Soon to be gone

In 48 hours, I should be in Cleveland.
Internet is sporadic, so I will post more when I get settled.

Minnesota is for potato lovers.

This, my friends, is culture where I live.

See more "greatness" here.

The Kids Are Alright

Amtrak.
What a bunch of thugs they hire as crew.

The father whose several children, ages 12 to 15, were removed from an Amtrak train said he's considering filing a lawsuit against the rail carrier.

Peter Sharfin accused Amtrak of overreacting and abusing the children, who booted them out in the dark and 600 miles from home after accusations that one of them stole an iPod.

"I felt like it was child endangerment," he said. "These are children alone at night."
Sharfin said the children didn't know where they were.
"They were hundreds of miles from home," he said. "It was dark. Their parents weren't there."

Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham said the children "weren't just put off in the middle of nowhere, mind you. They were put off in the custody of the police department."

You damn kids! Get off our train! I'm glad to see Amtrak conductors are taking it upon themselves to make citizens arrests.

I've ridden Amtrak enough to see some real shitheads that should have been kicked off the train. The guy who would NOT SHUT UP about what he was going to do in Chicago. The two ladies who would NOT SHUT UP about what they had gotten at Zabars. Don't forget the derelict loser who was hitting on the mother of two for five hours. Kick those people off the train. Leave the kids alone.

College Republicans

Adding, Max Kues of Christian High School in Saint Louis, MO is officially not gay.

Glad we cleared that up.

Hey Hey Woodie Guthrie!

Click the picture for some subversion.

Drunk and Violent Nordies

Now that's some Minnesota Nice right there.

A traffic control agent was blindsided by a punch to the side of his head Saturday night at the Aquatennial fireworks downtown and hit his head on a fire hydrant, police said.
A Minneapolis police officer trying to arrest the suspect was also assaulted but uninjured, police said. Two Twin Cities men and a local woman, all in their early- to mid-twenties, were arrested in the incident.
...
Although police said it's not common for people to get physical at such events, they said tensions can rise when large crowds are thrown together.

"I've worked those fireworks details before," said police spokeswoman Lt. Amelia Huffman, "and people get furious over traffic issues."

I'll explain it to my readers who live back in civilization. Minneapolis crowds like this are composed of the rubes and hicks who populate the Twin Cities, suburbs and villages of the surrounding area. They've never lived in a real city, or in close proximity to other people. And so, like a five-year old who's never been properly socialized, they react stupidly and violently when put in a large crowd situation. As the story illustrates, their little underdeveloped minds can't process a person directing traffic, and so they throw a tantrum that is made all the more deadly by their above-average body mass and pent-up rage.

Such is Minnesota. I hope the Republicans know what they signed on to by holding their convention here next summer.

Comics, again

Unfunny Comic Strip of the Day.
Funky Winkerbean.
Damnit. You'd think a comic strip named "Funky Winkerbean" would be silly and slapstick and gleefully stupid. But you'd be wrong.

Despite e-mails from readers asking him to save her, "Funky Winkerbean" creator Tom Batiuk says the comic strip character Lisa Moore will succumb to breast cancer.

I'll add that this news was released to coincide with the insane Harry Potter book release. It's as though Batiuk was jealous of JK Rowling and jumped up and down saying "I'll kill off a character! I'll kill off a character! Look at me! Look at me!" Hack.

Compounding this is that all week, there was a cheap'n'tawdry storyline culminating in:


Oh, Bill Watterson! Save us!

Damn Minnesota Hippies

Always with the drugs.

Becker County Sheriff Tim Gordon says about a dozen arrests were made, and close to $25,000 worth of Ecstasy, heroin, cocaine and mushrooms were seized.

The music festival continues through tomorrow night.

Yes, the music festival may continue, but what's the point?

I'd just like to say that I love it when online newspapers allow reader comments. Like this one:

If it were Country Jam, the cops would be busting the rednecks for 'making love' to the farm animals.

