overheard in the express check-out line at Safeway, 5:37 PM:
20-something guy in fur-lined jacket: “—Anyway, I don’t think we need to be sending more people off to die in Bush’s illegal war for oil. You know?”
“Joeleen” the bagger: “Would you like your nuts in a separate bag, sir?”
Jeff: So, what do I owe you?
Joeleen: Can I bag that watermelon for you, sir?
Well, if I had to shop @ Safeway I’d be pretty “testy” too…
(rimshot)
J
20-something guy: [Breaking off the Bush tirade] Hey, quit fooling around with my nuts!
Joeleen: I’m sorry, sir, nuts require very special handling.
Now THAT was funny!
Sometimes, you’re so smart you’re scary. OTOH, I look the armadillo in the eye
eyes57.
LMFAO!
Thank you Joeleen, for restoring my faith in humanity…
;^)
20-something guy in fur-lined jacket: “What nuts? I don’t have any nuts.”
Joeleen: “I didn’t say ‘your nuts,’ I said ‘you’re nuts.’”
Synchronicity can be a bitch sometimes…
So, is the joke here that you would have to be a nut to think that the war in Iraq had something to do with oil? Are you saying that oil was not a factor, a small factor, a medium factor, an above average factor or the primary factor? What were the main factors if not oil?
No.
Hmmm…I wonder what Steve xx is missing?
MayBee: Steve XX is hard of hearing so when they were passing out brains he thought they said beans. Now he has a large sack of beans. Not a brain to be found in his possession. Happened to a lot of progressive liberals.
For those signing the anti-war resolution.
Be warned all you Vietnam dreamers… Every single member of Congress that signs their name to this resolution will be held accountable… From the moment the resolution is signed, every single soldier killed or wounded in the war on terror will be on YOUR head. Once the ink is dry, every single act of terrorism will be placed firmly in your lap. The blood of innocents killed by the terrorists will be on YOUR hands. YOU and you alone will have enabled and emboldened every single terrorist with your weak-kneed political game show.
stolen from Robin
Start the count of American soldiers directly killed by U.S. congress critters today.
A sense of humor?
It is too bad we can’t insert images into our comments because I have one in which a man, on his knees in prayer, asks God for the ability to punch someone over standard TCP/IP.
If I had that power, steve xx would have a bloody nose.
Sometimes, contrarians add to the debate Steve. Sometimes they make the debate interesting. Most of the time, they are just insufferable, petty dickheads. You are an insufferable, petty dickhead. Please die.
I have to think that was faux fur.
I honestly believe steve ex-expat really does get the joke, but is deliberately ignoring it in order to pick a fight.
I could be wrong, but…
Me, today I got behind guys that arrived here from Mexico just the other day. They were buying goats’ heads. I figure it was a tribute to the Stones.
Would this be the Safeway with the bagel ovens working overtime, in Plains, GA?
To be fair, stevexx admitted on another thread that he didn’t “get” most of Jeffs posts.
It could be deliberate, but more likely it’s pyschological.
If Bush had been interested in cheap oil, he would have turned left out of Kuwait and rolled up the Eastern Province in a couple of days flat, no opposition.
This would have had the added benefit of smacking the country which invented Wahhabism (and vice versa, come to that), and which provided the core of al Qa’eda and the 9/11 terrorists.
So Stevie XX might want to ponder why Bush chose, instead, the far tougher task of invading Iraq. It certainly wasn’t for the oil.
Steve xx is most definitely not a fighter. A fighter must be willing to accept his own defeat, Steve is far too cowardly to ever fully commit himself.
Really, steve xx,
should have gone with something like…
20-something guy: “Woah! That’s the same thing Rummy said when he handed me my Purple Heart!”
Wait, people can get injured in war?
Shit. Then I’ve changed my mind. I’M FOR PEACE!
“MayBee: Steve XX is hard of hearing so when they were passing out brains he thought they said beans. Now he has a large sack of beans. Not a brain to be found in his possession.”
C’mon, now. I expect far more creative stuff than this. Am I going to have to get meaner?
there, I fixed it for you alphie.
Jeff said:
“Wait, people can get injured in war?
Shit. Then I’ve changed my mind. I’M FOR PEACE!”
