READ BELOW FOR THE STIRRING CONCLUSION!

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“Thanks to ‘Not So Dirty Harry’ in St. Augustine.”

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t Disguise Your Voice!
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.

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[If you are going to visit the White House in the next few days, would you please print out a copy of this column and put it into the White House suggestion box, while your are there? Thanks!]

An Australian pointed out to this columnist, that the first thing an American will do after visiting a tourist attraction in their country is to strongly assert that, back home, Americans have done the same thing bigger and better.

If President Obama when he visits Canberra to address the Australian Parliament next week, takes the opportunity to visit the Australian National War Museum, there will be absolutely no danger that President Obama will tell his hosts that the United States has done it better because there ain’t no National War Museum in the USA. There are, to be sure, a great number of specialized museums in the states. There’s a museum of desert warfare in Southern California, the 3rd Cavalry Museum is in El Paso, TX, a Museum is at West Point, and the D-Day Museum is in New Orleans.

To the best of this columnist’s fact checking ability to determine, the United States does not have one central museum that honors all the combatants who have fought in all the wars waged by the U. S. A. If Australia can do that, why can the USA?

Due to bad timing, President Obama will not be in Canberra at the same time that the Aussie hot rodders hold their annual Summer Nats event. This year’s installment was held in early January, when it was summer in that hemisphere. [That, in turn, reminds us that we have recently learned (while Reading James Michener’s “Return to Paradise”) that a broken beer bottle is called “an Australian boxing glove.”]

The Hog’s Breath Cafe in Canberra boasts that they serve the best steak in Australia and maybe President Obama can take the time to put that claim to a taste test.

The last time this columnist heard the song “Santa Monica Boulevard,” we were in Canberra and as we listened to the tune, it made us wonder how many Aussies know that the road being honored used to be called “Oregon St.”?

One of the advantages of being a blogger is that the writer can tell the President of the United States, how he (the blogger) would do things differently. The White House does have a suggestion box, doesn’t it?

The Republicans, according to some recent scuttlebutt on the Internets, will use the period between the day after this year’s midterm elections and election day in 2012 to set the agenda and put the incumbent, President Obama, on the defensive. Since they intend to use a racist tactic, which will leave the President with a task that will be impossible. If the Republicans say that the President is incompetent because he is the first African-American President, any attempts to refute that will have to assert that he is incompetent for some other reason or that he isn’t an African-American. It seems that either response will be inadequate for winning re-election.

If President Obama wants to seize the initiative, set the agenda, and put the Republicans on the defensive; he could visit Australia’s National War Museum and then immediately suggest that it is time for the United States to honor its history by establishing a similar site in the United States.

If he moves fast, that would leave the Republicans in a bind. If the Republicans want to continue their sit-down strike in the legislative branch of America’s government, then they would have to vote against the suggestion of an American National War Museum or at least not vote for it. If they did that their ownership of the “Support the Troops” issue would start to evaporate quickly. If, on the other hand, they quickly followed President Obama’s lead and voted for a National War Museum for the USA, then it would look like the commitment to wage their sit-down strike was crumbling. It would look like President Obama was leading them around like puppies on leashes and they wouldn’t like that, either.

President Obama could go into Republican congressional districts and appeal to the local voters to replace any Republican who didn’t quickly and strongly support an Obama program to erect a National War Museum.

Australia’s National War Museum is open 364 days a year (closed on Christmas) and is considered by some to be Australia’s best tourist attraction. (Like the guy said in “Catch Me if You Can,” this columnist concurs.)

The Australian National War Museum, which is noted for the quality of its scholarly research department, informs visitors that the American success at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway was due to the fact that the Americans had broken the Japanese code and knew what radio orders were being given. American history books say those battles were won by American officers who made shrewd guesses about what to do in the midst of the evolving situation. Whatever. The U. S. won, and that’s the bottom line.

Australian entertainer Little Patty was given a military medal. Did any USO performers get a similar honor? (Do a Google search with her name and add: “Battle Long Tan.”)

