“Ahmed” came by the office yesterday. The last time he was there, I scheduled him as the final appointment of the day so the place would have at least twelve hours to air out. That did not, however, prove effective. The next morning, “Ahmed’s” world class camel-jockey body odor still lingered at a level sufficient for my first visitor of the day, a Japanese diplomat, to notice it.
Admittedly, I have to cut old “Ahmed” some slack - if my visitor had been a French diplomat, for example, I doubt he would have detected anything unusual. But the Japanese have very sensitive noses, and the first thing out of that chap’s mouth was “Has someone left rotting Indian food in your trash, perhaps?” So this time, I didn’t take any chances - I allowed an entire weekend for the scent of “Ahmed’s” eau d’Do-Dah-Day to properly dissipate.
Now there may be those who think I exaggerate, but I assure them, that is definitely not the case. No doubt everyone has, at least once, been approached for spare change by a homeless person who obviously not only had refrained from bathing in several weeks, but also apparently slept in piles of garbage inside a Thai restuarant dumpster to keep warm. Well, let me attest, compared to “Ahmed,” that filthy, reeking panhandler who so memorably turned your stomach inside out and your complexion light green smelled like a wealthy debutante sampling designer scents at the fragrance counter in the Bloomingdale’s ladies’ department.
Gretchen took off forty-five minutes before “Ahmed’s” scheduled arrival, just in case, by some miracle, he might show up early. He was nearly an hour late instead, of course, which is decidedly much more his style. By that time, I had been wearing ME camphor under my nostrils for just over ninety minutes, having scheduled my previous appointment to end half an hour before “Ahmed’s” in order to avoid having that client, an economist from the World Bank, encounter “Ahmed” in the reception area on his way out and get violently sick all over the furniture. So, by that time, I couldn’t have smelled a decomposing donkey in a Baghdad cesspool. Nevertheless, just before I buzzed “Ahmed” in, I popped a generous hand full of Altoids mints in my left cheek and concentrated on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, just in case.
“Tom, my good friend,” he effused, “how much I have missed you!” Then, being an Arab, he leaned over my desk and kissed me on both cheeks, of course. I really don’t enjoy having this guy as a client, naturally, but last time, I requested four times my usual rate and he didn’t flinch. This time, I was getting paid six. For that kind of money, I have found, a person can tolerate an awful lot of unpleasantness. In fact, I must confess, at those rates, I’d even tolerate the presence of Newt Gingrich for an hour.
“So,” I began as he sprawled out in his rose-pink burnoose on the couch by the window, “to what do I owe the honor of his visit?”
“Your Department of Defense,” he wailed, “what is the matter with them?”
“A very extensive, if somewhat boring book,” I dryly responded, “could be written about all the things that are wrong with the United States Department of Defense. So, what, specifically, about DoD is bothering you?”
“They are calling in, how do you say - the detectives who are bookkeepers…”
“Forensic accountants?” I volunteered.
“Yes, yes,” he nodded sagely, “those are the words. First they make this… ah, udder? No… um, anus? Sounds like ‘armpit’…”
“Audit?”
“Yes, yes,” he continued, “this ‘audit’ thing, and find some money is missing. Now DoD is calling in these… forensic…. accountants; they find out who, what, where, how and why. Very bad for Ahmed. Very bad for Ahmed’s many friends, too.”
“You are, I presume,” I replied, “referring to the nine billion dollars of petroleum revenue in the Development Fund for Iraq that was entrusted to the Department of Defense between 2004 and 2007, some eight-point-seven billion of which now seems to have gone missing?”
“Yes, yes,” he vigorously affirmed, “that is the money. But so long ago! Ahmed not understand. Why do they care about money from 2007? Your Treasury, it makes many, many more billions of dollars since then, yes?”