Are you being sarcastic because you’re not really for peace? I kind of get it, it just seems a little harsh to be considered funny. I mean, really, you’re not for peace? Is that the implication? That seems almost insane to me. Maybe this is why I don’t get your posts. What was the reference to a “fur-lined jacket” about anyway? Is that making fun of PETA and some sort of hypocricy angle you were going for or something? I don’t know any lefties in fur-lined jackets. I’m from California, so maybe that’s part of the reason.
“You are an insufferable, petty dickhead. Please die”
This one at least had some genuine emotion behind it, but really is a bit cliche. How about arrogant, iconoclastic jackass? I think that would be more fitting for me, but I guess I have a high opinion of myself.
Maybe it’s the whole reason.
The meaning, rather than the implication, is that sometimes it is necessary to fight to obtain a just peace, and refusing to do so or sneering at those who do is not going to make the nasties go away, Steve.
Get it?
Spiny Norman,
If there was a joke in the post, I really, truly didn’t get it. I wish someone would just let me in on it rather than debating whether I am pretending not to get it.
Furriskey,
Didn’t Orwell say something similar in 1984?:
War is Peace.
Was it a testicle joke. The guy doesn’t have any balls? Nuts = balls, that sort of thing? Enlighten me, I’m dying from suspense over here.
Is steve ex-expat:
1. More stupid than actus, or
2. Less stupid than actus, or
3. Precisely as stupid as actus, or
4. actus?
Jeff? Is it possible to put up a poll to get the vox populi on this question?
jaed,
I’d be very interested in the results of that poll. Will it include an explanation as to what I’m supposed to understand, but don’t? Look, I went to medical school. Really. I like to think of myself as an intelligent guy. I know some of you might disagree with my self-assessment, but I just can’t understand the humor here. It’s kind of fascinating to me, really.
Now this my friends, is pure comidic gold.
In a ballon fence kinda way…
mmmmm, someone’s inflating again.
No, I don’t think so Steve. But you are frightfully well read. Keep it up.
Or, as Simon Cowell would say, “Do you know what protein wisdom is, Steve? Why are you here, Steve? Steve, I’m not being rude, but this is not the right career path for you. Thanks for coming in. Other door. OTHER DOOR.”
20-something guy in a fur lined jacket: Everything I learned about human conflict is based in economic determinancy and Samir Amin’s latest discovery of the “Liberal Virus”â„¢.
“Joeleen” the bagger: “Would you like your 23 whereas clauses in a sack sir?”
OK, OK, I’m felling like I’ve been mean to stevex’s.
As a psychologist, you understand that sometimes, a cigar isn’t a cigar, correct?
Or, to state it another way, sometimes an oyster (Jeff is in Colorado, see…) is not really an oyster, especially those prairie oysters.
Oh, and as far as the fur lining…to me, in an extra-sensual, multi-dimensional way, with respect to all those dead philosophers and shit, I see the fur as symbolizing…THE HYPOCRISY!!
OK, I’m convinced; stevo is as dense as lead.
well…I meant feeling, but it’s late.
Maybe felling is closer to the truth.
Wow, this place is dead tonight…how ‘bout:
“Joleen” the teabagger: “Would you like your nuts in a separate bag, sir?â€Â
20-something guy: “No, I like the one I have now, thanks.”
Simon Cowell: “Alphie, whoever it was who told you you were amusing, they were lying. Thanks for coming in. OTHER DOOR. Christ.”
Janice-the free sample lady: would you like to try it si…err..son? It has 10% more flavour!
20-something guy: Hey! Whoa! Is that low fat? Cholesteral free? No trans-fats? how about caffeine free? Free range? organic? How can I be sure this is good for me? I don’t think I should. It’s a mistake! Get away from me lady!! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
That would make the 22,278th consecutive lefty to make that admission on PW.
Why yes. Step into my parlor, fly…er, steve.
To be fair, maybe he suffered some sort of head injury. I’m guessing it involved a nailgun. That, or an SUV running into him while he was riding his recumbent bike.
Y’know, not to be a pisser, but if there was nothing beneath the sand of the Middle East but more sand, we wouldn’t give a shit what they did to each other over there.
So, in a very real sense, our past and present involvements in the region have been, and are, necessarily because of oil.
Just because the bumper-sticker set has trivialized and abused that accident of geology and geography doesn’t make it any less true.
Speak for yourself, Ian. I remember the First Crusade. The only oil in those days was in Virgins’ lamps.
What is up with these so-called mental health professionals?
Do they all blog like Manson?
