some dead White European male said “Free men speak with free tongues”.
I take that to mean that there can be no fetters on speech, particularly on political speech.
You or any politician - Why does Congressman Kennedy’s name come to mind? Your bio speaks proudly of your “blue collar” roots. Do think Congressman Kennedy and I hope he isn’t as dumb as he seems ever wore a “blue collar” that wasn’t from Brooks Brothers? – can say whatever they want about abortion. The boat Hell bent to Avernus has room for Speaker Pelosi and Senator Kerry.
The problem is when fraud politicians and your name heads the list want to eat their cake and have it too.
Christ himself said, “Thou art Peter. Upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”
Like it or not the Roman Catholic Church is not a Chinese menu. You can’t choose one item and discard another. You are in it or you aren’t. There is no such thing, forgive me, as being a little bit pregnant.
My favorite Christmas movie is the 1951 production of “A Christmas Carol” starring Alastair Sim. The story is about redemption. “It was said he could keep Christmas well if any man alive knew how to.”
Being a Roman Catholic and a politician are not mutually exclusive terms. It is said quite correctly that politics is the art of compromise. That is why honorable men can differ on things such as trade and tax policies.
As a Roman Catholic you know, or should know, that there are things on which no compromise is possible. Is this not one of them? Hopefully, the sound you hear is “The Hound of Heaven” gaining on you.
As we enter Advent my prayers are with you that you may be receptive to God’s grace.
Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year to those unborn who will see the New Year.
Kevin Smith
DDT, Madoff, Gore
November 25, 2009
My Damascus moment about environmentalism came about before the word came into vogue. All it took was holding a dead infant in Huejutla, Mexico in 1963. His last temperature was 106. His stomach was distended beyond anything I had ever seen. He died from malaria.
Having read Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in 1962 I knew several things.
DDT kills mosquito larvae. Rachel Carson told us that DDT also kills Peregrine falcons. The math was simple. How many dead birds are equal to one dead brown skinned Mexican baby? I say “brown skinned” because, in the end, all the environmental claptrap, and we thought that Lysenko was a horse’s ass, was able to overcome the scientific method and reasoned discourse. The environmental movement was founded and predicated on wealthy White people feeling warm and fuzzy about themselves. The science never counted. More than 2,000,000 sub-Saharan black babies die each year from malaria. Some of the countries, and I use the word – countries – ever so lightly want to buy DDT from the United States. In our rush to save the Peregrine falcon we banned its production in 1971. We even banned its export. We also banned the over the counter sale of Phisohex. Boobs, 2. Science, 0.
Black African babies are worth even less than brown skinned Mexican babies.
The Peregrine falcon is thriving.
White people, people who have never worked at the minimum wage, people who think plastic bags are evil, people whose only knowledge of brown skinned Mexicans is when they kill their crab grass in an environmentally sensitive manner, people for whom last November’s ballot ended in a tumescent rush at the thought of electing a Black man, people who worry about polar bears and baby seals, seals being one of the bears’ favorite meals, people who had parents who thought that not eating lettuce was a moral , people who look around at Western Civilization and say “No Thanks”, people who confuse feelings with ideas, people who know that even the fabled Cuban medical system cannot cure Castro’s 3 year bellyache because Cheney is putting the evil eye on him, people who would not know that the sharp end of the bullet goes in first, people who believe that all it takes to make things better is for good men to want it, these people were scammed by the eco-freaks for decades.
It should have been obvious.
40 years ago we were given 30 years to live. The science was settled. Paul R. Ehrlich, Ph.D. said we would starve to death or freeze to death or both by the end of the century. The date on this morning’s paper tells me it is 2009. We forgot, at our peril, Orwell telling us “The obvious and the true have to be defended”.
30 years ago the science was settled. A new ice age was coming at us like a steroid fueled hurricane. The only thing that could save us was Global Warming. I must confess that I did my part to deplete the ozone layer be squirting some Right Guard out the bathroom window every morning.
20 years ago a new Ned Ludd appeared on the scene. Right after he was the first national figure to tell us about a convicted murderer, a wayward feral Black man named Willie Horton, being furloughed by Governor Dukakis, Senator Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. [I always add Jr. to distinguish him from his father Senator Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. whose main job in life was to be the bagman for Armand Hammer, a close personal friend of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev] adopted his Chicken Little persona. This man, as neddy a dunce who ever was on the national stage, told us that – A – the world was ending and – B- it was our fault and then – C – the only way to salvation was to buy carbon credits from him. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he made himself out to be.
In 1996 the President of the United States, Handsome Billy from Hot Springs, and how I miss him, told us in August how hot it was. It being hot was proof that hotness is caused by heat and that as soon as he gets around to it he will ask the Senate to pass the Kyoto Treaty to save us from ourselves. He was distracted by the Oval Office thrill running up his leg and never did get around to it. That was the same year my favorite feminine munchkin, Donna Shalala, then a member of the Cabinet, told us that we would all be dead from AIDS in 10 years. I’ve been holding my breath for 3 years.
Is there a pattern here?
Yes.
Things have rather quiet in the Bermuda Triangle for a while, haven’t they?
A ship carrying cement was lost. 6 planes disappeared. Magnetic compasses sometime go haywire. Strange things happen on the seas. Ask any sailor. I think Nostradamus explained all this, didn’t he?
The basis of all literature on the Bermuda Triangle begins with a 1947 story in Argosy, a man’s magazine before Playboy. When the provenance of all subsequent articles is traced back it arrives at the article in Argosy. Anytime a theory is peer reviewed in Argosy it sure as Hell fills me with certitude. As soon as the National Enquirer confirms it it will be set in stone forever, right? Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter from the New York Times, scotched the lie that Stalin killed 8,000,000 Kulaks in the early ‘30s, didn’t he?
The “fatal conceit” of modern American Liberals is that since they are right they can never be wrong.
The iluminati of the Left gather “in council rooms far apart” to decide what the noble agenda is to be. Once it is decided it is enforced like a Politburo ukase. There is no opposition allowed. And, yes, they will cook the books. And, yes, the did cook the books.
Scientific integrity – methodology, independent replication, open criticism, vigorous debate – is ignored. Argumentum ad hominem is the weapon of choice.
Einstein said he only had to be proved wrong once.
Tomatoes were once thought to be poisonous.
“Let me show you how I have 11 fingers. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 are 11, right?”
I suggest that correlation is not causation.
We forget post hoc ergo propter hoc at our mortal peril.
The basis for the Global Warming tooth ache of the last 30 years can be explained by using one of the great words in the English language.
BULLSHIT
The only thing that could save us from the soon to be upon us Ice Age in the ‘70s was Global Warming.
The only thing that can save us from the horrors of Global Warming is a quick return of a new Ice Age.
Only an intellectual, a really, really smart one can believe that.
The group is filled with intellectual Bernie Madoffs.
Vice President Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. has become Alpha Gump. About things scientific he is as smart as a box of starch. He has become the Elmer Gantry of pseudo science. His collection plate overflows. Lysenko will be making a comeback as the patron saint of the rhetorical incontinence. Gump, the Ginormous Gasbag of spluttering scientific bunkum, is about to become undone.
“The solid world exists. Stones are hard. Water is wet.
Hold on to that.”
Several good things happen whenever we have a warming trend.
More land becomes arable. People eat more protein. They get smarter. Life gets better. Am I missing something here?
13000 years ago the last Ice Age ended. Men come out of hiding in caves and started something called civilization. If you prefer the company of mastodons and saber tooth tigers you can have my share.
It got warmer in Europe about 1000 years ago. We had the Renaissance. Dante, remember? Michelangelo. Then came Shakespeare. Along came the so far successful experiment in free men ruling themselves. If it gets too hot outside come inside and turn the A/C on.
Melting icebergs, drowning polar bears, disappearing rain forests, the curse of plastic bags, condoms made from organic materials…Who can write fiction?
At least lemmings have an excuse. They’re dumb animals.
We’re not.
The cliff is right ahead of us.
Thank God Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, gave the world 50 days to live in mid-October. I thought all the horses’ asses were on this side of the Atlantic.
In addition to the hard learned lesson about ecological flapdoodle that I got in Mexico I learned how markets work. That’s a different story.
Would not the encouragement of malaria relieve us of the vexing question of abortion? All the Kennedys could get Holy Communion what with all the little brown, black, and yellow buggers being dead. A win/win for the environment.
KS
My Damascus moment about environmentalism came about before the word came into vogue. All it took was holding a dead infant in Huejutla, Mexico in 1963. His last temperature was 106. His stomach was distended beyond anything I had ever seen. He died from malaria.
Having read Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in 1962 I knew several things.
DDT kills mosquito larvae. Rachel Carson told us that DDT also kills Peregrine falcons. The math was simple. How many dead birds are equal to one dead brown skinned Mexican baby? I say “brown skinned” because, in the end, all the environmental claptrap, and we thought that Lysenko was a horse’s ass, was able to overcome the scientific method and reasoned discourse. The environmental movement was founded and predicated on wealthy White people feeling warm and fuzzy about themselves. The science never counted. More than 2,000,000 sub-Saharan black babies die each year from malaria. Some of the countries, and I use the word – countries – ever so lightly want to buy DDT from the United States. In our rush to save the Peregrine falcon we banned its production in 1971. We even banned its export. We also banned the over the counter sale of Phisohex. Boobs, 2. Science, 0.
Black African babies are worth even less than brown skinned Mexican babies.
The Peregrine falcon is thriving.
White people, people who have never worked at the minimum wage, people who think plastic bags are evil, people whose only knowledge of brown skinned Mexicans is when they kill their crab grass in an environmentally sensitive manner, people for whom last November’s ballot ended in a tumescent rush at the thought of electing a Black man, people who worry about polar bears and baby seals, seals being one of the bears’ favorite meals, people who had parents who thought that not eating lettuce was a moral , people who look around at Western Civilization and say “No Thanks”, people who confuse feelings with ideas, people who know that even the fabled Cuban medical system cannot cure Castro’s 3 year bellyache because Cheney is putting the evil eye on him, people who would not know that the sharp end of the bullet goes in first, people who believe that all it takes to make things better is for good men to want it, these people were scammed by the eco-freaks for decades.
It should have been obvious.
