Back to Basics

I am not sure who to credit this to as it was handed to me at an event, but it is seriously funny.

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation says that, “When you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”.

However, in government and education more advanced strategies are often employed:

1. Buy a stronger whip
2. Changing riders
3. Appointing a committee to study the dead horse
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses
5. Lowering the standard so that dead horses can be included
6. Re-classifying the dead horse as “living-impaired”
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase performance
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase a dead horse’s performance
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for ALL horses including dead ones
13. Promote the dead horse to a management position

Federal Agents are notorious for their lack of humor in humorous situations. And granted there are certain times when humor is not called for. When the Secret Service has you prone and with a gun to your head after you just took a pot shot at the President is one such situation. But when you have an agency like the Transportation Security Administration which has made a joke of itself, I think humor is not only called for, but utterly mandatory when encountering agents who amount to glorified Mall Cops.

So with the Thanksgiving weekend upon us as you travel please consider the following twenty-five fun activities to partake of at security checkpoints when you travel. Please note however that doing any of the following items will probably not be well received by the TSA agents at any airport who are very gruff and not happy at all when they are made an even bigger joke than they already are. But hey, if you are feeling a little frisky, go for it and make sure that you have your video camera rolling when you do.

1) Wear a shirt saying, “I was sexually assaulted by the TSA and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!”
2) When asked to go through a full body scanner and have a naked picture of yourself taken, turn to the TSA agent watching over you and tell them that you would like one 8×10, two 5×7’s and a sheet of wallets.
3) Pretend there is someone standing next to you. Carry out a serious conversation with your imaginary friend the entire time you are in line. After the TSA agent makes you go through the full security procedure but fails to acknowledge your imaginary friend, start questioning why he (or she) is so special as to not warrant screening. Ask them seriously if it is because he (or she) is Muslim and they do not want to be accused of profiling.
4) Take a copy of your pocket Constitution out and while standing in line repeatedly read, in an assertive voice, the fourth and fourteenth amendments.
5) Pretend to be a schizophrenic with two distinct personalities; one conservative and one liberal. Start a fight with yourself about whether or not the latest enhanced security procedures constitute a violation of your rights. End with the liberal personality calling your conservative personality a, “homophobic, bigoted Islamophobe.”
6) Make sure to have one of those stereotypical porno soundtracks, the ones that sound like Boom Chickah Waaah Waaaaaaaah, loaded on your iPhone and play it any time you are selected for the enhanced pat down.
7) After passing through security, turn and shake the hand of the nearest TSA agent and in a pitying voice say, “Some people say that people ‘like you’ cannot function in society.

Hey, TSA touchin’ junk is totally FUBAR, but until we junk the politically correct airport security regime, I doubt we can realistically move away from agressive pre-flight screening. Some folks don’t mind so much anyway:

I would happily walk through one of those things if I could keep my shoes on, carry on fluids in normal sizes, leave my belt on and my coins in my pocket, and natter on in great good humor about the C4 strapped to my love handles. That would be an awesome trade.

Opinions will no doubt vary among Rush fans for his agreeing to lend his voice to an entire Family Guy episode revolving around him. The show airs Sunday night on Fox.

I’m not a regular viewer of the show, but I have seen it on a few occasions and am well aware of its penchant for the full-throttle dredging for low-level laughs by insulting and/or mocking the handicapped, veterans, old people, young people, minorities, majorities and the Palins. Sacred cows of the left are mercilessly shish kabobbed as well, though on much rarer occasion from what I’ve seen. When it comes to all of the above, Family Guy can make South Park look like Romper Room.

Here’s a preview of the Rush episode — what do you think? Looks damn funny to me — but I’ve been accused of having an overly irreverent sense of humor (my wife just doesn’t get me sometimes), so you’ll have to decide for yourself:

Have you ever heard that a dog ‘knows’ when an earthquake is about to hit?

Have you ever heard that a dog can ‘sense’ when a tornado is stirring up, even 20 miles away?

Do you remember hearing that before the December tsunami struck Southeast

Asia , dogs started running frantically away from the seashore, at breakneck speed?

Do you know that dogs can detect cancer and other serious illnesses and danger of fire?

Somehow they always know when they can ‘go for a ride’ before you even ask. How do those dogs and cats get home from hundreds of miles away?

I’m a firm believer that animals – and especially cats and dogs – have keen insights into the Truth.

And you can’t tell me that dogs can’t sense a potentially terrible disaster well in advance.

Simply said, a dog just KNOWS when something isn’t right… when impending doom is upon us.

They’ll always try to warn us!

We should have listened.