How many of you memorized this as a kid?

It used to be the Guinness World Record holder for Longest Song Title (it may still be):

I’m A Cranky Old Yank In A Clanky Old Tank On The Streets of Yokohama With My Honolulu Mama Doing Those Beat-o, Beat-o, Flat On My Seat-o, Hirohito Blues.

Taught that to my kids the other day. Gotta handicap them with useless trivia before they get too smart on me.

Defining patriotism

Even when you have a hard time expressing what exactly patriotism is, you know it when you see it. And this kid’s got lots:

Jeffrey Sahli noticed the faded, fraying U.S. flag outside Evergreen Middle School soon after he started eighth grade last year.

“I thought the flag wasn’t being treated with flag etiquette. I thought I needed to do that,” the 14-year-old said. “I wanted to serve my country and I thought, heck, I’ll start right here.”

With the principal’s permission, he began taking care of Old Glory. Every school day he carefully hoists the U.S. and Colorado flags before classes and takes them down before heading home. He folds the Colorado flag into a neat square, the U.S. flag into a triangle, and places them in a cabinet in the office.
…
Jeffrey said the flag reminds him of the soldiers serving in Iraq.

“When they’re coming home, I wanted them to see the flag flying high.”

Amid all the horrendous stories of kids acting like they were raised by wolves, you have a young man like this. He’s out there every school day, regardless of the weather, taking it upon himself to ensure that the flag is handled with care and respect. And he never expected any recognition or even acknowledgment of his efforts – he just did it because he knew it was right.

He wants to go to West Point. I sure hope he gets the chance.

Virtual bedmates?

I think our weirdness is catching up to the Japanese.

…and every man a billionaire!

At least in Zimbabwe, where they’ve just introduced a half-billion dollar note:

ZIMBABWE has introduced a new half-a-billion dollar bank note in a bid to tackle cash shortages fed by rampant inflation, the central bank said today.
“Introducing the new 500,000,000 bearer cheque for your convenience,” read a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe full-page advert in the state daily, The Herald, displaying specimens of the new note.

The note, comes into circulation 10 days after the introduction of a quarter-of-a-billion one early this month.

At today’s exchange rate, that half-billion note is worth $16,666 US. But at 165,000% inflation, it won’t take long before they need to print half-trillion notes.

They’re going to have to start using scientific notation on their currency.

Laudable: Barack Obama apologizes, admits fault, takes blame

Got to give credit where credit is due. Unlike many of the other situations he has confronted, Barack Obama has handled this one manfully:

Barack Obama has personally apologised to a female television reporter for calling her “sweetie”, chalking the name up to a “bad habit”.

Obama’s encounter with Peggy Agar, a reporter at WXYZ network in Detroit, was the second time in two months that he raised eyebrows by calling a woman “sweetie”.
…
But Obama moved quickly to mend hurt feelings by leaving a voicemail on the reporter’s cell phone while she was sleeping after an early morning shift.

“I’m calling to apologise on two fronts. One was, you didn’t get your question answered … I broke my word. I apologise for that and I will make up for it,” Obama said.

“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie’,” he continued. “That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.”

He still owes her an actual voice-to-voice apology, of course, but in my estimation he’s done the right thing and “Sweetiegate” can be brought to a deservedly swift close.

Bush’s golf story: a great BDS detector

As one might expect, the Left is still in a lather over Bush’s golf statement. They are claiming that it is a trivialization of soldiers’ sacrifices, and another example of Bush’s insensitivity to the costs of war.

As usual, though, the diatribes from the Left (especially Olbermann’s nonsensical gem) expose their own faults, rather than Bush’s. They all based their commentary on the Yahoo article linked above, and made it sound like this was Bush talking about his way of showing solidarity with the troops.

But if you read the transcript, you find that Bush was simply answering a question. This question:

Q: Mr. President, you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?

So Bush is explaining why he doesn’t golf, not giving an outline of his approaches to showing sensitivity and empathy for the troops and their families. It turns out that he doesn’t golf out of sensitivity and empathy, but that certainly doesn’t comprise the entirety or the foundation of his sensitivity and empathy.

The twisted context exploited by the Left is just another instance of their BDS goggles showing them what they want to see.

How embarrassing for them.