40 years ago we were given 30 years to live. The science was settled. Paul R. Ehrlich, Ph.D. said we would starve to death or freeze to death or both by the end of the century. The date on this morning’s paper tells me it is 2009. We forgot, at our peril, Orwell telling us “The obvious and the true have to be defended”.
30 years ago the science was settled. A new ice age was coming at us like a steroid fueled hurricane. The only thing that could save us was Global Warming. I must confess that I did my part to deplete the ozone layer be squirting some Right Guard out the bathroom window every morning.
20 years ago a new Ned Ludd appeared on the scene. Right after he was the first national figure to tell us about a convicted murderer, a wayward feral Black man named Willie Horton, being furloughed by Governor Dukakis, Senator Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. [I always add Jr. to distinguish him from his father Senator Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. whose main job in life was to be the bagman for Armand Hammer, a close personal friend of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev] adopted his Chicken Little persona. This man, as neddy a dunce who ever was on the national stage, told us that – A – the world was ending and – B- it was our fault and then – C – the only way to salvation was to buy carbon credits from him. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he made himself out to be.
In 1996 the President of the United States, Handsome Billy from Hot Springs, and how I miss him, told us in August how hot it was. It being hot was proof that hotness is caused by heat and that as soon as he gets around to it he will ask the Senate to pass the Kyoto Treaty to save us from ourselves. He was distracted by the Oval Office thrill running up his leg and never did get around to it. That was the same year my favorite feminine munchkin, Donna Shalala, then a member of the Cabinet, told us that we would all be dead from AIDS in 10 years. I’ve been holding my breath for 3 years.
Is there a pattern here?
Yes.
Things have rather quiet in the Bermuda Triangle for a while, haven’t they?
A ship carrying cement was lost. 6 planes disappeared. Magnetic compasses sometime go haywire. Strange things happen on the seas. Ask any sailor. I think Nostradamus explained all this, didn’t he?
The basis of all literature on the Bermuda Triangle begins with a 1947 story in Argosy, a man’s magazine before Playboy. When the provenance of all subsequent articles is traced back it arrives at the article in Argosy. Anytime a theory is peer reviewed in Argosy it sure as Hell fills me with certitude. As soon as the National Enquirer confirms it it will be set in stone forever, right? Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter from the New York Times, scotched the lie that Stalin killed 8,000,000 Kulaks in the early ‘30s, didn’t he?
The “fatal conceit” of modern American Liberals is that since they are right they can never be wrong.
The iluminati of the Left gather “in council rooms far apart” to decide what the noble agenda is to be. Once it is decided it is enforced like a Politburo ukase. There is no opposition allowed. And, yes, they will cook the books. And, yes, the did cook the books.
Scientific integrity – methodology, independent replication, open criticism, vigorous debate – is ignored. Argumentum ad hominem is the weapon of choice.
Einstein said he only had to be proved wrong once.
Tomatoes were once thought to be poisonous.
“Let me show you how I have 11 fingers. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 are 11, right?”
I suggest that correlation is not causation.
We forget post hoc ergo propter hoc at our mortal peril.
The basis for the Global Warming tooth ache of the last 30 years can be explained by using one of the great words in the English language.
BULLSHIT
The only thing that could save us from the soon to be upon us Ice Age in the ‘70s was Global Warming.
The only thing that can save us from the horrors of Global Warming is a quick return of a new Ice Age.
Only an intellectual, a really, really smart one can believe that.
The group is filled with intellectual Bernie Madoffs.
Vice President Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. has become Alpha Gump. About things scientific he is as smart as a box of starch. He has become the Elmer Gantry of pseudo science. His collection plate overflows. Lysenko will be making a comeback as the patron saint of the rhetorical incontinence. Gump, the Ginormous Gasbag of spluttering scientific bunkum, is about to become undone.
“The solid world exists. Stones are hard. Water is wet.
Hold on to that.”
Several good things happen whenever we have a warming trend.
More land becomes arable. People eat more protein. They get smarter. Life gets better. Am I missing something here?
13000 years ago the last Ice Age ended. Men come out of hiding in caves and started something called civilization. If you prefer the company of mastodons and saber tooth tigers you can have my share.
It got warmer in Europe about 1000 years ago. We had the Renaissance. Dante, remember? Michelangelo. Then came Shakespeare. Along came the so far successful experiment in free men ruling themselves. If it gets too hot outside come inside and turn the A/C on.
Melting icebergs, drowning polar bears, disappearing rain forests, the curse of plastic bags, condoms made from organic materials…Who can write fiction?
At least lemmings have an excuse. They’re dumb animals.
We’re not.
The cliff is right ahead of us.
Thank God Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, gave the world 50 days to live in mid-October. I thought all the horses’ asses were on this side of the Atlantic.
In addition to the hard learned lesson about ecological flapdoodle that I got in Mexico I learned how markets work. That’s a different story.
Would not the encouragement of malaria relieve us of the vexing question of abortion? All the Kennedys could get Holy Communion what with all the little brown, black, and yellow buggers being dead. A win/win for the environment.
KS
Friday, November 20, 2009
Representative Jim Waldman
November 18, 2009
Representative Jim Waldman
4800 West Copans Road
Coconut Creek, Florida 33063-5600
RE: What is to be done next? – Some comments on your “win” on the cigarette tax as outlined in today’s Page 1 story in the Sun-Sentinel
Representative Waldman,
When last we spoke, in January, 2008, you told me that in a first step to outlawing cigarettes you would push for a tobacco sales tax to be as high as was legislatively possible. You did it.
It must now be considered absolute empirical evidence that Arthur Laffer was right when he said that a tax code could either punish or reward behavior. Your successful drive to increase the per pack tax has succeeded in cutting cigarette consumption by 27%. Better yet is the fact that state revenues have not declined. A win/win all around. There is a bit of a moral quandary in Florid acquiescing in and profiting from allowing the sale of any carcinogen even those that are certified organic. Let me say that, while they are still legal, we probably shouldn’t watch laws or sausages being made. Sausages, not laws. How can laws be illegal to any right thinking modern American Liberal?
If raising a tax rate can cause a drop in demand would it not be Logical to infer that dropping a tax rate would cause increased activity? You would be wise to remember that every time an argument, however fallacious, is made to tax our way to prosperity. The evidence of your own eyes will tell you otherwise.
There are two points to be made.
#1 – If you are familiar with the role of the marketplace in the pricing of commodities there is one thing that stands out. When the price of any commodity spikes upward two things happen. A – The marginal user is shaken out and B – New supplies come to the marketplace. Thus the 27% drop is explained. I will use my testimony in a lengthy trail in Federal Court to explain B. “If eggs go to $5 a dozen the rooster lays.”
I expect there to be a burgeoning industry in the shipping and distribution of cigarettes from low tax states. Bootlegging has long been a popular industry in America. I suspect that buttlegging will soon join it. Since debits no longer have to equal credits in the Job Stimulus program perhaps some enterprising entrepreneur can find an out of work ACORN poverty pimp to steer him through the Federal maze of inchoate balderdash and claptrap and get some Federal swag to finance a start up smuggling enterprise. The trucks will have to be American-made and they can’t use CITGO products. Why enrich Chavez, this hemisphere’s latest anti-Semite? It’s a better idea than running a pre-pubescent whore house peopled with underage illegal aliens, don’t you think? Talk about creating jobs!
#2 – Would I be politically incorrect if I were to suggest that it is time, in fact it is past time, to corral the local Redskins? Because some Black robed ohmadahns have stretched the concept of Injun sovereignty into an unrecognizable entity American Abos collect money that used to go to Florida. Lung cancer is not made better or worse because of the DNA of the seller.
Why should these scofflaws be allowed to sell tobacco, be it cigarette, cigar, pipe, or dip, without sales tax and without regard to the age of the buyer? That they do it across the street from a Stop and Shop that complies with the law is a particularly bitter pill for the public and the proprietor.
As far as I can tell there are no Miccosukee or Seminole hospitals. Lord knows where the revenue from gambling and tobacco sales goes but it does not go into cancer research. I feel it will be a long time before we see a Chief Spotted Owl Tumor Center.
Since I am from Hudson County, New Jersey I have some practical solutions to offer. You could sue them in Federal Court but why bother? How about have the police stop every car leaving any Noble Redman smoke shop and confiscate any untaxed tobacco? Why not dig up the entrance and exit of one shop every day because a 911 call was made of a potential gas leak? [It worked on the New Jersey Turnpike in Secaucus. Honest.]
Sometimes the people don’t know what’s good for them. That’s why right thinking people, people like you, are needed in the legislature.
I am told that President B.O. still smokes. How about you sponsor a sense of the legislature motion censuring him for that? How about mandating that every public pension plan in Florida divest themselves of any company that is connected to the sale of any tobacco products? Florida Senator Eleanor Sobel succeeded in getting the word “Shylock” banned from public usage. Kipling, the original multicultural poet and champion of diversity, speaks highly of tobacco. Maybe it’s time for him to go also.
Let me give you a big time Shout Out for getting your legislative goal accomplished. Next is the way people eat and drink. I think we should do something about salt and sugar. The epidemic of teen age obesity must be looked at legislatively.
If you picked up on my introduction you would have noted that “What is to be done next” is a play on words of Lenin’s fascinating prediction of what he had in mind.
We live in exciting times.
Kevin Smith
Representative Jim Waldman
4800 West Copans Road
Coconut Creek, Florida 33063-5600
RE: What is to be done next? – Some comments on your “win” on the cigarette tax as outlined in today’s Page 1 story in the Sun-Sentinel
Representative Waldman,
When last we spoke, in January, 2008, you told me that in a first step to outlawing cigarettes you would push for a tobacco sales tax to be as high as was legislatively possible. You did it.
It must now be considered absolute empirical evidence that Arthur Laffer was right when he said that a tax code could either punish or reward behavior. Your successful drive to increase the per pack tax has succeeded in cutting cigarette consumption by 27%. Better yet is the fact that state revenues have not declined. A win/win all around. There is a bit of a moral quandary in Florid acquiescing in and profiting from allowing the sale of any carcinogen even those that are certified organic. Let me say that, while they are still legal, we probably shouldn’t watch laws or sausages being made. Sausages, not laws. How can laws be illegal to any right thinking modern American Liberal?
