Little Green Footballs just got a huge plug from Norman Podhoretz on the O’Reilly Factor (i.e., try clicking on that link now and see if you can actually get through).
Man, I wished he linked to me recently…
Archive of entries posted on 14th September 2004
Help Please
It’s Like Observing Apes… Damn, Dirty Apes
I’ve found the single biggest depository of nuts, the Democratic Underground, especially entertaining to watch after the CBS forgery scandal. Crazy old coot Dan Rather has become a folk hero to them while other media is just a wing of the RNC. To be fair, there are a few who admit the documents are probably faked (and are angrily attacked), which makes their opinion on the forged documents a bit more enlightened than CBS news.
Anyway, I found this person arguing that this is a win/win situation for Democrats especially notable. How far-gone from rational thought can you be?
And the sad thing is these people think they’re smarter than everyone else… or is that the funny thing? I sometime get those two confused.
Our Military: A Civilian During a World War
My grandfather, Master Sergeant Peter Lefavi (ret), fought in the Pacific front in WWII, serving on a B-17 bomber. He was a career military man, serving in the Air Force (after it was formed) until he retired. He died after a long fight with Alzheimer in December of 2000.
This, though, is the story of my grandmother, Dorothy Lefavi. I recently talked with her about what it was like to be a U.S. citizen during WWII. As you’ll read, it had its own hardships and even casualties as people did their best to support the war from home. I hope this is informative for everyone.
I met your grandfather in 1940. It was open house at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois, the largest technical training base in the U.S., and I went there with two friends who lived Kankakee (Chanute is 60 miles south). We drove down to the air force base and walked across it, and two fellas offered to show us the base. Since we didn’t know where we were going, we accepted. They invited us to stay for the dance that night, first taking us to dinner and a show. Your grandfather kept coming to Kankakee after that.
Since he didn’t have a car, he kept hiring friends to take him to Kankakee. His home base was Mitchell field in NY where he was assigned after training. Before returning there, he proposed to me. He sent the engagement ring in the mail after he left.
The war started December 7th, 1941, and then I was married to your grandfather on January 1st, 1942, in Tucson, AZ. I didn’t want to get married if war started, but he talked me into it. I went by Greyhound to Tucson and married in a Methodist church there. One of the men from his outfit was there with his girlfriend as attendants. Your grandfather left the day after we were married for the south Pacific. The next time I saw him was in the union railroad station in Chicago, IL, about three years later.
It was the time of gas and food rationing, with books of stamps for gasoline and food staples such as sugar. Everyone was in the same boat then, and you didn’t think about it much. I took the civil service exam and then went to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for work. I worked as a typist in one of the offices. While working in Wright-Patterson, I would take the train from Springfield, Ohio, to visit my family in Illinois because of the gas rationing. During some of the time when most of the men were gone it was difficult for businesses to find help. At one time, they needed some one on the gas island, so I worked at a gas station in Kankakee.
Airmail letters used onion skin paper, and we had APO’s to write to. Your grandfather wrote everyday while away, but the mail was censored, so some of it was occasionally cut out. I would get several letters at a time. I wrote back to him everyday, too.
While he was in the South Pacific, they would fly into Australia for a break. He would send gifts from there such as sheepskin rugs – a pink one and a white one – and a shell necklace. He would use broken pieces of windows from crashed planes to fill the openings of the sea shells. For some of the clothes from Australia, the buttons were made of tin — they didn’t have normal button material in Australia.
Shell necklace made by my grandfather
For entertainment, I would go to movies and learned to roller-skate. That’s when roller-skating rinks started. I lived near a small town called Bonnefield which had an old hall they turned into a roller-skating rink. Your grandfather sent me a pair of shoe skates with zippers.
They sent over men to the Pacific they called 90-day wonders because that’s all the instruction the pilots had. Your grandfather opened a school in the jungles to help train them. His main job, though, was as a tailgunner and chief engineer in a B-17 bomber. During his tour, he was in the Fiji Islands and New Caledonia. He had a stack of pennants from all the islands.
Your grandfather took a GED test while in the service. He could have gone to OCS while overseas, but then he would have been sent back for another three years.
The government eventually built Elwood ammunition plant in the cornfields of Illinois. I worked in the fuse and boosters section until I was asked to move into the laboratory where gunpowder was tested for moisture. While working there, I wore uniforms I changed into at a change house where you had to make sure you had no metal on you so there couldn’t be sparks. There were no nails in shoes – used wooden pegs in place of them. Instead of hairpins, we used little pieces of wood with toothpicks in them. Everyone was warned if there was an explosion of any kind not to go to the change house because between where we worked and there was where the black powder was stored.
One night during the graveyard shift in the summer of ’42, the lights flashed as if it were lightning, and we thought there was possibly an electrical storm. We heard a loud BOOM! Everyone ran out into the field as instructed. We found out that there had been an explosion killing a number of people and breaking windows in Chicago – about fifty miles away. Who worked there were mostly other women like myself and a few men.
One fella said he was standing next to a conveyor belt and saw a fireball coming down, and, next thing he knew, he was picking himself up out of the field with a broken collar bone. There were also pieces of bodies found in the trees scattered over a large area. Forty-eight civilian workers were killed.
I worked at the city national bank in Kankakee as a teller in the car loan department until your grandfather returned. He came back in December, in time for our third anniversary.
Rather’s Last Stand Political Comic: Special Edition
I know many of you liked the comic I did Sunday. It’s become precious to you and part of popular culture. Still, it wasn’t what I had envisioned.
Thanks to technology that simply wasn’t available two days ago, reader R Strong has digitally enhanced the comic so it’s now more like what I originally envisioned.