“Trillions, actually,” I confirmed. “But still, even three to six years of interest on eight billion or so dollars amounts to several hundred million…”
“Eight billion dollars,” he sniffed, “plus interest! This is [expletive]-nuts…”
“I think you mean, ‘peanuts…’”
“Yes, yes,” he shot back, “this is what I mean - peanuts! Peanuts to your Pentagon! Peanuts to your Congress! Iraqi oil minister knows nothing about where these peanuts went! Prime Minister Al-Maliki cannot say where are these peanuts! Ahmed cares nothing for these peanuts! Why they bother me and my friends over these peanuts?”
“Perhaps,” I offered, “it’s because those funds were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq…”
“Plenty, plenty rebuilding going on in Iraq,” he protested, sitting up momentarily and jabbing his finger in my direction for emphasis. “And he who says different, I show him the soles of my shoes! Many fine houses with latest fortifications! Much rebuilding!”
“The general idea, however,” I pointed out, “was things like water and electricity…”
“What you think,” he demanded, “that we build fine house in fortified compound without water well? Without electrical generator? Of course we build water and electricity!”
“The US government,” I clarified, “was thinking in terms of, ah… municipal water and electricity.”
My guest’s eyebrows arched up in astonishment. “Municipal? What is this, municipal?”
“It means,” I explained, “that you build water and electrical facilities for everyone.”
“Build water and electric for everyone?” He peered at me, obviously nonplussed. “What everyone do for the oil minister? What everyone do for Prime Minister Al-Maliki? What everyone do for Ahmed, for Ahmed’s tribe? I tell you what they do - they do nothing! Everyone do nothing for Ahmed and his friends. Now you tell - why Ahmed and his friends have to do anything for everyone?”
“Because,” I patiently persisted, “that’s the nature of modern industrial democracy.”
“So America,” he asked, “it is this ‘modern industrial democracy’ you talk about?”
“Yes,” I proudly proclaimed, “it is.”
“And the American senators and representatives, they make deal to vote some way their party likes, in return for some US government building, yes?”
“They have been known to do that,” I conceded.
“And they call this thing they do, they call it ‘poke-in-the-barrel,’ yes?”
“Actually,” I noted, “they call it ‘pork-barrel,’ but I understand what you’re getting at. You have to realize that Americans who vote for a senator or representative more or less expect that person to get the US government to spend some money in their home state or district. That’s how the game is played here in America.”
“So, also,” he declared with a grandiose wave of his arms, “that is how we play game in Iraq - if somebody is in Iraqi government, they get government money to spend on their tribe, their family, their friends…”
“That’s a somewhat different interpretation,” I protested.
“And Iraqi,” he shrugged, “is, how you say, somewhat different country from United States. Americans tell us, okay, here is truck full of hundred dollar bills, now you make Iraqi Stock Exchange - so we start trading Iraqi stocks with the money they give. So, maybe, Iraqi stocks go away; but money is still there, so we keep - so what? Then Americans tell us, okay, we want you to make contracts to build things in Iraq. So we say, okay, you give money and we hire contractors. Then we say to contractors, you give us money and we give you American contracts. Then we give contractor some money and they build water and electric…”
“For your houses in those fortified compounds,” I interjected.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he confirmed. “This is what I tell you - plenty, plenty water and electric work in Iraq.”
“Eight billion dollars worth?” I inquired.
“Maybe not all,” he acknowledged with a dismissive sigh. “Always, there is money left over. So we invest - in Dubai, Bahamas, Grand Caymans, Isle of Man, Switzerland, and in Luxembourg, just like Americans invest their spare money.”
“Those places,” I reminded him, “are just banking havens.”
“Also, we buy your Treasury bills,” he countered.
“But there’s a difference,” I tactfully observed, “between investment, which is to say, buying equity in businesses so they can expand, create jobs and produce goods; and the practice of mere monetary manipulations. What you’re describing is just playing around with money in banks.”
“But your Wall Street firms,” he gently jabbed back, “the ones that got the TARP money? What did they do? Did they loan money to businesses to make jobs? Did they loan money to factories to make more shirts and shoes and cars; or to farmers to grow more food? No! They do what we do - they take TARP money, put it in bank, and buy Treasury bills with it. Then they borrow more money from Federal Reserve at zero percent interest and loan it back to US government when they buy even more Treasury bills! How come when Americans on Wall Street do that, is okay, but when Ahmed and his friends do it, somehow then it is big, big crime?”
