The Wine Commonsewer

Are You A Designated Terrorist?

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Are you a Bible Thumping Christian? Just back from Iraq with a beef against the VA? Think the Second Amendment isn't about duck hunting? Perhaps you're just a  garden variety Right Wing Extremist, closet libertarian, anti-abortion activist, or Ted Nugent. WELL! Chances are J-No has already designated you as an Official DHS Terrorist. Now you can wear your designation with pride.

Show the world who you are! Ball caps, thongs, tee shirts, baby bibs, BBQ aprons. Get yours today.

The idea came to TWC in his sleep and then it was handed off to Lawrence Baird  along with the logo, the result of which is an entire line of designated terrorist apparel. Buy One! Do it today!

As Ever,

TWC

Copp Shoppe is a proud sponsor of TWC

The Morning After

 

UPDATE: TWC has received emails from several people who didn't get the cartoon.

Understandably, like many things we do around here, it is a bit obscure but.......

The morning after April 15 many taxpayers feel like they got a good screwing by Uncle Sam which is symbolized by the protruding belly.

The idea came to me in my sleep last night.

Of course, it wasn't entirely original. Way back in the days of my vagrant yoot there was an underground poster with a very angry, PG Lucy shaking her fist in the air and saying something very similar except it was about Charlie Brown not Uncle Sugar.

As Always,

TWC

Never Again

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army. The one (count em) deed that may keep some Rooskies from burning in hell for eternity.

There is a reason why the Israelis don't take a dime's worth of crap from anybody. It's because history has made it pretty clear about what happens to unarmed Jews.

I was here (at Auschwitz) naked as a young girl. I was 16. I am Israeli, I have a country, I have a flag. I have a president.-Merka Shevach

A day in the life of an Israeli (female) soldier here.

Shalom.

As Ever,

TWC

Merry Christmas: Signed, Officer Friendly

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

About a week before Christmas one of the Boys in Blue handed Mrs TWC a $167.00 citation in the Target parking lot. That's a hefty pile of Samolians for a momentary lapse, the result of which was an  ill-timed left turn across a double double yella line. That's half a week's take home pay for some of the working poor. How do they swing that kind of fine and still make the rent?

She hadn't had a ticket since she was commuting to San Diego State just after they built the CHP outpost in Temecula to combat the ongoing and flagrant disregard for the hated double nickel speed law by those traveling I-15.

Want to go to Traffic School and get that baby off your record? Send in the fine and another $54.00. Plus you gotta pay to go to traffic school. Say what? Like the insurance company doesn't have access to that information? In the day, you  spent a boring Saturday at traffic school (except the gory movies), they dropped the fine and dismissed the ticket. No record anywhere except the local court, where it showed as dismissed.

Got the bill from Superior Court today and I'm fumin'. Feel like John Milner, file this under C.S. Brian did that once, filed a ticket under C.S. I mean. It didn't work out so well for him. It'd be worse now I suppose.

Ma says traffic fines help support The Policeman's Likker Fund. [shrugs]

As Ever,

TWC

Why I Don't Fly

Gentle Readers,

Unlike many of my brethren, TWC is not afraid to fly. I just hate it. Planes are crowded, you breath recycled, oxygen depleted air, and, likely as not, you're assigned a seat next to somebody barely one step up from the average seatmate on a Greyhound Bus. And then there is the entire experience before check-in with the TSA crowd.

Mrs TWC is stuck in Phoenix this morning, which means she will miss the conference dinner she is scheduled for in Indianapolis tonight (it was twenty degrees there last night). 

This happens to her about half the time she flies. I doubt that she's being picked on, if it happens to her, it's likely happening to others. While the airlines are deserving of their share of scorn,  the real bottleneck is the antiquated air traffic control system and the patchwork of government owned airports, each of which operates using rules that were state of the art when Pan Am's China Clippers were going to Hawaii. 

Bob Poole's air transportation policy work is here.

As Ever,

TWC

Bob Barr For President

Gentle Readers,

Better to support a guy like Bob Barr that's on the money seventy or eighty percent of the time than to vote for someone who has promised to stab you in the eye with a sharp stick, just so that the other guy, who has promised to rabbit punch you with a sledge hammer, won't get elected.

Obama? McCain? Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

The Wine Commonsewer doesn't endorse candidates for public office except when he does.

Bob Barr on the issues here.

As Ever,

TWC

Palin for President

Gentle Readers,

Video is here.

Disclaimer: TWC makes no representation one way or another of the suitability of Michael or Sarah for Veep. Except that I'd rather have a drink with Sarah than Joe Bidet. And, remember, McCain is older than Barrack.

As Ever,

TWC

Dead People Vote AND File Tax Returns

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

The letter from IRS is addressed to:

John Q Decd Taxpayer

For the record, Decd means Deceased. For those of you who cannot find Iraq on a map, with both hands, Deceased means Dead.

This is a demand letter requesting Mr Taxpayer to file a personal tax return for 2006. One minor glitch; John Q Taxpayer died on Christmas Eve of 2005. A fact that was pointed out on the 2005 tax return that John Q's widow filed.

In addition, IRS knows that John Q is fertilizing pine trees at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, otherwise the letter would not be addressed to John Q Deceased Taxpayer.

Your tax dollars at work, here and abroad.

Yes I know that dead people can actually file tax returns, they just can't sign them. It was a rhetorical device.

As Ever,

TWC

Mrs TWC on 9/11

There were also stories in Education Week's coverage about "lessons" schoolchildren could learn from the tragedy. Reported lessons include geography, lessons about letter writing, and lessons about making civic contributions to our nation.

Sadly, I have yet to see any newspaper or school specialist call for lessons about liberty, about constitutional guarantees, about how these terrorist acts will test fundamental values of freedom versus safety. Schools will not ask schoolchildren to think about how it came to be that only the terrorists had weapons while flight crews, pilots, and ordinary citizens did not.

H L Mencken On The Californicate Budget Impasse

Soon or late the money to pay the State’s mounting bills will have to be found, and there is only one place to look for it. That is in the pockets of persons who earn the communal income by doing some sort of useful work. Politicians never earn it, and neither do the uplifters. It must always come, in the last analysis, from men who go to work in the morning and labor hard all day.

Therein lies the crux of the matter, the identity of who will pick up the tab for the multi-billion* dollar budget shortfall, whose very existence can and should be laid directly at the feet of Guber Schwarzzengroper and the Californicate Legislature, whose spending habits rival those of the proverbial drunk sailor. Except the sailor is spending his own money, not yours. Apologies to Ron Reagan.

As Ever,

TWC

*Your mileage may vary