Ode To Twinkies

They're baa-ack!

Twinkies are once again showing up on snack shelves. Walmart is already selling them.

Story here.

And with my sincere apologies to Joyce Kilmer, I offer the following:

Ode To Twinkies

I thought that I would never see

A Twinkie that is union-free.

A cream-filled, spongy vanilla cake

That BCTGMIU members no longer make.

A Twinkie freed from union bosses

Whose pockets are filled despite job losses.

A Twinkie that was sorely missed

Brought back to life by Capitalists.

 Twinkies will enhance our fiscal rate
Because jobs are created in Right-To-Work States.

Blogs are made by fools like me
But only Hostess can make a Twinkie.

Sooner Than We Think

So let's see this hombre!

There's a new Terminator in town; his name is Atlas. And he is ug-lee.

T-1000, meet Atlas

Boston Dynamics has been busy working on an entrant for DARPA's Virtual Robotics Challenge, a contest aimed to create robots that can help in disaster situations. Of course, they could also be used by the military...

Now, Boston Dynamics has revealed its entrant: A 6-foot-tall humanoid robot called Atlas.

Compared to the bumbling, tottering, and slow humanoid robots that have hit the media before, you may be shocked at how resilient Atlas is. The machine has sophistication that approaches the stuff of science fiction. It can cope with unexpected trip hazards, survive being knocked off balance by a 20-pound weight, and if the tricks of its developmental predecessor, Petman, are anything to go by, it can climb over obstacles and autonomously navigate to a certain degree.

And there are robot pack mules in the works here and other robot/cyborg thingies here. The pack mule is exciting as it is being designed to carry up to 400 pounds and operate continuously for 24 hours. It could be a real life saver for soldiers wounded on an active battlefield.

Stone This Jerk

Rocks! More Rocks!

Twenty years is not enough. They should have this man pounding rocks for the rest of his life and then beat him to death with the rocks.

Ex- Army Corps official sentenced in contracting scheme of ‘historic proportions’

He was a career federal bureaucrat with a dark side, inflating government contracts by millions of dollars and then shaking down contractors for the proceeds. The money funded a lavish and sordid lifestyle — a real estate empire in Northern Virginia, leased BMWs, Neiman Marcus shopping sprees, and mistresses in three states and the Philippines.

On Thursday, a federal judge sentenced Kerry F. Khan, the mastermind of a contracting scam of “historic proportions,” to nearly two decades behind bars. It was even more than prosecutors had requested because of the “staggering” scope of the scheme. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said he also wanted to deter other would-be criminals in the billion-dollar world of federal contracting.

“You made history for the wrong reasons,” Sullivan told Khan, 55, a former Army Corps of Engineers program manager and the ringleader of a network of corrupt public officials and government contractors who stole more than $30 million through inflated billings and fake invoices.

U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. has called it the largest bribery and bid-rigging scheme in federal contracting history.

The case revealed deep flaws in the oversight of federal contracts and prompted a review at the Army Corps of Engineers. Officials added new layers of review in the Army Corps’ contracting office, with senior managers and peer panels now responsible for scrutinizing all bids and solicitations before contractors are selected.

More here and here. This stuff will make you sick.

Pea Coats

That last post got me to reminiscing about my first years on the job, about the "old timers" who were still in uniform - all of whom are gone now. We had a bunch of cops who were known as the "Pea Coat Squad"or the "Pea Coaters." They were new cop hires after WWII, many former Navy Seamen.

The US garment industry had not time to completely ramp up back to civilian mode after the end of the war; these new cops couldn't buy the departmental authorized winter coats so they wore Navy pea coats. They were an amazing bunch of guys. I miss their attitude, their kindness and sense of humor.

What I see in cops today is that confidence has been somewhat displaced by arrogance. You can tell the difference when a man speaks from experience; he talks to you - not at you. Sure, there are times when dealing with a knucklehead that you lapse into full bore cop mode ... been there, done it a zillion times. But for the most part you want to employ what we called the Golden Tongue Strategy. Why fight your way out of a problem you created when you could talk your way into a solution where you didn't have to bash someone's face in? I swear, there were a few cops who could walk into a massive family disturbance (the type where first thing you do is grab all the kitchen knives and toss them behind the refrigerator) and leave with both sides promising to name their next-born after you.

No School Like The Old School

I was broken in by old schoolers. When we were assigned a territory we were expected to take care of it. No excuses. Our sergeants, lieutenants and captains were mostly WWII and Korean War vets. They didn't put up with much and neither did the people they broke in. I freely admit that I would not last as a modern day police officer, I'd be arrested within a week for beating the tar our of some idiot.

I cannot ascertain the veracity or source of the following rant, but I share it's sentiments.