If there were nothing but sand there, Ian, the terrorists wouldn’t have the funding they do and we wouldn’t have to fight them there.
We’re in Iraq because their former dictator lost a game of chicken. We WON that war; now we’re helping Iraq fight off new would-be dictators who want to fill the vacuum, especially those aligned with Alqeda. We’re keeping them busy there so they have a harder time staging attacks in the US.
We’ll leave when Iraq is more stable. We shouldn’t leave only to create a staging area for terrorism.
20 something guy No. Could you put my nuts in my wifes bag, please.
the bush stock is down on trendio… http://www.trendio.com/word.php?wordid=71&language=en
Not because we “want to steal it” though, the impact it has had is it has allowed a bronze age culture to acquire modern weapons, and given far too many people far too much time on their hands to get into mischief with them.
See, Steve, nuts come in a jar. So putting them in a bag is inherently funny. Glad I could help.
And here all this time I thought the trolls come here and stay around to pick fights. They just kind of wind up here because they find their way in and can’t find their way out—like a fly in a bottle, endlessly bewildered that when it tries to pass through what looks to it like a clear path to freedom, it bounces off.
And that’s what actus and heet and sxp are doing here—endlessly just bouncing off they know not what.
4. actus?
Certainly not. Actus couldn’t find his shift key with both hands, a flashlight and a fresh set of contact lenses.
Plus, actus has a different set of tactics: to suggest that he has a point, and then prod everyone to pry it out of him. I think Steve actually is lost, here.
There’s nothing beneath the sand of Afghanistan but more sand, but somehow ignoring the place didn’t work out all that great for us.
Are you being sarcastic because you’re not really for peace? I kind of get it, it just seems a little harsh to be considered funny. I mean, really, you’re not for peace?
It must be said, that most of the military-types I know are FOR peace. They just have the balls to not merely wish for it out of cowardice.
Weren’t we all supposed to have an orgasm for Peace last month? I was SURE that was going to work.
Here you go, Steve –
As I (over)read this vignette:
SAFE-WAY = (obvious)
EXPRESS = convenience
FUR LINED = cocoon
20-SOMETHING GUY = (connect dots above)
JOLEEN = iconic name: your “average,” hardworking Joe.
NUTS = (obvious). Also echoes Allied response to German surrender demand at Bastogne.
WIS NPR Host … hi, Jill from Madison, who would you like to vote for in our Presidential straw poll and why?
Jill, from Madison I would vote for Hillary!
WIS NPR Host Ok… and why?
Jill, from Madison Well, she’s a Sagittarius, with a Scorpio moon rising… which means she’s compassionate, driven, and I think it’s time for a woman to be president.
WIS NPR Host Ok… well, that’s as good a reason as any, I guess.
me [to the radio] in my best Dan Collins voice SHEESH
Steve ex what?
Tai- I would offer that fur-lined also suggests pampered and (dare I say) <em>metrosexual<em>.
Ian, then why did we go to Europe in the ‘40’s and why are we still there today? Aside from Norway, there’s no oil to speak of. War for Brie? Champagne?
Economic considerations are always a factor but not necessarily the primary factor.
Tai Chi Wawa:
With all due respect, even with your deconstruction, Jeff’s original post is apparently still way too nuancy.
Let’s just replace it with a new, simpler joke that maybe even steviexx will get:
Harry Reid, a large bullfrog perched on his head, walks into a bar and orders a Cosmo.
The bartender looks at the frog and says (wait for it!!) . . .
“Pardon me, Sir. I don’t mean to be rude, but are you aware that you have a HUGE pimple on your ass?”
There. All better.
Slackjaw –
you might want to tell it more slowly.
…or maybe ‘gormless popinjay’ would be more appropriate.
Pablo, in fairness to Ian, he did qualify with the words “in the region,” meaning the Middle East.
I think he should have told her they are fine…. but wouldya like to help me carry ‘em out to the car?
I’m still waiting for a “No Blood for Oil” leftie to give me his or her prognostication as to what the world would look like a year after the US suddenly chose not to exert any influence whatsoever in North Africa, Southwest Asia, the Mediteranean, and the northwestern sector of the Indian Ocean. My guess is that none of them can carry a logical thought process that far.
If you have no understanding of economics or geopolitics then being a leftist makes a little more sense I guess.
