.

…OK, I didn’t find one in my half-assed Gizoogling, either. Feh. However, I did happen across the personal site of the composer of the scores for the remake of Dawn of teh Dead, Slither, and some little flick called “300,” whatever that is. There’s some neat stuff to listen to there.

Hooray hooray the first of May
outdoor fucking begins today.

The USA had Vietnam, where we went to a little tiny country and tried to impose our will on it via military force and did not succeed.

Then, the USSR had Afghanistan, where they went to a little tiny country and tried to impose their will on it via military force and did not succeed.

All even, right? Fuck that! We couldn’t end the game tied with those evil commies! So we had to go to another little tiny country and try to impose our will on it via military force and not succeed.

And since there is no more USSR, we win forever!!!!111!!!

In your face, commie fuckwads!

A few years ago, I noted an announcement in the Christian Science Monitor from President Bush that he, in his infinite wisdom, was proclaiming November 20-odd as Thanksgiving.

I thought that was odd, because hadn’t Lincoln already organized a national Thanksgiving?

And now I see he is announcing Loyalty Day.

Now, far be it from me to give Mr. Bush the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t want to look stupid. Is re-announcing holidays and Official Patriotism Days every year something that every president does? Have I just not been paying attention?

Can anyone set me straight?

Look down the back of the couch, dude.

What’s a crumpler bag?

Crumpler make the world’s coolest laptop bags and stuff. I personally own a Considerable Embarrassment, and can easily spend ten minutes clicking everything on the site just for fun.

How can you not? I mean, it’s the only website I know of with a dunny chain.

Loyalty Day originally began as “Americanization Day” in 1921 as a counter to the Communists’ May 1 celebration of the Russian Revolution. On May 1, 1930, 10,000 VFW members staged a rally at New York’s Union Square to promote patriotism. Through a resolution adopted in 1949, May 1 evolved into Loyalty Day. Observances began in 1950 on April 28 and climaxed May 1 when more than five million people across the nation held rallies. In New York City, more than 100,000 people rallied for America. In 1958 Congress enacted Public Law 529 proclaiming Loyalty Day a permanent fixture on the nation’s calendar.

Courtesy of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

But I just adore “Loyalty Day”. The record of the American interaction with Communism is always good for belly laughs. No matter what the Commies did, the Americans always had to respond. And when the Commies did something totally fucking asinine, like send their version of the National Guard to the homes of people who don’t show up for the “totally voluntary May Day celebrations”, the U.S. had to respond to that, as well.

Now, there’s a perfectly appropriate response to that kind of thing. The appropriate response is to point one’s finger, after the fashion of Nelson Muntz, and loudly proclaim “ha-ha!”. But was that the American response? Of course not. The American response was “We’re Number One! U.S.A.!!! You rotten Commies can’t best us in anything! You think YOU know how to be completely fucking asinine? You don’t know anything about completely fucking asinine!! WE will show you how to do completely fucking asinine the right way – the American way!!!!!!” and promptly came up with the Orwellian-sounding “Loyalty Day”.

Pretty much all of American history from the end of WWII on makes sense once you realize that the driving imperative in all our doings has been to make sure no matter what the “evildoers” did, we did it better – even when it was something no sane, moral person should have been doing in the first place.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/29/10301/1721

“Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide “diplomatic security” services globally. The massive contract is the largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major profiteer in the “war on terror.”

…

“Blackwater was originally slated to be paid $229.5 million for five years, according to a State Department contract list. Yet as of June 30, just two years into the program, it had been paid a total of $321,715,794. When confronted with this apparent $100 million discrepancy, the State Department could not readily explain it. Blackwater’s two years of WPPS (Worldwide Personal Protection Services, a little known State Department program) earnings exceed many estimates of the company’s total government contracts, which the Virginian-Pilot recently put at $290 million combined since 2000. Six years ago the government paid Blackwater less than $250,000.”

Seriously, why aren’t these fuckers in jail yet?

Eisenhower’s signing statement, 7/18/1958.

Nice catch, J-. Interesting how it’s not appropriate to simultaneously express loyalty to the country and concern for children’s health. Oh right, Ike was a Republican.

Anne Laurie- you’re close, but not quite there. It isn’t just that they’re not interested in doing anything difficult, demanding, or dangerous but that they clearly hold in contempt anyone who does such things without huge recompense- they act like anyone who does for others without the prospect of getting rich in the process is a sucker.

Including fighting wars

12,000 turned out for the celebrations in Edinburgh: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6610507.stm

Oh, and I got yer “Loyalty Day” right here fuckwads…

None of the people around Bush have any personal experience with that “go do your job” concept you so rightly espouse,Mikey. In the Bushworld, if it looks to be unpleasant, demanding, or difficult — much less life-threatening — the correct response is to hang around making excuses and whining until the hoi polloi rides off and they can award each other more medals and no-bid contracts. The Reichtard meme that America was “changed forever” by Vietnam is true so far as those gutless scumsuckers go… people like Dubya “AWOL” Bush and Dick “Five deferments, other priorities” Cheney have made their entire careers from goldbricking, featherbedding, and related forms of petty treason, and they’ve inspired every succeeding generation of Reichtard larvae to strive for the same level of incompetence.