“Point taken,” I allowed.
“All this,” he insisted, “all that we do, this is okay with Donald Rumsfeld, this is okay with Paul Wolfowitz, this is okay with Bush 43! But now, American government is on some kind of [expletive]-hunt!”
“That’s ‘witch hunt;’” I corrected, “although, if they manage to catch Condoleezza Rice while they’re at it, then…”
“I not want them catch anybody,” he yelled, standing up and gesticulating vigorously. “I want witch-hunt to stop! Let me tell you, I no like this Obama president you have now! He is bad Moslem!”
“Well,” I added, “actually, he isn’t…”
“Don’t care,” he raged on, “whatever Obama is, he is not good for Iraq! Not good for the Iraqis who help Americans for seven long years! Why the Americans not let the government of Iraq take care of this, huh? You tell me!”
“The current government of Iraq,” I reminded him, “has met for a grand total of seventeen minutes since the latest elections were held five months ago.”
“Very busy,” my guest muttered. “People in Iraqi government so busy, no time to meet.”
“Busy doing what?” I pressed.
“Busy with…” his hands fluttered about as he searched for the words. “Busy with same thing American politicians busy with! Making the pork in the barrel! Is hard work, being politician! So now, my friend Tom, you quit asking questions. I ask questions! I ask, how to make this witch-hunting stop?”
“I doubt very much,” I confidently informed him, “that you need to worry about stopping it.”
My stinky client’s eyes widened. “How is this?”
“Because,” I explained, “the witch-hunters are never going to find anything.”
“No?”
“Not a thing.”
“Why is this?”
“Because Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz made sure there was no paper trail attached to that eight billion dollars.”
“No paper?”
“Not the least scrap,” I assured him. “And without documents, accountants, forensic or not, are about as useful as the teats on a bull.”
“But,” he objected, “how can be you sure?”
“Because,” I confided with a knowing wink, “I helped them plan how to do it.”
With that, my guest collapsed back on to the couch, heaving a huge sigh of relief. “My friend Tom, every visit I make with you, it is worth every dollar I pay.”
“True,” I agreed. “After all, who can put a price on peace of mind?”
July 31st, 2010
My dear sister Rose stopped downtown for lunch on Thursday, and, as usual, she chose the restaurant, opting for the Occidental, a truly venerable Washington institution that’s been around since the turn of the last century. In 2006, it moved next to the Willard Hotel, where the Round Robin Bar is located, and regular readers of this Web log know I quaff my share of delectable after-work libations at the Round Robin, for sure. I am pleased to report that the Occidental has, in fact, not only maintained the high standards which have traditionally accompanied its historic reputation, it has actually surpassed even those since it moved.
Rose’s situation, on the other hand, has become increasingly problematic. I supposed I should have known better than to ask how her husband Hank’s job search is going. Rose stopped eating, the second of her trio of Maryland crab croquettes, sporting a dainty dab of saffron and dill aioli dip, poised halfway to her perfect lips. She lowered her eyes (and the croquette) to her appetizer plate and murmured, “I think he’s quit looking, Tom. All he does now is run around working for the TEA Party, ranting about the November elections and raving about Obama and the Democrats.”
“Gee,” I commiserated over a bite of oyster gratin with wilted swiss chard, apple wood bacon lardons, fennel, Pernod cream and a Pecorino panko crust, “that’s a shame.”
Rose’s gaze snapped up from the table at me to see if I was smirking. I wasn’t - I know better than that, of course. On the other hand, I’ve never really believed that Hank was good enough for my big sister, and she’s well aware of it. That’s why she was checking my sincerity level.