McGehee, my point was that we’ve gone to war and established an enduring presence in other regions on similar principles before without such an important resource in play. The fact that the ME has oil is not evidence that it is our primary motivation for being there.
Grenada, anyone?
Slackjaw – you made me giggle in spite of myself!
Pablo – yes. See, what I want to know, if we went to the ME to get the damn oil, is, where’s my 50-cent-a-gallon gasoline??? ‘Cause I own shares and, believe me, the eeeevil oil companies ain’t makin’ that much profit.
SteveX-
One of the thing that irritates me about lefty trolls is that they thinks they are so smart. Then the drift off into are self verifying elitism “I like to think I am pretty intelligent”….. “I went to medical school”… just hours after speaking out on racism as the voice of the downtrodden. Ah. Patronizing, condescension and white guilt wrapped up into a dissembling but highly educated bait ball.
Of course the fight in Iraq has something to do with oil… because there is a lot of it over there. Inextricably entwined. Oil provided Saddam money for suicide bombers, WMD programs and cash for Kofi’s best friends. Radical Islamists parked on the world’s oil supply is an unpleasant thought for the Chinese…. why wouldn’t the President of the US be concerned as well.
As others have pointed out, if the “illegal government” of US was just interested in oil, we’d have seized the oil fields while we were liberating Kuwait and kept them.
To me the joke in Jeff’s post was the whiny kid trolling out lefty code words and the checkout woman treating him like an unoriginal insecure puddinghead… inadvertantly. That is funny to me.
But then I rarely think about my intelligence and I never attended med school… so maybe the story was actually about a super intelligent kid urgently speaking truth to a worker drone in a fly over state….. alas she doesn’t grasp the truth so clearly offered (probably the whole “Jesus” thing again) and the tragedy continues.
Wow. hahaha… anti war humor…hahaha. wooohoooooohoooo
tw: which72 a plea to relativism
”…or maybe ‘gormless popinjay’ would be more appropriate.”
Dude,
Don’t make me get out my dictionary.
BRING ON SOME PEACE! I AM HEALED!
Steve ex pat,
Please move, your embarrassing yourself as well as all other Californians….
What are we going to do now that Steve XX has pointed out to Jeff that people get injured, or worse, in war??? Our cause has lost him.
DAMN YOU TRUTHTELLERS!
Carin,
I’m pretty sure I didn’t point that out to Jeff. I think he found that out from someone else.
P.S. I think I figured out that block quote thing, which is very exciting.
I’d love to know from any of the anti-war folks is just what they predict will happen if they are successful in getting the troops pulled out of Iraq. Any takers?
There’s only one possible solution: DOD OSHA. And while we’re at it, we really need to do something about making war accessible to the handicapable.
tw: major69
Reporting for duty, Sir!
Steve G.
What percentage was about oil? It would have to be less than 50% for the lefty in line to sound really naive, right? As I understand it now, that was part of the joke. I would say that above 50% makes his claim legitimate.
steve ex-expat, what percentage of WWII was about wine?
or sushi?
Defense Guy,
I think us anti-war folks are wondering what is going to happen if we keep them in there? What do you foresee happening? I suppose if we had a real “surge” of 300,000 or so troops, the country would be pacified, at least until we left. As might have been learned by the Soviet Union, even after decades of pacification, as soon as the occupying force leaves, the old rivalries start right back up. And the 20 or 30 thousand troop addition is not even going to succeed in pacifying. It will likely just make it a little bit bigger of a bloodbath. I think its quite likely that, once we eventually leave, things will get worse before they get better. By the way, are you conceding that it was a mistake to go in there in the first place, but also saying it is now a mistake to leave?
In any case, I assume we agree that we are going to leave eventually, correct? So our only disagreement is on the timing.
Pablo and Defense Guy,
I’d say that it would be in the neighborhood of .00003%. I answered your question, so you’ll answer mine?
What the US is doing to pacify Afghanistan and Iraq is quite a bit different than the Soviet technique. If you were as bright as you think you are you would realize that Soviet-style pacification is a very ironic term.
There’s a difference between cutting and running and actually, you know, winning the war and coming home.
Or is that too nuanced for you?
B Moe,
First of all, do you think there is pacification in Iraq? Maybe that’s a goal, but there hasn’t been any progress towards that goal, correct? I think there was a brief pacification period in Afghanistan, but that appears to be unravelling. I’m not one to defend the Soviet Union, but as to the methods used for pacification, I’m not sure it matters once the pacifying force has left. The point is that things will return to status quo, ethnic divisions, power struggles, etc.
