ALEXANDRIA POLICE OFFICER SHOT, GRAVELY WOUNDED BY ALEXANDRIA TAXICAB DRIVER DURING ROUTINE TRAFFIC STOP.

Right now there is not sufficient information - other than that known to the police investigating this shooting to determine whether the shooter was actually an Alexandria licensed taxicab operator or whether it was someone using the vehicle unlawfully.

 

The wounded officer is at this time and as far as I know still fighting "life-threatening" injuries. His name, released about an hour ago is Peter Laboy.

 

The shooter is a man with the last name of Bashir. I don't believe I know this person.

 

Why a cab driver would shoot a cop - again, if the shooter actually was a cabbie - is beyond me. Working the early-morning hours it is a comfort to see a cop in my rearview mirror, especially if I have a person or people in the back seat who are creeping me out.

 

Now I have to get back to work. I'll bet dollars to donuts there's a knot of reporters at the King Street and Van Dorn Metro stops and they're bugging the living hell out of the drivers, especially from my outfit.

 

This is beyond terrible. Our thoughts and prayers are for the successful and speedy recovery of Officer Laboy and for comfort for his family and his fellow officers.

Y-CHROMOSOMES DO NOT BELONG IN THE X-CHROMOSOME RESTROOM (AND WHY DO WE HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS?)

Sometimes we wonder just how long God is going to put up with the ever-increasing perversity of human culture. Here's the latest development in "conversations we should not even need to have":

Some five year old boy in this country thinks he is a girl. He wants to use the girl's restroom at school. The school (unsurprisingly) refused to allow this.

But - and unfortunately also not all that surprising - the parents have filed a lawsuit, claiming their son is "transgendered" and has a "right" to use the restroom facilities he is most comfortable with.

 

Here is the cold, hard truth: either that is one fucked-up little boy or those are two fucked-up parents, or (likely) both. How in blazes does a five-year-old not know damned good and well he's a boy? We are pretty sure he can see he has a wiener and we are pretty sure he knows boys have weenies and girls don't.

 

Maybe he doesn't like to play kickball and is more into hopscotch. Maybe he'd rather have an EZ-Bake Oven than a set of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. Maybe he's shy. Maybe he even has a puppy-crush on another boy. Whatever. NONE OF THIS MAKES HIM A FREAKING GIRL, DAMMIT.  He has a "Y" chromosome. Even surgery can't change that (and please don't tell me the parents are so much as looking into sex-reassignment surgery for a five year old. That ought to be illegal if it isn't already).

 

Back in my day, we had physical education three times a week. and we had to change in front of each other and take showers communally. That probably greatly helped eliminate this sort of thing back then. And if some boy kept trying to use the girl's facilities instead of the boys' room, then the paddle at school and "Cowhide Tea" (aka the belt) at home would have been used to knock sound reason into him.

 

Instead here is where we are today. Kid brings a cap pistol to school. Call the cops, arrest him, and press charges. Kid thinks he's a girl and walks into the girls' restroom; call the courts and demand that his "right" to be a girl if he wants to be respected.

 

Maybe I ought to just spend until I owe way over my head and then sue for my "right" to be a billionaire because I act like I have all the money in the  world.  I'd have a helluva better case than this kid and his parents. This is insane. 

THE "MYANMAR" RESTAURANT IN FALLS CHURCH: EXCELLENT AND INEXPENSIVE BURMESE CUISINE

Having severely panned the national Boston Market chain of eateries, I would like now to sing the praises of a local family-run ethnic restaurant.

 

"Myanmar" is located in a shopping strip on Lee Highway in the Falls Church section of Fairfax County, Virginia on the north side of the road about a mile east of Gallows Road. Over the past four years I have visited Myanmar five times. It is a little "hole-in-the-wall" place, and the decor is a bit sparse. Still, the decorations are astonishing and beautiful and include a painting of the Schwedagon Buddhist Pagoda seen looming out of the mist and fog from the vantage point of a canoe being paddled up a languid river and a pair of Burmese cerimonial swords.