She sighed, lifted her appetizer fork once more, and took a bite, savoring the flavor, eyes closed, for a moment; then she had a sip of the 2006 Chass Montrachet Premier Cru, JC Bachelet Les Macherelles, a bottle of which we were sharing. “This week, he’s been particularly unbearable, going on and on about the NAACP.”
“You mean,” I surmised, “their resolution on Tuesday, which calls upon the TEA Party to repudiate racism?”
“And,” she added, “as Hank would no doubt quickly remind us, condemns ‘extremist elements’ in the TEA Party, which he claims don’t even exist. Let me tell you, Tom, there’s nothing quite like watching your husband screaming at the television, as loudly as possible, that there are no extremist elements in the TEA Party to convince a person that there probably are plenty of them.”
“I can imagine,” I cautiously offered. Rose can be quite irritable when she’s mad at Hank.
“He says,” she continued with a slightly testy note, “that an organization with the phrase ‘colored people’ in its name has no business lecturing anybody about racism.”
“That’s… unfortunate…” I began.
“No,” Rose interrupted, “it’s vintage Henry Palikowsi. When I reminded him that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in 1909, when the term ‘colored people’ had entirely different connotations, all he could say was, ‘Well, in that case, how come they haven’t been smart enough during the last one hundred and one years to change it, huh?’ Then he said, ‘What do they mean by “colored people,” anyway? Look at me, I’ve been out in the sun in July, and I’m pink! Doesn’t that make me a “colored person,” or is pink not a color?’ And, ‘How come it’s okay for them to say “colored people,” but if I say it, then it’s a big racist insult, right up there with calling them…’ well, then he used the N-word, and went on to say, ‘Can you explain why they say it’s okay for me to call them “people of color?” How can reversal of word order and the insertion of a preposition turn a horrible ethnic slur into something acceptable for use in polite conversation? What kind of semantic voodoo is that, anyway? And if “colored people” is such a big insult, how come they use it themselves in the name of the NAACP? Is that like it being fine and dandy for them to call each other…’ um… the N-word again, ‘but they have the right to sue us if we call them that?’ I tell you, Tom, it gives me the willies, listening to Hank talk these days.”
“Well,” I observed, “he’s certainly not alone. Plenty of conservatives have chimed in about that resolution. A lot of them are claiming the NAACP is a superannuated and obsolete organization that is using the resolution as a publicity stunt. And I suppose those folks do have a point - if their latest resolution didn’t say what it does about the TEA Party, who would have even noticed the NAACP had proposed it for a vote in the first place?”
“TEA Party protesters on Capitol Hill,” Rose pointed out, “spat at black members of Congress and called them the N-word. But when I reminded him of that, Hank said, ‘Those people weren’t in the TEA Party.’ So then I said, ‘How do you know who’s in the TEA Party and who isn’t?’ And Hank said, ‘Anybody who says they are with the movement is in the TEA Party,’ and so then I said, ‘Therefore, in that case, if even one of those extremist racists who spat on those black Congressmen says they are in the TEA Party, then the TEA Party is responsible for their actions.’ Tom, when I said that, Hank just hit the ceiling and told me, ‘That’s not how it works! Look at Lyndon LaRouche! Are the Democrats responsible for what Lyndon LaRouche or members of his organization do, just because he says he’s a Democrat?’ And so I said, ‘But the Democrats repudiated Lyndon LaRouche for being an extremist, and that’s all the NAACP wants the TEA Party to do,’ and Hank said ‘Right, and so how come the NAACP didn’t call on the Democrats to repudiate Lyndon LaRouche, huh?’ And I said, ‘Because the followers of Lyndon LaRouche aren’t out on Capitol Hill spitting at black members of Congress; what they want to do is spit at members of the Federal Reserve Board.’ And then Hank said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘Sure. You didn’t know that?’ And then Hank said, ‘See? Even those nut cases agree with the TEA Party! I win!’ Then he gave me this look, as if that settled everything, and went back into the den to finish PhotoShopping Obama’s head made up like the Joker onto a picture of Hitler.”
