Some More Politicians Who Managed To Get Their Feet In Their Mouths.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It always amazes me that politicians, who should be well aware that every word they say will be recorded somewhere, are so prone to speak without thinking.

On the other hand maybe they do think about what they are going to say and see nothing wrong with it. That is a very distinct possibility.

Either way it’s good for the rest of us.

We all like to laugh and who better to laugh at than a stupid politician.

Enjoy.

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”Feminism was established so as

to allow unattractive women easier access

to the mainstream of society.”

Rush Limbaugh

 

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“Schwarzenegger is going to find out that,

unlike a Hollywood movie set,

the bullets coming at him in this campaign

are going to be real bullets.”

Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser

for the California Democratic Party

 

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 “We are not without accomplishment.

We have managed to distribute poverty equally.”

Nguen Co Thatch,

Vietnamese Foreign Minister.

 

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“When the President does it

that means that it’s not illegal.”

Richard M. Nixon

 

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“During my service in

the United States Congress,

I took the initiative in

creating the Internet.”

 Al Gore.

 

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“Exercise freaks

… are the ones putting stress

on the health care system.”

Rush Limbaugh

 

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“Capital punishment is our way

of demonstrating the sanctity of life.”

Orrin Hatch

 

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“If you’ve seen one city slum,

you’ve seen them all.”

Spiro Agnew

 

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“From time to time there are going to

be things that occur that are acts of God

that cannot be prevented.”

Rick Perry,

on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in 2010

 

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”Well, I learned a lot….

I went down to (Latin America) to find out

from them and (learn) their views.

You’d be surprised.

They’re all individual countries.”

Ronald Reagan

 

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“We know that no one person can succeed

unless everybody else succeeds.”

Howard Dean.

 

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“The more toppings a man has on his pizza,

I believe the more manly he is.

A manly man don’t want it piled high with vegetables!

He would call that a sissy pizza.”

Herman Cain

 

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“What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind.

Or not to have a mind at all.

How true that is.”

Vice President Dan Quayle

 

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“I’ve now been in 57 states

– I think one left to go.”

Barack Obama

at a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon.

 

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“Stand up, Chuck, let ’em see ya.”

Joe Biden

to Missouri State Sen. Chuck Graham

… who’s in a wheelchair

 

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“In America,

anybody may become president,

and I suppose it’s just one of the risks you take.”

Adlai Stevenson

two-time Democratic presidential nominee

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J.F.K.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Fifty-one years ago today the United States 35th President, John F Kennedy, was assassinated at Dealy Plaza, in Dallas, Texas. We all know the story and the various conspiracy theories that have been written about ad nauseam over the past half century so this post is not about that.

Rather it is about one of the legacies of the JFK name, the USS John F Kennedy, the only ship of her class (a variant of the Kitty Hawk class of aircraft carrier) and the last conventionally powered carrier built for the United States Navy.

Although it was retired in 2007 after nearly 40 years of service in the United States Navy, the Kennedy was a very impressive ship. For those who like the details it measures 1,052 feet long, has a beam of 130 feet, and draws 37 feet of water. The flight deck is 1,046 feet by 252 feet.

The JFK displaces 81,430 tons at full load and her compliment is 155 officers, 2,775 enlisted (ship’s company), and 2,160 enlisted and 320 officers (embarked air wing).

it’s top speed is 32 knots, and her cruising speed is 20 knots. The operational range at 30 knots is 4,000 miles while the maximum cruising range is 12,000 miles.

USS JFK is equipped with 4 aircraft elevators and features 4 steam-powered catapults and 4 arresting wires. The carrier was capable of launching and recovering aircraft simultaneously and could embark 80+ aircraft, depending on mission requirements.

Aircraft on board included 56 F/A-18 hornet strike fighters, 6 S-3B Viking ASW aircraft, 4 EA-6B Prowler offensive electronic warfare aircraft, 4 E-2C Hawkeye electronic early warning aircraft, 2 ES-3A Shadow electronic warfare (SIGINT) aircraft, 4 SH-60F Seahawk ASW helicopters, and 2 HH-60H Seahawk combat search and rescue aircraft.