 

As in most ethnic cuisines of the Indochinese Peninsula, Burmese cooking borrows heavily from its neighbors. Yet the dishes to be had at Myanmar are unique. Common ingredients are mustard greens and something called "sour leaf". Fish and chicken are of course well represented on he menu, but my favorites involve preparations of pork belly. 

 

"Chili belly pork" is an incendiary stir-fry of pork belly and vegetables served with a soothing and flavorful rice. Milder is the "layer pork with chili, mustard green and sour leaf". It too is made with pork belly and although it is not as fiery as the "chili belly pork" still packs a considerable wallop.

 

There are less-intimidating options available, but even these come with a paste of house-made ground chili pepper on the side. Mind how much of these potent pepper flakes you use. This is not the pepper flakes you shake over your pizza. These compounded pepper flakes are made in-house with a mortar and pestle and are not just dry flakes but as I said are a heady, moist paste. Mete out a lump of this condiment just half the size of a pea into a 16 ounce bowl of otherwise mild-flavored soup and you will be sweating from the heat. And enjoying every bit of it.

 

The management does not encourage it on the menu, but I asked the staff today if it would be okay if one came in with one's freinds, gave the server 20 to 30 dollars per person and just let the staff decide what would be served and servi it up "family style". I'm looking forward to doing that.

 

Just one little note: Make sure your server tells you about the food and how it will be served and how it should be eaten. Soups are often served in tureens with noodles and/or rice in shallow dishes, with the noodles to be apportioned into individual bowls and the soup ladled over them.  Some salads and other dishes are meant to be rolled with condiments in a lettuce leaf and eaten as a sort of "wrap".  

 

I swear on a stack I am not being paid to write a word of this. Visit Myanmar restaurant and you will leave understanding what Rudyard Kipling said about Burma: There is no other place like it on God's Creation.

 

Seriously.

NEVER ASK THE GOVERNMENT OR THE DEVIL FOR A FAVOR. THEY'LL BOTH SCREW YOU EVERY TIME.

A few years before the Turn of the Millenium here in Alexandria, Virginia there was unrest in the taxicab industry. Among other things the drivers wanted the right to own the licenses to their vehicles and have the right to tranfer between companies at will. This would have made Alexandria's system similar to New York City's; where a taxi permit - there known as a "medallion" can sell for more than half a million dollars. They had "strikes" and demonstrations and got themselves on TV; and finally the City Council took up the matter.

 

Now, when this was happening Yours Truly could see what would come of it. I told these drivers that once those damned politicians took this up, their main consideration would be to act in a way that would help THEM and NOT the drivers. And I was not wrong.

 

Ultimately what we wound up with was a DOUBLING of licensing fees across the board; an 8-year age limit on vehicles; mandatory use of a trip manifest form that was printed so that the clipboard had to be held crossways to enter data; and a new hack inspector who was basically Barney Fife with a loaded firearm.

 

Barney just got kicked upstairs to the Alexandria Sheriff's Office, where he now has a whole jail full of REAL criminals to treat like criminals so he doesn't have to come out hunting for a cab driver with a burnt-out turn signal to write up and suspend. And I hope he's happy, because he's basically a decent guy and I personally like him. Mostly.

 

So that's one problem solved, but we Alexandria cabbies are still stuck with the rest of it. However for the most part we now realize what I have known all along: When you ask the government to get involved with any aspect of your life, then prepare to lube up and grab your ankles.

 

We in the driver corps have taken our turn in the barrel. Last month, Management decided to ask for their turn. They are probably going to get it.

 

A little background may be helpful. Some few years ago, an Alexandria City Councilperson arrived home at Reagan Airport and was put into an Alexandria cab. The driver refused to accept a credit card in payment for the ride - understandable, because in Alexandria the cab companies do not own or insure the cabs and do not provide refuelling or repair or towing facilities; which makes having ready cash a high priority - and this fucking politician decided to throw a hissy and demand mandatory accepance of plastic NOT out of concern for the riding public but because his or her Imperial Ass was inconvenienced momentarily. The motion was narrowly defeated in the next hearing on fare increases.

