I got this in an email from my nephew, Sgt. Dustin Ladd, who returned from Iraq several months ago. (It looks like Dustin got it from my Uncle Robert, who did two tours in Viet Nam. Either way, it’s priceless.)

If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in theater (That means “in Iraq”, for the rest of us civilians.) during the last 22 months, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are more likely to be shot and killed in our nation’s capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.

I’ll get the permit, you guys paint some signs. We gonna have us a peace rally!

“Make Love, Not Laws!”

“No More Violence in the Senate!”

“Hell No, We Won’t Go… to the polls”

Just a few days ago, I posted about an extravagant homeless project in L.A. The Midnight Mission recently completed a new $17 million facility, which seems like a lot of money that may have been better spent on programs to rehabilitate than on a building.

Well, today I got a comment straight from the horses mouth. To be honest, I’m flattered that my little blog got the attention of someone in direct connection with the mission. The comment was so well articulated and addressed nearly every point of my post that I had to give it its own place. The following was posted by Justin Wisniewski, who gave his email address as volunteer@midnightmission.org. If he’s a fake, at least he’s a good one. Hats off, Justin.

There are many problems inherent in this article.

First and foremost, The Midnight Mission is a privately funded organization and does not receive your tax dollars for its operation.

Secondly, The Midnight Mission is not a SHELTER. It’s a transitional housing program that uses a drug and alcohol recovery program, counseling, education, training, and job placement to build a bridge back to self sufficiency for those individuals in need. People don’t just get to walk in and get a free ride, they have to sign up for the program which usually runs anywhere from 18 – 24 months.

The “Hair Salon” is nothing more than a three chair barber shop that is actually run by individuals living in The Midnight Mission’s recovery program.

The “Movies” are a large communal day room where a projector shows various movies, TV shows, or current events on a white wall. The room is more of a respite center to get out of the rain, heat, cold, or just the dog eat dog environment of the streets.

And if you’ve ever seen an individual coming off the streets who has been addicted to drugs or alcohol, you know that they are in desperate need of physical recovery. The Gym offers a place for a person to get that need. If you think you can complain about it, remember that even the YMCA was new once, and those were free centers for individuals to use.

Before passing judgment on an organization you may know very little about, please take the time to research what The Midnight Mission stands for, and try coming down to the center to volunteer for the day. It will change your opinions and open you to a true plight on our streets.

In fact, I have “seen an individual coming off the streets who has been addicted to drugs or alcohol”, many of them, some of whom became regular acquaintances. If it were not for my experience at Faith City Mission in Amarillo, and a few other unrelated instances, I would not be so hard on the homeless system.

In fact, I did do some research on the story before I posted (I always do), but all I was able to find were more references to detracting stories. I apologize that I did not dig a bit deeper. But, the funny thing is that your rebuttal made all of my points valid. Any venture that proposes to help those in need must help them help themselves. And, if you what you say is true, Midnight Mission does just that. Once again, hats off.

(Via Drudge) This week the city of Los Angeles opens its latest crowning achievement, the $17 million “Midnight Mission” homeless shelter, complete with a full gym, movie room, and hair salon. It’s never been easier to be homeless! If I lived in L.A., I’d sure be tempted to give up the daily grind and go watch free movies, eat free food, and enjoy free hair do’s all day.

I don’t pretend to be a great social architect but it seems to me that 17 million dollars could put a heck of a lot of homeless people in career training or create a fair amount of low-income housing. I’m not alone in this thought. Apparently the National Alliance to End Homelessness is pretty upset at this gross misappropriation. The organization’s president, Nan Roman says:

“Since the late 1980s, America has built a mammoth infrastructure of shelters and the number of homeless has gone up, not down. It’s a bit of the if-you-build-it-they-will-come phenomenon at work.”

I think it’s very telling that each great success story on the road to liberal socialism becomes a perfect picture of why liberal socialism doesn’t work. Give a man a fish and he’ll be back tomorrow with a dozen friends wanting more free fish. Where does it end?

