According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip-kiss prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back.

Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.

Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers, and then there are educators.

These pictures are from the European Rhythmic Gymnastcs Championships. They are ... interesting, to say the least. They just scream out for fun captions. They are numbered. Enter the number and your caption in the Tagboard or hit the "comment" link at the end of this post.

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Some of you might remember me posting about Chewie, one of the guys in my unit. Well, Chewie is still in the Army and still in my unit.

Lately, there has been a lot of construction on post. With this construction comes changes in the "No Parking" zones on post. Well, last week, during the middle of the day, they made Chewie's favorite parking spot a "No Parking" zone, and, before he came back to his car, he was ticketed.

His spot is still a No Parking Zone.

Everyday, he still parks in the same spot, and has not received another ticket.

Right after he gets out of his car, each day, he takes the ticket he received on the first day, and tucks it under his windshield wiper.

The MP's have yet to catch on.

I know I might be a little overly sensitive to this. What with living in Germany and all.

But does anyone else find this picture disturbing?

Let me set up this little story.

I read The Da Vinci Code while I was in Iraq. Very entertaining book. I tore through it in about 36 hours, and it's not exactly short. You might remember me talking about the library in the MWR facility on FOB Danger, where I was the Assistant Manager. The books in the library were not on loan. They were free to soldiers. I still have my copy.



In my opinion, it's a great book. I don't normally read thrillers, but I read this one, and couldn't put it down. (That's not me in the picture, by the way. My copy is a paperback, not a hard back.)

Enough set up. Let's get to the post!

So, a couple of days ago, I am walking through the book store on post. And I see this book:


I flipped through it. It was hard back. So, I read the liner notes. Then, scanned through the book.

It's absolutely brilliant. Darrell L. Bock spent over a year of painstaking research to investigate all of the references in the book. His conclusion is absolutely earth-shattering. It can be summed up as this: "It's not true. He made it all up!"


Imagine that, Sherlock.

I figured that one out the first time I picked up the book. I think it was the fact that the word "FICTION" was printed on the spine of the book that gave it away. Or maybe it was the fact that it happened to be in the FICTION section of the library I took it from.

I might be mistaken, but I thought that was the point. A fiction book not being true, and being entirely "made up".

I can't wait for this guy's follow up to this. Maybe, he'll tackle the Dr. Seuss books.

I can see it now. "Hort Didn't Hear the Who ... he just saw him", or maybe, "The Grinch Didn't Steal Christmas, he co-opted it into his winter marketing scheme", or even better, "Green Eggs and Ham: The Torquoise Truth".

Read the story on this one. Make sure you scroll down and get it all. Here's the picture:


If I were a customs agent or an immigration official, I would have detained him for the haircut without even opening the suitcase.

The contents of the suitcase would have just been icing on the cake.

I mean, REALLY! Am I wrong?

Take one look, and tell me if you don't come to the same conclusion that I did: "That boy aint right."

That's right. They attempted to drive from Havanna to Miami, and almost made it.

And so, here we go again. Congress makes another back-door assault on our Constitutional rights, in the name of national security.

Ben Franklin said:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Let me explain:
The 4th Amendment of the Constitution (one of the original 10 amendments that were included with the Constitution when it was ratified by the original 13 states, now known as the Bill of Rights) protects us against unlawful search and seizure ... as in, without a search warrant.

This amendment to the bill that renews the Patriot Act (which expires this year) would give the FBI the power to seize and search, among other things, your credit history, your financial records, your email , and everywhere you have ever gone on the Internet (your Internet service has the ability to track anything and everything you do on the Internet from email to all of your surfing, to include pop-ups). In the provisions of this amendment, the FBI would be bound legally to get this information from where it was held, but not bound to inform you.

For instance, the FBI could, without a warrant, demand that your bank turn over all of your transactions with it, ever. The FBI would not be bound to inform you, at all. Informing you would be the responsibility of the bank, if they so chose. The bank would not be legally bound to inform you, at all.

The same goes for your phone records, medical records, and everything your internet service could provide about your activity on the Internet. Your Internet service provider has everything you have ever done on the Internet. They have to. Everything you do on the 'net passes through them. Now, just how far back those records go is another thing.

I have a problem with this.

Why?

Not because I have anything to hide. It's because it's none of their business! Not only that, the Constitution guarantees that, unless they have a real good reason to go snooping in those things, they can't. The Constitution is the highest law in the land. Congress just can't willy-nilly override it with a simple law.

If they want to change the Constitution, why don't they just amend it? There are two ways lined out in the Constitution to change it, legally.

Actually, I know why. It's a long drawn out process. One that would require for the American people to know just how much freedom Congress was attempting to take away from them.

They think they are acting in our best interests.

Frankly, at this point in my life, it's not the people that want to harm me that scare me most. It's those that want to act in my "best interests" and think I am too ignorant to understand.

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." -- Louis Brandeis, Olmstead vs. the United States, 1928.

If you think just handing over your Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to the highest law enforcement agency in the land is a good idea, just raise your right hand, and say "Heil!".

I think that's an understatement.

But who would it be tough on first?

I mean think about it. Jackson or the state of California.

If he is convicted, and sentenced to prison, isn't the first question that has to be resolved is whether to send him to a male or female facility? Or is a conventional prison appropriate for him? I mean after all of the stuff that has been done to him, surgically, he is, not only, of indeterminate gender, but species, as well.

Surprise! Surprise!

Sometimes, I hate having a firm grasp of the obvious. I said this would happen. February 6th of this year to be exact. It was a Sunday. Right after they announced the results of the election.

Apparently, the Sunni leadership have a better grasp of how to manipulate the democratic process than most people were willing to give them credit for a few months ago.

Never mind they, as a minority, had maipulated and dominated the political scene in Iraq since the 1950's.

Go figure. Knowing some history comes in handy ... again.

(Found this on a website I was surfing.)

Earl was worried that his wife was getting hard of hearing. Not quite sure how to approach her about her hearing, he called the family doctor to discuss the problem.

The Doctor told him there is a simple informal test the husband could perform to give the doctor a better idea about her hearing loss. "Here's what you do," said the Doctor, "stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone, see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response."

That evening, the wife is in the kitchen cooking dinner, and Earl was in the den. He thinks, "I'm about 40 feet away, let's see what happens." Then in a normal tone he asks, "Honey, what's for dinner?"

No response. So, the husband moves to closer to the kitchen, about 30 feet from his wife and repeats, "Honey, what's for dinner?"

Still no response. Next, he moves into the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his wife and asks, "Hun, what's for dinner?"

Again he gets no response so, he walks up to the kitchen door, about 10 feet away: "Honey, what's for dinner?"

Again there is no response. So, he walks right up behind her: "Honey, what's for dinner?"

"Earl, for the FIFTH time, it's CHICKEN!"