Its armaments included two Mk 29 Sea Sparrow Guided Missile Launch Systems, two RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) systems, and two Mk 15 Phalanx 20mm CIWS (Close In Weapon System.)

During it’s service it was stationed some of the time in the Mediterranean area.

If you have never seen one of these babies up close and personal and wanted to get an idea of just how big and impressive they are have a look at the aeriel photograph below, taken as the JFK berthed at the island of Malta.

Compared to the houses, cars and people you can see in the shot I’m not sure the word ‘big’ is big enough to describe it.

I mean I wouldn’t want to mess with it. Would you?

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None. That’s Ninguno, Aucun, Keiner, Zero!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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In the summer in Farnborough in Hampshire, England one of the biggest events in the aviation industry takes place. It’s call the Farnborough Air Show.

I remember when I used to work in that industry helping to prepare invitations, information packs, and all the usual PR stuff. Farnborough is THE place to meet and greet both those who buy aircraft and those firms like Boeing and AIrbus who build them and provide tens of thousands of jobs for smaller companies.

So it is an important event.

At this year’s show they named the world’s best airline, in fact they named the top ten best airlines.

And despite the United States building some of the best airplanes in the world, and despite the United States having some of the world’s largest and busiest airlines, do you know how many United States airlines made it into the top ten?

The title of this post probably gave it away. The answer is….

None. That’s ninguno, aucun, keiner, zero!

Even the regional category for North America was won by Air Canada.

Apparently, not only are air travelers in America to be treated as potential terrorists, herded and prodded and scanned and humiliated when they are trying to get on to an airplane. But when they do, the comfort and service they can expect will be second rate.

I think that’s a disgrace. America should be leading the world in the standard of their airlines. They should be at least one, if not more, of the top ten list every year offering a consistently high standard that their customers (that’s you and me) deserve.

And this award is decided by the votes of millions of travelers, so customers’ opinions do count.

So time for United States airlines to ditch those bureaucratic bean counters who decide that they can squeeze just another row of seats into an airplane so that everyone is uncomfortable. In the long term this kind of thinking doesn’t save you money, it loses you money. And when your customers vote for the best airline, they don’t vote for you!

For those of you who are interested, this year’s best airline was the Hong Kong based Cathay Pacific. They were voted best performer across all types of travel, economy, and luxury.

Cathay Pacific World’s Best Airline 2014

Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines placed second and third respectively in the global category, with last year’s winner, Emirates, slipping to fourth. Fifth to tenth places went to Turkish Airlines, ANA All Nippon Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Asiana Airlines, Etihad Airways and Lufthansa respectively.

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I Don’t Believe It! – The Bureaucrats Have Done Something Sensible!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It had to happen eventually.

Admittedly we’ve been waiting for a long, long, long time, but finally the bureaucrats seem to have done something sensible.

Sort of.

But hold on!

US citizens, fear not, your bureaucrats are standing firm. They are not included in this minor breakthrough.

It’s all about the snoopers.

In this case Google, who thinks it has the right to collect any and all information it can from people who use its search engine to find things on the internet.

But as a result of a recent European Union Court of Justice ruling, EU citizens have been given the ‘right to be forgotten’. Certain users can now ask search engines to remove results for queries that include their name, where those results are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed.”

Google is complying, but reluctantly, making the whole process anything but straightforward and easy. It is launching a service that lets European users ask for personal information to be deleted from the search engine, but on its ‘right to forget’ form users will be asked to provide links to the material they want removed, their country of origin, a reason for their request, AND also attach a valid photo identity.

And keeping its options as open as it can, Google has also said, “In implementing this decision, we will assess each individual request and attempt to balance the privacy rights of the individual with the public’s right to know and distribute information. When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information — for example, information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials.”

Who defines “the public’s right to know” has not yet been clarified, but I bet you if it is left up to Google what is in the public interest will be remarkably similar to what is in Google’s interest too.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

Come on all you American bureaucrats, America used to lead the world, what are you waiting for?

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Jeremiah Denton.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Jeremiah Denton died today.