If raising a tax rate can cause a drop in demand would it not be Logical to infer that dropping a tax rate would cause increased activity? You would be wise to remember that every time an argument, however fallacious, is made to tax our way to prosperity. The evidence of your own eyes will tell you otherwise.
There are two points to be made.
#1 – If you are familiar with the role of the marketplace in the pricing of commodities there is one thing that stands out. When the price of any commodity spikes upward two things happen. A – The marginal user is shaken out and B – New supplies come to the marketplace. Thus the 27% drop is explained. I will use my testimony in a lengthy trail in Federal Court to explain B. “If eggs go to $5 a dozen the rooster lays.”
I expect there to be a burgeoning industry in the shipping and distribution of cigarettes from low tax states. Bootlegging has long been a popular industry in America. I suspect that buttlegging will soon join it. Since debits no longer have to equal credits in the Job Stimulus program perhaps some enterprising entrepreneur can find an out of work ACORN poverty pimp to steer him through the Federal maze of inchoate balderdash and claptrap and get some Federal swag to finance a start up smuggling enterprise. The trucks will have to be American-made and they can’t use CITGO products. Why enrich Chavez, this hemisphere’s latest anti-Semite? It’s a better idea than running a pre-pubescent whore house peopled with underage illegal aliens, don’t you think? Talk about creating jobs!
#2 – Would I be politically incorrect if I were to suggest that it is time, in fact it is past time, to corral the local Redskins? Because some Black robed ohmadahns have stretched the concept of Injun sovereignty into an unrecognizable entity American Abos collect money that used to go to Florida. Lung cancer is not made better or worse because of the DNA of the seller.
Why should these scofflaws be allowed to sell tobacco, be it cigarette, cigar, pipe, or dip, without sales tax and without regard to the age of the buyer? That they do it across the street from a Stop and Shop that complies with the law is a particularly bitter pill for the public and the proprietor.
As far as I can tell there are no Miccosukee or Seminole hospitals. Lord knows where the revenue from gambling and tobacco sales goes but it does not go into cancer research. I feel it will be a long time before we see a Chief Spotted Owl Tumor Center.
Since I am from Hudson County, New Jersey I have some practical solutions to offer. You could sue them in Federal Court but why bother? How about have the police stop every car leaving any Noble Redman smoke shop and confiscate any untaxed tobacco? Why not dig up the entrance and exit of one shop every day because a 911 call was made of a potential gas leak? [It worked on the New Jersey Turnpike in Secaucus. Honest.]
Sometimes the people don’t know what’s good for them. That’s why right thinking people, people like you, are needed in the legislature.
I am told that President B.O. still smokes. How about you sponsor a sense of the legislature motion censuring him for that? How about mandating that every public pension plan in Florida divest themselves of any company that is connected to the sale of any tobacco products? Florida Senator Eleanor Sobel succeeded in getting the word “Shylock” banned from public usage. Kipling, the original multicultural poet and champion of diversity, speaks highly of tobacco. Maybe it’s time for him to go also.
Let me give you a big time Shout Out for getting your legislative goal accomplished. Next is the way people eat and drink. I think we should do something about salt and sugar. The epidemic of teen age obesity must be looked at legislatively.
If you picked up on my introduction you would have noted that “What is to be done next” is a play on words of Lenin’s fascinating prediction of what he had in mind.
We live in exciting times.
Kevin Smith
Monday, November 16, 2009
Letter to the Editor The Sun-Sentinel
November 14, 2009
Letter to the Editor
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Two bites out of the same apple
Sirs,
I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to Ellen Goodman about an opinion piece she had published in the Miami Herald. Lo and behold and I am determined not to be cliché ridden but the same article appeared in your paper yesterday.
Working for a bankrupt master does force some market discipline on you, doesn’t it?
Every time I read one of her articles I am reminded of the [supposedly] apocryphal headline from the Washington Post: “World Ends – Women and Minorities to Suffer Disproportionately”.
I can always count on her to offer an upturned neck to my History honed ax. The warm and fuzzy feeling I get from poleaxing her is squared because she was in two local papers.
Since you and the Herald are cutting expenses by sharing stories my I suggest that there are considerable savings to be realized in combining your distribution methods.
You and the Herald employ independent contractors to sell your papers in the intersections of South Florida. Having just one distributor would enable you to either place these modern day journalistic matadors in your employee system where they could get full benefits or it would enable you to pay the state sales tax that, heretofore, is not paid on street sales.
I have been asking the Herald to turn off their air conditioners since 1997. Think of the positive consequences if you were to do so.
#1 – You would shame the Herald into it also.
#2 – Your carbon footprint would be drastically reduced.
#3 – Drowning polar bears would be saved.
#4 – His Majesty, the Bankruptcy Judge, would be greatly pleased.
#5- The women in Afghanistan, the object of Ms. Goodman’s bellicose lacrhymosity, would rally knowing that there are still good people in the world. The plight of the drowning polar bears is a very important issue in Afghanistan, particularly with the women of Kafiristan. It ranks just behind voluntary cliteroidectomies, blowing up any unblown up Buddhas, the Twitter/Facebook debate, 2 hot meals in a row, getting the Afghani FDA to approve the poppy to Botox venture capital deal, running water as a substitute for running after water, clean running water, protesting the AIG bonuses [that’s the Afghan Insurance Group] the lack of teenage obesity, and second hand smoke.
What would we do without modern American Liberal ohmadahns like Ellen Goodman?
Though some may think she is an achingly inviting piñata, one with a flashing sign that says, “Hit Me, Hit Me, Hit Me”, I think she is a national treasure.
Thank you for publishing her.
Kevin Smith
Letter to the Editor
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Two bites out of the same apple
Sirs,
I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to Ellen Goodman about an opinion piece she had published in the Miami Herald. Lo and behold and I am determined not to be cliché ridden but the same article appeared in your paper yesterday.
Working for a bankrupt master does force some market discipline on you, doesn’t it?
Every time I read one of her articles I am reminded of the [supposedly] apocryphal headline from the Washington Post: “World Ends – Women and Minorities to Suffer Disproportionately”.
I can always count on her to offer an upturned neck to my History honed ax. The warm and fuzzy feeling I get from poleaxing her is squared because she was in two local papers.
Since you and the Herald are cutting expenses by sharing stories my I suggest that there are considerable savings to be realized in combining your distribution methods.
You and the Herald employ independent contractors to sell your papers in the intersections of South Florida. Having just one distributor would enable you to either place these modern day journalistic matadors in your employee system where they could get full benefits or it would enable you to pay the state sales tax that, heretofore, is not paid on street sales.
I have been asking the Herald to turn off their air conditioners since 1997. Think of the positive consequences if you were to do so.
#1 – You would shame the Herald into it also.
#2 – Your carbon footprint would be drastically reduced.
#3 – Drowning polar bears would be saved.
#4 – His Majesty, the Bankruptcy Judge, would be greatly pleased.
#5- The women in Afghanistan, the object of Ms. Goodman’s bellicose lacrhymosity, would rally knowing that there are still good people in the world. The plight of the drowning polar bears is a very important issue in Afghanistan, particularly with the women of Kafiristan. It ranks just behind voluntary cliteroidectomies, blowing up any unblown up Buddhas, the Twitter/Facebook debate, 2 hot meals in a row, getting the Afghani FDA to approve the poppy to Botox venture capital deal, running water as a substitute for running after water, clean running water, protesting the AIG bonuses [that’s the Afghan Insurance Group] the lack of teenage obesity, and second hand smoke.
What would we do without modern American Liberal ohmadahns like Ellen Goodman?
Though some may think she is an achingly inviting piñata, one with a flashing sign that says, “Hit Me, Hit Me, Hit Me”, I think she is a national treasure.
Thank you for publishing her.
Kevin Smith
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Small potatoes...potatos
November 9, 2009
HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SPELL “POTATO”
AND IS DR. JOE MEDICINE CROW A RICH DOCTOR,
A WITCH DOCTOR, OR A RICH WITCH DOCTOR?
Let me give a post racial hopefully transformational paradigm changing “Shout Out” to former ACORN organizer Barack Obama. Since he finds himself in the White House with his finger firmly on the reset button we can end the debate about whether or not God has a sense of humor. He does. Dare I say “in spades”?
I must tell you that in my past journeys I have yet to find any “Cinco de Cuatro” fiestas. “Cinco de Mayo”, si como no. Any celebration that praises the French getting their asses kicked is certainly worth a big time “Shout Out” cum multos cervezas.
I have physically set foot in 47 of what I thought were the 50 states that used to make up the Union. Thank God that President B.O., a dude with two Ivy League degrees, a man saddled with the unimaginable burden of being raised by “an average white grandmother”, a man who was able to overcome this and make his way in the world, pointed out that were “57, maybe 58 states”. I had planned on beginning my journey to “the undiscovered country” when I got to the 50th state. Now I have 10, maybe 11 more to visit. I guess it’s an example of an “anti-Death Panel”.
On my journey, the one with the spurned Lotus, the one with the quotidian Scylla and Charybdis, the one with the aging wife, the good son, and the faithful dog, I am certain I would have found the Golden Fleece of literature. I would have secured, at great personal risk and, doubtless, through skill and cunning, a copy of the elusive Austrian-English dictionary.
My cousin found the girdle, ate the apple, killed the bull, cleaned the stable, and, inter alia, undid the snarled knot. It’s the least, yes, the least, yes, that I could have, yes, done. I may as well give it to him as to anyone.
Would it label me as a “culturally arrogant” White Man’s Burden devotee if I were to ask if Dr. Medicine Crow was, in keeping with the tradition of several groups of his forebears, a hair transplant specialist? Would it be outrageous of me to ask if he took hair from one unwilling Round Eyes and gave it to another? Would this fall under the term “universal option”? Perhaps it’s time to ask where Curley Biden got the flowing locks that nature denied him.
Perhaps President B.O stayed away from Germany because he. confused Kristallnacht with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Perhaps not. If he brought the man who married him and Michele, baptized his children, and preached to him for 20 years, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and who says that Resurrection is not in style because he not only crawled out from underneath the bus that he was tossed under but he came out stronger like some truly evil modern day Hydra, it would have been embarrassing if he started to sing the Horst Wessel song. Todt Juden goes well with Goddamn America and Chickens coming home to roost, don’t you think?
