Hasty Ruminations

Recently I was asked to play in a golf tournament. At first I said, “Naaahhh! I already play 3 to 4 times a week.”

Then they said to me ” Come on, it’s for handicapped and blind kids .”

Then I thought…

“Man, I could win this.”

Tip o’ the hat to Bob Brown.

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the brown house on the corner.
Dispatcher: Do you have an address?
Caller: No, I’m wearing a blouse and slacks, why?

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: Someone broke into my house and took a bite out of my ham and cheese sandwich.
Dispatcher: Excuse me?
Caller: I made a ham and cheese sandwich and left it on the kitchen table and when I came back from the bathroom, someone had taken a bite out of it.
Dispatcher: Was anything else taken?
Caller: No, but this has happened to me before and I’m sick and tired of it.

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: Hi, is this the Police?
Dispatcher: This is 9-1-1. Do you need police assistance?
Caller: Well, I don’t know who to call. Can you tell me how to cook a turkey? I’ve never cooked one before.

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 Fire or emergency?
Caller: Fire, I guess.
Dispatcher: How can I help you sir?
Caller: I was wondering…..does the fire department put snow chains on their trucks?
Dispatcher: Yes sir, do you have an emergency?
Caller: Well, I’ve spent the last 4 hours trying to put these chains on my tires and… well.. do you think the fire department could come over and help me?
Dispatcher: Help you what?
Caller: Help me get these chains on my car!

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is the nature of your emergency?
Caller: I’m trying to reach nine eleven but my phone doesn’t have an eleven on it.
Dispatcher: This is nine eleven.
Caller: I thought you just said it was nine-one-one
Dispatcher: Yes, ma’am nine-one-one and nine-eleven are the same thing.
Caller: Honey, I may be old, but I’m not stupid.

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What’s the nature of your emergency?
Caller: My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart.
Dispatcher: Is this her first child?
Caller: No, you idiot! This is her husband!

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 Caller: Yeah, I’m having trouble breathing. I’m all out of breath. I think I’m going to pass out.
Dispatcher: Sir, where are you calling from?
Caller: I’m at a pay phone. North and Foster.
Dispatcher: Sir, an ambulance is on the way. Are you an asthmatic?
Caller: No
Dispatcher: What were you doing before you started having trouble breathing?
Caller: Running from the Police.

Vice President Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back while moving boxes and will be in a wheelchair for Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony.

In other news: Cheney has a muscle in his back.

Cheney was helping to move into his new home outside Washington in McLean, Va., when he injured his back. His doctor recommended that he use a wheelchair for the next couple of days.

Actually, his nuclear bionic heart power supply just got a refueling. If you see a guy moving himself in his wheelchair, jogging with his arms, pumping his fists against the pavement, lifting himself and the wheelchair with every “step”, well, that’s Cheney.

The box that gave him a problem was labeled, “WMD’s For Two: Saddam Sings Broadway” and “Caution: 400 lbs.”.

Not only did an American pilot on the USAIR flight save everyone by his mastery of the double bird strike on takeoff at LaGuardia Airport yesterday, landing the plane intact in the East River; there are now two fewer Canadian geese flying in U.S. airspace!

We should bring the troops home from Iraq-istan, and concentrate on building an unmanned drone airplane with lasers which can burn the tail feathers off Canadian gooses in our airspace at a range of 3 miles. After they crash, Lacy the Wonder Dog would be delighted to run around, barking her head off, and collect them for the authorities.

And McDonald’s should come up with some gooseburger recipes in their secret kitchens.

Remember the first major flap in Obama’s campaign? It was over the outspoken minister of his church in Chicago, Rev Jeremiah Wright, who didn’t seem to get it and just shut up already.

Highlights:

- “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” Sept. 16, 2001 (the first Sunday after 9/11)

- “The government . . . wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no. God damn America; that’s in the bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.” 2003

- “The United States of White America.” July 22, 2007

One might think that once burned, twice shy. Perhaps it is time to separate church people from state people, not just church and state. Perhaps it is time to take one’s religion private, away from the eyes of the press and the world.

But, in trouble with gay rights folks over announcing Rev Rick Warren (who helped overturn the California gay initiative) to give the inauguration invocation, the Obama people have announced that gay Episcopalean Bishop Gene Robinson will now offer a prayer at the Lincoln Memorial. Conservative Episcopaleans have already left their U.S. and Canadian province, and formed a separate one as a protest to openly gay prelates like him.

What is that I see on your faces, oh recently defeated r’Publicans and Democratics? A SMIRK? Well, I hope you brought enough for everyone!

“The state fossil of Nebraska is the mammoth.

There are three species of mammoth here: the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), and the Imperial mammoth (Mammuthus imperator). These large elephants traveled the Interstate between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago when Nebraska was at the southern edge of the large glaciers that covered North America. Vast prairies dotted with lakes developed near the ice sheets, providing an ideal grassy habitat for these large grazing creatures, as well as for bison, beavers, prairie dogs, and condors.”

All of which leads me to my question: If they had pigs back then which were bigger than today’s pigs by the same amount that mammoths are bigger than today’s elephants,

… could we call it “Jurassic pork”?

When the r’Publicans put up Sarah Palin to be VP, I got a renewed interest in natural – uh, National – politics.

As Stew Magoo put it so eruditely, “Hubbah-hubbah, whatta hottie!” or grunts to that effect.

So, my speed reading made a tiny error due to testosterone overload – a common affliction, I am told.

I read Sarah as Governator of nebr-ASKA, not al-ASKA. Tiny error, I’d say.

Which explains why Lacy the Wonder Pup and I are wintering over here in the State of the Corn Huskers as the temperature plumets (AGAIN) to below zero, and wind chills set new records for velocity and penetration in the Big Easy-mostly-sealed-5th-wheel-trailer-and-sometimes-wind-tunnel.

And worse – no Sarah.

George H.W. Bush, the first President Bush, just said that maybe his second son Jeb would make a good President.

Let’s think about that for a few moments. G.H.W.B. was Reagan’s VP and apparently did an adequate job. His main contribution to the Presidency was a decently focused war to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, and then to leave the area promptly. His second contribution was to exhort us to “Read my lips: no new taxes.” Which he lied about, promptly raising taxes to the glee of the Democratic Congress and losing his second term election. His third remarkable skill was in judging other politicians: he elevated Dan Quayle from well deserved obscurity to the Vice Presidency.

His son George Junior has been arguably the worst modern president, though I still hold out Jimmy Carter for the monument to that “distinction”.

So, there are two good reasons to question whether we should listen to G.H.W. Bush about anything. And that’s before we get to look at Jeb’s record in any detail.

This proposition is about as silly as New Yorkers thinking about Caroline Kennedy as a U.S. Senator. Those poor people. One amateur after another, looks like.