Oh, PLEASE shut up!

I am so sick and tired of the whining, “poor baby” stories of Lynndie England! 

How she can’t find a job.

How she’s oh-so persecuted.

How everyone hates her.

How strangers point and whisper about her.

Wah! Wah! Wah!

Lemme ‘splain something to your inbred ass, you pig!  You committed a crime.  You and that disgusting swine of a boyfriend of yours singlehandedly put a huge dent into the reputation of the United States Army.  You dishonored the uniform.  You disgraced the United States.  You violated Army regulations, and you splattered a big, black stain on the Armed Forces.

I don’t give a shit if you were just following orders.  So were the Nazis.  I don’t give a shit if you were unhappy, depressed or tired.  It didn’t give you the right to humiliate your prisoners.  You were there as an admin.  It was not your job to interrogate them, take them for walks on a leash or laugh at their pathetic genitalia, while dangling a cigarette from your foul mouth.  You were not following orders.  Orders such as that were meant to be questioned as illegal, and we, in the Armed Forces, have a duty to question illegal orders.  We are all trained ad nauseam on rules of engagement, on treatment of prisoners, and on Geneva Conventions.  If you’re too stupid to understand that what you did was wrong, you’re too stupid to serve.

While admitting she made some bad decisions, England says it wasn’t her
place to question the “softening-up” treatments sanctioned long before
she arrived.

Yeah, actually it WAS your place, you stupid cow.  As a Soldier in the United States Army, it is your place and duty to disobey an illegal order – law either has no valid military purpose or
contravenes existing law, obeying the order may expose the person to
prosecution.  An illegal order is just that – illegal – and prisoner abuse has no valid military purpose.  And ferpetessake!  You weren’t even given a direct order!  Nothing in the official investigation found that you were ordered to humiliate prisoners.  If you’re too stupid to understand that, you’re too stupid to serve.

So no.  I don’ t feel sorry for you.  I don’t care if you apologized.  The world looked at our courageous Soldiers like they were noxious dirtbags because you and your boyfriend refused to think, refused to act like responsible Soldiers and chose, instead, to humiliate the rest of us with your antics.

So stop whining in the media about how you’re mistreated.  You deserve it.

Dropping off Teeny

My kids spend most of their summers with grandparents.  When they go to Pennsylvania to spend time with my parents, they go to a fun day camp.  When they go to Illinois to spend time with their paternal grandparents, they hang around, go to the pool and relax.  Since the Redhead’s baseball season isn’t over yet, and he’s playing on the All-Stars team this summer, Superman and I took Teeny to my parents’ house in Pennsylvania yesterday all by herself.  Little one actually admitted she’d miss her little brother.  That’s quite an admission for a teenage girl, but my kids have never been typical.  They’re close – especially for a brother and sister.  They talk, they hang out together, and despite the usual squabbles that brothers and sisters have, they’d go to the mat for one another.  The Redhead constantly demands hugs from his sister, and she even helps him out with his chores when she’s in the mood.  I’m lucky.  Very lucky.

So we took Teeny to Pennsylvania, and we hung out with my parents for a bit, where Superman got a chance to experience more Russian food.  Then we took off, leaving Teeny with my parents, having decided to play at Valley Forge for a while before meeting Massad Ayoob for dinner.

So we walked around the area for a bit.

How would you like to use these in war?

I prefer the M-16, thanks.

It’s nice to see what kind of tools our military used in the Revolutionary War.

This is how the Soldiers lived during the Revolutionary War.  I’ll never complain about our barracks again.  Yeah, that’s a bunk.

Look at these fabulous barracks!  They kept out most moisture… well… meh… not really.  But there was a fireplace!

And here are the officers’ quarters.  Note the difference.

More at Valley Forge! 

We couldn’t spend a whole lot of time there, as Mas Ayoob was teaching a class in Harrisburg, and we wanted to get there so we could have dinner together.  So we left and drove to Harrisburg, where we met up with him and his girlfriend and another friend, and we decided pizza and beer were to be the fare of the night.  This is where it was also confirmed by the expert firearms instructor that I’m not a complete asshat for keeping my non-dominant finger on the trigger guard when I shoot, which is something Superman had always needled me about.  Mas confirmed that doing that was fine, as long as I’m comfortable with it.  Superman was good enough to stand corrected.

We had fun.  Loads of great (and not so great) jokes were told, and we didn’t leave until 2200.  Since I have issues driving at night, Superman graciously agreed to do the driving.  We got to my place from Harrisburg in just under two hours!  Boy, I love having a cop drive my car! 

Me and Mas at the hotel during pizza and beer time!

Mas and his Princess, who is much like me in the sarcasm department.  We got along just fine.

Thanks for the pizza, the valuable advice, the jokes and great conversation to you guys!  You definitely need to come out to the DC area soon and hang out with us!

This week’s celebrity death trifecta

My friend Kerry, whom I’ve known since freshman year of college (way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth in 1989), asked me what I thought of the death of Michael Jackson.  Normally, I wouldn’t give it a thought, to be quite honest with you, because a) he’s a celebrity, and I could give less of a flying rat’s shit, and b) he had absolutely no impact on my life…

Well… OK, that last part is not necessarily true, but before I get into that, I feel I need to mention two more icons who passed on this week: Ed McMahon and Farah Fawcett.

According to Wikipedia, Ed McMahon was a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps serving as a flight instructor and test pilot during World War II. He earned six Air Medals and was discharged in 1946, remaining in the reserves.

After college, Ed McMahon returned to active duty, was sent to Korea in February 1952, and flew unarmed OE-1 Bird Dogs on 85 tactical air control and artillery spotting missions. He remained in the Marine Corps Reserve, retiring with the rank of Colonel in 1966 and was then commissioned as a Brigadier General in the California Air National Guard.