SteveXX,
What will happen if we don’t abrogate our promises, abandon our honor and relegate yet another nation to bloody internal reprisals and probable regional war?
FOrget your “real” surge. The surge that’s being discussed isn’t necessary. It’s a political band-aid intended to asuage selected critics, in particular, the ones that claim that the President isn’t aware of how badly things are going, which is total hogwash.
If we changed absolutely nothing about our conduct in Iraq, we and Iraq would achieve every one of our goals. It’s just going to take longer than the US electorate are apparently willing to wait. The surge might lessen that time frame. Might lengthen it too.
It takes 20 years, minimum, for a nation to estabish a working democraic government and the security apparatus to defend it. In addition it takes 12 years to develop a modern Army brigade command staff and all the support mechanisms that it needs.
We can safely go in the 8 to 10 year range. Even then there’ll be a US cadre.
Why is this surprising? It’s been 15 years in Bosnia, or most recent other example.
O’Brain,
Could you define victory for me? Because I haven’t really heard anyone specify exactly what it would be, much less whether it is achievable. I personally don’t see where anything is going to change for the better at some point in the future. Again, if you had 300,000 more troops, pacification might be possible, but you still then have to leave and the same ethnic divisions will still be there. So, in other words, it appears to be a lost cause – a mistake. It can’t be undone, just admitted.
RTO Trainer,
That is a similar argument to the one made for staying in Vietnam. Yet we did leave, and no one would be afraid to get on a plane and visit Vietnam 30 years after we left. I have some American friends living there, as a matter of fact.
My apologies, Steve XXX, it was alphie:
In my defense, sometimes all you folks look alike.
Still, I think I must brand you a truth-teller, and thus must damn you.
And by worse before they get better are you willing to concede that the Vietnamese or Cambodian models are at least likely to be good historical models? Millions dead before moving back to partly free or mostly tyrannical government’s years down the road?
Don’t think that it’s only the anti-war folks that are wondering what is going to happen. I think that there are a number of obstacles to a happy outcome for all. I would include Iran, Syria and SA as some of those obstacles. I think any plan that doesn’t honestly take that fact into account is going to make the struggle that much harder, and longer. I think, and here is what I suspect you want me to say, that we will continue to see some American troops being killed, at least for the foreseeable future.
We are not the Soviets, and our aims are not the same as theirs were when they occupied a country. Look at our historical precedents in Germany, Korea and Japan.
If it helps you to think so, sure, why not. When I first knew we were going to go to war with Iraq, probably Dec ‘02 or so, I was not in favor of the move. By the time we invaded in March ‘03, I was less opposed than I had been initially. Now, it’s a done deal, so in essence, how I felt about it doesn’t really matter.
We are still in Germany, so I’m not really sure that is accurate. Timing, as they say, is everything. That fact is certainly true in this case.
Step off, friend.
That chestnut has been asked and answered so many times, just do a search of the archives.
Hell I answered the question, indirectly, in my last post.
You leftys aren’t coming off as clever with tehis ask and re-ask routine, just obtuse.
TW: Needs77 answers to the same old question before they get it?
It wouldn’t take 300,000 more troops. We merely have to untie, a bit, the hands of those that are already there.
Find someone willing to have done it between 1975 and 1985 and we’ll talk.
Try it with a news crew, and then try to ditch the handlers the country will assign to you. Vietnam is partly free at best, and the worst part of the experience of fighting a war with the US came after we left. After.
RTO Trainer,
I didn’t see your post until after I had posted mine, but I think I’ve responded to it in kind, since. If the question of what is victory had been answered here before, I wouldn’t have seen it, since I just got to this site a couple of days ago.
Well, I’m off. Perhaps Jeff will have a new post that I won’t understand when I return. My wife was just looking over my shoulder and said, “‘Protein wisdom,’ that’s clever.” I guess it’s just me who doesn’t get it.
No, because your question is based on the premise that such things can be calculated in mathematical terms, and that one can assign percentages to them.
What percentage of my love for my daughter comes from the fact that she’s got my eyes? What part is attributable to her intellect? What percentage is due to her sense of humor? What percentage is the hugs and kisses?
And what is this…
…other than a wild ass guess with absolutely no factual foundation?
What? No response to my response steve?
Nuts.