Old farts

At a Senior Citizen's luncheon, an elderly gentleman and an elderly lady struck up a conversation and discovered that they both loved to fish. Since both of them were widowed, they decided to go fishing together the next day. The gentleman picked the lady up and they headed to the river to his fishing boat and started out on their adventure.

They were riding down the river when there was a fork in the river, and the gentleman asked the lady, "Do you want to go up or down?"

All of a sudden the lady stripped off her shirt and pants and made mad passionate love to the man right there in the boat!

When they finished, the man couldn't believe what had just happened, but he had just experienced the best sex that he'd had in years. They fished for a while and continued on down the river, when soon they came upon another fork in the river. He again asked the lady, "Up or down?"

There she went again, stripped off her clothes, and made wild passionate love to him once more.

This really impressed the elderly gentleman, so he asked her to go fishing again the next day. She said yes, and there they were the next day, riding in the boat when they came upon the fork in the river, and the elderly gentleman asked, "Up or down?"

The woman replied, "Down."

A little puzzled and disappointed, the gentleman guided the boat down the river when he came upon another fork in the river and he asked the lady, "Up or down?"

She replied "Up."

This really confused the gentleman, so he asked, "What's the deal? Yesterday, every time I asked you if you wanted to go up or down, you made mad passionate love to me. Now today, nothing! What gives?"

She replied, "Well yesterday I wasn't wearing my hearing aid and I thought the choices were fuck or drown."

Entry for May 05, 2009

Many years ago, on the good ship lollipop a shipment of Mayonnaise was sent to Mexico as a gift. As you well know mayonnaise is "One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion." Had the delivery been successful, salsa may have been put on the back burner. It was not, the ship went down in sight of land on 5-5-1291. The Mexican peoples have a long memory and to this very day they hold an annual celebration called

"THE SINKO de MAYO!"

Happy Fifth of May Mexico!

WHO changes swine flu name to 'H1N1 influenza', 257 confirmed case

The World Health Organisation (WHO) updated on Thursday the number of laboratory-confirmed cases of what it is now calling only the H1N1 influenza, to 257, including eight deaths, but reiterated that there was no need for panic.
The largest spike came from Mexico, where the number jumped from 26 cases to 97, including seven deaths. In the United States, across ten states, there were 109 cases including one death of a toddler in Texas.
Keiji Fukuda, the health security chief of the WHO, said it would cease use of the word "swine" and stick with the scientific title of a new variant of influenza A(H1N1).
"We know it is an H1N1 virus. This is scientifically accurate and doesn't place any stigmas," he said.
"This is to try to reduce some of the overreactions to swine flu as a name," Fukuda said, urging people not to overstep in their reactions.
The spread of the virus is believed to be in the form of human-to-human transmission and not from pigs or pork. In spite of moves by states to ban imports of pork from affected countries, the WHO has insisted eating properly prepared pig flesh was not a danger.
Late Wednesday the health agency had raised its pandemic influenza alert to Phase 5, just one below the highest, in light of evidence showing sustained human-to-human transmission in communities in the United States and Mexico.
The WHO has not ruled out that it will raise the level once more, but said while the disease was spreading, it had not yet pinned down the nature of the virus. It caused mild disease in most cases but had also shown itself to be fatal.
"No move to phase 6 is imminent right now," said Fukuda. There is "nothing that epidemiologically suggests to us today that we should be moving towards phase 6."
"We shouldn't be panicking. The right way to approach this is to be alert," he explained.
"The whole reason for doing this, going through phases, letting people know, is to prepare and provide as much time to prepare as possible," Fukuda went on.
"Influenza pandemics occurred in the past. We know they can be quite mild, they can be in between or quite severe," he said, adding that the WHO wanted to avoid taking the situation too lightly now only for it to rear up later as a dangerous pandemic.
"Prepare for the worst and if something much softer comes along, count your blessings," he summed up the philosophy at the WHO.
Canada had 19 cases in four provinces. Spain had 13 confirmed cases, including one case of community spread, with the rest in people who returned from Mexico, where the outbreak is believed to have started.
Other countries with confirmed cases included Britain, New Zealand, Germany, Israel and Austria.
Countries were reporting some higher numbers while others, not on the WHO list yet, including Switzerland, the host country of the WHO, said they had confirmed cases.
The increases in statistics were largely from final laboratory results that were made public.
Meanwhile, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it was appealing for $4.4 million to respond to the outbreak.
The federation, which unites all national societies, said it was ready to mobilize hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the globe should the need arise.
"The number of volunteers is increasing by the hour," said Tammam Aloudat, a health expert with the IFRC. In Mexico they were "active in communities by spreading messages, doing surveillance support and also handling the transport of patients."
He noted that those most at risk were people who were uninformed about personal health and those living in poor, crowded areas where sanitation networks were dirty and insufficient.
Like the WHO and private sector drug companies, the IFRC said the world was better prepared then ever for a possible pandemic due to steps taken following the avian flu outbreak earlier this decade, primarily the preparation of national action plans.