Cardboard Box Blogging!

To use the cliche,
this ain't the half of it.

In other news, there is a big story on the horizon that may have dangerous ramifications for ol' Frankie. But rest assured. I haven't been this ready for a fight since I encountered that besotted longshoreman behind The Holiday Club.

Tubin'

Thanks to the Czar for lookin' out for such hilarity.

From Yesterday

You may not have heard it on the news, but pirates invaded Minneapolis yesterday.
About damn time, I said, as the buccanneers tore through the crowd of Minnesotans bloated on corndogs and lutefisk, slashing and shooting all those in their path. But the carnage really got going when the pirates tried to buy beer and were told it was Sunday.

All kidding aside...what kind of provincial city has an outdoor festival in the summer, but does not have a beer tent? Say what you will about my people, the Poles, but we are always looking for an excuse to have a beer tent. I've seen beer tents at first communion parties and funerals. There was something sad about seeing a horde of Midwesterners standing around a lake, trying to have a good time, and being sober.

Back in a few

Off to The Milk Carton Races.
Will post whacky pictures and derogatory commentary.

More from Craigslist

This person tops Frankie Machine for invective against Minnesota.
Go read this rant before they pull it down for not being "Minnesota Nice."

Cellphones....if you know you can drive with one (and you either can or you can't) then do it!! Have fun! If you can't (like the girl on 4th of July at St. Anthony Falls who drilled a guy on his bicycle and didn't even say I'm sorry or HANG UP HER PHONE, but kept on driving bitching to her friend while the biker cleaned the blood off of his pants) then don't!! What's more important? "Oh yaaaaa?? Are ya makin da hot dish tonight Sven?" or avoiding causing the deaths/injuries of those around you?

Update: That didn't take long. Flagged and removed. I bet that hot dish remark really pissed some people off.

Funny Letter to the Editor

From the New York Times:

Inside the continental United States and Canada, the answer is to go by train whenever possible. Rarely is there ever a weather delay, and the on-time record is superb. I have never lost my luggage by rail.

Peter J. Peirano
Ridgewood, N.J.

When did the NYT start publishing brilliant sarcasm on its letters page? I hope it's sarcasm.

I am way too familiar with our nation's Amtrak stations. From Chicago to Philadelphia to DC to Ann Arbor...I've had train delays due to heat, rain, snow, mudslides. If you don't believe me, ask The Czar, who once sat in the Jackson, Michigan train station until just about dawn waiting for me. I once considered stealing from the concessions stand on one train, because it meant I would be kicked off the train, which sat for two hours outside of Union Station in Chicago.

I cannot vouch for how Amtrak handles luggage, because I wouldn't trust a nickel to those sticky fingered thugs. When I used Amtrak, I kept my bag on my lap the whole time, with my revolver lying on top to discourage any shenanigans.

Banks and the elderly

Another automotive offensive by a senior.

Around 10 a.m. Thursday, police said an elderly man drove over a curb and crashed into the southeast side of a U.S. Bank on Southwest 116th Avenue in King City.
...
Police said the crash caused damage to the side of the bank’s vault and ATM.

He should have followed this old person's style.

A 76-year-old woman who robbed a bank to help her troubled son pay off debts will serve her sentence at home, not prison.

Marilyn Devine was sentenced Thursday to 23 months of house arrest followed by 20 years probation for using an unloaded pistol to rob a bank branch inside a supermarket in West Mifflin, Pa., in March, 2006.
...
“You don't remember my face but I'm haunted by yours, your pale blue eyes,” said Janelle Drecnik, 25, who was on her third day on the job when Devine stuck a pistol in her face.

Ms. Drecnik is no longer a teller and now lives in New York.

Ms. Drecnik said she still has nightmares and must deal with “the ridicule of people laughing that I got robbed by a grandmother.”

Mitt Romney: Pornographer!

