NPR – Cheaper than Death from above

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives around $400 million from the federal government. Of that, about 75% is used to fund public television and the rest goes to NPR. According to the Washington Examiner, they get about $90 million a year from the federal government.

Recent debate in the House of Representatives is looking at cutting this expense as a means of deficit reduction (after all, aren’t there better ways to spend taxpayer’s money than on radio programming for people in rural Kanas? - "The object of this bill is to get NPR out of the taxpayer's pocket," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. "It is time for us to be good stewards and save the money of the American taxpayer.")

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/congress/2011/03/house-votes-cut-npr-funding

Now, I can’t really comment on that but two days ago, John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the house, started bashing the Obama administration over the establishment of a “no fly zone” above Libya.

He asked what the ultimate goal is in enforcing UN resolution 1973 and what the cost would be.

Well Boehner, we here at The Orange Folder Chronicles get what a dumb shit you are so here’s a little help answering the second part of your question (I can’t figure out the first part either so you’ll need to continue with your polite questions to President Obama on that one).

“Now wait a minute, you know math is hard”

I have no idea what it costs to fly a sortie in an F-15 and definitely don’t know about flying one in an F-16 so lets just stick to the cost of firing cruise missiles, which I figure is like the grownups version of a bottle rocket fight.

According to “The Guardian” (assuming you can trust limeys, which I think we can since they have such cute girls) the American’s have fired 168 missiles so far:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/25/raf-role-libya-no-fly-modest

Elisabeth Hurley, a trustworthy Brit

Kate Middleton, another cute chick from “Tealandia”

Also, according the US Navy (we know we can trust them, they never lie) each one of these costs $569,000, which compared to a bottle rocket is probably pretty reasonable since you get a much cooler explosion.

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1300&ct=2

It’s shaped like that for a reason

So mister Boehner, using my $2 Chinese calculator I get about $95,592,000 just for the missiles. Add to that the fuel for the sub (I think uranium is slightly higher than the $3.54 a gallon regular gas my Ford Ranger uses), the cost of paying all those sailors, the donuts you had in your office while writing your latest silly rant and so on. I think we can safely say that this little action cost a tad more than a years worth of stinking liberal biased radio programs. Does that help you out Mr. Speaker?

“So you say your Republican congress is making a lot of noise?” “Sell it, it’s a lemon!”

South Africa’s contribution to a more irritating world

So last night I decided to go down to “Plaza de Largartos” in El Paso to see “the grito” or the traditional cry of independence of Mexico. It was being held in El Paso this year instead of Juarez because Reyes Ferris, the mayor of Juarez (who wisely lives in El Paso) decided that it was too insecure to host the bicentennial Independence Day celebration of Mexico from Spain in Mexico and the whole thing was moved across the border into the US.

After driving around for an hour around the area cordoned off by the El Paso police (who unlike the various Mexican police are doing their jobs instead of shooting at each other) I finally parked and started walking toward the celebrations.

I knew from 4 blocks away it was going to be unpleasant. The sound wafting around the buildings was familiar and I knew immediately that the 2010 World Cup has forever changed the world into a less enjoyable place. That irritating bleat of vuvuzelas was growing louder as I got closer. Seems some enterprising soul had gathered up all the leftover red white and green horns unsold after Mexico got knocked out of the World Cup and remarketed them as holiday noisemakers.


The typical vuvuzela owner is a kid about 3-4 feet tall or 5-6 feet tall at the end of his horn, which puts the damn thing right at ear level. After about 30 minutes of being deafened by every third passing kid, I knew it was time to leave and went to Taco Tote to watch the whole thing on TV. Definitely the right decision since they weren’t selling beer downtown and the national fireworks in D. F. were stunning.

Today is the 200th year of independence of Mexico from Spain, which our local narcos celebrated by adding some red to this green and white taxi on Ave. De Technologico.

"Viva Mexico!"

So you think your kids need a British nanny?

OK, this is a direct rip-off from the New York Daily news. I don’t claim any responsibility at all for writing this but how could I not share this. Unaltered and as reported on their website http://www.nydailynews.com/

A 30-year-old British woman's death, when using a sex toy while watching a porn movie, was probably caused by her state of arousal, officials said.

