And lest you forget

The mob is filled with the elderly.

A 96-year-old mobster accused of overseeing robberies, money laundering and bank fraud for the Genovese crime family pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy Wednesday, but because of his age, he was likely to face only house arrest.

House arrest?
if I had a rapsheet like this guy, you think I'd get house arrest? Not ol' Frankie Machine, no sir. I'd get sent straight to Joliet.

But because he's old, he gets special treatment. And if you think about it, it really doesn't make sense to sentence him to house arrest. Why? Where did all the great cinematic mob bosses do their business? IN THEIR HOUSES!

You wanna sentence this guy? How about you have some 16 year old goombah throw cold water on him.

Responsibility

I've really gotta start watching what I say on this blog.

Apparently, a Minnesota teenager thought the following about throwing water on an old person:
"She started screaming and freaking out so we thought this was hilariously funny, and we were all talking about it in school and everyone was laughing about it.

The guy responsible for busting them said the following:
"I told the police, 'Look, I know who that kid is, who his dad is and where the dad works. Do something, because we've got staff and families who are just waiting, and if those kids come back, somebody's going to jump them.' "

If the youths had returned and been attacked, "they would have deserved whatever they got," Breuer said Monday. "But I didn't want a melee in my nursing home hallways."

Maybe he read this blog and thought he would get the Frankie Machine Medal of Honor. Well, he is wrong. Had he actually gone back, gotten jumped, and fought his way out, that would get the Frankie Machine Medal of Honor. I personally like the image of old people jumping.

This blog does not endorse throwing water on 90-year-old women in wheelchairs. Yes, our country has gotten so bad that I have to state that.

But if those kids have video up, and put it on YouTube, you are all sick sick sick for looking at it.

In Memory

Bill Hicks died this day in 1994. Here, in case you haven't seen it, is my favorite monologue.

Minnesota Sucks

And here's another reason. It's Sunday.
There's a foot of snow on the ground, it's still coming down, and the need for a beer run is approaching.
I refuse to entertain myself with Garrison Keillor's latest column o' smugness.
There is a liquor store a block away, but I would have to trudge through some weak-ass snow to get there. No problem. In my Chicago days, I was known to make longer hikes though worse weather. To a bar, or a liquor store, or Walgreens (yes, that's how old I am. I remember when Walgreens sold beer). Why, there was this one time...
Of course, that was because Chicago wasn't ready for Prohibition. Chicago, of course, being a real city.
Minnesota, on the other hand, laid down for the Temperance Unit like a beaten dog. Goddamn Lutherans.
Here's a good explanation of why I am so angry, despite the fact that I have three bottles of Tommy Knocker brew in the fridge.
To highlight why Minnesota sucks, especially today:
1. The 18th Amendment was introduced by a Minnesota lawmaker.
2. You can't buy alcohol on Sunday in Minnesota
3. The only beer you can buy in grocery stores is 3.2 beer.

This is why Minnesota can never redeem itself in my eyes.

Crazy Dutchie

It's a little old, but here's today's Batshit Crazy Letter to the Editor.
God factor in warming

The missing dimension in all the discussion of "global warming" is the Creator of the universe -- God.

Reading the Bible recently in Isaiah, Chapter 44, was God's testimony concerning Himself: "I am the Lord who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by Myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense..."

Some of us are still naive enough to believe what the Bible teaches, so we do not share in the apprehension of the "global warmers;" and we are convinced that the God who created the Earth will preserve it in spite of man's activities.


ORIE VANDER BOON/Ada Township

Elderly Combat

I would pay good money to see the rematch.
Smith and Schaller were both walking toward each other, both with the aid of canes.

They each expected the other to step aside to get out of the other's way, but when neither did, they ended up directly opposite each other in a standoff that escalated into insults, obscenities and they finally battered each other with their canes.

Armo Virumque Cano

Back in the early stages of the Iraq war, I sat down with one of my friends from my Chicago years, who had just finished a tour of duty in the United States Navy. I asked him, out-of-uniform and off-record, what he thought of the "Mission Accomplished" banner and facade.
I think he was cautious in his response. In that cool dark hole of a bar in Washington, my friend compared W landing on the carrier to a CEO thanking his employees. It wasn't a bad thing, and I think my friend was trying to draw a parallel to a sentiment I could understand.

