THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

Today used to be called Armistice Day.  It was on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month that an armistice declared World War I officially over.

World War I was known as the war to end all wars.  Now, several wars later, we call the day Veterans Day.

Of course, they didn't call it World War I.  It was called The Great War.  They didn't start numbering these things until the next big one broke out. 

My father fought in World War II.  He was a medical corpsman with a rifle, a draftee who earned a Bronze Star.

And his birthday was November eleventh.

SUCH A DEAL!

An undercover cop arrested a Florida woman for trying to sell her grandchild for $30,000.

Actually, she wanted $75,000 but the cop talked her down to $30,000.

So not only did the cop make a good bust, he also got a great price on a 12-week-old boy.

HOW TALL IS YOUR LORD?

Poland is building the world's tallest Jesus statue.  It will stand 167 feet tall.

Currently, the world's tallest Jesus statue is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  It stands 125 feet tall.

It should be noted that the actual Jesus stood 5 feet 10 inches tall*.

(*as measured by the shroud of Turin.  However, the Jewish historian Josephus had Jesus at 135 cubits, or 4' 6".  But by another measure of the cubit, the same estimate would make Jesus 5' 1" tall.)

IN POLITICS...

Oklahomans will choose a new governor on Tuesday.

A headline in last Sunday's Tulsa World read, "OKLAHOMA'S NEXT GOVERNOR FACES MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS."

So no matter who is elected, they're gonna' go nuts.

***

Also on the ballot, State Question 755 would ban Sharia law in Oklahoma.

That should put an end to all the local stonings and beheadings we've been hearing about lately.

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ANOTHER DELAWARE WINGNUT

"The exact phrase 'separation of Church and State' came out of Adolph Hitler's mouth, that's where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State ask them why they're Nazis."
-- Delaware Congressional candidate Glen Urquhart

WHEN RABBIS FLY

Dr. Eli Landau has written "The White Book." It is a pork cookbook. Landau is an Israeli Jew.

Pork is not kosher. It's not even legal in some parts of Israel. You can't raise pigs in Israel, except for scientific purposes. But you can then eat them after you study them. Sort of like the Japanese and whaling.

Israeli butchers have had their shops burned down for selling pork. That's what's known as Israeli barbecue.

To order pork in a restaurant, you have to ask for "the white steak."

Reviews for "The White Book" are rolling in. Here are a couple.

• Rabbi Shimon Felix: "There's something childish to being so naughty. It's more mature and adult to look at this as an ancient tradition."
• Rabbi Yuval Cherlow: I'm very disappointed by this book. I'm very sorry and it hurts me."

Yes, but it tastes so good.

The book, published in Tel Aviv, has sold about 2,000 copies, not bad in a country of 7.6 million. Why so much acceptance? Rabbi Felix says, "It's perceived as being from Tel Aviv, and what goes on in Tel Aviv, nobody cares."

Sort of like Americans and Las Vegas.

(NYT)

Art Gilmore's was a voice you've probably heard. He voiced coming attractions from ths 1940s into at least the 70s. Here's an Art Gilmore quiz. For what classic pictures did he record these promotional lines?

• "The screen jumps for joy with Glendon Swarthout's inside story of those uproatious Easter vacations."
• "Never before has any film contained such a full measure of the joy of living."
• "This could be the beginning of the end of the human race."
• "The story of a love so powerful it broke through all the barriers past and present, between life and death; between the golden girl in the bank tower and the tawdry redhead that he tried to remake in her image."

And the answers:

• Where the Boys Are
• It's a Wondergul Life
• The War of rhe Worlds
• Vertigo

Art Gilmore died last month. He was 98.

In the field in Afghanistan, women Marines seem to be better at winning the hearts and minds and collecting information from men than than the male Marines. As G Company captain Brandon Turner puts it, "You put a lady in front of them, they'll start blabbing at the mouth."

Men.

They're the same everywhere.

There's also an intimidation factor. Lance Corporal Emily Naslund says, "I'd be nervous, too, if I had five chicks in my living room with weapons.

(NYT)

OH, BABY, BABY IT'S A WILD WORLD!

Last month we got hits from:

• Japan
• Taiwan
• Canada
• Luxembourg
• Germany
• Brazil
• Russia
• Latvia
• China
• and the U.S. of A.

Hello world!

TURN IT UP! TURN IT UP!

The U.S. House and Senate have passed bills making broadcasters turn down the TV, so the commercials are no louder than the programs.

Because, after all, isn't this one of the major problems facing the country these days?

LOTSA LAST WORDS

A man who blew his brains out at Harvard University left behind a 1,904 page suicide note.

Ya' gotta' wonder how he ever found time to kill himself.

QUOTATION FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

"Some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view."

-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 9/11.

OOPS

Pittsburgh police beat up 25 people who were protesting police brutality.

That'll teach 'em.

Police surrounded the group and then told them to disperse.

Oops.

***

Tornado sirens went off accidentally in Hutchinson, Kansas.

The sirens sound when a city official dials a secret phone number.

The sirens were activated when someone dialed a wrong number.

Oops.

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THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DELAWARE SENATORIAL CANDIDATE CHRISTINE O'DONNELL

"It is not enough to be abstinent with other people, you also have to be be abstinent alone. The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can't masturbate without lust."

"People are created in God's image. Homosexuality is an identity adopted through societal factors. It's an identity disorder."

“Well, I know that the [gay pride parade] here in Los Angeles, there was S&M going on. There was mocking sodomy, mocking, you know, all kinds of crude sexual acts. … Because—because authorities were too afraid to be called, quote, unquote, ‘homophobic’ because these homosexual special rights groups do get away with [anything].”

"Condoms will not protect you from AIDS."

"We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools. Now we're having weekly shootings."

"Creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the world in six days, six 24-hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting that."

"American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains."

On nude sunbathing: "I mean, it is very difficult, I'm sure, for a man to sit there and look at his girlfriend naked and not want to go a bit further."

On co-ed college dorms: "What's next? Orgy rooms? Menage trois rooms?"

"I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up."

"One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that, We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar."

"During the primary, I heard the audible voice of God. … He said, 'Credibility.' It wasn't a thought in my head. I thought it meant I was going to win. But after the primary, I got credibility."

“[My opponents are] following me. They follow me home at night. I make sure that I come back to the townhouse and then we have our team come out and check all the bushes and check all the cars to make sure that—they follow me. … That’s what’s disgusting, as you can see from the YouTube videos. They knock on the door at all hours of the night. They’re hiding in the bushes when I’m at candidate forums.”

POLL TOLL

Today is election day in Afghanistan.

The death toll is 17.

NON-COMBAT DEATHS

Since President Obama announced the end of U.S. combat in Iraq, the death toll is two.

But at least these two American soldiers were shot to death by an Iraqi soldier on an Iraqi army base.

Not that the difference matters to those two American solders.

THEY'RE JUST ADVISORS, YOU KNOW

U.S. non-combat troops armed with mortars and machine guns attacked Iraqi insurgents in Diyala Province the other day.  Non-combat pilots flying Apache and Kiowa helicopters and F-16 jets provided air support with cannon fire and 500-pound bombs.

The U.S. combat mission in Iraq officially ended on September first.

WHAT, NO REINDEER?

Malaysian TV pulled a spot celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, after some Muslim complaints.

The ad featured  a flying trishaw (a tricycle rickshaw) driven across the night sky by an old man with white hair.

Think sleigh.  Think Santa.  Think Christmas.

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A DAY

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, as declared by the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP).

So don't kill yourself today.

Maybe I should have posted this earlier in the day.

WORKS FOR ME

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

-- British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).