Land of the Morning Scam

Didn't we already pay for the 108,000 Garands and carbines Seoul wants to sell us for about $100 million? Not to mention a few other favors for the Land of the Morning Calm -- to the tune of some 50,000 American warriors who died too young.

My Uncle Gene was there over a freezing winter, top-kicking a battalion aid station. His summary take: "The Communists just shot at us. The ROKs stole us blind."

Good Morning, Senator Kirk

So whaddawe got here?

Insurance lawyer, insurance lobbyist, long-time crony of Teddy Kennedy, leader of pragmatic (get mine first!) pols as DNC chairman, super-delegate backer of B. Obama, favorite of Ted's kids, and, incidentally of the aforesaid Mr. Obama himself.

Hope and change arrives, cleverly disguised as just one more matinee by those venerable Vaudeville tappers Tip O'Neill and Joe Kennedy.

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An addendum.

The AP reports; "Patrick planned to send a letter to the secretary of state to declare an emergency, allowing him to override a legislative vote that defeated his administration's effort to make the bill take effect immediately. Normally, legislation faces a 90-day waiting period. "I recognize the gravity of this decision and I will make it very soon, and tell you just as soon as I do," the governor told reporters Wednesday night.

If feeding Obama the rubber-stamp vote he wants now rather than in December is handling an "emergency," then what word will Gov. Patrick use when, say, Obama bin Laden is discovered on the bridge of a hijacked destroyer, steaming into Boston Harbor at flank speed?

Poor Planning (Reloading Division)

Killing some time until the truck is repaired, I processed a couple hundred .38 Special and a few .357 cases yesterday. There were nicely polished, sized, and belled. Then I reached into the primer drawer and came up with jiggety-teen different varieties of caps; right, everything except small pistols. So, checking Midway, I learn that everything in that line is "Out of stock. No back orders."

Grump.

A local bulletin board is polluted this week with one of those beneath-stupid arguments about coaching football -- for third-graders. (I'd be pleased to post the url if I thought this corner of the Blogopolis SMSA held anyone dull enough to care about parents' opinion on whether the "win!" or "let-em-all-play" philosophy should prevail in coaching pre-pubes.)

However, it occurs to me that in about 20 years a good many alumni of this third-grade football mania will be shocked to discover that the world economy has too few insurance-selling jobs to accommodate all the disappointed young men who planned a lush living in the NFL . The brighter among them would gladly trade a working knowledge of Chinese or Arabic for all memories of the ass-pats they earned by not falling down too much.

If you can teach a kid the off-tackle slant when he's nine you can sure as Hell get him started on something likely to be useful.

Full disclosure: I personally played third-grade football if one of us could find the needle to blow up David Stouffer's leaky football and if the mean big kids weren't using the vacant lot and if it really seemed like more fun than walking down to the river with a cane pole. What a waste. If my community had had an organized youth football league and a few dozen daddies who were, themselves, frustrated athletes, why, heck, me and Joe Namath would have been team mates and drinking buddies. I guarantee it, and just writing about it deeply saddens me about my deprived childhood.