| A man is doing some work on his home and goes to a hardware store. He goes up to the clerk and tells him what he wants. The clerk tells him that each one is $1. He tells the clerk he would like 5000 and he is charged only $4.
What did he buy? |
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Seems there was a young soldier, who, just before battle, told his sergeant that he didn’t have a rifle.
“That’s no problem, son,” said the sergeant. “Here, take this broom. Just point it at the Germans, and go ‘Bangety Bang Bang’.” “But what about a bayonet, Sarge?” asked the young (and gullible) recruit. The sergeant pulls a piece of straw from the end of the broom, and attaches it to the handle end. “Here, use this… just go, ‘Stabity Stab Stab’.” The recruit ends up alone on the battlefield, holding just his broom. Suddenly, a German soldier charges at him. The recruit points the broom, “Bangety Bang Bang!” The German falls dead. More Germans appear. The recruit, amazed at his good luck, goes “Bangety Bang Bang! Stabity Stab Stab!” He mows down the enemy by the dozens. Finally, the battlefield is clear, except for one German soldier walking slowly toward him. “Bangety Bang Bang! shouts the recruit. The German keeps coming. “Bangety Bang Bang!” repeats the recruit, to no avail. He gets desperate. “Bangety Bang Bang! Stabity Stab Stab!” It’s no use. The German keeps coming. He stomps the recruit into the ground, and says, “Tankety Tank Tank.” |
Every time you think it can’t get any worse…
From DEBKAfile:
As US President Barack Obama welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House on Friday, Sept. 25, and spoke of the friendship between the two countries, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning-CV-16 docked at the Syrian port of Tartus, accompanied by a guided missile cruiser. This is revealed exclusively by DEBKAfile.
Beijing is not finding it hard to dance at two weddings, wooing the US for better relations, while at the same time backing Russia in its military intervention in Syria. Coupled with the warm smiles and handshakes exchanged at the lavish reception on the White House lawn, Beijing was clearly bent on showing muscle – not just in the South China Sea, but by allying itself with the Russian-Iranian political and military buildup in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Chinese aircraft carrier passed through the Suez Canal on Sept. 22, one day after the summit in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
When they talked, Putin made no mention of the Chinese warship entering the eastern Mediterranean or its destination. Its arrival has upended the entire strategic situation surrounding the Syrian conflict, adding a new global dimension to Moscow and Tehran’s military support for Assad.
This was grasped at length by US Secretary of State John Kerry. On Sept. 25, he sent Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who also led the US negotiating team for the nuclear talks with Iran, to announce that the Obama administration is ready for dialogue with Iran about the situation in Syria, and this topic would be raised when Kerry’s met Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Jawad Zarif in New York on Sept. 26.
But if the top US diplomat hoped to bypass the Russian initiative in Syria by going straight to Tehran, he was too late. Iran is already moving forward fast to augment its military presence in the war-torn country, buttressed by the ground, air and sea support of two world powers, Russia and China.
This turn of evens has a highly detrimental effect on Israel’s strategic and military position. It also strengthens Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his determination to turn the nuclear deal concluded in July into a tool for isolating the US politically, militarily and economically in the Middle East, rather than a milestone on the road to a breakthrough in ties with Iran, as the Obama administration had hoped.
Our military sources find evidence that the Chinese forces are digging in for a prolonged stay in Syria. The carrier put into Tartus minus its aircraft contingent. The warplanes and helicopters should be in place on its decks by mid-November – flying in directly from China via Iran or transported by giant Russian transports from China through Iranian and Iraqi airspace.
This explains the urgency of establishing a Russian-Syria-Iranian “military coordination cell” in Baghdad in the last couple of days. This mechanism, plus the Russian officers sighted in Baghdad, indicates that the Russian military presence is not limited to Syria but is beginning to spill over into Iraq as well.
The coordination cell – or war room – was presented as necessary to begin working with Iranian-backed Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State in both places. But more immediately, it is urgently needed to control the heavy traffic of Russian, Iranian and Chinese military flights transiting Iraqi air space.
Our sources report that the Chinese will be sending out to Syria a squadron of J-15 Flying Shark fighters, some for takeoff positions on the carrier’s decks, the rest to be stationed at the Russian airbase near Latakia. The Chinese will also deploy Z-18F anti-submarine helicopters and Z-18J airborne early warning helicopters. In addition, Beijing will consign at least 1,000 marines to fight alongside their counterparts from Russia and Iran against terrorist groups, including ISIS.
DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources point out that just as Russian marines will be instructed to single out rebel militias with recruits from Chechnya and the Caucasus, the Chinese marines will seek out and destroy Uighur fighters from the northern predominantly Muslim Chinese province of Xinjiang.
In the same way that Putin has no wish to see the Chechen fighters back in Russia, so too Chinese President Xi wants to prevent the Uighurs from returning home from the Syrian battlefields.
Times have changed. But the basic premise of the Constitution hasn’t changed. It’s still our blueprint for freedom. ~ Ronald Reagan
Remarks at the Bicentennial Celebration of the United States Constitution
September 16, 1987
When George Washington was elected as the first President of the United States, the total population of the country was nearly 4 million. Today there are over 5 million Federal employees. Times have changed. But the basic premise of the Constitution hasn’t changed. It’s still our blueprint for freedom. One of our more able statesmen and constitutional lawyers, Daniel Webster, once wrote: “We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land nor, perhaps, the Sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and obey. The chart is the Constitution.”
Two hundred years ago the very notion of free self-government was a new idea. But James Madison, a man whom many call the Father of the Constitution, urged his fellow citizens not to oppose the idea simply because it was new. He argued that it was the glory of the American people that they were not blindly bound to the past but were willing to rely on “their own good sense” and experience in charting the future. It’s interesting that Madison and others had to defend the Constitution because it was new. Times have changed. For over 200 years we’ve lived with freedom under law, and perhaps, we’ve become complacent about it. We should never forget how rare and precious freedom is.
Active and informed citizens are vital to the effective functioning of our constitutional system. All of us have an obligation to study the Constitution and participate actively in the system of self-government that it establishes. This is an obligation we owe, not only to ourselves but to our children and their children. And there is no better time than right now, during the next 4 years of the bicentennial, to rededicate ourselves to the Constitution and values it contains.
Let us never forget that the signers of the Declaration of Independence acted with “a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence.” One hundred years ago, on the occasion of the centennial of the Constitution, another President, Grover Cleveland, accepted the privilege that I have been given here today: to honor the Constitution. And his words are as true now as they were then. He said: “When we look down upon 100 years and see the origin of our Constitution, when we contemplate all its trials and triumphs, when we realize how completely the principles upon which it is based have met every national need and national peril, how devoutly should we say with Franklin `God governs in the affairs of men.”’
And now, Stephanie, Damien, Brian, Tyese, would you join me and everybody here and everybody watching and listening throughout the land as we recite the words that we all know by heart: the Pledge of Allegiance.
Note: The President spoke at 2 p.m. on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Following his remarks, he recited the Pledge of Allegiance with Stephanie Petit, winner of the National Spelling Bee; Damien Atkins, District of Columbia honor student; and Brian Morris and Tyese Wright, Gallaudet University students.