How prescient.

Like a CEO who's just fucked the company coffers and has tickets on the first plane out of town, George Bush has left his soldier-employees with shitty healthcare and economic uncertainty. He didn't do what he said he was going to do, but a select few of his buddies got rich. A guy who couldn't run a business right got handed a country, and it's the American soldier who has to bear the tragic consequences and deal with the aftermath.

People write letters to the editor all the time calling for greater sacrifice on the part of the American people, to share the burden with the American soldier.

It's a cute sentiment, but it's bullshit.

The people who should be sacrificing are the people who keep getting tax cuts, even though they're millionaires. The corporations who are profiting scandalously off this war should be cutting checks (at the very least) for the medical bills of every man and woman who comes home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Halliburton should set up a scholarship fund for full college tuition for every child left motherless or fatherless from this war.

The "American people" have sacrificed enough already under W. We've sacrificed our constitution. We've sacrificed New Orleans. We've sacrificed our economic health. We've sacrificed our environment.

It's about time we punch the guy who keeps passing the collection plate.

Muddy Waters.

Let's kick off the week with a fightin' attitude.

Rage Sunday

Republicans hate our troops.
Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.

"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy transition should be doing it," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling."

How much more evidence do you need?

The elderly are now vehicularly attacking the DMV.
Officials say an 80-year-old woman crashed into the DMV building in Deerfield Beach when she went to take a state-ordered driver's license retest.

Texas, of all places is attempting to address this wave of car attacks. However, it seems to be too little:
A bill introduced by state Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) would amend the state Transportation Code so that Texans age 90 and over would have to pass regular driving and vision tests in order to be able to keep their licenses — the licenses would expire when drivers turned 90, and keeping a license would be based on drivers passing the tests every two years after that.

90? Way too high. Try 20 years younger. 70 should be the age at which the elderly should be watched with the vigilance one gives a baby in a crocodile exhibit.

Say hello

to the average Minnesotan single male.

Remember that he can breed, and you have a good idea of how bad it is here.

A male of the species, in any other state of the Union (and I include Mississippi and Georgia), who had such ideas and mulletosity, would not have lived long enough to pass on his genes. Thanks to Minnesota's Passive-Aggressive environment, though, he has been allowed to survive to procreate.

Say what you will about the Deep South, at least they know how to weed out the weak and the lame.

He's Not Crazy.

Sounds a lot like me.
He says: “I started to cross the street to avoid grannies and steer clear of places they might be, like bingo halls and the Post Office.

“If I did pass one, it would leave me in a state of anxiety for up to 48 hours. One day I went into Guildford shopping with my mum and after being faced with two old grannies with walking sticks and curly grey hair I had a severe panic attack and collapsed.”

Then again..

Come on.
This IS funny.
A group of boys who threw cold water on elderly residents at a hospital and nursing home here could be charged with disorderly conduct or assault, police said.

To hold you over

Sometimes, I guess, the joke can go too far.

This may be part of the reason things are so f***ed up.
The U.S. Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said on Tuesday.
...
Republicans argued that Bremer and the CPA staff did the best they could under the circumstances and accused Democrats of trying to score political points over the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.

"We are in a war against terrorists, to have a blame meeting isn't, in my opinion, constructive," said Rep. Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican.

A Blame Meeting? Billions of dollars get shipped into a warzone, and our elected reps want to get to the bottom of the frikkin' mess, and you call it "a blame meeting?" I'm a little worried, too.
Democrats led by Waxman also questioned whether the lack of oversight of $12 billion in Iraqi money that was disbursed by Bremer and the CPA somehow enabled insurgents to get their hands on the funds, possibly through falsifying names on the government payroll.

You mean, maybe, like this guy?

Sleep tight.

Postcard from the Road

Dear Minnesota,
Why can't your winters look this nice?

Furthermore, you suck.

Sincerely,

Frankie Machine

I love that Dirty Water.

Being on the road, in a hotel room, just makes me think of this.

It's actual footage of B-licious's last business trip.