Bent Corner

Holy smokes. They actually did it. Not that I’m surprised. I always knew once the invasion of Iraq started that, Saddam Hussein would end up dead.

Not that I feel even the smallest amount of sympathy for him. The guy was one of the biggest assholes of the 20th century. A century chalk full of raging assholes. Not only did he kill a massive amount of people over the years, he was an extreme troublemaker in a part of the world that didn’t need any more trouble. He waged an 8-year war against Iran. When saddled with huge debts because of the 8-year Iraq-Iran war, he decided to just invade Kuwait. This was one way of erasing the $14 billion he had borrowed from Kuwait to help finance the war with Iran. Being that the rest of the world enjoyed buying oil from Kuwait, many countries, including the United States had a huge problem with this. The United States put together a massive military invasion that we affectionately called OPERATION DESERT STORM.

It also resulted in a never ending, continuous American military presence in the region. Mainly in the country of Saudi Arabia. This was to ensure that Saddam Hussein didn’t continue to pose a threat to his oil rich neighbors.

The oil must flow.

The United States military presence also ensured Saddam didn’t kill anymore of his own people in the north and in the south of Iraq. Something that he was famous for doing.

One of the difficulties with permanently basing thousands of American troops in Saudi Arabia is that some Muslims had a real problem with this. Muslims that were real old-school serious about their Islamic faith. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of the Islamic faith. To some Muslims, basing American troops in the land of Mecca was more then a little sacrilegious. They felt as though it was desecrating the land of the Prophet Muhammad.

If only there was a way of knowing this. Remember, this was before the advent of Google or Ask Jeeves. It wasn’t as though somebody could have just “looked it up”.

One of these old-school serious Muslims to have a problem with American troops based in the birthplace of Islam was some really tall prick named Usama bin Laden.

In fact, he was so unhappy with American troops being in Saudi Arabia that bin Laden directed his people to commit the worst terror attack in history against the United States. Something we now refer to as 9-11.

Though it’s more then a little morbid, I have no problem waking up this morning to find out there is one less asshole in the world.

I guess it always does happen in threes. James Brown, Gerald Ford, and Saddam Hussein.

• Congresswoman calls for the assassination of Fidel Castro. Sure, she represents a district in Florida, but it’s still absolutely kooky. Even for a Republican from Florida.
• Governator Schwarzenegger broke his leg while skiing in Idaho. I guess that’s what he gets for going out of state to ski in Idaho. Him skiing in Idaho is like the governor of Wisconsin eating cheese made somewhere other then Wisconsin.
• Former Texas police narcotics officer is selling a video showing how to a avoid police detection. Even though he was one of the best narcotics cops in Texas, he now believes that marijuana should be legalized and that it’s wrong to brake up families and send people to prison over pot. I strongly agree.
• Rosie is more charitable then The Donald. Even though Donald Trump is supposedly a billionaire (so he says), Rosie O’Donnell has given far more money to worthy causes. Three times as much in fact. Where Rosie’s money goes to children, Donald’s has gone to things like the Police Athletic League.
• Writer Peter David went to see the “Borat” movie and didn’t like it. He didn’t think the humor was funny. In other news, an atheist goes to church and didn’t like it. He thought the speaker talked too much about God.

A 5-year-old Hagerstown Lincolnshire Elementary School boy pinched a female kindergarten classmate on the butt. Principal Darlene Teach has accused the boy of sexual harassment. The accusation will remain on his record until he moves to middle school. Which ironically will be about the time he enters puberty and will be able to put the concept of sexual harassment into some sort of context.

Teach said any student, regardless of grade level, can be cited for sexual harassment. “Anytime a student touches another student inappropriately, it could be sexual harassment,” Teach said.

Really? That’s interesting because Washington County Public Schools defines sexual harassment as something different.

Washington County Public Schools spokeswoman Carol Mowen said the definition of sexual harassment used by the school system is, “unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors and/or other inappropriate verbal, written or physical conduct of a sexual nature directed toward others.”

The word “sexual” was used in every single definition of what sexual harassment is. Just how is one five year old pinching another five year old considered sexual?

If he had pinched her on some other part of the body such as an arm or shoulder or the big toe, would that be sexual harassment too? What if he had pinched another boy on the butt, would that too be considered sexual harassment?