 

And now the present story. For the past few years the company with whom I am currently contracted has been attempting to have as many fares as possible paid with credit cards; going so far as to mandate the installation of back-seat processing units in each cab and doing so in such a way that any attempt to conceal or disable the units also disables the meter. Human beings being clever animals, however; ways around this have been found.

 

And so, a few weeks ago when the City Council decided to raise fares they also ordered the City Traffic and Parking Board to hold a hearing into making accepance of plastic in payment MANDATORY CITY-WIDE EVEN FOR STREET PICKUPS.

 

That hearing was held last night.

 

All of the issues I have talked about above were discussed and at length. Then the Board began to discuss the issue among themselves. Would you like to know what they were most concerned about?

 

They were concerned about the 5% "processing fee" charged the drivers, and whether the companies wanted to grab as much - seeing as how card companies charge about half that - extra money as possible. Things were tossed around about auditing companies and putting "excess processing charges" into some kind of "benefits and disability" program for the drivers. You see, Management guys, once the freaking government finds you might have what they deem "excess money"; they then zero in like a laser on how to siphon off as much of it as possible (and by their lights, preferably all of it).

 

In retrospect, I suppose I could have warned Management that it wasn't a whole lot of fun getting down on your hands and knees and being told to squeal like a pig.

 

I thought you guys knew better, I really did. And so it was a shock to me that the whole idea of city-wide mandatory accepance of plastic was ASKED FOR BY THE MANAGEMENT OF THE TAXI COMPANIES who now - and having ought to have known better - stand to get hoist by their own petard, just as the driver corps of 1999 did.

 

There was a horror movie a few years ago that featured a "genie" who asked people if they had "a wish"; and who then "granted the wish" in a way the wisher wound up wishing he hadn't asked for. A kid who said he wished he couldn't see some horror wound up blind, etcetera. Dealing with the government is sorta like that. Case in point...

 

 

BOSTON MARKET'S "NEW TUSCAN CHICKEN"

Now and again we here at the Alexandria Daily Poop dabble in a subject that is not political. It's sort of an ideological sorbet. Right this red-hot minute we are going to talk about a "new" menu item that the Boston Market chain. They call it "Tuscan Roast Chicken".

 

We had neglected to eat yesterday, so about three PM today we found ourselves pretty hungry and decided to visit a local Boston Market outlet. We ordered the heavily advrtised "Tuscan Chicken", which is described as being "marinated in Italian spices". We got half a chicken and two "sides" plus cornbread for $7.65 (which combined with Alexandria's freaking taxes came to $8.61).

 

First, the sides. Boston Market does have some pretty good side dishes. We got the creamed spinach and the squash casserole. Also available were "oven-roasted" sliced potatoes, regular and "loaded" mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, steamed mixed vegetables (as you know, we hate calling vegetables "veggies". In fact, calling sandwiches "sammies" and bohemian degenerates "hippies" sets us off too. but we digress...), rice, chicken noodle soup, sweet potatoes, Macaroni and cheese, gravy for the sides, and some reddish liquid that we couldn't immediately identify but suppose it is some type of soup.

 

As for that "Tuscan Chicken", well, blah. The promised "marinated" flavor did not penetrate the meat, which was not dry, but also it was not juicy, either; nor was it flavorful but just tasted like plain old supermarket deli rotisserie chicken. All the flavor was in the skin, which we pulled off and wrapped the meat in a la Peking duck.  Alas, there was not enough skin to encase all the meat; so we concocted a dipping sauce from a squirt of Sriracha and a few shakes of black pepper.

 

Thus was the star of the culinary show upstaged not only by the supporting cast members but also the foley artist and makeup director. In the end, we finished the chicken; but only because we reminded ourselves as we took bite after boring bite that as a living being we needed to take in nourishment.

