Moment of Silence

Six people are dead; one of them a child. So we should all bow our heads and take a moment to think of how we can use this to our political advantage.

It feels wrong even to respond to the cheap shots. I'll do it in a week or two if I feel my input is needed.

Brave Bunch of Guys

A fire starts inside a chemical plant and the alarm goes out to fire departments miles around. After crews have been fighting the fire for over an hour, the chemical company president approached the fire chief and said, "All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved! I will give $100,000 to the engine company that brings them out safely!"

The crews try, but no one can get through. Then another fire truck, filled with a volunteer fire company of men over 65, comes roaring down the road and drives straight into the middle of the inferno. The other men watch unbelieving as the old timers hop off of their rig and heroically extinguish the fire, saving the secret formulas.

The company president walks over to reward the volunteers.

"What do you guys plan to do with the money?" the president asks the group.

The firetruck driver looks him right in the eye and answers, "Well, the first thing we’re going to do is fix the brakes on that truck."

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I Know My Rights

Slight profanity, mostly funny. The audio is so good I'd suspect this could be a Reno911 scene. Still, har.

I think the full phrase is "I know my rights, owwwwie, ouch, hey that hurts!"

Senseless Tragedy

The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona was a disgusting act by a deranged man. Apparently this video is also a product of the diseased mind of Jared Laughner.

No, he's not a conservative, he's not a Republican, he's a nutter.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this senseless act.

Update:

(Reuters) - The doctor treating Representative Gabrielle Giffords for a gunshot wound said on Saturday he was very optimistic about her recovery.

"She's in critical condition," Dr. Peter Rhee said. "The neurosurgeons have finished operating on her and I can tell you that in the current time period I am very optimistic about recovery ... she was following commands.

One child had died and nine other victims were being treated for shooting wounds, Rhee told a news conference at Tucson's University Medical Center.

You're Shoveling Wrong

Another Drudge linked story:

The two neighbours, one man in his seventies and the other in his eighties, disagreed on how to properly deal with removing the snow from the area around their homes.

As the two elderly men were unable to reach resolve their dispute amicably, the disagreement turned ever more heated, soon escalating to a full-out fight, with the men using their snow shovels as weapons.

"Something happened that upset one of the neighbours, who then attacked, while the other one defended himself. It started out with a little shove, then some chaos ensued," Nils-Erik Eriksson, media relations officer at the Jönköping police force, told the local newspaper J-Nytt.

No one was seriously injured in the snowy brawl, although one of the men went to the hospital with a bump on his head and some scratches. The two neighbours have now reported each other to the police for assault, reported the radio station Sveriges Radio Jönköping.

This seems to be one of those silly news stories. Cute, but odd, in a quirky kind of eccentric way. But have you ever seen a Swedish battle shovel? Yeah, didn't think so.

Anyway, this isn't fluff; if you look past the surface, it's serious news. The important question is: Would these ancient shovelers have been so reckless if they had to pay for their own health care? Would either of them have been so bold if they didn't know there was a warm plastic chair waiting for them in a Swedish clinic? A place where they could complain about Lutefisk for the ten hours it took to get their band-aid?

Does state sponsored health care encourage risky behavior in elderly Swedes? That's not a real question - it's the title of my grant application. I figure the American taxpayer can afford to pay me a half million dollars to study this problem. I expect it stands a fair chance of getting approved. And it will be a dead certain winner if I hint that my conclusions will bash Christianity and prop up Global Warming.

I may be a God-bothering gun clinger (Lileks' wonderful term) but I know where the money is.

The Problem Isn't Bagels

This one, linked from Drudge, is deceptive:

A Florida professor was arrested and removed from a plane Monday after his fellow passengers alerted crew members they thought he had a suspicious package in the overhead compartment.

That "suspicious package" turned out to be keys, a bagel with cream cheese and a hat.

Ognjen Milatovic, 35, was flying from Boston to Washington D.C. on US Airways when he was escorted off the plane for disorderly conduct following the incident.

Oh those silly TSA's, those fraidy-cat passengers, that stupid airline! It was just a bagel. Or actually, a bagel, plus one other thing:

When confronted by the US Airways crew about his "suspicious package," Milatovic got on his cell phone. The crew asked him to hang it up and sit down. When he refused, he was cuffed.

Milatovic was also charged with interfering with the operation of an aircraft.

That's right, a bagel, but with a side order of Iknowmyrights. Maybe it was a bad day for the bagel activist. Maybe he was already a little testy. But the flight would have continued as planned if he had just laughed, "Oh that? It's just a bagel. Here, I'll show you."

Instead, he gets a lesson in frog marching. But it wasn't for the bagel; it was for the d-baggery.

Ann Gets It Right

Har, Ann Coulter:

Have you ever noticed that whenever there's a major calamity in this country, the name "Jamie Gorelick" always pops up? I think I'll pull some articles about the Great Chicago Fire from Nexis to see if there was a "Gorelick" living on Catherine O'Leary's block.

Also in the article, she places blame where it belongs in the mortgage melt down.



If you're pressed for time: Barney explains why we had nothing to worry about at 4:50 -- it's almost funny, in a tragic sort of way.

Mapping the Mind

This was a print ad from the 50's or early 60's, I would guess. You can tell because of the Rob Petrie hat, plus the fact that a husband and wife are shopping together.

I put Sarah Palin in there though. See, that's all men think about anymore: Sarah Palin, and sometimes bacon. In fact, we think about her so much that thinking-about-her waves have traveled back in time to affect French onion soup shoppers a half century ago.

"You got those blueprints finished, Jim?"

"No sir, I haven't. It seems that all I can think about these days is Sarah Palin."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

The Call

LEADER CANTOR: Hello Mr. President.

PRESIDENT OBAMA : Hello... Hello, Hello? Hel -looo, Hello?

LEADER CANTOR: Mr. President, thanks so much for taking the call. Officially we are calling to inform you that the House and Senate have established a quorum and that, as you know, we have elected John Boehner Speaker and we are ready to receive any communication that you’d be pleased to make.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, hellohellohellohello, Can ya hear me now? Hello?

LEADER CANTOR: Thank you, Mr. President and we as well. I think following up on the ability for us to work together is important – as was demonstrated in the tax bill. I know that many of us are anxious for you to come up to the Hill for the State of the Union address. And I know.....

But I Just Want to Play

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