Is a five year old boy pinching a classmate on the butt inappropriate? Of course it is. Five year old boys do inappropriate things all the time. They sometimes don’t finish their vegetables. They often don’t color within the lines. Sometimes they even get the alphabet wrong. They have even been known to not wipe their feet when they go inside even when they are told to do so by their mothers.

Some even play ball in the house.

People shouldn’t go around pinching each other. It could lead to bruses and civic anarchy. We don’t want anarchy. That doesn’t mean pinching is sexual. It shouldn’t be labeled as sexual harassment especially when the pinching is committed by someone who is only five. The whole issue was blown way out of proportion by Principal Darlene Teach and it trivializes real sexual harassment.

Personally, I find it more then just a little creepy that Principal Darlene Teach looks at one five year old pinching another as something sexual.

School accuses 5-year-old of sex harassment [Herald-Mail]

I was listening to right-wing radio talk show host Sean Hannity yesterday while driving home from work. He was talking about his working vacation to Europe this holiday season. He and his family are going to London, Paris, and Rome where he will conduct town hall like meetings with Europeans entitled, WHY EUROPE HATES AMERICA. Something like that. I might have the name wrong, but I don’t think so. He pointed out that Paris and Rome ought to be interesting since he doesn’t speak their language, but “they all speak English over there.”

He then went on to do some French bashing. I guess this is still a popular activity in Republican circles. I wouldn’t have thought it was. Sure, they seemed to have fun renaming French fries “freedom fries” when France questioned the rational of invading Iraq. Imagine that. I just didn’t know that Republicans were still bashing the French. You usually don’t make fun of someone when it turns out that they were right and you were wrong.

He then went on to talk about how “we” liberated “them” from the Nazis back in World War Two. That “they” would all be speaking German if we didn’t go and save them oh so long ago. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Sean Hannity had personally lead the Allied invasion of Normandy. Storming the beach with a Thompson submachine gun in each hand and cutting through the barbed wire with nothing more then his teeth.

In reality, Sean Hannity refused to serve in the military.

I always get a kick out of people that refer to historical things in the first person. Of course people like Hannity only do this when it concerns something they deem to be positive. Though you will hear Sean Hannity take credit for winning World War Two, you wont ever hear him say we owned slaves or that we distributed smallpox infected blankets to Indians. The word “we” will never be used when talking about these bits of American history. People like him only take credit for the good and distance themselves from the bad.

I also found it funny that Sean Hannity would insinuate the Nazi Germany would still occupy western Europe today if it wasn’t for the Allied forces. As if Russia was not marching closer to Berlin each day the war went on. Germany would have fallen even if the Allies had not hit the beaches of Normandy. The French wouldn’t be speaking German today, they would be speaking Russian.Then again according to Hannity, everyone over there speaks English.

Maybe Sean Hannity ought to read a history book.

I’m still getting email about the whole Wal-Mart Nazi SS Totenkopfis t-shirt controversy. Is it really a controversy? I don’t know and I don’t care.

Some of the email messages I get are positive and well thought out. Others, not so much. Some of the messages sent to me are so idiotic and stupid that they are actually quite funny. Here is one such email I received this morning.

Steve Cook <keywest63020@charter.net> wrote:

Emblems similar to nazi emblems on wal-mart t-shirts….!

To quote john Stoessel (sic) “give me a break”..so what…..do you have any idea howlong the skull and crossbones have been around? The skull and crossbones is also an insignia for the fighter wing aboard the USS Washington aircraft carrier(I think that is the correct ship). I saw it on the History channel the other night. You gonna contact George Bush and have him change that also?

The swastika has also been around since the dawn of civilization and was used by many civilizations including the american indian…..it can actually be traced back to ancient judiaism (sic).

The ss symbols are from the ancient Runes symbols…shall we outlaw all of them also?

Why dont you get your panties in a wad over something that matters and not some vague reference to last mid-century.

If you wanna get mad @ wal-mart about something ,why not complain about the crappy produce selection .

Nothing personal…..but if you really want to make a difference in this world quit looking back and try to look forward.

I am pretty sure that no one was gonna walk into wal-mart and say.” Dude!…look….an SS deathshead t-shirt..i gotta have one!”

Steve

My favorite part is where my new friend Steve invoked the name of ABC’s 20-20 John Stossel. He’s the guy that’s always trying to argue that global warming is fake or that it’s perfectly acceptable to charge $20 for a bottle of water during a disaster because it ensures that the person who really needs that water gets that water.