 

We suppose a concentration camp inmate or a famine victim would find Boston Market Tuscan Roast Chicken delicious. We, however, found it to be underflavored and wan, and wish we had spent our money elsewhere.

SEQUESTER SHENNANIGANS

As the dreaded "budget sequester" looms, ever more dire predictions are being issued by Mr. Obama and his flunkies about how deep and awful the impact of this sequester is.  And now that it will probably hit, Obama is constantly talking about the "Republican Sequester" WHEN IN FACT IT WAS HIS FUCKING IDEA TO BEGIN WITH.

 

In fact, back a few months ago he said he wouldn't let the Republicans call off "my" sequester plan without giving him his revenue increases. So he got them, but the cuts were part of the deal. Actually even passing a budget would avert the sequester. But Obama and the Senate Democrats haven't bothered to give the House a budget to authorize. But since the Democrats want "revenue" and the Republicans want "spending cuts", NOW Obama is trying to blame the Republicans for the whole damned train wreck; even though it is Democrat failure to pass a realistic budget that is forcing this thing to a head.

 

And here's another thing: The Democrats and their lamestream drive-by media toadies have been really pumping up tension and anxiety over just how truly awful the aftermath of the "sequester" will be, all of course because of those Scrooge McDuck loving money-hoarding selfish Republicans and conservatives. And it's a big steaming stinking load of donkey shit.

 

This is a classic variation (and extrapolation on ) what is known in political circles as "The Washington Monument Game".  Here is how it is played in its most basic form:

 

Senator A (R-Wherever) has introduced a bill to cut spending and/or taxes. In the debate over the bill, Senator Talkyourearoff Fullofkrapski (D-Soviet Union) rises and gives a long windy dramatic speech about how all the tourist attractions in D.C. will have to be closed down, including the Washington Monument. Done right, this can engender letter-writing campaigns from schoolkids across the country who, albeit being among the most fortunate sould on Earth just by lief of being American citizens; will nevertheless be rendered deprived and scarred for life if the field trip they have planned to the Capital of the Free World be rendered incomplete by a trip to the top of the Monument. News staions nationwide pick up on the angst of tots, and the cuts are averted because nobody wants to see a little kid be disappointed. (And it works, too. How pathetic.)

 

Now in this particular case the Washington Monument has already been closed for over a year now because an earthquake damaged it back in 2011. And it's being restored with private funds, so they can't say the sequester will delay the work. But never fear, the Democrats have a second - and possibly more effective - symbol of the "consequenses" of the sequester. And it comes complete with cute, furry living things like monkeys and polar bears and pandas.

 

Yep, the National Zoological Park of the Smithsonian Institution. Today the Washington Post ran an article about how the sequester might very well force the closing of one or more exhibits, including the Petting Zoo for the kiddies or even - GASP! - THE PANDAS! Oh, damn those evil Republicans! How dare they deprive us of the opportunity to see those cute, cute, pandas! And just because they want to keep the entire country from going bankrupt!  Why, all that needs to be done is take all the money from all those rich people until they're no better off than the rest of us!

 

Well, okay. Let's start with taking the money from Matt Damon, Ellen DeGeneris, Bruce Springsteen, Roseanne Barr, Steven Spielberg, Sean Penn, Madonna, Lady GaGa....

 

What do you mean, "no"?

 

Oh, but here's the best part. First, this sequester is about 115 billion dollars in cuts out of a budget that is always quoted in the lamestream media as being "Three point seven trillion dollars".  This is a bit of deception, somewhat like pricing an item at $99.99 instead of $100 even to make the price seem much smaller by dropping a tenth of a percent off the total. In fact, "3.7 trillion" is THREE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION. The sequester therefore "cuts" the equivalent of a dollar and fifteen cents out of every thirty seven dollars in the (non-existant) Federal budget.  Big fucking deal.  And even less so when you consider that these "sequester cuts" are not actual cuts in ccurrent expenditures, THEY ARE REDUCTIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF INCREASE THIS YEAR OVER LAST YEAR'S SPENDING!! People, If I am running a restaurant and tell you I am slashing prices effective tomorrow; and you come in the day after and find that the price of a sandwich has gone from three bucks to four and demand an explanation; and I tell you I had been planning to raise the price to five bucks but slashed the planned increase, are you more likely to (a) think I am a swell guy and thank me OR (b) think I am a fraud and a scam artist and organize a tar-and feathering mob??

