The Ugly American...

Via my mom, this revised version of an oldie-but-goodie:

The train was quite crowded and a U. S. Marine walked the entire length looking for a seat.

There seemed to be one next to a well-dressed French woman, but when he got there, he saw it was taken by the woman's poodle.

The war-weary Marine asked, "Ma'am, may I have that seat?"

The French woman sniffed and said to no one in particular, "Americans are so rude. My little Fifi is using that seat."

The Marine walked the entire train again, but the only seat available was under that dog.

"Please, ma'am. May I sit down? I'm very tired."

She snorted, "Not only are you Americans rude, you are also arrogant!"

This time the Marine didn't say a word; he just picked up the little dog, tossed it out the train window and sat down.

The woman shrieked, "Someone defend me! Put this American in his place!"

An English gentleman sitting nearby spoke up. "Sir, you Americans seem to have a penchant for doing the wrong thing.

You hold the fork in the wrong hand.

You drive your cars on the wrong side of the road.

And now, sir, you seem to have thrown the wrong bitch out the window."

The Traffic Stop...

Via my mom (who has some idea what to do with a .357 revolver):

The Arizona Department of Safety Officer pulled over pick-up truck owner Mike Murphy for a weapons check because of an NRA bumper sticker.

When the officer approached the vehicle, the man behind the wheel handed the officer his driver's license, insurance card and concealed carry permit. The officer took all the documents, looked them over and said, "Mr. Murphy, I see you have a CCP. Do you have any weapons with you?"

The driver replied, "Yes I do. I have a 357 handgun in a hip holster, a .45 in the glove box and a .22 derringer in my boot."

The officer looked at Mike and asked, "Anything else?"

"Yes. I have a Mossberg 500 12 gauge and an AR-15 in the trunk."

The officer asked if the man was driving to or from a shooting range and the man said he wasn't, so the officer bent over and looked into the driver's face and said "Mr. Murphy, you're carrying quite a few guns. May I ask what you are afraid of?"

Mike locked eyes with the officer and calmly answered, "Not a fucking thing!!!"

There are many unafraid people in the hills of East San Diego...

President's Day...

Via my mom:

I was eating lunch on the 20th of February with my 10-year-old grandson and I asked him, "What day is tomorrow?"
He said "It's President's Day!"

He is a smart kid.

I asked "What does President's Day mean?"
I was waiting for something about Washington or Lincoln ... etc.

He replied, "President's Day is when President Obama steps out of the White House, and if he sees his shadow we have one more year of unemployment."

You know, it really hurts when coffee spurts out your nose...

Obama, Fish, and the Debt Ceiling...

Here's the conclusion of Peggy Noonan's piece in the WSJ today:

Barack Obama is different, not a political practitioner, really, but something else, and not a warm-blooded animal but a cool, chill character, a fish who sits deep in the tank and stares, stilly, at the other fish.

He doesn't know how to confuse his foes with "outreach," with phone calls, jokes, affection. He doesn't leave them saying, as Reagan did, "I just can't help it, I like the guy." And because he can't confuse them or reach them they more readily coalesce around their own explanation of him: socialist, destroyer.

This isn't good, and has had an impact on the president's contacts with Republicans. And it's added an edge to an emerging campaign theme among them. Two years ago I wrote of Clare Booth Luce's observation that all presidents have a sentence: "He fought to hold the union together and end slavery." "He brought American through economic collapse and a world war." You didn't have to be told it was Lincoln, or FDR. I said that Mr. Obama didn't understand his sentence. But Republicans now think they know it.

Four words: He made it worse.

Obama inherited financial collapse, deficits and debt. He inherited a broken political culture. These things weren't his fault. But through his decisions, he made them all worse.

A “stilly” fish. Ouch...

Oh, Noz! We're Running Out of Hydrocarbon Fuels!

Uh, not so much...

I've been talking about this for years on this blog, and so have many other people.  But when the facts even percolate up to a liberal bastion like Slate, then you know the facts have won the day...

The SSDs are Coming...

...and it looks like they're going to be great!