TO: Anyone who will listen
FROM: A retired old school cop
SUBJECT: 86 & 12

That was the score 4th of July (2013) weekend in Chicago. 86 shot (actually puncture wounds) twelve dead, Chicago stopped counting graze wounds and only counts actual bullet holes now, you don't count if you get your nose or ear shot off. Chicago is also a city three quarters of which is unsafe to walk in. The thug and gang infested South, West and East sides are expanding like a cancer while the few remaining safe neighborhoods are shrinking annually due largely in part to scattered site housing.

This is the crowning achievement of our politicians and the social engineers, who long ago decided that big, bad, brutish policemen were no longer needed. So it came to pass that in the 70's they started forcing females onto the department. That did away with height and strength requirements. They then decided that the correct rainbow of colors was needed. To accomplish this they lowered the aptitude tests and created quotas. That did away with intelligence and integrity requirements. Of course gays could not be excluded either. The ideal candidate for promotion became a black transvestite with a Spanish surname.
Our weapons were next on their agenda. Blackjacks, zap gloves and the like were banned. Our shotguns were moved from the front seat to the trunk, from the trunk to the radio room and from there just disappeared. New ammunition was issued which was so inadequate it would ricochet off of car windshields. And God help you if you hit someone with your flashlight.
Finally the politicians got rid of the real Policemen. The old dinosaurs were lured into early retirements and replaced with internal affairs weenies and gays with a decent sprinkling of color. The brutish "Old Clancey" stereotype was laid to rest and replaced by "Officers Ken & Barbie." The end result is a department that is befuddled, cow towed, hamstrung, weak and totally not feared by the thugs and gang bangers, but oh so politically correct.

The City has succeeded in ridding itself of the brutish dinosaur cops of old and has replaced them with little girls and college yuppies who wouldn't know a bad guy if he shit in their face. They have invented new politically correct terms like Wilding and Flash Mobs to describe Black Mob Violence which is rapidly spreading into the once "Safe Zones" of Michigan Avenue, River North and Wrigleyville.

After you have been shot, raped or robbed Officers Ken & Barbie will arrive and write a most excellent report with perfect grammar and punctuation which will be fed into a State of the Art computer which will crunch and manipulate the numbers precisely. Me, I long for the old days when Clancey crunched and manipulated the thugs before I became the next victim.

All of this in the most corrupt city, most corrupt county, most corrupt state in the country, whose political leaders zealously and vehemently fight to impose the most restrictive gun control legislation in the nation. If you believe Officers Ken & Barbie are going to protect you and yours, you had better get your head out of your butt and smell the coffee. Old Clancey is retired, it's now up to you to protect yourself.

Rejoice oh liberals, you have gotten exactly what you wanted. Hope you enjoy it!
Sincerely, a retired old school cop (from O'Brien Street)

Thanks Charlie, from one old schooler to another.

Arrigato Most Honorable Poopoo-san

I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Those nukes we dropped in '45 really screwed these people up. More adults are now diaper-clad than infants. It almost sounds like a Borscht Belt kaka joke.

Japan's rapidly aging population is producing some interesting new business opportunities, including a booming market for adult diapers.

The Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday that three Japanese paper companies--Daio, and Nippon Paper--are expanding their manufacturing facilities for what are politely called "incontinence products" due to an expected surge in demand. The Nikkei said adult diapers are expected to outsell baby diapers in Japan by 2020, but according to Unicharm, Japan's biggest diaper maker, the tipping point was in 2011.

The adult diaper market is growing at 6-10% a year, and already pulls in 140 billion yen ($1.4 billion) by catering to Japan's elderly population--it has the highest percentage of over-65s in the world, making up more than 20% of the population.

By contract, in America it's 13.7%.

More here.

How To Git'er Done!

Cool down the house. Check

Water the lawn. Check.

Wash the dog. Check.,

Clean the windows. Check.

Flush the gutters. Check.

Rinse off the driveway. Check.

Drown the gopher. Check.

And we're done....

..H/T to Feral Irishman

John Kerry - America's Hero

SecState John Kerry rushes to address Egyptian crisis. 

Here he is disembarking at the harbor in Alexandria.
Be Brave For All Of Us John!

John Kerry's heroic actions in the face of adversary and danger never cease to amaze me.

From Front Page:
John Kerry likes boats. He likes windsurfing. He doesn’t seem to be much good at foreign policy. Obama probably should have made a job for him like Secretary of Windsurfing. Or Czar of Yachting. Considering all the useless czars already out there, it wouldn’t have even stood out that much.

But Kerry seems determined to finish his career by doing the same useless things he did as senator while calling himself Secretary of State. One of those things is spending a lot of time on his boat. The other is lying about it.

Under withering fire, John Kerry rescues inebriated wounded shipmates, winning his first Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

While Egypt melted down, Kerry took some time off to be with his beloved Isabel. A yacht that has gotten him in trouble before. Kerry’s spokeswoman, an Obama vet, however denied that Kerry was in any shape or form swiftboating it in.

John Kerry furiously repels Communist infiltrators in Viet Nam, 

winning another Bronze Star and Purple Heart. 

Way to go John!