Obviously, President Obama will not visit the secret American military base just West of Alice Springs. They don’t want or need the publicity a Presidential visit would precipitate.

It seems unlikely that President Obama will take the suggestion for a National War Museum for the United States. If he becomes a one term President, don’t say we didn’t offer any suggestions to prevent it.

For this column’s closing quote we’ll turn to the Narrator, in Mad Max 2 (an Australian film), who says: “For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel, they were nothing. They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear.”

Now the disk jockey will play “Please Mr. Please,” “Stayin’ Alive,” and “Dirty Deed Done Dirt Cheap.” We have to go see if The Enemy Belligerant Interogation Detention, and Proscecution Act of 2010 (S3081) will bring Gleichschaltung. Have a Big Brother Approved type week.

Rachel Maddow video: Reviewing the History of Fake Conservative Protests

“Bush’s Conspiracy to Riot”
– Robert Parry, Consortium News, Aug. 5, 2002, updated Aug. 5, 2009.

“Brooks Brothers Riot”
– Wikipedia

I know that “bart” is not into the topic of 9/11, but I continue to do research on the subject. I feel it is important because the attacks on 9/11 were the catalyst that enabled corporatist fascists in the U.S. to further their agenda. I may be naive, but I still think that if the lies their policies were based on are exposed, the American people may wake up and stand up against the corporations that own their government and are taking over the country. Exposing the lies about 9/11 may be the key to stopping the U.S. from becoming a corporate fascist state…Of course I could be wrong.

ACLU obtains document stating 9/11 commission told to “not cross the line”

Excerpt:
According to a document obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Tuesday March 16, the 9/11 commission was warned on Jan. 6th, 2004 by high-level administration officials to “not cross the line” in the investigation of the events that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.

The high-level administration officials included Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet. The ACLU described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former vice president Dick Cheney.

The warning in the memo released by the government to the ACLU is just one example of how the Bush administration fiercely struggled to prevent the 9/11 Commission from conducting a deeper probe into the attacks. It is common knowledge that Bush and Cheney refused to cooperate with the investigation and when forced to do so, only testified together, not under oath.

What may not be known to many Americans is that members of the 9/11 Commission have publicly stated that the investigation was a whitewash, and stymied from the beginning.

John Farmer, the senoir counsel to the 9/11 Comission, said that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11, echoing the assertions of fellow 9/11 Commission members who concluded that the Pentagon was engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack.

Senator Max Cleland, who resigned from the 9/11 Commission after calling it a “national scandal”, stated in a 2003 PBS interview:

I’m saying that’s deliberate. I am saying that the delay in relating this information to the American public out of a hearing… series of hearings, that several members of Congress knew eight or ten months ago, including Bob Graham and others, that was deliberately slow walked… the 9/11 Commission was deliberately slow walked, because the Administration’s policy was, and its priority was, we’re gonna take Saddam Hussein out.

On Democracy Now, Cleland also said, “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”.

While most of the above statements are hearsay and impossible to verify factually, the document that the ACLU has obtained collaberates what officials involved in the 9/11 Commission have been saying for years. The entire “investigation” was nothing more than a whitewash designed to hide the facts about 9/11 from the American people.

Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m3d17-ACLU-obtains-document-stating-911-commission-told-to-not-cross-the-line

Lot’s of links in the above article!

Some ‘Green Day’ factoids and toasts in honor of me late grandmother who, like Guinness stout, Harp lager, and G.B. Shaw, was a great Irish export.

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

Five Factoids About St. Patrick’s Day

1. St. Patrick’s real name was Patricius, and historians believe he was born in either Wales or Scotland.

2. The original color associated with St. Paddy’s day was blue instead of green.

3. St. Patrick’s Day was alcohol-free holiday in Ireland until the mid-1970s.

4. The shamrock was intended by St. Patrick to signify the Holy Trinity, not the luck of the Irish. He also created the Celtic cross, which is a combination of pagan and Christian symbols.

