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You remember the deal. You buy what you need throughout the year; on Christmas you get surprises. It's probably not what you would have gone shopping for, but it could be something cool. And if it's not, at any rate, it's free.

So you already went shopping for information about the anniversary of the islamist bombing in Boston, and Hillary and the shoe, and nothing new about Flight 370, and whatever treachery the diaper-wearing Crybaby in Chief is committing. Time to unwrap whatever your crazy uncle decided to pick you up out of the dollar bin at the five and dime or down at Goodwill when he realized Wednesday was coming up.

Your crazy uncle was on a job a while back that required him to access an airport through a security station most people don't go through. The police station is at the executive terminal of this airport, and the gates onto the runways are adjacent to that. There's a guard shack and a set of gates that lead into an area with rising bollards and a second set of gates.

While I was waiting to go through security I was trying to put a finger on what bothered me about all the bars on the police station. Police stations have to be secure, especially on an airport. So what was eating at me about the way the bars were there?

Then it occurred to me what it reminded me of.

Nice houses in Latin American countries have walls around them, and broken bottles are cemented on top of the walls. A fence isn't enough to send the message "This is not yours." A wall isn't enough. The wall has to be topped with broken glass, and I guarantee you people—or subhuman life forms in the shape of people—have devised ways to get across by throwing a leather pad over them or something.

That's what was bugging me. Understand that I don't for a second think they should have anything less than what they had there. But it was slightly disquieting that the arrangement hinted that, absent the barriers, the bad guys were on an even footing with the cops.

Here's the deal: Our society can't be sustained by physical barriers. What sustains our society is a (mostly) unwritten code of behavior that the vast majority of us buy into. We have lines painted down the roads, not concrete barriers. We have stop lights, not pop up barriers. We behave in a certain way because we buy into the idea that that's the kind of society we want. There aren't enough cops to control things if people didn't govern themselves.

Behavior. That's what differentiates us from the Trashcanistans of the world. It's just like your teachers used to harp on you about in junior high. Attitude.

So the idea that limits aren't enough—that we have to physically aggressively prevent people from doing what they aren't supposed to do—that's what bothered me about the prison bars at the airport.

And that's the tale of the Analysis on Airport Island. Merry Christmas.

Hillary Shoe

---

Again, are we that upset that we don't have a brilliant implementer overseeing the destruction of our country?

Noooo! Come back! Keep fumbling the football for the other team!

That's what we call the people who bought into Barack Obama's Obamacare speech.

I was listening to Medved when Obama did his victory lap (ADD moment—anyone who believes that they hit the 7 million mark in enrollment probably owns multiple deeds to the Brooklyn Bridge). Medved would occasionally go to the speech audio. In the 10 seconds I heard I got the following gems:

"Regardless of your politics, or your feelings about me . . ."

I could never like Obama, because he's evil. His ideology is destructive to my country. He's diametrically opposed to me politically and I could never support him, any more than I could support the endless chain of idiot liberals going back through Clinton and Mondale and Dukakis and Jimmy 'The Worthless One' Carter.

But I might be able to respect him if he weren't such a stinking crybaby.

Barack Obama is a silly, sniveling, stinking little crybaby. It's all about him. "Regardless of your feelings about me . . ."

Have we ever had such a pantywaist in the office? Ever? Clinton was close. He took everything personally (read The Dysfunctional President to understand why), but even he wasn't as big a crybaby as Diaper Boy Obama.

But I will give Obama credit where it's due. He decried "the constant politics" surrounding Obamacare.

I agree. I hate the way the democrats rammed it through without regard to the will of the people or the rules they themselves had put on congressional procedure. I hate the way they tricked us . . . well, they might have tricked you—I knew what they were doing all along . . . and lied to us and mischaracterized every aspect of it. I hate the way they bought votes with the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid, the Senior Swindle, etc. I hate the way the democrats used fear and race baiting and class warfare to foist this scourge on the country I love.

You're right, Mr. Obama. The politics surrounding this debacle truly are beyond disgusting.