“Rose,” I opined, “if people like your husband don’t find jobs to keep them out of mischief pretty soon, this country is going to be in some serious trouble.”
“Yeah,” she sighed again, this time quite heavily, “I know.”
Now, let’s see what’s in that Quarterly Mailbag.
Informed sources report that Disney sent some goons to break my legs for what I said about Fess Parker, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers in my April 2 post about Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. It seems that the local constabulary noticed them cruising around my neighborhood, though, asking people for a Tom Collins, and told them to get lost. After she heard about that, Veronica made a few phone calls to the Coast and those, in turn, called off the rabid dogs - or would that be rabid mice? A lawyer who claims to represent the estate of Davy Crockett also threatened to sue me. At least he used e-mail, the civilized alternative. I referred him to my lawyer, who promptly made mincemeat out of him. That’s right folks - you write something like Tom Collins’ World Wide Web Log, you better have a good lawyer, and guess what, I have two. As a matter of fact, this being Washington, DC I live in, I’m buddies with more lawyers you can shake a stick at, and a few judges, too. Aside from that, several folks wrote in with birthday wishes, and absolutely nobody wrote in to defend Michael Steele. Looking back all of ninety days, I’d say that post was remarkably prescient, as this week Steele managed to enrage lots of Republicans for about the tenth time since then. This week, he suggested that, for reasons known only to Michael Steele and God Almighty, our military presence in Afghanistan is “Obama’s war.” But nobody’s sent me any e-mails about Steele in the April 2 post, actually, and I don’t expect any e-mails concerning Steele in reaction to this post, either. The fact remains, however, that my Web stats for that post were through the roof, so even though John McCain wants Steele to quit, frankly, I hope Steele remains in his position, resolutely putting his foot in his mouth, until, as is obviously inevitable, he inadvertently chokes on his own ankle while he’s at it.
If you look at the responses from all regions of the Internet, then the sentiment concerning my post about Bob McDonnell, the governor of Virginia, the state where I live, declaring April to be ‘Confederate History and Heritage Month,’ it is, as Spiro Agnew would have put it, nolo contendere - my dear brother Rob Roy is absolutely correct, and Virginia, far from being for lovers, is most certainly for expletive deleted unprintable bodily orifices instead. Looking at the e-mails that just came from IP addresses in the United States, however, it’s pretty a much a toss-up. While it’s comforting to know that fifty one point six percent of Americans who wrote me agree with the rest of the world, and that is, technically speaking a majority, there’s still that pesky forty-eight point four percent who say I ought to be tarred at feathered, at the very least, for insulting the state that gave us George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee and Abner Yokum. My rebuttal is that, just as 3.2 percent beer is still beer, a 3.2 percent majority is still a majority.
Since my post about political upheaval in the Godforsaken weed patch known as Kyrgyzstan, things there have continued to fester like a ripe carbuncle, and, similarly, e-mails about it have continued to trickle in like pus seeping out of one. The general sentiments are either that Kurmanbek Bakiyev is a great national hero (nineteen percent), that Kurmanbek Bakiyev is a genocidal manic (sixty-three percent) or please, please Mr. Tom Collins, I beg you, help me get the hell out of Kyrgyzstan. I have also received between one and three e-mails apiece from residents of (or persons claiming to hail from and/or represent in some manner) Venezuela, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Chad, Iraq, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Somalia, all of whom contested my assertion that those countries are more corrupt than Kyrgyzstan and complained bitterly that I am a woefully misinformed and grossly unfair person who has no right to compare their homeland/spouse’s homeland/relative’s homeland/client country/place they visited once/whatever to a pathetic dump like Kyrgyzstan. To them I say - take your umbrage shove it where the sun don’t shine! I certainly didn’t make those ratings up. Somebody else did, and posted them on the Internet; and, as we all know, if it’s posted on the Internet, it must be true. Take this blog, for example. In addition, to date I have received nine irate messages from Peter Lorre fans. To them, I say - get a life, already, he’s been dead since 1964.