Speaking of the Berlin Wall coming down, is it conceivable that a President Mondale could have said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”? You’re right. It isn’t.
Anyway, I began this by asking how many ways there are to spell potato. It dawned on me that Mohammed Kill Americans is to be executed tomorrow. His counsel says that he is completely incompetent. He thinks he is in Nuremberg. Nuremberg, Germany. It would be a most generous gesture if President B.O. were to reach out and pardon him. It would be yet one more attempt to reach out to the Muslim world. It could help to undo centuries of harassment, discrimination, and injustice that we have visited on the Muslim world. Every time I remember Omdurman or Lepanto I tremble when I think that Allah is just.
On the other hand a dimwitted Black man sentenced to death for murder most foul have little to no chance when modern American Liberals run the firing squad. Hillary Clinton sat on Ricky Ray Rector’s lap in the electric chair to keep him from objecting to his fate. He had the IQ of a box of starch but his death served a nobler cause. It proved that a modern American Liberal would toss a Black man into the maw of the executioner’s ax if it showed he was tough on crime.
The guy in Virginia is toast. Hasta luego, baby.
I am not sure how to spell potato.
Maybe Doctor Crow knows.
If he doesn’t maybe he knows the difference between the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom.
How far would we be stretching the envelope if we were to say that one is to the other like hope is to change is to reality is to real life is to the mournful Taps that will be sounded at Fort Hood?
Shoe strings or steak cut? Baked or mashed?
Kevin Smith
HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SPELL “POTATO”
AND IS DR. JOE MEDICINE CROW A RICH DOCTOR,
A WITCH DOCTOR, OR A RICH WITCH DOCTOR?
Let me give a post racial hopefully transformational paradigm changing “Shout Out” to former ACORN organizer Barack Obama. Since he finds himself in the White House with his finger firmly on the reset button we can end the debate about whether or not God has a sense of humor. He does. Dare I say “in spades”?
I must tell you that in my past journeys I have yet to find any “Cinco de Cuatro” fiestas. “Cinco de Mayo”, si como no. Any celebration that praises the French getting their asses kicked is certainly worth a big time “Shout Out” cum multos cervezas.
I have physically set foot in 47 of what I thought were the 50 states that used to make up the Union. Thank God that President B.O., a dude with two Ivy League degrees, a man saddled with the unimaginable burden of being raised by “an average white grandmother”, a man who was able to overcome this and make his way in the world, pointed out that were “57, maybe 58 states”. I had planned on beginning my journey to “the undiscovered country” when I got to the 50th state. Now I have 10, maybe 11 more to visit. I guess it’s an example of an “anti-Death Panel”.
On my journey, the one with the spurned Lotus, the one with the quotidian Scylla and Charybdis, the one with the aging wife, the good son, and the faithful dog, I am certain I would have found the Golden Fleece of literature. I would have secured, at great personal risk and, doubtless, through skill and cunning, a copy of the elusive Austrian-English dictionary.
My cousin found the girdle, ate the apple, killed the bull, cleaned the stable, and, inter alia, undid the snarled knot. It’s the least, yes, the least, yes, that I could have, yes, done. I may as well give it to him as to anyone.
Would it label me as a “culturally arrogant” White Man’s Burden devotee if I were to ask if Dr. Medicine Crow was, in keeping with the tradition of several groups of his forebears, a hair transplant specialist? Would it be outrageous of me to ask if he took hair from one unwilling Round Eyes and gave it to another? Would this fall under the term “universal option”? Perhaps it’s time to ask where Curley Biden got the flowing locks that nature denied him.
Perhaps President B.O stayed away from Germany because he. confused Kristallnacht with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Perhaps not. If he brought the man who married him and Michele, baptized his children, and preached to him for 20 years, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and who says that Resurrection is not in style because he not only crawled out from underneath the bus that he was tossed under but he came out stronger like some truly evil modern day Hydra, it would have been embarrassing if he started to sing the Horst Wessel song. Todt Juden goes well with Goddamn America and Chickens coming home to roost, don’t you think?
Speaking of the Berlin Wall coming down, is it conceivable that a President Mondale could have said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”? You’re right. It isn’t.
Anyway, I began this by asking how many ways there are to spell potato. It dawned on me that Mohammed Kill Americans is to be executed tomorrow. His counsel says that he is completely incompetent. He thinks he is in Nuremberg. Nuremberg, Germany. It would be a most generous gesture if President B.O. were to reach out and pardon him. It would be yet one more attempt to reach out to the Muslim world. It could help to undo centuries of harassment, discrimination, and injustice that we have visited on the Muslim world. Every time I remember Omdurman or Lepanto I tremble when I think that Allah is just.
On the other hand a dimwitted Black man sentenced to death for murder most foul have little to no chance when modern American Liberals run the firing squad. Hillary Clinton sat on Ricky Ray Rector’s lap in the electric chair to keep him from objecting to his fate. He had the IQ of a box of starch but his death served a nobler cause. It proved that a modern American Liberal would toss a Black man into the maw of the executioner’s ax if it showed he was tough on crime.
The guy in Virginia is toast. Hasta luego, baby.
I am not sure how to spell potato.
Maybe Doctor Crow knows.
If he doesn’t maybe he knows the difference between the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom.
How far would we be stretching the envelope if we were to say that one is to the other like hope is to change is to reality is to real life is to the mournful Taps that will be sounded at Fort Hood?
Shoe strings or steak cut? Baked or mashed?
Kevin Smith
Robert Watson, Ph.D. Lynn University
November 1, 2009
Robert Watson, Ph.D.
Lynn University
3601 North Military Trail
Boca Raton, Florida 33431
RE: Is it time for an Amazon Brigade? Some comments on your article bemoaning the absence of a female Sherman or progesterone maddened Churchill in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.
Professor Watson,
You chided me a bit back about being “condescending” and, horrors, “wrong”. I hope you take the enclosed as a well intentioned primer on pulchritudinous power.
#1 – Queen Maeve [Mdeb in Erse] was not someone to be taken lightly particularly when it came to her cattle. Bodacia, her role model, had shattered that glass ceiling before there was glass.
#2 – The original Queen Elizabeth had, Deo gratias, grandes cojones. If she didn’t they’d still be speaking Spanish in Solihull. I have read Juan de la Cruz in Spanish and English. Imagine if Spanish were Wordsworth’s first language. I can’t
#3 – As a Jersey guy I am very proud of Molly Pitcher. It is, as Churchill said in his “History of the English Speaking Peoples”, a story too good not to be true.
#4 – Fast fading down the memory hole of 20th century warfare is Golda Meir’s leveling of several Egyptian cities by artillery fire. She ordered the pursuit and killings of the Munich murderers. Bubbe Golda lived by “Nolo me tangere cum impecunis”. I just know that you will throw up your modern American Liberal hands in horror but her favorite President was Richard Nixon.
#5 – Mrs. Gandhi developed and tested nuclear weapons. She then told the world not to worry because she loved peace. [If Hindus had graves rather than bonfires the Mahatma would still be doing back flips.] The Chinese and the Pakistanis didn’t think much of her irenic protestations and reacted accordingly.
You may want to assign one of your more adventuresome students to investigate the role of the Loral Corporation and its Chairman Bernard Schwartz [a frequent Lincoln bedroom occupant in the glorious days of the Clinton Presidency] and how he affected the balance of nuclear power vis-à-vis China, India, and Pakistan.
#6 – If, as Hillary Clinton’s ads said, “The phone rings at 3:00 AM”, and as Douglas MacArthur said, “When the war tocsin sounds” who would better serve the interests of Western Man [Man? Ironic, no?] than Margaret Thatcher?
Lady Thatcher assessed the Argentineans correctly. In almost 2 centuries the only permanent contribution that they made to the Western Canon was the tango. It must be noted that they stole that from the Italians. The American Navy told the Brits that if you sank one Argentinean ship you sank them all. The Belgrano was sunk on the express orders of the Prime Minister. The rest of the fleet retired to its home ports. Her action saved lives. That they turned out to be good pilots shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering their abilities as polo players and race car drivers. They weren’t flying John McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk against some small frigates; they were flying against Nelson and Drake. A walkover, as they say in the UK. She “hit them for a six”.
That’s what war time leaders, male or female, androgynous or epicene, transgendered, cross gendered or non-gendered are supposed to do.
She did it.
#7 – Coco Chanel spent World War 2 in Paris. She, and let’s be charitable, “entertained” the German General staff. If we could have parachuted her into Berlin the war may have ended in 1944.
The girls use the weapons they have.
I have one other point of contention.
You say, “Moreover, Kennedy was dedicated to disarmament”.
As Casey Stengel, “the old perfesser”, used to say, “You could look it up”. Senator Kennedy ran on several themes.
#1 – There was a “missile gap”. To suggest that Dwight Eisenhower, a man who led 10,000,000 men in combat, a man who defeated the Germans 11 months and 2 days after his troops landed in Europe, would let his country fall into mortal peril is a bit of rhetorical incontinence. Thanks to a late count in Cook County it worked. [Don’t we have gall in saying that Afghanistan elections are not on the up and up?]
#2 – He would defend Quemoy and Matsu. These were two outpost islands garrisoned by Formosan troops. Both islands were in sight of mainland China. To show their humanitarian side the Chinese Communists bombarded them every other day. Senator Kennedy said. “Any place is defensible if free men so desire”.
#3 – He advanced the career of General Curtis Lemay. Lemay had said in 1945 that America had to win the war with Japan or he would be tried as a war criminal.
The Polaris submarine launching platforms were greatly enhanced on his watch. He agreed to share it with the British Navy.
The run up in Vietnam was begun in his administration. No amount of Monday morning quarterbacking, particularly among sympathetic revisionist Historians, can change that.
#4 – He vowed to get the country “moving again”. His weapon of choice was huge cuts in the personal income tax rates, greatly quickened rates of depreciation, the use of investment tax credits, and the dropping of several nuisance Federal excise taxes. It worked until Johnson fought two wars. The one in Vietnam was fought on the cheap. At least that one ended. The one against poverty is still going on 45 years later with no “exit strategy” evident. Both were financed by Treasury bills. Unlike other American wars where previous “surges” have worked this one appears to be immune.
Hell still has no fury like a broad scorned.
Kevin Smith
Robert Watson, Ph.D.
