Bad Week For The Pentagon

Dr. Gates Has A Bad Week
At The Hands Of

Muslims, Lesbians, and Boeing

Dr. Robert Gates - SecDef

Wisconsin's very own Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin , who has a Facebook page, and her wife of 10 years, Lauren Azar, two of the most pleasant looking women in our Nation's Capital, were initially denied boarding on a Defense Department plane last week, because the DOD doesn't consider Ms. Azar to be a spouse of Rep. Baldwin. Since they are both women, and are married to each other, they are "lesbians" and being a "lesbian" is supposed to be a very secret thing at the Defense Department. This is because of DOD's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But unfortunately someone apparently did ask, and was subsequently told. Uh oh.

So, of course, the US Secretary of Defense and the US Speaker of the House had to get involved and resolve this stand-off on the tarmac. It had to be a tough situation. Two smiling middle-aged women facing off against the US Air Force.

You guessed it. The chicks won. Off they went into the wild blue yonder.

Holding hands, no doubt.

Lauren Azar - in tres froid black and white

Rep. Tammy Baldwin - WI 2nd District

So, if you're like most normal people, you're wondering, "What the hell? This is what they're spending time on in DC?" Apparently so. Just fyi, Tammy voted against the Iraq War, and in favor of impeaching Dick Cheney. She also likes universal health care. She and Lauren are both lawyers.

I'm hoping that Dr. Gates, who is a career CIA spook and generally a smart guy, was embarrassed about wasting time on this silliness. Sadly though, the initial evidence points the other way. Instead of a quick apology and a stern phone call to the airbase, the good doctor insisted that Nancy Pelosi send him written instructions to let the ladies catch their flight, which Ms. Pelosi, to her credit, promptly did, no doubt thinking she had just wasted 10 minutes of her valuable time on a really stupid made-up problem. Then, Dr. Gates, apparently with plenty of time on his hands, tried to lure Fancy Nancy into a verbal pissing contest over whose rules were being followed, the DOD's or Congresses, strongly implying that Nancy had asked him to break a House rule and that he had done so only because she made him.

Very ironically, this little (and it's really little) temper tantrum makes Dr. Gates look like the biggest pussy in this teapot tempest.

Speaking of national defense, back in Iraq, our allies the Shiites seemed to have almost lost the war last week, to other Shiites. The fact that our guy Maliki even started the fight seemed to take Dr. Gates by surprise. And Gates is supposed to be our intel superstar! God only knows what this all means, but the word from the tv people is that Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army beat the pants off the Iraqi government forces, even when our Air Force sent in planes to help. Maybe our Air Force didn't do a good job because it was focused on bigger issues here in the U.S., like keeping girlie girls off their planes. Let's hope that was what happened, and that this was not an example of their best work.

Muqtada - Winning Ugly

I don't know how he does it, but Sadr just keeps on keeping on. He has friends in Iran, where he stays when he needs a few days off. This drives our guys crazy, but I really don't understand why we care. If we had any sense, we would be the ones cutting a deal with Sadr, and not letting the Iranians have him. Duh. So, count this as loss number 2 for the week for Dr. Gates.

And of course, number 3 is Boeing's successful whining about losing the Air Force's KC-45A air tanker contract to Northrop Grumman, after the Air Force screwed up the process five years ago by their officers taking bribes from Boeing. Now Boeing, after phoning in it's bid effort, is trying to call itself, untruthfully, the only domestic plane builder, and accuses the DOD of putting our defense into the hands of dirty little foreigners, including the French. While this is not entirely Gate's fault, he should have seen it coming and managed it better.

KC 45A

I really can't hardly wait for the Democrats to take over.

There She Goes Again

Apparently Words Sort of Matter Sometimes

Latest Press Release From:

Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama’s Record of Exaggerations & Misstatements
Once again, the Obama campaign is getting caught saying one thing while doing another. They are personally attacking Hillary even though Sen. Obama has been found mispeaking and embellishing facts about himself more than ten times in recent months. Senator Obama’s campaign is based on words –not a record of deeds – and if those words aren’t backed up by facts, there’s not much else left.
"Senator Obama has called himself a constitutional professor, claimed credit for passing legislation that never left committee, and apparently inflated his role as a community organizer among other issues. When it comes to his record, just words won't do. Senator Obama will have to use facts as well," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said.
Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, "Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter." In academia, there's a significant difference: professors have tenure while lecturers do not.

And a responsive Press Release from the University of Chicago:

Statement Regarding Barack Obama

The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer."
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

The bolding was added by me.

Res Ipsa Loquitur, y'all.

Swinger's Update

Woo Hoo!

More tidbits of data on the secret Swinger network here in the north Atlanta suburbs.

We've learned of two more ways that Swingers signal each other. Secret Swinger signals include flamingos, not real ones, either plastic ones or pictures of them. No word on color requirements. This disclosure recalled for us that a mid-50ish couple who moved last summer from down the street had a bunch of Flamingos at their moving away yard sale. Hmm.

Why flamingos? Beats me. But I'm studying them for clues.

So far, I've learned that Flamingos are not all necessarily pink, and apparently they come from Las Vegas, the Swinger capital of the world. So, having the Flamingo as the Swinger mascot makes some good sense.

Swinger HQ

Another secret Swinger signal is to decorate the ground around your mailbox post with rocks. This makes sense around here, where rocks are not generally used in decorative landscaping. Typically the small area around your mailbox post will be just grass, or pine straw, or flowers. But not rocks. So, this should leave less room for potential misunderstandings, which could be very awkward given the subject matter.

Well, gee, I'm really sorry dude, but when I saw the rocks around your mailbox I figured it would be cool to sleep with your wife.

Yeah, we've all been there.

One can also decorate the mailbox with additional hints about oneself!

Not-so-subliminal Bragging

So, flamingos and mailbox rocks. Swinger magnets.

One more piece of news. But first to set the scene, we live in a pretty big development of 1,100 homes, broken up into smaller neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are conveniently sorted more or less by "price points," so we all know pretty much how much everyone else's house cost. This is a big point of interest in suburbs generally. Our neighborhood is about the smallest, with 70 houses.

But . . . word is that the Swingers are shunning us. And by "us" I mean our whole little neighborhood. Which is shocking when you consider how incredibly attractive and interesting we are as a group. I feel oddly insulted and hurt, like I've been turned down by a prostitute.

So, why the Swinger snub? Well, it's Bunko's fault. The ladies on our street play Bunko. Bunko, I'm told, is a game that requires only slightly more skill than Deal or No Deal. It is played by suburban women who are looking for a good excuse to get out of the house and drink heavily with their friends. Why they think they need an excuse for that escapes me. And Bunko is not just an activity, it's a league. There are prizes. There's a waiting list to get in. There aren't any playoffs or anything, but there is a lot of gossip. And there's the rub.

The Swingers are afraid of the Bunko gossip. Or at least one is.

As the story goes, from a local Realtor, a woman was looking at a house on our street, but shied away after hearing how the Bunko league worked. Apparently she was "swinging" with a guy on the street, and didn't want his wife to find out. Well! This raises all kinds of questions! I thought that to be a Swinger that you had to do it as a team. Otherwise you're just some horny guy, or chick, trying to get laid. If you're just sleeping with another woman behind your wife's back, that's not swinging, that's cheating, fooling around, getting some on the side, etc.

I am really disappointed in the integrity of our local Swingers. You'd think there would be standards.