Evil Overlord To Do list

The more I think about it, the more I see where the delicate touch of my armored fist could make such a difference in the world! The beauty of being an Evil Overlord is you can ignore all those pesky campaign funding rules, too. Not to mention the elections themselves.

• This one has always bothered me. So you have an official holiday, a day off from work to celebrate [fill in worthy subject]. And what happens? The Post Office takes the day off too! No packages, no mail. This will change when my regime commences! Holidays will have DOUBLE mail delivery, and if nobody sent you anything your mail carrier will write you a nice postcard.
• Not to pick on the Post Office or anything, but I will require that a statement be generated every year showing how much money the PO makes delivering that crudaceous junk mail to your mailbox. You will then have the option of paying that amount plus $5 (see? I'm not completely evil) to STOP the delivery of junk mail. Everybody wins except the junk mail people and I'm not staying up late worrying about what they think of me.
• Individuals with small children on public transportation, such as airplanes, will be required to post a bond before being allowed to embark. If said children scream the entire flight, kick the seat ahead of theirs, require "Goodnight Moon" to be read to them 500 times, or dump sticky objects on other travelers, the money will be forfeit and used to provide free drinks, tranquilizers, ear plugs and/or nerf bats for those affected. Until the little darlings are civilized, don't inflict them on people who never did anything to you and can't escape. I'm thinking a sliding scale here, maybe $2,000 for infants under 1 year down to $500 for kindergarteners.

Dog not barking, very loudly

Anybody else notice the complete lack of media coverage of the complete lack of outrage in Iraq over the complete lack of verifiable Koran desecration story? Don't believe me, I'm just one o' them thar bloggers what don't have none of them fancy fact-checkin' thingys. Believe the Brothers Fadil, who are not only Iraqi but funny! Strange how this supposedly monolithic "Arab Street" seems to be rather different than what the Media describe. Oh, wait. I'm beginning to see a pattern here ....

Don't make me come over there ...

For all the people out there who think current security measures are harsh and insensitive and just plain annoying, I have two things to say.

1. That's nothing. Deliberately slamming airplanes full of innocent people into buildings full of innocent people -- THAT'S harsh and insensitive.
2. That's nothing. It could be much, much worse. For example, if I was Evil Overlord (and I've read the lists, so I'm all ready to get to work), it would go something like this:

• Everyone, male or female, coming from a Middle Eastern country or country known to have a significant Islamic terrorist presence gets searched. US citizen coming back from Saudi Arabia? Very nice. Assume the position. Small, innocent child? Just like the one that got blown up on 9/11. You get searched too. Grandmother in abayya? Searched. Don't like it, stay home.
• Everyone else gets randomly searched. Yes, even grandmothers. You obviously never met mine. So what if they can't physically take over the plane themselves? They could be carrying something for that muscular, scowling young man behind them.
• Borders are not decorative. Funding for the NEA will be diverted to purchase lots of those neat little drone spy planes, and the Congressional Cafeteria will be reduced to macaroni and cheese to fund additional border agents. Further cuts into unnecessary programs will be made and used for border patrol purposes until illegal immigration is reduced to 2% of current levels. (I may, if feeling benevolent at the time, permit hamburgers to be added to the menu at this point but the instant illegal immigration goes up again, mac and cheese only!)
• Apply Solomonic Law to claims of intolerance. If a person from religion A claims rude and nasty things were said about religion A, any and all lawsuits are to be tossed out of court with extreme prejudice if it can be shown person from religion A said rude and nasty things about religion B. The phrase I am thinking of here is "lead by example".
• Newspapers will be forced to print a correction, on the front page, above the fold, in bold type two sizes larger than the original, whenever they fail to mention crucial information. They will also be required to state at the beginning of any article regarding Iraq or Afghanistan if the correspondant ever left the hotel, or instead relied exclusively on local "help" for their insightful, hard-hitting journalism.
• The office of Official Statistician will be instituted. These crack, armed officials will supervise the publication of all statistics quoted in the press. They will not prevent any data from being published, but they will require additional information to be added to prevent unwarranted conclusions from being drawn. For example, they will not allow the Global Warming Enthusiasts to chop off the graph where it starts to show higher temperatures in the past. Before humans discovered fire.

See how much worse things could be?

True Names

One of the least charming rhetorical tricks of the strident left is to compare the current US president with a certain defunct German dictator. Maybe they are so fascinated with the written word they have developed a cargo-cult-like belief that writing it makes it so? I can't imagine why they would want that, but I can't imagine how they can make the comparison with a straight face either. See, in a real dictatorship, when you have the nerve to say things the dictator doesn't like, you die. The members of the White Rose were executed for merely printing pamphlets. Last time I checked, Michael Moore was still alive and spouting nonsense, along with all the rest of that bunch. No vast liberal internment camps in Montana, no political executions, no "disappeared". As fascist dictatorships go, I give this one an F.

What really gets me steamed, though, is the implied disrespect for those who DID suffer from a fascist dictator. Over 5 MILLION people, civilians, died. Many, many more would have, if Moustache Boy had had his way. There was a old friend of my grandmother's, a sweet, gentle German lady. I loved her little house surrounded by a tangle of lush flowers, her soft accent, her ambrosial coffee cake. She had numbers tattooed on her arm. She must have been a young woman when it was done. Terrified. She probably saw people she knew -- family, friends, neighbors -- killed. She never spoke about it. Want to talk about evil? Evil deliberately tries to destroy people like her. Just because of what she was.

When people make that insidious comparison, I see red. Not because of the contempt of the president or of politics they clearly despise, that's their right and priviledge in this country. Because I remember that little grey-haired woman with numbers on her arm.

Fight fascism! Make a coffeecake! (recipie in the comments)

Can Flubber be far behind?

This is why science is so much fun. Bendable concrete! Can you imagine what it was like in the lab that came up with the stuff? That sober-face-and-lab-coat image we project to the outside world is a carefully designed front to make sure the funding agencies don't hear all the giggling.

UPDATE: I don't know how I missed this one. Transparent Concrete! The mind boggles ...