Lynn University
3601 North Military Trail
Boca Raton, Florida 33431
RE: Is it time for an Amazon Brigade? Some comments on your article bemoaning the absence of a female Sherman or progesterone maddened Churchill in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.
Professor Watson,
You chided me a bit back about being “condescending” and, horrors, “wrong”. I hope you take the enclosed as a well intentioned primer on pulchritudinous power.
#1 – Queen Maeve [Mdeb in Erse] was not someone to be taken lightly particularly when it came to her cattle. Bodacia, her role model, had shattered that glass ceiling before there was glass.
#2 – The original Queen Elizabeth had, Deo gratias, grandes cojones. If she didn’t they’d still be speaking Spanish in Solihull. I have read Juan de la Cruz in Spanish and English. Imagine if Spanish were Wordsworth’s first language. I can’t
#3 – As a Jersey guy I am very proud of Molly Pitcher. It is, as Churchill said in his “History of the English Speaking Peoples”, a story too good not to be true.
#4 – Fast fading down the memory hole of 20th century warfare is Golda Meir’s leveling of several Egyptian cities by artillery fire. She ordered the pursuit and killings of the Munich murderers. Bubbe Golda lived by “Nolo me tangere cum impecunis”. I just know that you will throw up your modern American Liberal hands in horror but her favorite President was Richard Nixon.
#5 – Mrs. Gandhi developed and tested nuclear weapons. She then told the world not to worry because she loved peace. [If Hindus had graves rather than bonfires the Mahatma would still be doing back flips.] The Chinese and the Pakistanis didn’t think much of her irenic protestations and reacted accordingly.
You may want to assign one of your more adventuresome students to investigate the role of the Loral Corporation and its Chairman Bernard Schwartz [a frequent Lincoln bedroom occupant in the glorious days of the Clinton Presidency] and how he affected the balance of nuclear power vis-à-vis China, India, and Pakistan.
#6 – If, as Hillary Clinton’s ads said, “The phone rings at 3:00 AM”, and as Douglas MacArthur said, “When the war tocsin sounds” who would better serve the interests of Western Man [Man? Ironic, no?] than Margaret Thatcher?
Lady Thatcher assessed the Argentineans correctly. In almost 2 centuries the only permanent contribution that they made to the Western Canon was the tango. It must be noted that they stole that from the Italians. The American Navy told the Brits that if you sank one Argentinean ship you sank them all. The Belgrano was sunk on the express orders of the Prime Minister. The rest of the fleet retired to its home ports. Her action saved lives. That they turned out to be good pilots shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering their abilities as polo players and race car drivers. They weren’t flying John McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk against some small frigates; they were flying against Nelson and Drake. A walkover, as they say in the UK. She “hit them for a six”.
That’s what war time leaders, male or female, androgynous or epicene, transgendered, cross gendered or non-gendered are supposed to do.
She did it.
#7 – Coco Chanel spent World War 2 in Paris. She, and let’s be charitable, “entertained” the German General staff. If we could have parachuted her into Berlin the war may have ended in 1944.
The girls use the weapons they have.
I have one other point of contention.
You say, “Moreover, Kennedy was dedicated to disarmament”.
As Casey Stengel, “the old perfesser”, used to say, “You could look it up”. Senator Kennedy ran on several themes.
#1 – There was a “missile gap”. To suggest that Dwight Eisenhower, a man who led 10,000,000 men in combat, a man who defeated the Germans 11 months and 2 days after his troops landed in Europe, would let his country fall into mortal peril is a bit of rhetorical incontinence. Thanks to a late count in Cook County it worked. [Don’t we have gall in saying that Afghanistan elections are not on the up and up?]
#2 – He would defend Quemoy and Matsu. These were two outpost islands garrisoned by Formosan troops. Both islands were in sight of mainland China. To show their humanitarian side the Chinese Communists bombarded them every other day. Senator Kennedy said. “Any place is defensible if free men so desire”.
#3 – He advanced the career of General Curtis Lemay. Lemay had said in 1945 that America had to win the war with Japan or he would be tried as a war criminal.
The Polaris submarine launching platforms were greatly enhanced on his watch. He agreed to share it with the British Navy.
The run up in Vietnam was begun in his administration. No amount of Monday morning quarterbacking, particularly among sympathetic revisionist Historians, can change that.
#4 – He vowed to get the country “moving again”. His weapon of choice was huge cuts in the personal income tax rates, greatly quickened rates of depreciation, the use of investment tax credits, and the dropping of several nuisance Federal excise taxes. It worked until Johnson fought two wars. The one in Vietnam was fought on the cheap. At least that one ended. The one against poverty is still going on 45 years later with no “exit strategy” evident. Both were financed by Treasury bills. Unlike other American wars where previous “surges” have worked this one appears to be immune.
Hell still has no fury like a broad scorned.
Kevin Smith
Waco Delenda Est
November 6, 2009
I misread the Internet headline.
BIDEN VISITS RENO
I thought VEEP Joey Biden, AKA “Cheese Dick to his class mates at Auchmere, the noted Delaware blue collar snooty prep school that he attended and also “Curley” in honor of the smartest Stooge, had visited Janet Reno, the only Attorney General to make her predecessors, Mitchell, Clark, and Palmer, look good.
Curley, the original Chia Pet telemarketer, continues the tradition of half a bubble off plum Democratic Vice Presidents. Talk about hiring the handicapped!
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., AKA “Alpha Gump”, got big boy lace up shoes for his 16th birthday, having finally mastered the intricate bow knot.
I miss his wife, the lovely and charming Thumper Gump, and the way she shepherded all the baby Gumpsters.
To cover up his losing the election of 2000 Big Al, the man who first gave us Willie Horton, jabberwocked about the recount process in Florida. He gave us the only truly comic moment in the farce when Secretary Daley, of the Chicago, Cook County, Illinois Daleys, got off a plane 3 days after the election and said. “Let the recount begin”.
And to think we get our knickers in a knot over the election in Afghanistan! Conveniently forgotten, like a bobbing turd in the punch bowl, is the hard fact that if this horse’s ass had carried Tennessee, his home state, Bush could have pitched a shutout in Florida and he still wouldn’t have won.
All of his interminable ca-ca about Global Warming, drowning polar bears, the ozone layer and the depletion thereof means that it may be time to buy some long term calls on the return of Ned Ludd.
Every time he uses the word “consensus” or the phrase “the science is settled” he should be pelted with flaming bags of sheep shit. Somewhere in a Russian Potter’s Field Lysenko is smiling. I cannot confirm the rumor that he is trying to locate any blood relative of Lysenko to oversee his quest for producing green plants that reverse photosynthesis, that is to say, plants that consume CO2 rather than produce it. It will be like the little engine that could in his Herculean task of causing a new Ice Age. Don’t bet against him.
God Bless America! He’s making a pretty packet from his carbon credit scams and Green balderdash. It must be noted that if he wants to air condition his 632 room, 42 &1/2 bathroom house, the one with the salmon swimming upstream to provide some provender for the bears that he rescued, the one with the ski slope, the one with the home for aging redwoods, the one with the shrine to Armand Hammer, the bag man for Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, & Brezhnev, that one, he is going to have to use electricity generated by burning coal.
That he is a stupid bastard of Brobdanaglian proportions there can be no doubt. That particular science is “settled”. The evidence of your own eyes is proof sufficient for any adult who remembers something from school days called the scientific method. Add to that things outdated such as reasoned discourse and critical enquiry and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that in addition to being a stupid bastard he is a hypocritical stupid bastard with mega bucks.
Janet Reno began her illustrious Federal career by charbroiling some 7 dozen of her fellow citizens in Waco, Texas. That was her high point.
When Gore the Boob sold her on the idea that there was “no controlling legal authority” to bitch slap him after he got $300,000 from mendicant discalced Buddhist monks her ascendance into the modern American Liberal Hall of Fame was assured.
I apologize for thinking that Curley met Janny and Jeezus HaItch Keerist but what a fun couple they would make kayaking in the Everglades – in New Jersey they would be called swamps – to promote python wrestling as a new Olympic sport. [Would sitting between them on an intercontinental flight constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”? That fun couple would give us a new generation of kamikazeism led by passengers.]
The Reno that Curley was visiting was the one in Nevada
Now we have13 dead and 40 wounded in an Army base in, of all places, Waco, Texas.
The shooter, “alleged” of course, is a Major in the United States Army. He is also a Muslim. Major Nidal Mecca Mosque Death to the Infidels, M.D. was upset with the American war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was “harassed” and “picked on” because he was a towel head. [“Picking on” a Major? Exactly where is that army? Mars? Cambridge, Massachusetts?] That plus he thought someone at Fort Hood had liked the Mohammed cartoons and then wiped his ass with a Koran. The only solution was for him to open fire on his fellow soldiers. Does anyone else notice a disconnect of about a millennium of civilization here?
This calls for the fine Italianate hand of former AG Janet Reno. #1 – She is familiar with the area. #2 – Just tell her that the WOGs are holding the cousin of Elian Gonzalez and she’ll be on them like Kitchener at Omdurman. #3 – Muslim toast.
Case closed.
KS
I misread the Internet headline.
BIDEN VISITS RENO
I thought VEEP Joey Biden, AKA “Cheese Dick to his class mates at Auchmere, the noted Delaware blue collar snooty prep school that he attended and also “Curley” in honor of the smartest Stooge, had visited Janet Reno, the only Attorney General to make her predecessors, Mitchell, Clark, and Palmer, look good.
Curley, the original Chia Pet telemarketer, continues the tradition of half a bubble off plum Democratic Vice Presidents. Talk about hiring the handicapped!
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., AKA “Alpha Gump”, got big boy lace up shoes for his 16th birthday, having finally mastered the intricate bow knot.
I miss his wife, the lovely and charming Thumper Gump, and the way she shepherded all the baby Gumpsters.
To cover up his losing the election of 2000 Big Al, the man who first gave us Willie Horton, jabberwocked about the recount process in Florida. He gave us the only truly comic moment in the farce when Secretary Daley, of the Chicago, Cook County, Illinois Daleys, got off a plane 3 days after the election and said. “Let the recount begin”.