I am not intending this blog to do a regular "know-the-candidates" feature, but following my comments on Mean ol' Man Fred "Get offa my lawn!" Thompson, I was made aware of this story about Mitt the Fightin' Mormon Romney.

Mitt's in trouble with, of all folks, the batshit crazy religious right who think that Marriotts are dens of iniquity, and Mitt should have stopped it:

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, who rails against the "cesspool" of pornography, is being criticized by social conservatives who argue that he should have tried to halt hardcore hotel movie offerings during his near-decade on the Marriott board.

Marriott? Yes, Marriott. Why?

"Marriott is a major pornographer. And even though he may have fought it, everyone on that board is a hypocrite for presenting themselves as family values when their hotels offer 70 different types of hardcore pornography," said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, an anti-pornography group based on Ohio.

If I were Marriott, I would advertise this!
Marriott: Now with 70 different types of hardcore pornography!
Marriott: Pssst...We've got 70!

Embassy Suites would counter with 80 different types of hardcore pornography, then Microtel would go to 85.

And the winner would be you, the consumer.

He was her man

And he done her wrong.

Elderly woman tries to shoot boyfriend.

Officers reported that Paolone said Morgan-Roberts was very intoxicated. She staggered when locating the gun for the officers, police said.

An elderly person writes in to the paper.
And hilarity ensues. I swear, the editors who select these letters for publication must be readers of this blog.

I am an elderly citizen. I obey the laws, pay my taxes and keep my property looking decent as I can with my income.

I don't think the town is doing much for the elderly.
...
There are signs in my neighborhood that are green, but only the red are stolen and destroyed.

I'm wondering if I will be safe going to a polling place to cast my vote. Will I have to sneak in? It's sad.

There are reader comments, too! My favorite, and the one that gets everyone riled up:

You know you will be safe to vote, yet you write your last line as if you are living in another country, unable to safely cast a vote. You are a disgace, trying to scare elderly voters.

Happy Independence Day!

I once read a statement by someone who lived under the brutality of Soviet communism, in which the author claimed that the best way to fight a tyrannical oppressive regime is to live as if you are a free person. Pretend that you have the freedoms denied you.

And so (and it's sad that I have to say this in my own country), this Independence Day, let us pretend that we are led by a president who considers himself constrained by the rule of law.

I am moving to Boston in August, and will make a visit to the site of the Boston Massacre, where Crispus Attucks took a bullet for liberty. He was a former slave, and he knew from oppression. I'll also visit Lexington Green, which was the site where the bravest people the world had ever seen were told: ""Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, or you are all dead men."

So, this Independence Day, pretend you are at Lexington Green again, or that you are Crispus Attucks, and don't be afraid of King George.

Head Start

The elderly hate disadvantaged children.

An elderly man lost control of his car and plowed into the Head Start Development Center in Stockton Monday.

What about the children?

Back to Un-business

Soylent Green is NOT old people.

I was drawn to this letter by the headline:
How to reduce Florida's elderly population

and I thought, "they aren't asking ME?"

I think reducing Florida's elderly population is a worthy goal. As worthy as reducing Florida's Republican population, redneck population, Skunk Ape population, and Jimmy Buffet fan population. I think you should just let the Seminoles have the whole state again.

But the writer ascribes to people like me the idea that such a goal is accomplished only through using the elderly as a food source.

Many elderly people living on a fixed income have only one choice: Get out of Florida!

Such a move is a traumatic experience at any age, but for elderly people, leaving their home, friends and familiar surroundings can cause serious illness and even death.

The state government needs to take action to remedy this tragic situation.

Raise your hand if you remember "Soylent Green."

The elderly are a poor source of protein and vitamins. Many have heart disease and other infirmities. Ick. Nobody has ever said, "Maybe the dingo ate your grampa!" Because even dingoes know this.

I resent the writer thinking that dealing with the elderly menace involves eating them. The elderly should stop flattering themselves so.

Sorry for the delay.

Took a trip.
Good times.
Expect your usual unemployment-fueled posting flurry tomorrow.