Thursday, March 11, 2010

THIS IS WHAT JEFF FOXWORTHY HAS TO SAY ABOUT 'LIVING IN OREGON!

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work there, you live in Oregon .
If you've worn shorts, sandals and a parka at the same time, you live in Oregon .
If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed the wrong number, you live in Oregon .
If you measure distance in hours, you live in Oregon ..
If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you live in Oregon .
If you have switched from 'heat' to 'A/C' and back again in the same day, you live in Oregon .
If you install security lights on your house and garage but leave both doors unlocked, you live in Oregon
If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in Central, Southern or Eastern Oregon .
If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over 2 layers of clothes or under a raincoat, you live in Oregon .
If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow and ice, you live in Oregon .
If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction, you live in Oregon .
If you feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash, you live in Oregon ..
If you know more than 10 ways to order coffee, you live in Oregon .
If you know more people who own boats than air conditioners, you live in Oregon .
If you stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the "Walk" signal, you live in Oregon
If you consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain, you live in Oregon .
If you can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle's Best, and Dutch Bros, you live in Oregon.
If you know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon, you live in Oregon .
If you know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup , Abiqua, Issaquah, Oregon , Umpqua, Yakima and Willamette, you live in Oregon .
If you consider swimming an indoor sport, you live in Oregon.
If you know that Boring is a city and not just a feeling, you live in Oregon .
If you can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Thai food, you live in Oregon .
If you never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho, you live in Oregon .
If you have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain, you live in Oregon
If you think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists, you live in Oregon .
If you buy new sunglasses every year, because you cannot find the old ones after such
a long time, you live in Oregon .
If you actually understand these jokes and forward them to all your OREGON friends, you
live or have lived in Oregon .

Sunday, March 7, 2010

FRED REED

Meddling Where We Oughtn't

Yet Again

March 2, 2010

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Mexico, if left alone, would be a reasonably successful and stable country of the upper Third World. It isn’t Haiti, isn’t Bangla Desh, isn’t a dying patient with multiple tubes in every orifice. If not strong-armed into chaos, it would be all right.

But the United States won’t leave it alone. Washington is pushing it to wage Washington’s “war on drugs.” As usual, Washington has no idea what it is doing. Nor does it care. Should untoward consequences follow, it will be surprised, this being the characteristic condition of American foreign policy.

Untoward consequences are quite available. The narcotraficantes that Mexico is supposed to fight for Washington are a formidable armed force. They have unlimited money, which they use to buy heavy weapons. They have unlimited money, which they use to corrupt the government of a comparatively poor country. Mexico does not have the wherewithal to fight them. The army here is small and poorly armed. This is reasonable since Mexico has neither territorial ambitions nor enemies. Except, certainly in effect, the United States.

The government is outgunned by the narcos. Further, the traffickers have the advantage of being dispersed and invisible. The situation is, or quickly could be, exactly that faced by the US in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: narcos can appear from nowhere, blow up police stations, assassinate judges, or kill a dozen teenagers at a party. Then they disappear.

Thus they can destabilize the nation and hold the population hostage. This doesn’t bother Americans, who barely know where Mexico is. It bothers Mexicans, who know their people are dying in an exported American war.

Bear in mind that anti-Americanism thrives here and throughout Latin America. Much of it is justified; some of it isn’t. The US population, the most comprehensively ignorant of the advanced world, knows nothing of the reasons or of the countries. But the hostility is real. Shrugging it off could prove a mistake.

If Mexicans had to choose between the drug lords, who are often seen as counter-culture heroes, and the US, seen as an enemy too dangerous to be openly called an enemy, many would go with their compatriots in the drug trade. A repertoire of narco-corridos, songs glorifying the narcos, exists. Los Tigres del Norte in Sinaloa have specialized in these.

Although Mexico doesn’t have America’s festering antagonisms--blacks hate whites hate browns hate men hate women hate Jews— there are groups, particularly in Chiapas, who are potential insurgents. If they should ally themselves with the narcos and go to the mountains, or set up cells in the cities, the result would be a long, bloody civil war: Afghanistan on the US border. This is not Freddian fantasy. Thoughtful Mexicans worry about it.