And to think we get our knickers in a knot over the election in Afghanistan! Conveniently forgotten, like a bobbing turd in the punch bowl, is the hard fact that if this horse’s ass had carried Tennessee, his home state, Bush could have pitched a shutout in Florida and he still wouldn’t have won.
All of his interminable ca-ca about Global Warming, drowning polar bears, the ozone layer and the depletion thereof means that it may be time to buy some long term calls on the return of Ned Ludd.
Every time he uses the word “consensus” or the phrase “the science is settled” he should be pelted with flaming bags of sheep shit. Somewhere in a Russian Potter’s Field Lysenko is smiling. I cannot confirm the rumor that he is trying to locate any blood relative of Lysenko to oversee his quest for producing green plants that reverse photosynthesis, that is to say, plants that consume CO2 rather than produce it. It will be like the little engine that could in his Herculean task of causing a new Ice Age. Don’t bet against him.
God Bless America! He’s making a pretty packet from his carbon credit scams and Green balderdash. It must be noted that if he wants to air condition his 632 room, 42 &1/2 bathroom house, the one with the salmon swimming upstream to provide some provender for the bears that he rescued, the one with the ski slope, the one with the home for aging redwoods, the one with the shrine to Armand Hammer, the bag man for Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, & Brezhnev, that one, he is going to have to use electricity generated by burning coal.
That he is a stupid bastard of Brobdanaglian proportions there can be no doubt. That particular science is “settled”. The evidence of your own eyes is proof sufficient for any adult who remembers something from school days called the scientific method. Add to that things outdated such as reasoned discourse and critical enquiry and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that in addition to being a stupid bastard he is a hypocritical stupid bastard with mega bucks.
Janet Reno began her illustrious Federal career by charbroiling some 7 dozen of her fellow citizens in Waco, Texas. That was her high point.
When Gore the Boob sold her on the idea that there was “no controlling legal authority” to bitch slap him after he got $300,000 from mendicant discalced Buddhist monks her ascendance into the modern American Liberal Hall of Fame was assured.
I apologize for thinking that Curley met Janny and Jeezus HaItch Keerist but what a fun couple they would make kayaking in the Everglades – in New Jersey they would be called swamps – to promote python wrestling as a new Olympic sport. [Would sitting between them on an intercontinental flight constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”? That fun couple would give us a new generation of kamikazeism led by passengers.]
The Reno that Curley was visiting was the one in Nevada
Now we have13 dead and 40 wounded in an Army base in, of all places, Waco, Texas.
The shooter, “alleged” of course, is a Major in the United States Army. He is also a Muslim. Major Nidal Mecca Mosque Death to the Infidels, M.D. was upset with the American war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was “harassed” and “picked on” because he was a towel head. [“Picking on” a Major? Exactly where is that army? Mars? Cambridge, Massachusetts?] That plus he thought someone at Fort Hood had liked the Mohammed cartoons and then wiped his ass with a Koran. The only solution was for him to open fire on his fellow soldiers. Does anyone else notice a disconnect of about a millennium of civilization here?
This calls for the fine Italianate hand of former AG Janet Reno. #1 – She is familiar with the area. #2 – Just tell her that the WOGs are holding the cousin of Elian Gonzalez and she’ll be on them like Kitchener at Omdurman. #3 – Muslim toast.
Case closed.
KS
Monday, November 9, 2009
Beth Reinhard The Miami Herald
November 8, 2009
Beth Reinhard
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE:Sisyphus, Nit-wit Gore, Reason upended, and “settled science”. Some comments on your Q&A session in the Herald with our most famous ex-Vice President turned grifter.
Ms. Reinhard,
Your picture suggests that you are too young to have shared in the glory years of the Carter administration.
Then, the biggest climatological problem we faced was – and I am telling you the truth – was Global Cooling. The claptrap promulgated by the scientific faker Rachel Carson were gaining main stream credence. On top of that we had a con artist with a Ph.D., an intellectual Bernie Madoff, named Paul Ehrlich who told us in 1970 that we would all starve to death by 2000. He was a regular Jeremiah on late night TV shows. As if that weren’t bad enough the “Clod Populist from Plains” said the country’s “malaise” was caused by – and I know you will find this almost impossible to believe – us.
It seemed that the only solution – the final solution? – to Global Cooling was – and who says that trope irony is dead – Global Warming.
Quicker than Pravda would air brush a deposed junior member of the Politburo out of the official May Day Parade photo, quicker than the modern American Liberals overcame their tacit approval of Hitler in the 22 months of the Hitler/Stalin Pact, the boogeyman became Global Warming. Since the most ardent wanabee Lysenkos in favor of banning air conditioning, plastic syringes, and inorganic chemistry to save drowning polar bears and to make the world safe for tofu cannot make the facts fit their convoluted, head up their collective asses theory have jettisoned Global Warming in favor of Climate Change.
[Here’s a non-Bruce Springsteen, non-U2 aside. Climate Change has already been chronicled. Google Vivaldi. Go to Borders. Buy a CD. Since Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain, a man who lives in the house that Thatcher, Churchill, and Disraeli lived in, gave us 50 days to live in October, I suggest you wear out the CD as you await, hopefully stoically, the End of Days. Let Epictetus be your band leader.]
Your interview with Oscar winning, Nobel Prize winning, former Vice President Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. – AKA “Cementhead” to his Secret Service detail but Alpha Gump to me – prompts me to ask at least one question.
“Silent Spring” spawned the first political response to an environmental problem. It was the rejection of the Storm King Water tunnel. DDT and Phisohex were banned. The Club of Rome in its Project 2000 report told the world not to buy any green bananas. I must confess that around the same time I began to squirt Right Guard out my bathroom window after I showered. Since I believed the political non-scientists I wanted to hasten the disappearance of the Ozone Layer. I thought that anything that hurried our demise would be good. Why linger on in agony and starvation when we could end it quickly? I was a one man Global Death Panel before Sarah Palin made the term popular. Also, I stopped shaving in 1979. It was the least I could do to husband our dwindling resources. Further, since half the electricity generated in this country comes from burning coal, I thought if I limited my use of hot water I could gain some much needed environmental indulgences. If I add in the amount of steel I saved by not using blades I am half way to the pantheon shared by Jacques Cousteau, as phony a PR straw man who ever bestrode the gullible world of American balderdash.
My question is this:
The quasi-glacier atop Mount Kilimanjaro is melting. If I were to mention that it has been receding since 1887, the first year it was measured, it might take away from the “correlation is causation” crisis so I won’t.
Polar bears are drowning because the polar ice cap is melting.
Everybody and everything has to be someplace. I think it was Aristotle who said that “something cannot be that which it is not”.
Where is the water going?
Surely if the water in any of Florida’s shore lines had been rising the pernicious insurance companies would have noticed and set their rates accordingly.
Even Prizewinner Gump’s 27 bedroom, 12 and ½ bathroom house, the one with the ski slope, the one with the salmon swimming in the largest man made river in the world, the one that feeds the rescued polar bears, the one with eagles scavenging the salmon that the bears don’t finish, could not hold all the water from all the ice that is melting.
Ask him where it is going. Get back to me. Before it’s too late.
Kevin Smith
Beth Reinhard
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE:Sisyphus, Nit-wit Gore, Reason upended, and “settled science”. Some comments on your Q&A session in the Herald with our most famous ex-Vice President turned grifter.
Ms. Reinhard,
Your picture suggests that you are too young to have shared in the glory years of the Carter administration.
Then, the biggest climatological problem we faced was – and I am telling you the truth – was Global Cooling. The claptrap promulgated by the scientific faker Rachel Carson were gaining main stream credence. On top of that we had a con artist with a Ph.D., an intellectual Bernie Madoff, named Paul Ehrlich who told us in 1970 that we would all starve to death by 2000. He was a regular Jeremiah on late night TV shows. As if that weren’t bad enough the “Clod Populist from Plains” said the country’s “malaise” was caused by – and I know you will find this almost impossible to believe – us.
It seemed that the only solution – the final solution? – to Global Cooling was – and who says that trope irony is dead – Global Warming.
Quicker than Pravda would air brush a deposed junior member of the Politburo out of the official May Day Parade photo, quicker than the modern American Liberals overcame their tacit approval of Hitler in the 22 months of the Hitler/Stalin Pact, the boogeyman became Global Warming. Since the most ardent wanabee Lysenkos in favor of banning air conditioning, plastic syringes, and inorganic chemistry to save drowning polar bears and to make the world safe for tofu cannot make the facts fit their convoluted, head up their collective asses theory have jettisoned Global Warming in favor of Climate Change.
[Here’s a non-Bruce Springsteen, non-U2 aside. Climate Change has already been chronicled. Google Vivaldi. Go to Borders. Buy a CD. Since Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain, a man who lives in the house that Thatcher, Churchill, and Disraeli lived in, gave us 50 days to live in October, I suggest you wear out the CD as you await, hopefully stoically, the End of Days. Let Epictetus be your band leader.]
Your interview with Oscar winning, Nobel Prize winning, former Vice President Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. – AKA “Cementhead” to his Secret Service detail but Alpha Gump to me – prompts me to ask at least one question.
“Silent Spring” spawned the first political response to an environmental problem. It was the rejection of the Storm King Water tunnel. DDT and Phisohex were banned. The Club of Rome in its Project 2000 report told the world not to buy any green bananas. I must confess that around the same time I began to squirt Right Guard out my bathroom window after I showered. Since I believed the political non-scientists I wanted to hasten the disappearance of the Ozone Layer. I thought that anything that hurried our demise would be good. Why linger on in agony and starvation when we could end it quickly? I was a one man Global Death Panel before Sarah Palin made the term popular. Also, I stopped shaving in 1979. It was the least I could do to husband our dwindling resources. Further, since half the electricity generated in this country comes from burning coal, I thought if I limited my use of hot water I could gain some much needed environmental indulgences. If I add in the amount of steel I saved by not using blades I am half way to the pantheon shared by Jacques Cousteau, as phony a PR straw man who ever bestrode the gullible world of American balderdash.
My question is this:
The quasi-glacier atop Mount Kilimanjaro is melting. If I were to mention that it has been receding since 1887, the first year it was measured, it might take away from the “correlation is causation” crisis so I won’t.
Polar bears are drowning because the polar ice cap is melting.
Everybody and everything has to be someplace. I think it was Aristotle who said that “something cannot be that which it is not”.
Where is the water going?