I will always be grateful to Ed McMahon for his courageous service to his country.

Farah Fawcett was one of those women I didn’t even think existed.  Coming from the USSR, and having seen Charlie’s Angels for the first time, and not even having understood all of it, because my English still sucked back then, I wondered how this country could have such stunning looking people in it.  I have few memories of the USSR, but I seem to remember a lot of women looking like Boris Yeltsin.  I thought ALL women were supposed to have hair on their back and humps…  heh… just kidding.  Seriously, though… to go from a place where everything and everyone is a shade of grey misery to a place where women are strong with white, happy smiles was pretty weird for a kid who was accustomed to nothing but a beaten down populace dragging its feet through a dead end existence day in and day out.

RIP, Farah.

OK, OK… Michael Jackson.

He was one of my first exposures to American pop culture, and as a kid in middle school, I was completely enthralled with him and his brothers!  I loved the music.  Like all American teeny boppers at the time, my walls were literally PLASTERED with every single picture of Michael Jackson I could cut out of any newspaper and magazine.  I knew what time Thriller came on the radio every single night, because the local radio station would run a Top Ten countdown nightly.  He was a musical and dance visionary when I was a kid.

Somewhere along the way, things went horribly wrong.  He went from a cute, talented kid, to a cute, talented guy with some plastic surgery issues to… OMFG!!!  WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT, AND JUST HOW MUCH SUPER GLUE DOES IT TAKE TO KEEP HIS NOSE ATTACHED TO HIS FACE????????

But OK… celebrities are weird.  Michael Jackson was EXTRA weird.  Creepy weird.  But still… he was rich and eccentric.  Who am I to judge?

When the allegations of child sexual abuse surfaced, however, he crossed the line from creepy weird, to creepy.  Now, I don’t know what happened in that house, and whether or not Michael Jackson was a kiddie diddler.  If he was, I hope he burns in hell, and is sodomized with Satan’s razor wire-studded prick the size of a cricket bat on an hourly basis for eternity.  But I don’t know.  What I DO know is that a grown man cavorting with little boys during sleepovers at his big house is just not cool.

Whom do I blame most?

Yeah, Michael Jackson – if he did it – definitely gets the blame.  If he didn’t, he gets the blame for being one weird mofo, because let’s face it, folks – he put himself in a situation where he can be accused by money-grubbing asshole parents.

But most of all, I blame the parents.  Let me ask you parents this: If you’re a responsible parent, who loves his or her child, WHY THE BLAZING, FLYING, FESTERING FUCK WOULD YOU ALLOW YOUR CHILD TO SPEND THE NIGHT AT A SINGLE MAN’S MANSION WITHOUT SUPERVISION?????????  Because he’s rich?  Because he’s famous?  Because he has cool toys?  Hate to tell you this, but if you allow your little boy to have sleepovers at a guy’s house, who happens to be a good amount older than the child, is single, has a shitload of toys that are age inappropriate for a guy his age, cavorts with a chimp, and plays dress-up, he’s TOO FUCKING WEIRD TO BE PLAYING WITH A LITTLE CHILD UNSUPERVISED!!!!  Pardon me, but a monkey would understand this and never put a child in that kind of situation!

Maybe something went on, and maybe nothing did.  Maybe it was child molestation, and maybe it was innocent play.  But whatever it was, why in blazes would you place your child into that situation in the first place?

So yeah, I blame you parents.  You tried to get rich off your kid by placing him in a situation where he could have gotten sexually abused, and there’s absolutely no excuse for you!  NONE!

You’re a parent.  It’s your job to protect your kid.  It’s your job to ensure that your kid avoids situations that could result in harm.  I wouldn’t send my son on a tour of whore houses, hoping that nothing happens.  So why would you send your son to a weird, single guy’s mansion for a SLEEPOVER unsupervised?

So to recap…

This week’s celebrity death trifecta: Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. 

RIP to the first two. 

Not sure what to think about the third.

Scared they’ll get their asses handed to them again in court?

I’m thinking so.

In order to avoid a lawsuit, the Washington DC government has issued new regulations that expand the number of models of handguns that residents can own.

The federal lawsuit was filed in March by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on behalf of three individuals who wanted guns that were not on the city’s existing list. Those who had been previously denied an opportunity to register their handguns will be invited to reapply under the new guidelines, SAF says.

[...]

According to the Washington Post, the expanded list contains at least 1,000 additional types and models of handguns. In addition to permitting guns in the District that are legal in California, the city will also allow residents to apply to register handguns that are permissible in Massachusetts and Maryland.

“To apply to register.”  This kind of shit really pisses me off.  DC residents only have the “right” to own firearms that are “permitted” by the most hideously oppressive of states, and they must apply for permission to register their own property.  The idea of applying for permission to own something that is MINE makes me want to gag!  More so, because I know that the criminal thugs that infest DC hold themselves to no such standard, and obey no law.

Mostly, they’re doing this so that they don’t get another public asswhupping in courts and embarrass themselves and their gun-grabbing buddies at the Brady Center, VPC and other vermin.

Next step: fire the clerk

Will the convenience store now fire the clerk for defending himself against an armed thug?

Dominic Mathew told officers he was working behind the
counter shortly after 6 p.m. when he saw a man in his 20s walk through
the front door. The man moved toward the beer cooler, then turned
quickly around and reached for a gun. He had a blue bandana over his
mouth, Mathew told police.

He demanded money from the cash register.

Police
said in a report: “Dominic refused and reached under the counter and
pulled out a handgun. The suspect and Dominic supposedly had a face-off
with the handguns, according to the victim.”

The would-be robber fled and disappeared into a nearby apartment complex.

It’s not like clerks haven’t been fired before for standing up to violent vermin.