Category Archives: wtf

Louisiana Officials Demand That Self-Reliant Locals Stop Surviving The Flood Without Permission

Baton Rouge goes Galt, and the government can’t stand it:

Louisiana Officials Demand That Self-Reliant Locals Stop Surviving The Flood Without Permission

First, the Cajun Navy, a loosely organized group of local fishers, boaters, hunters, and guides, took it upon themselves to being rescuing people trapped by the sudden flood. Initially, the local sheriff’s department was reluctant to accept the assistance, but as they became quickly overwhelmed, they realized that they were disregarding a valuable asset.

Initially, authorities in Livingston Parish didn’t want private citizens headed into the water, worried amateur rescuers might end up in trouble themselves, said Layton Ricks, the parish president. But as the calls from stranded residents continued to mount — at one point, Livingston officials said they were about 150 calls behind — parish officials relented.

“Then it was like, do you have vests? Do you have insurance? Are you truly capable of doing this?” Ricks said. “And as it turned out, we couldn’t have done it without those guys. They were a tremendous asset for our people.”

Locals who were not affected by the flood began cooking and donating food.  Others helped flood victims to begin gutting their homes so they could start to rebuild. This community in the bayou pulled together to show the world that a real emergency response begins at home, undertaken by the very people who were affected. They didn’t wait around bemoaning the lack of FEMA, Red Cross, and government aid. They got to work.

They opened up their own shelters in local businesses that were not affected. They distributed immediate relief to those who were displaced. They performed their own rescues, organized the response, and used social media to coordinate their efforts.

They made just about everyone in America who heard about their efforts feel a wave of pride. In fact, they were so effective at their own free-market local disaster relief that they rendered the government’s assistance all but unnecessary.

And that is when the government said, “Oh, no. We can’t have that.”

WTF is wrong with people?

Likelihood of this being an “accident?”  About as likely as Hillary coming clean on Benghazi:

Restaurant Serves Police Officer Sandwich Filled With Glass

A police officer was hospitalized after receiving cuts in his mouth from a sandwich filled with glass shards.

The officer said he heard a crunching sound and felt a “grisly texture” when he bit into his sandwich at a Columbus, Ohio, restaurant Monday afternoon. When he opened it up, he saw bits of glass inside the sandwich, according to a local ABC affiliate.

Detectives investigating the incident will determine whether the glass fragments were put in the sandwich on purpose or if it was accidental. The unnamed restaurant closed for the investigation, and police have interviewed least one employee.

Academia delenda est

A retired general, already at an academic think tank, gets rejected for a position at a Chiraq-area university.  Their excuse?  You’re not going to believe it:

Suicide by Self-Importance

Of all the displays of political myopia and intolerance in the American academy over the past several years, this story may be the most astonishing: Students and faculty at Northwestern University have forced Karl Eikenberry—a retired three-star general and fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies—to withdraw his appointment as head of a new global affairs institute on the Evanston campus on the grounds that he is a “career military officer.” 

The Washington Post‘s report on the story contains a truly remarkable, and telling, quote from one student involved in the crusade against the general (who has contributed to this magazine):

“An ex-U.S. general will likely think about international politics in terms of war and from the perspective of the U.S.’s interests, and the research agenda will be negatively skewed as a result,” wrote Charles Clarke, a Northwestern graduate student and one of the petition’s backers. “Instead, why not appoint someone who will encourage research that is less belligerent and tainted by U.S. bias?”

WTF? Over?

Heineken, schmeineken…

ThePabstBlueReuben-225x300This is what you get when you dip a reuben sandwich in PBR beer batter and fry it up:

The Pabst Blue Reuben

I was super drunk out in Vegas at the time and responded by saying something along the lines of “What if I took an entire Reuben sandwich, dipped it in Pabst beer batter and deep fried it? It could be called the Pabst Blue Reuben!”

They were into it an apparently the people over at Pabst were as well so they have me the go ahead and here it is — The Pabst Blue Reuben!

just based on the name alone, the Pabst Blue Reuben is pretty awesome, but taste-wise it was even better! I’ve yet to find a single food that beer batter and a quick dip in some 375° oil can’t improve upon.

Blue-on-blue threats of violence

It’s what they do when they don’t get their way:

Attempt to place Review-Journal obituary for Hillary Clinton prompts report to Secret Service

The Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday reported a possible threat related to [Democrat] presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after a man tried to place an obituary notice for the former secretary of state.

The man, who identified himself as Don Schubert, was asked to leave the newspaper building’s lobby after he filled out a standard obituary form identifying the deceased as Hillary Rodham Clinton, and listing her date of death as Feb. 20, 2016, the date of Saturday’s [Democrat] Party presidential caucuses. Previously he had called the newsroom to complain about the coin flips that determined the outcome of some Iowa caucuses last month.

The man was seen leaving the RJ parking lot in a maroon Toyota Prius bearing several Bernie Sanders campaign stickers. A security guard said he was also wearing a Sanders sticker on his shirt. The official Sanders campaign website lists “Don Schubert’s House” in Long Beach, Calif., as the site of a volunteer phone bank.

Newspaper security officials reported Schubert to the Secret Service.

Because that tactic worked so well in ’96, ’08, and ’12

Winning…or “#Winning”?

Leader McConnell warns GOP voters: We need candidates ‘who can win’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday warned Republican voters to steer clear of nominating Tea Party candidates who can’t win in next year’s general election.

“The way you have a good election year is to nominate people who can win,” he told reporters during his final Capitol Hill press conference of 2015.

He urged Republican primary voters to avoid the mistakes of the past, mentioning several Tea Party candidates who went down in flames in recent Senate elections.

“What we did in 2014 was we didn’t have more Christine O’Donnell’s, Sharron Angles, Richard Mourdocks or Todd Akins. The people that were nominated [last year] were electable,” he said of the last midterm cycle.

“That will happen again in 2016. We will not nominate anybody for the United States Senate on the Republican side who’s not appealing to a general-election audience,” he added.