Surely if the water in any of Florida’s shore lines had been rising the pernicious insurance companies would have noticed and set their rates accordingly.
Even Prizewinner Gump’s 27 bedroom, 12 and ½ bathroom house, the one with the ski slope, the one with the salmon swimming in the largest man made river in the world, the one that feeds the rescued polar bears, the one with eagles scavenging the salmon that the bears don’t finish, could not hold all the water from all the ice that is melting.
Ask him where it is going. Get back to me. Before it’s too late.
Kevin Smith
Ellen Goodman The Washington Post
November 8, 2009
Ellen Goodman
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20071
RE: Great picture but some things are still owed to the ledger. Some comments on your column about Afghanistan and your sounding of the feminist war tocsin in today’s Miami Herald.
Ellie! Sweetheart!
Either you have had your face lifted or your photo has been alchemized. Either way you look great. Honest. Be careful you don’t have your face pulled too tight. You’ll be peeing through your navel. Hot damn but you’re almost a cougar.
“Have you heard this old proverb? Whether the rock hits the pitcher
or the pitcher hits the rock, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher.
Women are the pitcher in this story.”
I suppose a line from a Broadway musical can fall into proverbdom. For the record, it’s from The Man of La Mancha. Sancho Panza is telling Don Quixote about his tragic sense of life. Don Quixote is, meanwhile, ignoring Dulcinea’s very active social life and her always oversubscribed dance card while he speaks of the way things should be rather than how they really are. The building blocks of modern American Liberalism are once again revealed.
Since your theme is “windmills, tilting at”, let me point out a few – What’s the word, what’s the word, as the GEICO gecko asks – inconsistencies in your theme. It’s a bit less harsh than logical inconsistencies based on fallacious premises. I think it is a vestige of my male chivalry.
You label this country’s involvement in Iraq as a “dangerous misadventure”. About that statement two things must be noted.
#1 – Clio is a notoriously slow writer. How long did it take for the absolute guilt of Alger Hiss to be realized? That he should have been taken to Salem and had his treasonous ass hung like the witch that he was is now obvious. I use this an as an example of the way the Muse sits on the sidelines and watches the caravan pass by. An odd camel shitting every now and then is ignored. Who knows how she will judge?
#2 – Attention must be paid to the almost forgotten fact that 3/4ths of Congress voted for what you call a “dangerous misadventure”. The modern American Liberal Democrats – I just repeated myself, didn’t I? – in Congress upon hearing the alarm bells sounded like a gaggle of wanabee Vercingetorixes. To show my sensitivity to gender matters you could use Boedacia. You can’t say I’m not trying to be fair.
As I trudge through your column I find myself agreeing more and more with the character Jack Nicholson played in “As Good As It Gets”. When asked how he became a successful women’s writer he replied that it was easy. “Use reverse Logic and forget reason.”
Is it too late for an all volunteer Amazon Brigade?
Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Madeline Albright, Maxine Waters, Janet Reno, Rosalyn Carter, Eliot Spitzer’s wife, Amber, the ghosts of Bella Abzug, Lillian Hellman, Martha Mitchell, and Mary Magdalene, Barbara Boxer, the non serene Williams sister, Sonia Sotomayor’s madre, Kate Gosselin, Barbra Streisand, Rosie O’Donnell, Elizabeth Edwards, Angelina, most of The View, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz [I include her because she said last February that it would only take some “adjustments” in Afghanistan and it would be game, set, and match for the good old U.S. of A.] The Dixie Chicks, you. If I’ve left out any particularly bellicose hecates, harridans, or doxies please feel free to include them.
A few months of PE with Barney Frank blowing the up down whistle, a few months to get your menstrual cycles synchronized, some intense weapons training and God help those poor Afghan WOG bastards. It will take you about 2 weeks to clean out Kafiristan. In 6 months we’ll have empowerment symposia and Pilates training all over the place. And, as soon as they get bras, they’ll burn them.
You say that the reason to send men to Afghanistan is to make it safer for the girls?
Afghan gender equity?
“There is no Democracy without women.
So here we go.
This is our last chance.
And theirs.”
Woodrow Wilson, another cement headed Progressive, at least wanted to make the world safe for democracy. You want to make it safe for Afghan pole dancers.
God’s Holy Trousers! We’ve fought wars over less but if you want this country to go to war to promote gender equity may I suggest that we have some gender equity at Arlington Cemetery? All of the Kennedys buried there are male. How about we limit the next batch to the female side of that family?
Anyway it’s a great picture.
You are the journalistic equivalent of Dorian Gray.
Antigone would have been proud.
What do you think of “The Minstrel Girl” as a new title?
As Kipling, the first great multi cultural apostle of diversity and Nobel Prize winner back when that counted for something said…
“When you’re wounded on Afghanistan’s plains
and the women come out cut up what remains
roll up to your rifle and blow out your brains…”
Chicks to the front! You go girl!
Kevin Smith
Ellen Goodman
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20071
RE: Great picture but some things are still owed to the ledger. Some comments on your column about Afghanistan and your sounding of the feminist war tocsin in today’s Miami Herald.
Ellie! Sweetheart!
Either you have had your face lifted or your photo has been alchemized. Either way you look great. Honest. Be careful you don’t have your face pulled too tight. You’ll be peeing through your navel. Hot damn but you’re almost a cougar.
“Have you heard this old proverb? Whether the rock hits the pitcher
or the pitcher hits the rock, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher.
Women are the pitcher in this story.”
I suppose a line from a Broadway musical can fall into proverbdom. For the record, it’s from The Man of La Mancha. Sancho Panza is telling Don Quixote about his tragic sense of life. Don Quixote is, meanwhile, ignoring Dulcinea’s very active social life and her always oversubscribed dance card while he speaks of the way things should be rather than how they really are. The building blocks of modern American Liberalism are once again revealed.
Since your theme is “windmills, tilting at”, let me point out a few – What’s the word, what’s the word, as the GEICO gecko asks – inconsistencies in your theme. It’s a bit less harsh than logical inconsistencies based on fallacious premises. I think it is a vestige of my male chivalry.
You label this country’s involvement in Iraq as a “dangerous misadventure”. About that statement two things must be noted.
#1 – Clio is a notoriously slow writer. How long did it take for the absolute guilt of Alger Hiss to be realized? That he should have been taken to Salem and had his treasonous ass hung like the witch that he was is now obvious. I use this an as an example of the way the Muse sits on the sidelines and watches the caravan pass by. An odd camel shitting every now and then is ignored. Who knows how she will judge?
#2 – Attention must be paid to the almost forgotten fact that 3/4ths of Congress voted for what you call a “dangerous misadventure”. The modern American Liberal Democrats – I just repeated myself, didn’t I? – in Congress upon hearing the alarm bells sounded like a gaggle of wanabee Vercingetorixes. To show my sensitivity to gender matters you could use Boedacia. You can’t say I’m not trying to be fair.
As I trudge through your column I find myself agreeing more and more with the character Jack Nicholson played in “As Good As It Gets”. When asked how he became a successful women’s writer he replied that it was easy. “Use reverse Logic and forget reason.”
Is it too late for an all volunteer Amazon Brigade?
Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Madeline Albright, Maxine Waters, Janet Reno, Rosalyn Carter, Eliot Spitzer’s wife, Amber, the ghosts of Bella Abzug, Lillian Hellman, Martha Mitchell, and Mary Magdalene, Barbara Boxer, the non serene Williams sister, Sonia Sotomayor’s madre, Kate Gosselin, Barbra Streisand, Rosie O’Donnell, Elizabeth Edwards, Angelina, most of The View, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz [I include her because she said last February that it would only take some “adjustments” in Afghanistan and it would be game, set, and match for the good old U.S. of A.] The Dixie Chicks, you. If I’ve left out any particularly bellicose hecates, harridans, or doxies please feel free to include them.
A few months of PE with Barney Frank blowing the up down whistle, a few months to get your menstrual cycles synchronized, some intense weapons training and God help those poor Afghan WOG bastards. It will take you about 2 weeks to clean out Kafiristan. In 6 months we’ll have empowerment symposia and Pilates training all over the place. And, as soon as they get bras, they’ll burn them.
You say that the reason to send men to Afghanistan is to make it safer for the girls?
Afghan gender equity?
“There is no Democracy without women.
So here we go.
This is our last chance.
And theirs.”
Woodrow Wilson, another cement headed Progressive, at least wanted to make the world safe for democracy. You want to make it safe for Afghan pole dancers.
God’s Holy Trousers! We’ve fought wars over less but if you want this country to go to war to promote gender equity may I suggest that we have some gender equity at Arlington Cemetery? All of the Kennedys buried there are male. How about we limit the next batch to the female side of that family?
Anyway it’s a great picture.
You are the journalistic equivalent of Dorian Gray.
Antigone would have been proud.
What do you think of “The Minstrel Girl” as a new title?
As Kipling, the first great multi cultural apostle of diversity and Nobel Prize winner back when that counted for something said…
“When you’re wounded on Afghanistan’s plains
and the women come out cut up what remains
roll up to your rifle and blow out your brains…”
Chicks to the front! You go girl!
Kevin Smith
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Carl Hiassen The Miami Herald
November 1, 2009
Carl Hiassen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: When I’m right I write – Some comments on your never ending attempts to slay the dreaded Palin Dragon [Plain Drome? Palin Drudge? Palin Drone? Palin Tologist?]
Mr. Hiaasen,
#1 – It was Trollope who set the record for writing quickly. He had a full time job mapping out mail routes. He wrote at least 30 pages a day back when his ink cartridge was called an ink well.
#2 – ‘”Mexican” is not a language’ is a particularly egregious example of modern American Liberal “cultural arrogance”. Of course it’s a language. For example, Manual Labor is a Mexican worker. You can find an up to date Mexican/English dictionary right next to the surprise best selling Austrian/English dictionary in better book stores.
#3 – Speaking of ghost writers it’s too bad that Arthur Schlesinger is still dead and that Bill Ayers is trying to blow up Rush Limbaugh. Both are crackerjacks at aiding and abetting plagiarism. Ayers, in particular, gives new meaning to solipsism.