Nicola Paginton, a children's nanny, was found dead in bed - naked from the waist down - in October as the porn movie played on her laptop, according to the Daily Mail.

A pathologist and coroner said during an inquest that Paginton died from a sudden heart arrhythmia, likely caused by "her activity before death." the paper reported.

Police had been called to Paginton's home after her employer, Sarah Griffths, went to her house when she failed to show up for work. She and a neighbor saw Paginton lying on her bed with her cat sitting on her chest.

Supercalfragalistiexpialidocious!!!

Car bomb pandemonium in Juárez

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder in Juárez the narcos ramp it up a notch. Yesterday someone ran a small car filled with explosives (said to be a Ford Focus by local news Chanel 44) into two pickups full of Federal police on the main thoroughfare in downtown. The explosion at the corner of Sieptembre 16th and Bolivia street killed two police officers and a medical technician. The blast also injured seven more officers (these guys ride standing up in the bed of the pickups) and two bystanders.

According to Channel 44, the attack was in retaliation for the arrest of an member of the “La Linea” drug cartel. Channel 44 reports that this individual was responsible for collecting protection & extortion money for the police (exactly what group of police wasn’t made clear). They also report that each person reporting to “35” had to bring in $16,000 pesos (about $1500) each month!

Later in the day, this “narcomanta” appeared painted on a nearby wall (messages are usually left at the scene of murders and public placement of torture victims to communicate to the rival cartel). It says; "What happened on 16 (de Septiembre avenue) will keep happening to all the authorities who keep supporting El Chapo. Sincerely - the Juarez cartel. We still have car bombs."

As if the residents of Juarez didn’t have enough crap to worry about, now they must add car bombs & IEDs to the list. I guess narcos go to see “The Hurt Locker” too.

Update 3:34 PM:

After investigating the crime scene, athuorities have determined that about 22 pounds of C4 explosive was detonated with a cel phone from nearby. Borrowing a page straight out of the Al Queida terrorism handbook, the narco dressed up a body in a stolen police uniform and called the police to report a victim first. Once the police showed up to investigate the bomb was detonated. This shows a fairly sophisticated plan of attack using techniques developed by insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. One only has to wonder how and from whom they learned these techniques.

Vote for me or I’ll bust yo’ fool haid!

I was pretty astounded this morning to read in the WSJ that Lawrence Tureaud, who is otherwise know as “Mr T”, has announced his bid for Republican Party candidate in the 2012 Presidential election. Mr T is famous for playing B.A. Barracks on the original “A-Team” TV show, an iconic cultural gem from American television. The interview, which I suspect must be some sort of comeback bid for it's bizarreness, was conducted in the parking lot of a Chicago Tastee-Freeze. He was quoted as saying “Barack Obama is sissy-boy! I can give him a beat down with one hand!”. When asked about his apparent lack of political experience, his response was “I ain’t no worse than Bush fool!”

He also stated that his decision to run as a Republican had something to do with not being a “granola eatin’ wimp”.

During the interview Mr. T seemed to be quite at ease and answered most of the questions directly, except for how comfortable he thought he’d be riding on Air Force One. It’s quite possible that he may have misunderstood this question as his answer was “I ain’t gittin on no plane.”

Whether or not he’d make a good president, I would have to probably side with him that he “ain’t no worse than Bush. Good luck Mr. Tureaud and I will be looking forward to seeing a primer black and red van in the presidential motorcade.

“Check the date fool!”

Bam! Bam! 2010 in Juarez Mexico!

Today is January 7th, 2010 and already there have been about fifty murders here in Juarez. When Juareneses ring in a new year, it’s done with gunfire.

I had a meeting at one of our other locations at 10:30 so as I was going out the door I thought “Maybe I should take my camera in case I run across something interesting”. Well, I did see “something interesting”.

On my way there, a Cruz Rojo (Red Cross) ambulance and a municipal cop passed me with the sirens blaring. I figured something must be up.

As I got to the Dennys in front of Galerias Tec on Avenido Technilogico I saw two dead narcos in the parking lot near their Dodge Durango.

I always heard eating at Dennys was bad for your health

He had a “Grand Slam”

Good thing the PJF drives around with sheets in the trunk!