When I was in junior college, I was part of a group of students from the Baptist Student Union that worked one night a month at Faith City Mission. The cool thing about Faith City was that it wasn’t free. If you came in to the mission for a hot meal and warm bed, you’d get it, but only after you signed in and got a packet containing info on various day-labor businesses in the area. If you wanted to stay another night, you could, but only if you brought back paper proof that you visited the job placement places and made an honest effort to find work. If you expect a man to learn to fish for himself, you need to give him incentive and make sure he says fed while he learns. Have I beaten that analogy enough for today? I think so.

Read the complete article here.

A few weeks ago, I linked to an article in which a woman found a human finger in her Wendy’s chili. Gross, yes. But ever since infamous 1992 Stella v McDonald’s hot coffee case, any legal claim against a fast food giant has had to be looked at very carefully.

Now, first I want to be fair to poor old Stella. It turns out that the “Micky D’s coffee burned my butt” case has been pretty badly misrepresented. You can read all the details in this article, but Stella did receive third degree burns, requiring skin grafts, from coffee that, as a policy, was served at almost 200 degrees! (Youch!) AND, the $3 million dollar jury award was reduced to $600k by the judge. None the less, the case did spawn the age of the Stella Awards.

Now, back to Wendy’s. Police in Las Vegas seem to be very concerned over the fact that Anna Ayala, the finger-lickin’ victim, “has a history of filing lawsuits – including a claim against another fast-food restaurant.” So concerned, in fact, that the LVPD fraud division got a search warrant for Ayala’s house.

The problem with Anna’s case is that no one can get their hands on the short handed source of the offending digit. All searches have come up empty handed. According to Wendy’s, “The employees at the San Jose store were found to have all their fingers, and no suppliers of Wendy’s ingredients have reported any hand or finger injuries.” Hmm. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something seems amiss.

Anna’s defense? The police are “out to get her.” Uh huh…

“Lies, lies, lies, that’s all I am hearing,” she said. “They should look at Wendy’s. What are they hiding? Why are we being victimized again and again?”

More finger pointing. In the end it comes down to a matter who’s telling the truth. If the gloves don’t fit, you must acquit!

Unfortunately for Anna, Johnnie Cochran is busy defending another client… giving his closing arguments at the big courtroom in the sky.

Read the complete article here.

Do you have tender, childhood memories of “Sesame Street”? I sure do. Silly old Ernie endlessly pestering poor old Bert. Big Bird’s wide-eyed naivete. Kermit’s soft hearted interaction with kids my age. Good old, well meaning Grover, the worst waiter ever. And, of course, that great blue haired glutton, Cookie Monster. Well, if you share those precious memories with me; if you feel all warm and fuzzy inside with you hear that familiar toon (“Sunny day. Everything’s A-OK”); if you too long for the simple days of yore… GET OVER IT! Grow up! Act your age! And, most importantly, do NOT scarf down whole platefuls of cookies in a crumb flinging binge!!!

Yes, it’s true. Life is not the sunny days and a-ok’s we were promised. If you live in a trash can, you’re not a grouch, you’re a drunk. If you call your male roommate “good buddy” and your beds are next to each other, you’re probably gay. If you’re a waiter who can’t tell the difference between a bowl of soup and a straw hat, you’re going to be unemployed! And if you consume cookies fast enough to choke a snuffaluffagus, you’re going to die of obesity-induced diabetes!!

Sadly, our old sunny neighborhood has made quite a few concessions to reality since you and I left. (I blame that little falsetto fiend Elmo.) For example, this season “Sesame Street” is focusing on childhood obesity. Yep. You guessed it. Cookie Monster is on a diet. Oh, rest assured the left-leaning loons who run PBS (on our tax dollars) firmly deny that Mr. Monster has a “problem”. They have taken the cover-up and spin approach.

“We are not putting him on a diet … We’re teaching him moderation.”