 

So. A buck thirteen out of thirty dollars. But Obama goes on the TV and radio telling you how many essential people and how many dollars in benefits will be cut, not with charts and graphs but by telling scare stories about half a billion needy people having their food stamps denied or having to lay off all but four air-traffic controllers, etcetera. And he talks as if all these things will happen at once.  In fact Obama and the Democrats are talking about what would happen if ALL of the sequester were applied to any one of the entities or services he mentions; as if 115 billion were going to be cut from EVERY AGENCY AND SERVICE instead of a single "cut" of a TOTAL of $155 billion being applied to them across the board using skillful administration to keep the level of disruption as low as possible.

 

That's not, however, how Obama is going to work this. He is going to try to make this as painful as possible to the largest amount of people possible. He will apportion the "cuts" so as to affect the neediest and most vulnerable, and when the wailing and tears start - and he will consider the cries of hungry kids and the needy music to his ears - he will point to the Republicans and say it is all their fault.

 

In reality, the blame belongs to Barack Hussein Obama. Don't fall for it.  I am authorizing anyone who reads this to copy it and send it to every single government officeholder you can, including Mr. Obama and the leadership of both parties, to show them you have been wised up. DO IT!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHY DOES ALL HELL BREAK LOOSE WHEN I TAKE A BREATHER?

Good gravy, Gentle Readers. I was going to wait until March to resume putting out this E-rag, but recent events have given me itchy fingertips. And now I scarcely know where to begin. As I have previously stated (and this is a quote from Lily Tomlin, a Leftist, I know; but it is apt): I try to be cynical, but it's really hard to keep up.

Okay, first item.

GUN CONTROL ADVOCATE GOES NUTS, KILLS THREE COPS AND A CIVILIAN

Yes, I am aware that you have probably heard of Christopher Dorner, the fired LAPD cop and former Navy dude who  went on a rampage against the police because he percieved himself as a "victim of racism", having been fired for making false statements in an Internal Affairs investigation of "police brutality". Here at the Alexandria Daily Poop, however, we tend to be Paul Harveyesque and bring you "the rest of the story".  

 

The rogue ex-cop published a lunatic "manifesto" on Facebook which has been mentioned in the lamestream media. What they DON'T say about it is that the killer in his "manifesto" called for strict gun control. 

 

Well, it's not surprising that this nutball wanted everyone else disarmed. It was quite convenient that the man whose truck he hijacked and the couple who came to check on the cabin he was hiding in were completely unarmed. 

 

Funny, isn't it; that many of the national figures such as Diane Fienstein who want to make it unlawful for the peons to have weapons carry one themselves. 

 

And extremely UN-funny is the way even the LAPD and its multiphasic personality exams and extensive background screenings failed to detect the bat in Dorner's belfry. 

 

We have written before that these killers tend to attack "soft targets". Dorner attacked mostly "hard targets"; but he had been specially trained to do just that. As the LAPD Chief of Police said: "Of course he knows what he's doing. We trained him."  

 

Also:

 

THE STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH

 

The State of the Union speech by Mr. Obama was more of a dog-and-pony show than any other SOTU has ever been. Of course, Mr. Obama demagogued "gun control", showcasing the weepy relatives of shooting victims from Newtown and former Rep. Gabby Giffords and her husband Marc.  (And also the relatives of a Chicago girl who had sang at his re-inauguration and had recently been shot in Chicago; which has the most stringent gun control in the nation. Which begs the question of how that strict gun control is working out for Chicagoans.)