As though there are some people that don’t need water.

Steve takes me to task for “looking back”. He advises me to instead “look forward”. This is interesting since he’s the one commenting on a blog post I made over a month ago.

Talk about being relevant.

I don’t know what is more ridiculous. Republican congressmen that think a 5-day work week is too brutal or Democratic congressmen that think Monday night to Friday afternoon constitutes a work week. It seems to me that neither group has any understanding what the American worker does each and every week.

Not that it should be any surprise.

Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.

With the hours they will be working, it’s a wonder they even qualify for medical benefits. It almost seems like they are working part-time. Sort of.

This from the Republican viewpoint:

“Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”

Those mean Democrats. They want members of congress to actually work. They want to keep congressmen like Jack Kingston away from their families. I guess that’s why they refer to it as public service. As in they are serving their nation. Whining about time away from the wife and kids sounds pathetic.

They had no problem sending American service members off to Iraq. I know Representative Jack Kingston enjoys posing with American service members when they come back from Iraq. I bet a lot of them want to be home with their wife and kids too. Instead, they are in Iraq stuck in the middle of a civil war. Maybe next time congressmen Jack Kingston uses an American soldier back from Iraq as a prop in a photo, he can tell them about the hardship for working a 5-day work week.

UPDATE - While Representative Jack Kingston (R-Ga) was whining about having to actually work five whole days a week in Washington DC, 10 more American GI’s were killed in Iraq today.

5-day work week is a Capitol Hill culture shock [Washington Post]

An 18 year old girl that worked at a Kentucky McDonalds was made to go into her manager’s tiny office and remove all of her clothing to facilitate a strip search. Some guy on the phone claiming to be a cop told the McDonalds manager to do it. The girl proceeded to be humiliated and even sexually assaulted by the manager’s boyfriend. All because the guy on the phone said to do it.

Oh yeah, the whole thing is captured on video surveillance tape.

As it turned out, the guy on the phone of course was not a cop, but a wannabe cop. He turned out to be a prison guard.

He lives in Florida and has been pulling this same scam for years. Armed with a AT&T calling cards purchased at his local Wal-Mart, this guy called various fast food restaurants across the country and told them to do strip searches on someone “suspected” of a crime. Sometimes it was an employee. Sometimes it was a customer.

He was tracked down down by real cops in Kentucky and charged with a whole host of crimes. Being that he was tried by authorities in Kentucky with a jury consisted of people from Kentucky, he was found Not Guilty. Even though they have the surveillance tape from Wal-Mart showing the man buying the actual AT&T calling card used to call the McDonalds. Even though they found another AT&T calling card in his trailer used in a similar stunt to another fast food restaurant.

He was still found NOT GUILTY.

The young woman humiliated by the McDonalds manager is suing McDonalds for $200 million. Though I’m sure she won’t get $200 million, she will most certainly get something.

People need to know their rights.

Case Closed? [ABC News]

When right-wing radio talk show host Dennis Prager isn’t doing his radio show or performing Led Zeppelin cover tunes on the accordion, he writes commentary on the Townhall website. I’ve never heard of the website. Then again, I don’t normally read websites that feature the writings of wingnuts such as Dennis Prager.

Personally, I wish Dennis Prager would just speak though his accordion music. Let the rock’n sounds of the squeeze box do all his talking.

Dennis is mad because the first Muslim congressman wants to take his oath of office with his hand on the Koran instead of the Bible. Is it really that hard to believe that a Muslim might want to use the Koran instead of the Bible when he or she takes the oath of office?

He wrote:

He should not be allowed to do so — not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization …. Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.

Undermines American civilization? Let’s not get all overly dramatic here. You know what I think undermines American civilization? Dorky white haired guys that play the accordion.

How ironic that Prager would state that America is interested only in the Bible. He might be interested in learning that Congressman elect Keith Ellison will be taking an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. This includes the First Amendment. The part that grants everyone the right to practice their own religion. The part that prohibits the government from preferring one religion over another. In other words, one holy book over another.

I don’t understand what the problem is. Then again, it seems kind of silly to me to put your hand on a book you hold dear and demean it by using it as a prop. I guess if all of the Christians are using the Bible, the first Muslim congressman ought to be able to use the Koran.

It’s no big deal.