He was 89 years old.

He was also a Senator for Alabama, but that’s not why he is the subject of this post, after all we don’t hold politicians in very high regard here.

No, Jeremiah Denton is being remembered for his time in service in the Navy, and mostly because of the period he spent as a Prisoner Of War courtesy of the North Vietnamese.

In all he spent almost eight years as a POW in North Vietnam (four of them in solitary confinement). He later wrote a book about his experiences, which in turn became a movie.

At the time Denton was US Naval Aviator and was the Commanding Officer of Attack Squadron Seventy-Five aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence.

On 18 July 1965, while he and Lieutenant Bill Tschudy, his navigator/bombardier, were leading twenty-eight planes on a bombing mission, their jet was hit by enemy fire and the two men ejected over the city of Thanh Hoa in North Vietnam, where they were captured and taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese.

Denton is best known for a 1966 televised press conference in which he was forced to participate as an American POW by his North Vietnamese captors.

During the press conference Denton had the presence of mind to use the opportunity to send a coded message confirming for the first time to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence and Americans that American POWs were being tortured in North Vietnam.

To send his message Denton repeatedly blinked his eyes in Morse code during the interview, spelling out the word, “T-O-R-T-U-R-E”.

He was also questioned about his support for the U.S. war in Vietnam, to which he replied: “I don’t know what is happening, but whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. Whatever the position of my government, I believe in it, yes sir. I am a member of that government, and it is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live.”

While a prisoner, he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Denton was later awarded the Navy Cross and several other decorations, mostly for heroism while a prisoner of war.

These days loyalty and initiative are not as valued as they once were, or as they should be. Anyone who had such values during their lifetime is worth remembering.

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For those interested you can read more on Wikipedia or do a search on Google.

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Try Braking, It Gives Your Driving A Bit Of 00mph.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It’s pun day.

The gift that just keeps on giving.

Try out this latest selection of word play gems.

Enjoy!

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When she lost her job in a toothpaste factory

for dropping the toothpaste tubes,

the girl was completely crestfallen.

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The first meteorologists who studied fog were mistified.

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This couple went on a sea cruise to sea if they could save their marriage,

but they soon drifted apart!

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The guy always cheated at golf,

he didn’t play the fairway.

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I was telling a friend last night

that I made $1,000 by selling manure.

He said, “That’s gross.”

I said, “No, that’s net.”

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What do you get if you eat a Blackberry?

A Bluetooth.

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My sex life is unbelievable.

Whenever I tell people I have a sex life,

they don’t believe me.

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I can’t understand why my new automatic

air freshener doesn’t work even though

I’ve just put brand new batteries in it.

It just doesn’t make scents.

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If you crossed a fortune teller with a prostitute

would you get your whoroscope!

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Tom said to his friend, “I think we should feed my wife herbicide.”

The friend said, “weed killer?”

“My point exactly,” Tom replied.

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I was throwing rice at an Indian wedding

and accidentally started a pilau fight.

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When I worked in a building supplies store,

one day this guy came in shouting and swearing

about needing something to fill a big hole in his wall.

Needless to say, I showed him the door.

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17 days until I stop using aerosol deodorants.

Roll on!

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When I took my car in for a service

the guy at the shop said it would soon

need a new pair of shock absorbers.

He didn’t say when though

– the suspension’s killing me.

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As a grown man I feel awkward admitting that I still play with my train set,

so I hide it under the duvet.

No one will find it now, I’ve covered my tracks.

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I was having dinner with Mr T and he said,

“Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

I said, “How else would I talk? And I ain’t no fool.”

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I was surprised when my psychic friend complimented

me on the way I had cooked his steak.

“Well done” is rare from a medium.

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I travel the land,

Asking rides from kind strangers:

I’m a hitchhaiku.

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An old lady at the park said to me today,

“I see your dog’s fetching balls.”

I said, “I know, but, at your age,

you shouldn’t really be looking.”

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After feeling a little depressed lately,

so I decided to treat myself to the new Jay-Z endorsed back-scratcher.

Now I’ve got 99 problems but an itch ain’t one.

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