My post which mentioned a piece of contemporary art consisting of a canvas that had been placed on the floor of a local French restaurant brought several very catty comments from the owners and chefs of other DC area French restaurants that were not selected as venues of the Muse. The restaurant chosen, I was informed, uses canned hearts of palm in its salads, prepares its sauces and flambés with cheap domestic VS brandy, buys its pastries from a catering service located next door to a junk yard in Landover, and commits a number of other culinary faux pas, not the least of which is soaking the labels off of empty bottles of expensive wine and pasting them back on bottles of vins ordinaires, then palming them off as genuine selections from their wine list to rich, clueless, philistine rubes who couldn’t tell the difference if their lives depended on it, which is to say, about ninety percent of the people who dine at French restaurants in Washington. I forwarded those to the artist, who responded by thanking me for the background notes and stated that this was exactly the sort of thing he had been hoping to get. I also received an inquiry from the District Health Department. It seems they frown on covering kitchen floors with canvas, which was apparently a problem with soul food eateries in Northeast DC back in the seventies. I wrote back explaining that this case was different, because it was done for Art. They responded with a request for Art’s full name and address, so they can cite him for city code violations. The part of the post concerning what my dear brother-in-law Hank has been up to with the TEA Party gave me glimpse of what I might expect to receive from today’s post, which chronicles his continuing misadventures as a disgruntled patriot. I got a passel of e-mails relating, in excruciating detail, what the real Americans are going to do to me when they take over. Extremists in the TEA Party? Perish the thought!
My post on the G20 Summit held here in Washington drew a great deal of that type of informed and insightful economic comment typical of Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. For the record, despite my correspondents’ lengthy arguments to contrary, I remain unconvinced that things like illegal Mexican immigrants, NAFTA, black helicopters, the UN or the Bilderberg Group are the real reasons for this country’s current economic woes. On the other hand, nobody wrote in to contest Greek First Economic Secretary Skatanafas Archimalakas’ explanation that the reason the Euro is in the sewer at the moment is his nation’s protracted e-mail relationship with Bonzo Bungholubongo, King of the Uougabuogaboos, native to the Central African Republic, who presently resides in Lagos, Nigeria. As a matter of fact, I got several dozen e-mails from people who stated that is the most sensible explanation they have read to date. I also received over a hundred more from people who, it seems, have also been corresponding with His Majesty King Bungholubongo, asking for my assistance in contacting him concerning their own, now rather severe financial predicaments.
Even I can scarcely believe I posted such an eerily prescient story about the BP oil spill all the way back on May 2. Plenty of my readers wrote in to comment on that, and many of them also asked who I like in the 2010 World Series and Super Bowl XLV. Most of them also had more than a few choice words for Bartleby, the BP lobbyist, too. Well, it’s nice to see a few e-mails suggesting that somebody else besides me deserves to die like Benito Mussolini.
The subsequent post on May 8 about the biggest hiccup in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and my subsequent consultation with a long-time client from the Securities and Exchange Commission about it, brought howls of dismay from the provinces. How dare I, they demanded, tolerate such incompetence, sloth and stupidity from someone who works for the United States Government? To them I say, I’m a consultant, yes, which means I’m in the upper echelons of the business, but, in the final analysis, I’m still a federal contractor. Tolerating the incompetence, sloth and stupidity of our clients is a significant part of what all federal contractors get paid to do.
My post about the Facebook privacy flap drew a chorus of “amen!” from all quarters, plus a number of creative suggestions about what should happen to Mark Zuckerberg. Like I said about Mussolini, at least I’m not the only person the increasingly irascible and irate multitudes want to hang from a lamp post. Not that I actually think they meant it, I’m sure they were just blowing off steam about having been raped (speaking metaphorically, of course) by a greedy, amoral, lying, thieving information technology monster. Besides, if they want to provide Benito’s final joy ride to a greedy, amoral, lying, thieving information technology monster, they really ought to start with Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, anyway. Speaking metaphorically, of course.