New Digitally Enhanced Comic
Having loved the previous one so, I know many of you are not going to like this change, but art is a living thing that should evolve with the times.
Now if only I could make it so Greedo fires first…
Are These “Experts” Hobos Off the Street?
Look at the CBS News’s defense of their forged documents with special note to the last three paragraphs in this linked story. They focus on how supposedly hard it is not to do a superscript in MS Word.
You just hit CTRL-Z (Undo) after it automatically superscripts it, jackass! Can I be an expert now? Or maybe CBS should bring in that little paperclip guy as an expert since he was the one who told me I could undo autoformatting.
You know they’re in trouble when people like me who aren’t even typists know more than their supposed “experts.”
This is like watching a trainwreck times ten.
Know Thy Enemy: The Mainstream Media
As the presidential election nears, the mainstream media is becoming increasingly more volatile and dangerous. Thus I sent out my crack research staff to find out as much as they can about those who tell us all we know.
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
* The mainstream media is known in the blogosphere as MSM which stands for Magnus Stultus Medius.
* Many say the MSM is highly liberal biased, a charge easily proven by watching it.
* Apparently there is some curse on the media where, if they ever actually admit they’re biased, they’ll instantly die.
* Liberal bias of the mainstream media dates back to the Revolutionary War when the papers claimed the conflict was all about oil.
* Watching an hour of network news destroys as many brain cells as a case of beer.
* If approached by the MSM, don’t make any sudden movements or they’ll misrepresent you.
* In cable news, CNN is left leaning while FOX News is right leaning. The leanings of MSNBC is unknown since no one watches it.
* When the MSM quotes an anonymous source, that’s a codeword for “It’s a slow news day, so we needed to make crap up.”
* It’s not like interesting stuff happens every single day; if there’s nothing to report, just show a rerun of Hogan’s Heroes.
* Also, the word “expert” is a codeword for “some guy we found who agrees with our viewpoint.”
* Bill O’Reilly has gained huge popularity in the media for actually asking tough questions to guests… and then telling them to shut up.
* The New York Times used to be a respected newspaper, but now it’s a partisan rag that’s reportedly no longer any good for even wrapping fish.
* And, as big as the New York Times is, you think they could fit in Dilbert somewhere.
* If news anchors are sitting behind a desk, they’re most likely not wearing pants.
* Members of the MSM, when threatened with contradicting facts, will inhale air to puff themselves up in an attempt to scare away enemies.
* Every time I see Michael Moore he seems to be trying to scare away enemies.
* If ever asked questions by the MSM, say, “No comment.” The best they can distort that to is “Comment no.”
* For the longest time, the main news was on at 6pm. This is because members of the MSM are cold-blooded and need to spend the day sunning themselves on a rock.
* If a reporter grabs your leg in an attempt to get an exclusive, you may have to gnaw it off to escape.
* Better yet, gnaw off his arms.
* What do you call a reporter with no arms and no legs hanging on the wall…
* The MSM is always reporting about the poor and on human interest stories, but they never talk about the things regular people care about such as which monkeys are most flammable.
* Weekly World News just makes up most of its stories (batboy!). This makes its main difference from other newspapers in that it’s actually entertaining to read.
* If there is a breaking news story and new information isn’t available, the MSM will trot out people to speculate about the story. The way this is different from you and your cousin Skeeter guessing about what’s happening is that the MSM people are better dressed.
* If you’re at an event and someone claims to be from the MSM, ask for his press pass. When he shows it to you, quickly grab it and then run away while giggling like a school girl.
* Dan Rather suffers from nine different mental illnesses (I have documents to back that up authenticated by experts), and what appear to be folksy sayings are just his insane ramblings. No one will fire him, though, out of fear of being beaten to death with a sack of hammers.
* BTW, the frequency is 2.4 GHz, Kenneth, similar to that of a microwave.
* While many in MSM act like they’re fulfilling some sacred duty in their news reporting, in reality they’d fill their news show with dancing go-go girls if they thought it would improve ratings.
* If anyone starts a news show that’s filled with dancing go-go girls, they’re stealing my idea!
* There are some right-leaning sources of information such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and the average American.
* Many people find being dogged by the media a quite stressful experience, but one can get the media off their back by something as simple as a Molotov cocktail.
* With the advent of forged documents, this will decrease the news cycle on alleged political scandals because now the MSM can “prove” or “disprove” them at will. This will leave more time to cover trials of our ever more dangerous celebrities.
* Nowadays, many people’s main source of news is late night humor shows. Ironically, many people’s main source of stupid pet tricks is now the daily news.
* Some news organizations are considering replacing their anchors with jumping screeching monkeys. This would keep T.V. news about as informative and accurate, but reduce the perceived bias.
* In a fight between Aquaman and the mainstream media, the media would misquote all of Aquaman’s fish friends and ruin his reputation. Aquaman would then go on a drinking binge, eventually becoming a full blown alcoholic. He’ll hit rock bottom when he has to be rescued by a lifeguard in a public swimming pool. That will finally convince Aquaman to go to rehab. After that, he’ll continue to go to AA meetings every week while lecturing about the evils of alcohol at schools. After being ten years sober, he’ll die after getting hit by a schooner. The New York Times will only mention the unproven scandals in his obituary.
* The lederhosen-wearing MSM is quite disdainful of us pajama-wearing bloggers.
* The eventual goal of the MSM is to move from simple propaganda disguised as news to direct mind control.
* In the end, the blogosphere will topple the MSM. Then will start the great blog wars, in which most blogs will be eliminated. Left in the wake of destruction will now be a single man who will disseminate all news to the world while he sits on his dark throne drinking his puppy.