So says, Dr. Rosemarie T. Truglio, the show’s vice president of research and education. Suuuure. Moderation. Like I’m going to fall for that one! I’ll bet they’ve got our poor furry friend tied to a chair in some dark room, force feeding him lettuce wrapped tofu! OH THE HUMANITY!!

Read the very entertaining full article at cnn.com. Link courtesy of PvP Online.

File this one under “Eeeeeww!!”

According to this Reuters article, a customer at a Wendy’s burger joint in San Jose had a rather… *urp* …unpleasant dining experience envolving a bowl of Wendy’s chili (which, incidentally, I would not eat if I was starving to death).

Here’s the direct quote from Ben Gale, director of the Dept. of Environmental Health.

“This individual apparently did take a spoonful [of chili], did have a finger in their mouth and then, you know, spit it out and recognized it. Then they had some kind of emotional reaction and [edit: unate the chili].”

Emotional reaction?! Gyyyeaaaahck! Talk about an understatement.

What is really funny is the ads that came up with the article on Yahoo News. (I swear I am NOT making this up.)

*Croons* Isn’t it ironic… don’t ya think?

(If you see a lot of blank space below this line, your screen resolution is too small! Scroll down to see the rest of this post and ask your kid how to set the resolution on your monitor. Thanks!)

I saw this banner ad on my favorite web comic, PvP. Scott Kurtz, who draws PvP, is a large fellow and has made many comments on his site about his size and how people react to it. I’m no fan of obesity, but I can certainly appreciate a good sense of humor. And the shirts on this web site are plain old funny. See all the designs at FatGuyShirts.com.

Okay, so that headline is a little off, but it was fun to come up with!

In the news in London, the National Union of Teachers, NUTs for short (I’m not making this up!), are championing a campaign to ban sexist insults on school playgrounds. It seems that the NUTs have decided that words like “slut” and “whore” promote domestic violence. (Wha?)

A NUT spokeswoman [edit: *snicker*] said: “Words like these promote the attitude that females are lesser beings, and as lesser beings they can become the target of violence… We need to nip that attitude in the bud and get kids to treat each other with respect.”

Playground kids… Respect… Yyyeah… Good luck with that.

No word yet on the legality of “Poop-head”.

Did anyone miss the Oscars last night? I didn’t…. I didn’t watch them, but I sure didn’t miss them.

I did see about 5 minutes of the show while flipping channels. I saw the make-up award recipients make a speech in the aisle (Wha??) and I saw most of Robin William’s “Sponge Bob’s not gay” shtick.

I read some of the news about the show and it sounds like I didn’t miss a thing. It got good ratings, but critics ravaged the show. I did run across a site with video-low-lights and I watched a couple. That was all it took to confirm my suspicion that 3 hours of Hollywood patting its own back is 3 hours I would rather spend plucking out my toe nails with pliers.

I guess I would have been more interested if they had nominated any movie I even had a desire to watch. That’s the only reason I watched the last three years… yeah, I know… I talk way to much about Lord of the Rings, but honestly, that’s the only reason I watched. I don’t even remember who hosted last year.

I will probably leaf through the “worst dressed” magazine features while I’m in line at the grocery store, but other than that, who cares? By the way, do any of my readers actually enjoy listening to Star Jones? I can’t even stand her commercials. Whenever I see her fawning over some self-important hollywood starlet, I think, “Girlfriend! In what box of cracker jacks did she find her back stage pass?”

Oh, and one other thing. Does anyone else think Chris Rock has monkey hands? Weird weird weird.

All links courtesy of Drudge.

How often do you dig through your old emails archives? I don’t do it enough, it would seem. I got rid of almost half of my old saved emails today, almost all of them pertained to past events or projects long dead and buried.

In the process I found a bunch of really great net jokes that I kept, but never forwarded on. (You can thank me later.) Still, they are funny. So instead of forcing jokes down your … inbox, I’ll post them here where you can ignore them so much easier.

…
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
…
Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poke me in the ribs and cackle, saying, “You’re next.” They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.
…

More to come later.