5. A pint of Guinness Stout, a staple of Irish drinkers on St. Paddy’s Day, has fewer calories than a pint of low-fat milk or orange juice.

A Random Sampling of Irish Toasts (for anyone who’s toasted to use):

Here’s to health,
fitness and tone
I’ve drank to health
So many times
I’ve managed to
ruin my own.

May we get what we want,
May we get what we need,
But may we never get what we deserve.

In all this world, I do think
There are five good reasons why we drink:
Good friends,
Good luck,
Good times,
And lest we be dry,
And any other reason why.

May the winds of fortune caress you,
May you sail a gentle sea.
May it always be the other guy
who says, “this drink’s on me.”

Here’s to cheating, lying, stealing, fighting, and drinking:
If you cheat, may you cheat death;
If you lie, may you lie on a loved one’s breast;
If you steal, may you steal another’s heart;
If you fight, may you fight for what’s right, brother;
And if you drink, may you always drink
With friends and none other.

Though you may be a scoundrel
And a sinner times seven
May you get lost on your way to hell
And end up in heaven.

BTW, think corned beef and cabbage is a traditional Irish dish? Cabbage, yes, but corned beef is English. Read below.

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Your Tattlesnake admits to being slightly gobsmacked by reading the news lately. First, we have the regressive far-right clodhoppers down in the Lone Star Beer State rewriting the school textbooks for the entire country, inserting such gems as eliminating any reference to the history of institutional racism in America (slavery never existed?); praising Confederate generalship (they lost the war, remember?); invoking Moses as an inspiration for the Constitution, while practically ignoring Jefferson, Franklin, the Age of Enlightenment, and the reasons for the separation of church and state; disregarding the Mexicans who died alongside Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett defending the Alamo; promoting the jingoistic myth of ‘American exceptionalism’ and the non-existent ‘free market economy’; and even peevishly describing our form of government as a “Constitutional Republic” rather than the “Democratic Republic” it has been called since our founding because, you know, any phrase containing the word “Democrat” has to be inherently evil and unpatriotic. No doubt even some Creationist buffoonery is included for the comic relief of the smarter students.

How did a bunch of piss-drunk mouth breathers, psychotic snake shooters and half-assed Holy Rollers who would install an empty-headed slouch like Junior Bush as their governor and follow him with a vain numbskull like Rick Perry ever get such clout? Well, one thing’s for sure – you’ll never get the answer to that question from one of their ‘abridged-for-stupidity’ textbooks.

I feel sorry for our kids – even more than in previous generations they are being batter-dipped and deep-fried in a vat of convoluted hooey by a bunch of uneducated, narrow-minded yahoos who think faith equates to knowledge and facts are as malleable as a pile of fresh horse manure. Third-world country, here we come.

Conversely, down in the fetid armpit of poverty-row Dark Ages America, in the homophobe paradise of Fulton, Mississippi, a lesbian teenager is suing the local school for not allowing her to bring her gal pal as a prom date – in fact, the authorities cancelled the whole damn prom rather than permit such twenty-first century San Francisco-style perfidy to undermine the town’s Taliban morality.

As the lesbian teen in question, 18-year-old Constance McMillen, told CBS’ News, “I explained to him that you can’t pretend like there’s not gay people at our school, and if you tell people they can’t bring [a] same-sex date, that is discrimination to them.”

Wait a minute, putting aside Constance’s prom problem, she’s saying there are openly gay people in Missi-fracking-ssippi? When was the last time you heard anyone living in mushmouth Haley Barbour’s Stinking State of ‘Grace’ (or is that ‘grease’?) admit they were gay, especially a high school kid? Why, shut my mouth and call me Foghorn!

Who knows, maybe the students forced to read that skunky rot passed off as a textbook by the Texas tyrants are smarter than we think and will laugh it off; perhaps times are moving forward faster than the howling hordes of retrograde simpletons can change, no matter what they do. There may be hope yet, even in the last-to-know, slow-flowing mud of Mississippi, always packed with crackers and nuts and, now – will wonders never cease? — some openly gay folks as well.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.