I'm no different from you. When I see someone walking down the street, the first thing I always think is "They better not have health insurance!"

So when the President asks "Why are they so mad about the idea of folks having health insurance?" we know it's just rhetorical. It's obvious why "they" hate the idea. Who wouldn't?

What we really, really hate is when people have health insurance. People doing things that have absolutely no effect on our lives drives us mad. The very idea that they might have health insurance does it. Crazy!

Do me a favor. You. Do this now. Say the words out loud "They are mad about the idea of folks having health insurance." Say it.

If that doesn't sound ridiculous to you, you probably think, like the President, that in America women get inferior medical treatment compared to men.

If there is any silver lining to having a mongoloid idiot in the Oval Office it's this: Clarity. The F4 Wild Weasels have caused the SAM sites to expose themselves.

Sometimes there are gray areas and fog and things aren't clear. When the President of the United States tells you one of the reasons he hates America is because we give inferior health care to women, the sunlight breaks through.

Maybe—just maybe—you could have claimed ignorance in 2008. Hope and Change! The oceans receding! Sewage will be turned into cotton candy and angels will descend from Heaven to hoist it aloft in billowy hammocks spun of gold fiber!

But there's no more hiding now.

The Rorschach blots have evolved into high-resolution images. If you still look at vivid images of handcuffs and see daffodils and butterflies, it's pretty clear what glasses you're looking through.

The fascinating thing to me is to watch how the die-hards still support him. I watch Colbert and morons like him and just . . . I shake my head. What, can they possibly be this stupid? Do they have some genius master plan they're just luring the SS into? If I'm just patient enough will I be overjoyed and amazed at their cunning?

Yeah, remember how that worked out when you sat clear through Leaving Las Vegas?

It's like I said, watching the reaction to the 1012 election was like watching people cheer the Soviet tanks rolling into Poland.

How would you make a cartoon of this? These people are lying with their head in a guillotine saying "Oh, from here I can see right where you need to apply the WD40."

We're trying to fight off the lynch mob and they're saying "No! Stop fighting them! I love licorice! Let them give us licorice!"

I'm just . . . I can't . . . this . . .

Wow.

I'll bet there are a dozen literary parallels. If I were smart I'd be able to spout something like "They are the Mordors of Benthos Castle, repelling the Gargoliths of Romuloid to get to the poisoned wine from King Barbolof."

Wait! Wait! There is one! I am smart!

They are pushing us away from the city gates to rush to the Trojan horse.

See? I am smart! I am!

*&%ing morons. Every single last one of them. Complete ---king morons.

On April 1st I heard a couple of stories that made me wonder. The first was a serious sounding news report that someone had found the Holy Grail in a church in Spain. Seriously? How would you verify that? Fingerprints? DNA? Compare it to photos taken at the last supper? I figured it had to be an April Fools deal.

Then I heard this one. It's about an IBM engineer named Philip Wood who was aboard Malaysia Flight 370 and snuck an iPhone 5 up his butt when the plane got hijacked. When the US Military, who hijacked the plane, took them to a secret military installation on the island of Diego Garcia, he pulled out the cell phone and took a picture of his cell. Then he uploaded the picture. I guess he didn't want to make a call on a phone that had been up his butt, so he used the free Wi-Fi the military provides in their secret prisons.

Only, the picture is black. But it had the embedded data on it proving that it was real!

I would have figured it was an April Fool's joke, but it was posted on March 30th.

Seriously. You've got to click onthe link. They ran the picture through some software they have and got an enhanced image that they think might be a guy in a black hood.

UPDATE: I put my best computer online today (serious security violation) BUT WAS ABLE TO RETINEX THE IMAGE AS A RESULT, AND YOU CAN SEE ENOUGH DETAIL TO SUPPORT PHILIP BEING DETAINED WITH A BLACK BAG OVER HIS HEAD, THE SAME WAY THE ARMY DOES IT.

So I got to thinking, I've got some access to some pretty good software. What if . . . ?

I have to apologize for being skeptical. I was amazed at what I found when I applied my special software to the pictures.