My May 22 post about a visit from one Jethro Bodine, of the Rand Paul for Senate Campaign, evoked a plethora of epistles offering lectures on the True Nature of Libertarianism and explaining to me how I have it all wrong. To them I say, no, I don’t - a Libertarian America would look like a dystopian science fiction novel written by Robert A. Heinlein on ketamine. That’s why Rand Paul is going to be a constitutional conservative from now on instead.
After reading what various Idahoans had to say pertaining to my post in which recounted a conversation with notable Republican insider Vaughn Ward, I have decided that, should I ever develop a yen to vacation in a sparsely populated backwater full of dangerous wild animals and ignorant hicks, I’ll take my chances in Montana instead. I was anticipating some e-mails from angry Vaughn Ward supporters, but apparently, he either doesn’t have any, they don’t know how to read, or they can’t operate a computer well enough to access this blog.
What I had to say about Waggoner, the Republican Senate staffer, with regard to the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court elicited the expected excoriations from those who consider her to be Satan Incarnate in This World. To them I confidently reply, no, Dick Cheney holds that distinction at the moment, and probably will continue to do so until the Dark One summons him to slather at the loins of Ronald Reagan for all eternity. (Judging from the news this week, however, that may not be very long.) A number of folks also wrote in to offer helpful suggestions for avoiding people like Waggoner at cocktail parties. Thanks for those - I’ll keep them in mind for later use when the Democrats crash and burn in November. And speaking of Democrats, I was vilified by many lefties for offering Waggoner practical advice on how to revive a Republican hegemony. My apologies, but despite what I write about the Republicans in this blog, they do, in fact, provide me with quite a bit of business. And besides, without Republicans, who would the liberals have to blame for all this rampant evil? Themselves, perhaps?
It seems every time I mention sushi in a post, I get a Niagara of e-mails from people either warning me about the dangers of consuming raw fish or telling me I’m gross for eating something icky like sushi and asking why don’t I eat normal food like pickled pigs feet, head cheese, tongue, deep-fried corn dogs or Big Macs? The answer is, I do, actually; just not every day, okay? Not every week or month, either, but sometimes. Virtually everyone who wrote in about the subject of that post - which was the great Google debacle of June 10, 2010 - agreed with me that the geeks of Mountain View totally stepped in a big, steaming pile of it this time, and that such acts of frank idiocy should be reserved for Microsoft. Strangely enough, though, in the interim, it seems that as of last week, Apple has now caught whatever Google had back in June. I don’t know, maybe Google sneezed all over Apple’s lunch or something. Anyway, now we have the iPhone 4, which seems to have spawned something much more virulent than what Google had - Antenna-Gate, anyone? Watch this space for more absurd developments, I guess.
A flood of e-mails denouncing the incumbent Afghan government followed my June 20 post, where I told of yet another visit from Khus Dihugami Dadamizo, Special International Policy Emissary of His Excellency President Hamid Karzai for the Embassy of Afghanistan to the United States of America. Unlike the first post concerning this gentleman, several of the responses to this latest one pointed out that Mr. Dadamizo’s name means naughty things in Pashto. Gee whiz, now, folks, what can I do about how Afghanis name their children? I also got plenty of stuff about lithium. Did you know that an isotope of lithium is used to make hydrogen bombs? That the soft drink Seven-Up at one time contained lithium? That lithium will actually catch fire if you put it into water? Uh, well, actually, I did. I knew all of those things about lithium long before you wrote in to tell me about them, and anybody who bothers to read the Wikipedia entry on lithium knows them, too. But thanks anyway, I know your hearts were in the right place. Most of the folks who wrote in don’t think lithium should be illegal, by the way, and I agree. Most of them also think the idea of making it illegal is indeed worthy of Paul Wolfowitz, and furthermore, agree with my assessment that nobody would have any problem believing he came up with it.
Post on 6/26 about texting w/Gen McChrystal had many readers LOL. 2 bad he’s going deaf, i guess. Very un4-2n8 #:>(
July 17th, 2010