#4 – Speaking of Vice Presidential candidates the paradigmatic template for dumb as a box of hammers, can’t pour piss out of a boot, I keep forgetting what to do with my thumbs, and I finally learned that it’s yellow in front and brown in back when I put my knickers on was Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., AKA Alpha Gump. He couldn’t write a book if wife Thumper was holding a gun to his head. He celebrated his 16th birthday by not getting lost on a ladder but then the stupid bastard panicked when he forgot whether he was going up or coming down.
By God, records are made to be broken!
Joe Biden, AKA “Curly” in honor of the smartest Stooge, has raised the bar so high that only a flat line 3 day old cadaver could compete.
This is a guy who thinks syntax is synonymous with anthrax only he keeps forgetting what synonyms are.
Dumb and dumber.
#5 – I have to go now. Congressman Kendrick Meek, having finally mastered the alphabet, was going to recite it from the roof of his mom’s Escalade. Now that the Feds have seized it as a crime scene he’s at a loss.
#6 - Keep an eye on Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter and Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs. Dipsy, my favorite Tele-Tubby, is rumored to be the ghost writer of choice. Speaking of Stephen King when their books come out they will have a picture of Jack Nicholson on the cover and on every page. Move over Walter Duranty. I smell Pulitzer.
Your favorite “beet faced drooler”,
Kevin Smith
Carl Hiassen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: When I’m right I write – Some comments on your never ending attempts to slay the dreaded Palin Dragon [Plain Drome? Palin Drudge? Palin Drone? Palin Tologist?]
Mr. Hiaasen,
#1 – It was Trollope who set the record for writing quickly. He had a full time job mapping out mail routes. He wrote at least 30 pages a day back when his ink cartridge was called an ink well.
#2 – ‘”Mexican” is not a language’ is a particularly egregious example of modern American Liberal “cultural arrogance”. Of course it’s a language. For example, Manual Labor is a Mexican worker. You can find an up to date Mexican/English dictionary right next to the surprise best selling Austrian/English dictionary in better book stores.
#3 – Speaking of ghost writers it’s too bad that Arthur Schlesinger is still dead and that Bill Ayers is trying to blow up Rush Limbaugh. Both are crackerjacks at aiding and abetting plagiarism. Ayers, in particular, gives new meaning to solipsism.
#4 – Speaking of Vice Presidential candidates the paradigmatic template for dumb as a box of hammers, can’t pour piss out of a boot, I keep forgetting what to do with my thumbs, and I finally learned that it’s yellow in front and brown in back when I put my knickers on was Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., AKA Alpha Gump. He couldn’t write a book if wife Thumper was holding a gun to his head. He celebrated his 16th birthday by not getting lost on a ladder but then the stupid bastard panicked when he forgot whether he was going up or coming down.
By God, records are made to be broken!
Joe Biden, AKA “Curly” in honor of the smartest Stooge, has raised the bar so high that only a flat line 3 day old cadaver could compete.
This is a guy who thinks syntax is synonymous with anthrax only he keeps forgetting what synonyms are.
Dumb and dumber.
#5 – I have to go now. Congressman Kendrick Meek, having finally mastered the alphabet, was going to recite it from the roof of his mom’s Escalade. Now that the Feds have seized it as a crime scene he’s at a loss.
#6 - Keep an eye on Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter and Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs. Dipsy, my favorite Tele-Tubby, is rumored to be the ghost writer of choice. Speaking of Stephen King when their books come out they will have a picture of Jack Nicholson on the cover and on every page. Move over Walter Duranty. I smell Pulitzer.
Your favorite “beet faced drooler”,
Kevin Smith
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Letter to the Editor The Miami Herald
October 28, 2009
Letter to the Editor
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Is this a job for ACORN?
Sirs,
I know that constructing a universal from a particular, for that matter constructing any universal from any number of particulars, is offensive to Logic. What lessons can we learn from the enclosed photocopy of an envelope addressed to you with the same address as is listed above?
#1 – You’re in good company – I had a letter returned to me as “Undeliverable – No such address”. It was addressed to the Secretary of Defense, The Pentagon, Alexandria, Virginia 22314. It’s a big building. Maybe it was the carrier’s first day on the job. Maybe the Secretary was out of town.
#2 – “Punctuality is the courtesy of kings” - No further proof is required that we really are over the King thing. Couple the following sequence with the recent deaths of Michael and Teddy and nobody will be “wrapping his ass in purple” in this country. The letter was postmarked October 13 in Fort Lauderdale. It took 10 days to get to Miami and back to Fort Lauderdale. It spent 4 days “in the undiscovered country from which no letter ever returns” to get back to my house. That’s 14 days, two weeks, a fortnight for a round trip of less than 40 miles. Dare I say “Close enough for government work”?
#3 – At least it’s not the DMV – There is supposed to be a sign that says “Welcome to Arkansas – Mississippi is worse”. Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe both states have them. We do know that whenever the roll is called for the best [or worst] paradigmatic templates of customer dissatisfaction these two worthies – the Post Office and the DMV - are always neck and neck. The race for the much sought after laurel is almost always decided in overtime.
#4 – What can we learn from this? – Taking a macro view the United States government has done 3 things superbly well since I have been alive. #1 – Fighting World War 2. #2 – Being the General Contractor on the Moon Shot and #3 – Reagan the Great whipping the Russkies without firing a shot. Taking a micro view 4 levels of government couldn’t get a dozen trucks filled with water across one bridge into New Orleans.
#5 – What we won’t learn from this – Is there any serious adult who believes that a national health care bill will be “deficit neutral”? If there is he should not be operating heavy equipment nor should he handling sharp objects. Governments like to take on big projects. The Federal government has been directly involved in the quest for “affordable housing” for almost 75 years. The Federal government has been directly involved in public education for 45 years Has either come remotely near the goals that true believers know will happen as soon as the laws governing gravity are repealed. I suggest that if Section 8 housing and “No Child Left Behind” are examples of the Federal government’s management capability we should probably go to Cuba for housing because of the weather and Canada for medical care.
Why is it that Visa has a fraud factor of 2/10ths of one percent while Medicare is, by their own numbers, at 12%? May I suggest that Visa is unburdened by Civil Service restraints and will reward someone who ferrets out felonies. Medicare employees have one stated goal: Get more money to spend next year
A feel good measure, one designed to make tax payers feel good, would require those Federal weenies who run the housing program to live in one. Anyone directly or indirectly involved in public education would be required to send their children to public school. Let’s start with the President.
To show that the watchword of modern American Liberalism is alive and well I am resending this via the United States Postal Service. It may be, as the Great Dr. Johnson said in a different context, “the triumph of hope over experience” but how else would Democrats get elected.
There is a rumor that breast implants or reductions will only be available after a Government paid for sex change operation.
Hamilton said that once half plus one of the voters realize that they can vote themselves free money the end is near.
If we permit the public option, the single payer system, or whatever other name is given to this claptrap to become law we do so at our own peril. “Such stupidity, sir, is not found in nature”.
It is found only in Congress.
Alas, Congress reflects us.
Kevin Smith
Letter to the Editor
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Is this a job for ACORN?
Sirs,
I know that constructing a universal from a particular, for that matter constructing any universal from any number of particulars, is offensive to Logic. What lessons can we learn from the enclosed photocopy of an envelope addressed to you with the same address as is listed above?
#1 – You’re in good company – I had a letter returned to me as “Undeliverable – No such address”. It was addressed to the Secretary of Defense, The Pentagon, Alexandria, Virginia 22314. It’s a big building. Maybe it was the carrier’s first day on the job. Maybe the Secretary was out of town.
#2 – “Punctuality is the courtesy of kings” - No further proof is required that we really are over the King thing. Couple the following sequence with the recent deaths of Michael and Teddy and nobody will be “wrapping his ass in purple” in this country. The letter was postmarked October 13 in Fort Lauderdale. It took 10 days to get to Miami and back to Fort Lauderdale. It spent 4 days “in the undiscovered country from which no letter ever returns” to get back to my house. That’s 14 days, two weeks, a fortnight for a round trip of less than 40 miles. Dare I say “Close enough for government work”?
#3 – At least it’s not the DMV – There is supposed to be a sign that says “Welcome to Arkansas – Mississippi is worse”. Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe both states have them. We do know that whenever the roll is called for the best [or worst] paradigmatic templates of customer dissatisfaction these two worthies – the Post Office and the DMV - are always neck and neck. The race for the much sought after laurel is almost always decided in overtime.
#4 – What can we learn from this? – Taking a macro view the United States government has done 3 things superbly well since I have been alive. #1 – Fighting World War 2. #2 – Being the General Contractor on the Moon Shot and #3 – Reagan the Great whipping the Russkies without firing a shot. Taking a micro view 4 levels of government couldn’t get a dozen trucks filled with water across one bridge into New Orleans.
#5 – What we won’t learn from this – Is there any serious adult who believes that a national health care bill will be “deficit neutral”? If there is he should not be operating heavy equipment nor should he handling sharp objects. Governments like to take on big projects. The Federal government has been directly involved in the quest for “affordable housing” for almost 75 years. The Federal government has been directly involved in public education for 45 years Has either come remotely near the goals that true believers know will happen as soon as the laws governing gravity are repealed. I suggest that if Section 8 housing and “No Child Left Behind” are examples of the Federal government’s management capability we should probably go to Cuba for housing because of the weather and Canada for medical care.
Why is it that Visa has a fraud factor of 2/10ths of one percent while Medicare is, by their own numbers, at 12%? May I suggest that Visa is unburdened by Civil Service restraints and will reward someone who ferrets out felonies. Medicare employees have one stated goal: Get more money to spend next year
A feel good measure, one designed to make tax payers feel good, would require those Federal weenies who run the housing program to live in one. Anyone directly or indirectly involved in public education would be required to send their children to public school. Let’s start with the President.
To show that the watchword of modern American Liberalism is alive and well I am resending this via the United States Postal Service. It may be, as the Great Dr. Johnson said in a different context, “the triumph of hope over experience” but how else would Democrats get elected.
There is a rumor that breast implants or reductions will only be available after a Government paid for sex change operation.
Hamilton said that once half plus one of the voters realize that they can vote themselves free money the end is near.
If we permit the public option, the single payer system, or whatever other name is given to this claptrap to become law we do so at our own peril. “Such stupidity, sir, is not found in nature”.
It is found only in Congress.
Alas, Congress reflects us.
Kevin Smith
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)