The Allen Almanac

Obviously due to this brilliance (first mentioned here):

From the Financial Times:

For three years after the invasion of Iraq, it was difficult to drive more than a few miles through middle America without seeing a car displaying a magnetic yellow ribbon.

The magnets, bearing the slogan “Support Our Troops”, became a symbol of patriotism for millions of US motorists.

But as support for the war fades, demand for yellow ribbons has collapsed.

Magnet America, the largest manufacturer of the product, has seen sales fall from a peak of 1.2m in August 2004 to about 4,000 a month and now has an unsold stockpile of about 1m magnets.
[..]
Some critics have condemned the magnets as a cheap and superficial way to honour the armed forces and highlighted the irony of placing them on gas-guzzling vehicles that deepen the US’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

I’m sure by some critics they meant the Spankers. As an aside, the wife and I had a chance to go see the Asylum Street Spankers in St. Louis a few weeks ago and they were greatness live.

Jews on First has a follow-up on the on the New Jersey teacher who got caught on tape proselytizing in class and then lied about it. The student is being harassed by the town while the teacher has gotten no punishment, although the superintendent did call him a “wonderful teacher”. Apparently no action has been taken by the school district at all. The student is quoted as having told the superintendent, “I thought when I gave this information to you, it would be handled by an adult, I guess I was wrong.” For a refresher here is what the teacher got caught on tape teaching his History class:

[Jesus] did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sin on his own body, suffered your pains for you and he’s saying, “Please accept me, believe me.”

If you reject that, you belong in hell. The outcome is your prerogative. But the way I see it, God himself sent his only son to die for David Paszkiewicz on that cross … And if you reject that, then it really is to hell with you.

He also specifically singled out a Muslim student and told her she would be going to Hell. I’m thinking the LeClairs are about to win a lot of money in a lawsuit. I hate to see something like that done to a school, but sometimes an example needs to be made. This foolishness cannot be tolerated in our public schools.

The person who had mailed a white powder to Keith Olbermann has been captured by the FBI. If you remember, the investigation was put in jeopardy by an article in the NY Post mocking Keith Olbermann’s (completely reasonable) response to opening the possibly deadly letter.. Apparently Olbermann was not the only person this kook targeted

The letters, which had fake return addresses, were received by Pelosi, a California Democrat who is in line to become speaker of the House; comedians Stewart and David Letterman; Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York; and MSNBC host Keith Olberman.

Some letters, which were sent over the past three months to addresses in New York, New Jersey and San Francisco, included phrases like “Death to Demagogues” and pictures of victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami, authorities said.

The FBI said federal agents watched Castagana, of Los Angeles, walk from his home to a public mailbox Thursday and deposit several letters. One was allegedly addressed to someone previously targeted and contained the white powder.

According to Bent Corner, Wal-Mart still hasn’t removed the Nazi shirts from their stores.

Yesterday afternoon I stopped at a Wal-Mart on my way home for work and found a stack of the same shirts still for sale in the men’s department. My wife also stopped at a different Wal-Mart on her way home from work yesterday. She too found a stack of these Nazi shirts still for sale.

In my opinion, quickly taking care of a problem involves actually taking care of the problem.

Instead of having someone from a PR firm contact bloggers, Wal-Mart should have concentrated on simply removing the shirts from their stores. They could have worried about contacting bloggers after their stores were free of Nazi clothing.

Marshall Manson claimed that because of the size of Wal-Mart, removing the shirts from all the stores might take a day or two. I don’t think so. Wal-Mart could have removed these shirts from every store in a matter of minutes if they actually wanted to. Would they be this lethargically slow if they found out they were selling child porn? I don’t think so.

I was at Wal-Mart a few hours ago but I didn’t think to look for them. Has anyone else seen them still in the store? Maybe Marty is right. There is no reason for it to have taken this long.

I got an email from a Wal-Mart public relations firm regarding the Nazi T-Shirts:

James,

Good morning. My name is Marshall Manson. I work for Edelman doing online public affairs for Wal-Mart. I noticed your post about the t-shirts that Wal-Mart is selling. I wanted to make sure you saw the company’s statement about this and knew that Wal-Mart is now removing the t-shirts from its stores. Obviously, with a company as big as Wal-Mart, that may take a day or two.

The statement is just below. If you would like to discuss anything, feel free to respond to this e-mail.

Statement from Wal-Mart:

We were not aware of the origins of the image until this morning when we learned about it through the blog Bent Corner.

We are deeply sorry that this happened, and we are in the process of pulling all of these t-shirts from our stores.

Respect for the individual is a core value of our company and we would never have placed this t-shirt on our shelves had we known the origin and significance of this emblem.

We are reviewing our product review process in an effort to ensure this never happens again.

Sincerely,

Marshall Manson
Edelman
email removed

This post is in tribute to America’s former warrior-poet, Donald Rumsfeld. Enjoy the poetry stylings of America’s former Secretary of Defense. His insight will be missed:

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Glass Box
You know, it’s the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you’re using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can’t find it.
It’s—

And it’s all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession
Once in a while,
I’m standing here, doing something.
And I think,
“What in the world am I doing here?”
It’s a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Happenings
You’re going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don’t happen.

It doesn’t seem to bother people, they don’t—
It’s printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone’s so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story’s there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven’t happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn’t happened.
It’s going to happen.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

The Digital Revolution
Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!

A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!

—June 9, 2001, following European trip

The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won’t see.
And life goes on.

—Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Clarity
I think what you’ll find,
I think what you’ll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

“no-brainer” I agree with him for once. I doubt very much that they were using their brians at all.

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaeda suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called “water-boarding,” which creates a sensation of drowning.

Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn’t regard water-boarding as torture, and allows the CIA to use it. “It’s a no-brainer for me,” Cheney said at one point in an interview.

From yesterday’s Boston Globe:

UNITED NATIONS –Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in the war on terror, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Monday.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture, said that when he criticizes governments for their questionable treatment of detainees, they respond by telling him that if the United States does something, it must be all right. He would not name any countries except for Jordan.

“The United States has been the pioneer, if you wish, of human rights and is a country that has a high reputation in the world,” Nowak told a news conference. “Today, many other governments are kind of saying, ‘But why are you criticizing us, we are not doing something different than what the United States is doing?’”

The Military Commisions Act, aka the Torture Bill, is supposed to be signed into law today by Pres. Bush. In all of the mess surrounding the Foley scandal and all of the mud this election season, it is important to remember that less than a month ago our government voted to get rid of habeas corpus and legalize torture.

This is a follow-up to this post.