 

The rest of the speech was an extended pledge to not add another dime to the deficit, followed by a laundry list of programs which would inevitably do just that. Maybe what he meant was something akin to the claim that you can't eat just ONE potato chip. One quarter demagoguery, three quarters twaddle, one hundred percent absolute bullshit. 

 

AND:

 

MARIO RUBIO'S OFFICIAL REPUBLICAN RESPONSE TO THE STATE OF THE UNION

 

Which of course was brilliant, and called out Mr. Obama point-by-point. Which is why all the lamestream media and the left will let anyone see a repeat of is the point at which he found it necessary to reach way over to his left to get a sip of water.  The talk shows on MSLSD and Chicken Noodle News were just full of japes, not on the substance of the speech (except to call it a "junior high school debate society level" speech) but about "Watergate II" and "Zero Dark Thirsty" and "Rubio's drinking problem".  This is because they dasn't tackle the truths Rubio spoke. One commentator asked if this "episode" might be "the end of (Rubio's) political career.

 

That's what they are aiming at: to stifle dissent. Card-carrying Communist and former Obama "Czar of Green Jobs" Van Jones let the cat out of the bag when he called Rubio "dangerous" to the Democrat Party left. 

 

And finally:

 

OH FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, NO. NOT THAT "REDSKINS ARE RACIST" CRAP AGAIN.

 

Yes, the move is on again to force the Washington Redskins NFL franchise to change its name.  Now, I am qualified to speak to this issue, seeing as how I am 1/8th Cherokee. As I have previously explained, my great-grandmother was a 16 year old Cherokee maiden in Oklahoma when she was smitten by a young handsome U.S. Cavalry officer, who was suddenly and perhaps not so mysteriously transferred when she became pregnant with my grandfather. When GGM gave birth, she gave her son the last name "Norman" after the nearby settlement of Norman, Oklahoma in the hope that the name might give him some advantage. My dad had to endure taunts about being the "son of a half-breed".  So, anyway.

 

Since about the mid-1980s ther has been a growing drumbeat (shut up) demanding that the Redskins change their name. All sorts of tactics have been tried including a lawsuit alleging something about an "offensive trademark".  People have asked why nobody would even think of calling a team the "Retards" or the "Wops" or the "Niggers". 

 

Bullcrap about what "Redskin" means has been tossed about. There have been people who ought to know better saying that "Redskins" comes from the fact that back in the old days, Indians were hunted for a bounty, paid for on reciept of a bloody scalp, called a "red skin".  Bullcrap.  Indians didn't live in centrally-air-conditoned condos and hunt buffalo in air-conditioned offices.  Spend as much time outdoors as they did, and see what color your skin is.

 

The reality is, this call for a "Redskins name-change" is just another attempt to enforce "political correctness" and control the language and the larger debate. The "Kids Post" section of the Washington Post exposed exactly what the Left is attempting in this assault on the name of a football team. The idiot who wrote the "Kids Post" piece said that since football is an entertainment for families, the team should have a name that reflects "kindness".   Pussycats are warm and cuddly. How about the Washington Pussies?

 

Yeah, me too. GO REDSKINS! SUPERBOWL 2014!!

 

I guess now this blog is up-to-date.

 

 

I AM ON A SABBATICAL

Yes, gentle readers I am on a sabbatical from writing on this collection of rants so that I may GET THE HELL TO WORK AND PAY SOME DAMNED BILLS and thus be able to continue housing, feeding and clothing myself without having to ask Obama and his cronies for a handout.

I am (not) sorry to tell you Lefties out there that I am NOT dead, I am NOT deathly ill, and I have NOT been arrested. It's still a free country despite the efforts of you pinko proto-fascist scum to turn it into a Marxian utopia (hell).

There is a lot to talk about, but for now I'm just going to observe. I'll be back in about two weeks (or so). Until then, happy trails; especially to you deluded freaks who still think Obama is a decent CEO. You must be on LSD, so happy "trails". Get it? Forget it.