I'll let you know more about the particulars of this one once I get more information.

The return of generic beer

Mmm, tasty!

I must spend way too much time in Wal-Mart. This will be the fourth time I’ve spoken of it in this blog. However, since I find solace in pushing my cart with the one bent wheel through the cookie aisle late at night, I’ll lay some more Wal-Mart inspired thoughts on you.

Wal-Mart, it seems has had some sort of marketing psycho-weasel squirm their way into the packaging design area. Whereas their store brand once had appealing graphics that seemed to be trying to evoke your senses that you were not buying the cheap store brand (when in fact you were doing just that) now they’ve channeled the late 70’s stagflation in full force.

“I tell ya brother, times are tough”

See, from the time of Nixon to Carter you could go down to the store and buy any sort of food in a UN approved plain white box with the name of the contents on it. Call it “playing the commodity market with food stamps” if you want but this stuff was everywhere. A savvy person could figure out who made it by such things as addresses, packing dimensions etc. It was all generally horrible and the only saving grace was that it was cheap.

“Hey, all they have on this damn island is an IGA store!”

This stuff all went by the wayside by the late eighties or early nineties as we all embraced the concept that we wanted to be rich or at least pretend like we were in our McMansions with the granite countertops and leased BMWs. Noodles became pasta and the plain white box that said “Macaroni twists” became Italian inspired “Rotini” with a nice drawing to imply your cheap ass carbs came from Tuscany.

Fast forward a decade or maybe two and we’re all having a big potluck at the CCC work camp with beans and rice. Seems that Wal-Mart’s branding committee decided that we’d feel like we were wasting our money buying fine Italian Pasta and maybe what consumers have a hankering for these days is a good ole box of the cheapest noodles we can find.

Hence the new look of the “Great Value” brand. Lots of plain white area with a diner style photo of what you can make with the contents. Add in the most boring font you can find and it’s gonna be a winner with the newly unemployed.

Sauce and noodles, now that’s sexy

PS: I hear Smiley Face is getting his notice too, here’s the new guy

“Don’t worry fellow Americans, everything’s gonna be alright…

Al Qaeda in the hood

Yesterday the FBI busted into 134 Lakeside Circle in Willow Spring NC and arrested 39 year old Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons and four other suburban terrorists with scary sounding Middle Eastern sounding names. Boyd, who looks more like a mullethead than a mullah had been running his own radical prayer sermons out of his house and operating a training camp out of nearby Caswell county.

Now normally, I don’t pay much attention to stuff like this, figuring it’s just another case of mistaken identity by the Dept. of Homeland Security. I usually shrug it off and consider myself lucky that some bumbling flatfoot hasn’t fingered me as the ringleader of some secret plot to blow up all SUV driving cel phone users.

However, this time it was the address that caught my attention as I used to live four doors down from this house. According to Yahoo, it’s 0.18 miles away. I always knew they weren’t right anyway – never offered me any beer…

It's not the size of your weinermobile but how you use it

Last Friday it seems that the 22 year old chick in charge of driving Oscar Mayer’s “Weinermobile” had a little bit of trouble handing the 27 foot advertising tool she had been put in charge of.

During what I can only guess was a slight unauthorized excursion to try to see Lake Michigan she inadvertently took her rolling sausage down a dead end street.

In a hurried bid to zip up the trip quickly, she gave the gas a quick poke and accidentally rammed the wiener into a tight garage and could not extricate it. Seems like she thrust when she should have stroked (she’s a girl, what did you expect?).

The dog and house remain locked together for hours before it was finally freed leaving the house battered and bruised. The owner of the house had recently dropped her insurance and she hoped that Kraft would pay up but the wiener wreckers didn’t leave a call back number nor did they call back in the morning.

"Oh yea baby, I'll call you in the morning"

This is not the first time the girls have had problems with the big plastic wiener though, back in 2008, they managed to stuff the wiener into a snowbank, which may have led to the the greatest piece of newspaper journalism ever created, read it here

http://www.firefighternation.com/profiles/blogs/889755:BlogPost:362894

Oddly, after pulling it out they found it had gotten shorter in the cold