I was pretty excited! The edges were still pretty dark, so I made some tweaks and came up with this:

It's still not perfect, but it's good enough to make me a believer!

I guess the producer of the film Noah is upset over an "artistic" biography of his mother.

Darren Aronofsky, producer of "Noah" is reportedly upset about a new movie to be released next week that will be an artistically-modified biography of his mother, portraying her as a drug-addicted, disease-ridden prostitute. The producers of the new movie acknowledge that Aronofsky’s mother was actually never drug-addicted, disease-riddled or a prostitute, but they felt they needed to apply some artistic license in order to make the story more “enticing.”

I was a little curious about the guy's funeral. I wondered if there were protestors. It would have been fitting, but I hoped there weren't. I didn't care enough to google it.

I hope people understand that that piece of filth is something you just ignore, like the mosquito that's annoying, but not worth getting up to swat.

Holocaust Deniers and Other Whack Jobs

Frank could never eat at The Trolley without remembering Ken's brother-in-law. Not long after the place opened Frank and Ken had gone to lunch and Ken's brother-in-law went along. "Where d'ya wanna' go?" I don't know, where do you wanna' go? "Hey, what about that new place, that . . . what is it? The Trolley?"

So they went to the diner made from an old trolley car. The group was a little surprised at the prices, but what are you going to do? A little know provision of State Law forbids diners from running from a restaurant screaming after seeing the menu . . . unless they fake a heart attack first.

Everyone agreed that the food wasn't bad, but at those prices they weren't likely to go back. Ken's brother-in-law summed it up pretty well. "You can fleece a sheep as often as you want, but you can only skin it once."

A lot had changed since that long ago day when Frank had resolved not to return to the Trolley. Lunch prices in general had increased, Frank was making better money, and the diner had added a large dining room adjoining the trolley car, allowing them to do more business.

But as Frank sat down in the dining room at the Trolley he realized why he'd started eating there again. Every time he had been back since that first day, someone else was picking up the tab.

The Trolley was a favorite of Darren's and the place he typically took clients and vendors. That's why when the group from Virtania Mineral Resources offered to take Frank and Clint to lunch, it was to the Trolley Diner that the rental car was directed.

At the next table a group of elderly ladies, with hair various shades of artificial color, were gathering for what seemed to be a regular get together. "Helen called last night and asked about your mom." Frank had to marvel that the lady being addressed had a mother still living. "Oh, she's fine, she's fine." The lady said. "What are you going to drink? Don't get the diet Pepsi, 'cause it's just nasty. Nasty."

Frank wasn't trying to eavesdrop, the tables were just so close together. He turned his attention to the conversation at his own table.

The talk that Spring day ran the usual gamut, from what was good on the menu, to talk of the news, and discussions about work and technology. And of course there was talk about the latest cool things getting sent around via e-mail.

The date being April 2, the discussion turned to a hoax that Google had perpetrated, where it had offered a new service that faked the time on outgoing e-mail messages and inserted them in chronologically correct order in the receiver's inbox.

"Yeah I saw that," Clint said. "Something about it didn't seem right."

"I had the same thought," Frank said. "As soon as I looked at the date it hit me."

At the next table the server was taking orders "Make sure it's a real Pepsi," Frank heard, "'Cause that diet stuff is nasty. Just nasty."

"You know," one of the Virtania guys was saying, "It seems like people will fall for anything."

"Oh, man," Frank said, "we've got a guy at work and, I kid you not, he's never seen a conspiracy theory he didn't like."

Clint chuckled. He knew exactly who Frank was talking about.

"It's like . . . He's always going on about his 9/11 conspiracies and, oh . . . oh, and this is great. He has this video he's always trying to get everyone to watch that 'proves' we never landed on the moon."

"Ha ha, that's great," the Vertania guy laughed. "A real nut case! I'll bet he even thinks global warming isn't real. Ha ha hah!"

Frank suddenly became busy drinking his lemonade, while Clint glanced over at him and stifled a chuckle with his napkin.