The Mexican army cannot handle an uprising of any magnitude. The Pentagon would then intervene to “help” Mexico. Que dios nos ayude.

he Pentagon is working toward toward intervention, whether it know that it is or not. There is something called the Merida Initiative, in which the US supplies money and advice to transform Mexican society to combat the narcos. The colonels in the Five-Sided Squirrel Cage really believe they can reform the Mexican judiciary and infuse the police with virtuous fervor for American ideals. I spoke to a field-grade American officer about this. He had taken a six-month intensive course in Spanish at the Defense Language Institute and spoke less Spanish than my daughter did after two weeks here. The money would be used to reform the Mexican government, he said, which would then make short work of the narcos. He explained this with the earnest mission-orientedness that officers display when they are about to do something senseless.

I didn’t say, “Give me a freaking break,” because I knew it would accomplish nothing. You don’t “reform” countries you don’t understand by solemn brainless enthusiasm. The money would vanish like water in dry sand. Mexico does not want to be remade in the image of the United States, for remarkably good reasons. The more the US meddles, the less legitimate the government that permits it will be. Not a good idea.

Why does the military regularly misestimate the nature of the Third World? Because soldiers live, and think, in a rigid, conformist, orderly world in which good (us) and evil (them) are starkly distinct, in which one gives orders and things happen, in which all are on the team and working toward a common goal. Officers are insular, self-righteous, ruthless (after all, they are fighting Evil) and clueless. The workings of the Third World are the polar opposite of orderliness of the military. The colonels are instantly lost in the complex relationships, informal arrangements, family loyalties and invisible politics of Latin America. And they do not understand that when they intervene, they are not the good guys.

This is why we hear again and again from some buzz-cut horse’s ass with stars on his shoulders about how we are trying so hard to “help the Afghan people.”

One might ask: Why are drugs Mexico’s problem? Americans, huge numbers of them, want drugs. If they didn’t want drugs, the narcos couldn’t sell the stuff. But the American government doesn’t want its citizens to have drugs. Fine. Let the government attack its own citizens. Leave others out of it.

Washington isn’t going to rid the US of drugs any more than it rid the country of alcohol. Popular demand is far too great. The US crawls with crank labs, open-air crack markets, meth cookers, fields of marijuhweenie too large not to have been noticed by state authorities. California talks of legalizing grass in defiance of the Feds. All God’s chillun loves drugs—good ol’ boys, Ivy League students, their professors, high-school kids, middle-class suburbanies, congressman, musicians, and several Republicans. Mexico is going to change this? They must be smoking something good in DC.

A friend recently told me of being in a boat off Florida with several honeys in bikinis aboard. A Coast Guard cutter pulled alongside because the guys wanted to look at the babes. My buddy, being sociable, hollered, “What are you guys doing?”

“We’re looking for drugs.”

“Oh. We’ll follow you.”

Whereupon the Coast Guardies broke out laughing. Even the cops don’t really care.

Mexico can’t fix things, if indeed they are broken. Leave the place alone.

MICHAEL MOORE WRITES OBAMA

President Obama: Replace Rahm with Me ...an open letter from Michael Moore

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Dear President Obama,

I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.

I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.

I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.

And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don't need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do.

Now, don't get too giddy with excitement over my offer, because you and I are going to be up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week and I am going to get you pumped up for battle every single day (see photo). Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me:

"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED ME, NOT THE REPUBLICANS, TO RUN THE COUNTRY! I AM IN CHARGE! I WILL ORDER ALL OBSTRUCTIONISTS OUTTA MY WAY! IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DON'T LIKE WHAT I'M DOING THEY CAN THROW MY ASS OUT IN 2012. IN THE MEANTIME, I CALL THE SHOTS ON THEIR BEHALF! NOW, CONGRESS, DROP AND GIVE ME 50!!"

Then we will put on our jogging sweats and run up to Capitol Hill. We will take names, kick butts, and then take some more names. If we have to give a few noogies or half-nelson's, then so be it. In our pockets we will have a piece of paper to show the pansy Dems just how much they won by in 2008 -- and the poll results that show the majority of Americans oppose the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and want the bankers punished. Like drill sergeants, we will get right up in their faces and ask them, "WHAT PART OF THE PUBLIC MANDATE DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, SOLDIER?!! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!"

I know this is the job Rahm Emanuel was supposed to be doing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have always admired Rahm Emanuel (if you don't count his getting NAFTA pushed through Congress in the '90s which destroyed towns like Flint, Michigan. I know, picky-picky.). He is what we needed for a long time -- a no-apologies, take-no-prisoners fighting machine. Someone who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and pound the right wing into submission. Far from being the foul-mouthed bully he has been portrayed as, Rahm is the one who BEAT UP the bullies to protect us from them.

That's certainly what he did in 2006. After six long, miserable years of the middle-class getting slaughtered and the poor being flushed down the toilet, Rahm Emanuel took on the job of returning Congress to the Democrats. No one believed it could be done.

But he did it. Big time. He put the fear of God into the party of Rush and Newt. They had never been so scared. More importantly, though, he instilled a sense of hope in the Democrats that they could actually score the mother of all hat tricks in 2008 -- and with you, an African American no less, in the pole position!

It worked. The Darkness ended. The vast majority of nation wept with joy on the night of the election (those who weren't weeping went out and bought a record number of guns and ammo). Unlike the last president, you didn't "win" by 537 votes in Florida (although Gore won the popular vote by a half-million), you beat McCain nationally by 9,522,083 votes! The House Democrats got a walloping 79-vote margin. The Senate Dems would caucus with a supermajority of 60 votes unheard of in over 30 years. The wars would now end. America would have universal health care. Wall Street and the banks would, at the very least, be reined in. Hardworking citizens would not be thrown out of their homes. It was supposed to be the dawning of a new age.

But the Republicans were not going to go quietly into the night. You see, instead of having just one Rahm Emanuel, they are ALL Rahm Emanuels. That's why they usually win. Unlike most Democrats, they are relentless and unstoppable. When they believe in something (which is usually themselves and the K Street job they hope to be rewarded with someday), they'll fight for it till the death. They are loyal to a fault to each other (they were never able to denounce Bush, even though they knew he was destroying the party). They dig their heels in deep no matter what. If you exiled them to a lone chunk of melting polar ice cap, they would keep insisting that it was just a normal "January thaw," even as the frigid Arctic waters rose above their God-fearing necks ("See what I mean -- this water is COLD! What 'global *warming*'?! Adam and Eve rode dinos...aagghh!!... gulp gulp gulp").

We thought we were all done with this craziness, but we were mistaken. Like a beast that you just can't cage, the Republicans convinced not only the media, but YOU and your fellow Dems, that 59 votes was a *minority*! Precious time was lost trying to reach a "consensus" and trying to be "bipartisan."

Well, you and the Democrats have been in charge now for over a year and not one banking regulation has been reinstated. We don't have universal health care. The war in Afghanistan has escalated. And tens of thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs and be thrown out of their homes. For most of us, it's just simply no longer good enough that Bush is gone. Woo hoo. Bush is gone. Yippee. That hasn't created one new friggin' job.

You're such a good guy, Mr. President. You came to Washington with your hand extended to the Republicans and they just chopped it off. You wanted to be respectful and they decided that they were going to say "no" to everything you suggested. Yet, you kept on saying you still believed in bipartisanship.

Well, if you really want bipartisanship, just go ahead and let the Republicans win in November. Then you'll get all the bipartisanship you want.

Let me be clear about one thing: The Democrats on Election Day 2010 are going to get an ass-whoopin' of biblical proportions if things don't change right now. And after the new Republican majority takes over, they, along with a few conservative Democrats in Congress, will get to bipartisanly impeach you for being a socialist and a citizen of Kenya. How nice to see both sides of the aisle working together again!

And the brief window we had to fix this country will be gone.

Gone.

Gone, baby, gone.

I don't know what your team has been up to, but they haven't served you well. And Rahm, poor Rahm, has turned into a fighter -- not of Republicans, but of the left. He called those of us who want universal health care "f***ing retarded." Look, I don't know if Rahm is the problem or if it's Gibbs or Axelrod or any of the other great people we owe a debt of thanks to for getting you elected. All I know is that whatever is fueling your White House it's now running on fumes. Time to shake things up! Time to bring me in to get you pumped up every morning! Go Barack! Yay Obama! Fight, Team, Fight!

I'm packed and ready to come to D.C. tomorrow. If it helps, you won't really be losing Rahm entirely because I'll be bringing his brother with me -- my agent, Ari Emanuel. Man, you should see HIM negotiate a deal! Have you ever wanted to see Mitch McConnell walking around Capitol Hill carrying his own head in his hands after it's just been handed to him by the infamous Ari? Oh, baby, it won't be pretty -- but boy will it be sweet!

What say you, Barack? Me and you against the world! Yes we can! It'll be fun -- and we may just get something done. Whaddaya got to lose? Hope?

Retardedly yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Just to give you an idea of the new style I'll be bringing with me, when a cornhole like Sen. Ben Nelson tries to hold you up next time, this is what I will tell him in order to get his vote: "You've got exactly 30 seconds to rescind your demand or I will personally make sure that Nebraska doesn't get one more federal dollar for the rest of Obama's term. And then I will let everyone in your state know that you wear Sooner panties, backwards. NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 50!"