Leon Edward Panetta

Leon Edward Panetta (born June 28, 1938) is the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. An American Democratic politician, lawyer, and professor, Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993. He is the founder and director of the Panetta Institute, served as Distinguished Scholar to Chancellor Charles B. Reed of the California State University System and professor of public policy at Santa Clara University. In January 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Panetta for the post of CIA Director; he was confirmed by the full Senate on February 12, 2009, and assumed the office the next day.


Early life and schooling

Leon Panetta was born in Monterey, California, the son of Carmelina Maria (née Prochilo) and Carmelo Frank Panetta, Italian immigrants from Siderno in Calabria[3] who owned a restaurant in Monterey. He was raised in the Monterey area, and attended Catholic schools St. Carlos Grammar School and Carmel Mission School. He continued his education at Monterey High School, a public school where he became involved in student politics. As a junior he was Vice President of the Student Body, and became President of the Student Body as a senior.

In 1956, he entered Santa Clara University, and in 1960 he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He also received a Juris Doctor in 1963 from the Santa Clara University School of Law, and soon after began practicing law. In 1964, he joined the United States Army as a Second Lieutenant. There he received the Army Commendation Medal, and was discharged in 1966 as a First Lieutenant.

Political career

Panetta started in politics in 1966 as a legislative assistant to Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel, the United States Senate Minority Whip from California, whom Panetta has called "a tremendous role model"[4].

In 1969 he became the assistant to Robert H. Finch, Secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under the Nixon administration. Soon thereafter he was appointed Director of the Office for Civil Rights.

Panetta chose to enforce civil rights and equal education laws, even under alleged political pressure not to from then-president Nixon. Robert Mardian said of Panetta: "Doesn't he understand Nixon promised the Southern delegates he would stop enforcing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts?"[5]. Secretary Robert Finch and Assistant Secretary John Veneman refused to fire Panetta, threatening to resign if forced to do so. A few weeks later in 1970, Panetta resigned and left Washington to work as Executive Assistant for John Lindsay, the Republican Mayor of New York City. He wrote about this experience in his 1971 book Bring Us Together: The Nixon Team and the Civil Rights Retreat.

He moved back to Monterey to practice law at Panetta, Thompson & Panetta from 1971 through to 1976.

Congressional work

Panetta switched to the Democratic Party in 1971, because he thought that the Republican Party was moving away from the political center. In 1976, Panetta was elected to the U.S. Congress to represent California's 16th congressional district, unseating incumbent Republican Burt Talcott with 53% of the vote (the 17th district after the 1990 census), and was reelected for nine terms.

During his time in Congress, his work concentrated mostly on budget issues, civil rights, education, health, and environmental issues, particularly preventing oil drilling off the California coast. He wrote the Hunger Prevention Act (Public Law 100-435) of 1988 and the Fair Employment Practices Resolution. He was a major factor in establishing the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

His positions included:

* Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the Budget
* Chairman of the Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, and Nutrition
* Chairman of the Administration Committee's Subcommittee on Personnel and Police
* Chairman of the Task Force on Domestic Hunger created by the U.S. House Select Committee on Hunger
* Vice Chairman of the Caucus of Vietnam-Era Veterans in Congress
* Member of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies.

Budget work

A member of the U.S. House Committee on the Budget from 1979 to 1985—and its chairman from 1989 to 1993—he played a key role in the 1990 Budget Summit.

Though elected to a ninth term, he left the House in 1993 after then-President Bill Clinton selected him to be Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget. He is credited with developing the budget package that would eventually result in the balanced budget of 1998. On July 17, 1994, he was appointed White House Chief of Staff by Clinton, a position he held until January 20, 1997. He was an important negotiator of the 1996 budget, which was another important step towards balancing the budget.

Nomination as CIA Director

Panetta (right) meets with National Security Advisor Anthony Lake and President Clinton in 1994.

President Barack Obama nominated him as the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on January 5, 2009.[1]

After his selection, journalists and politicians raised concerns about his lack of intelligence experience.

David Ignatius, a reporter, said that Panetta did have tangential exposure to intelligence operations as Director of the OMB and as Chief of Staff for President Clinton, where he "sat in on the daily intelligence briefings as chief of staff, and he reviewed the nation's most secret intelligence-collection and covert-action programs in his previous post as director of the Office of Management and Budget."[6] Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wasn't happy with the Leon Panetta selection:

“I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve read. My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”[7]

On February 12, 2009, Panetta was confirmed in the full Senate by voice vote.[8]

On February 19, 2009, Leon Panetta was sworn in as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency by Vice President Joe Biden before an audience of CIA employees. Panetta reportedly received a "rock star welcome" from his new subordinates.[9]

In March 2009, Panetta visited India, a crucial ally in the war on terrorism, to discuss a host of issues including common strategy on dealing with Islamic extremism and Taliban. This was his first international visit since he assumed office.[10]

Beyond politics

Panetta and his wife founded the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy' in December 1998, where they serve as the Institute's directors. The Institute is located at California State University, Monterey Bay. Panetta was instrumental in creating CSU Monterey Bay by converting Fort Ord, where he was chief of operations and planning of the intelligence section when he was in the army, into the university. Panetta served as Distinguished Scholar to the Chancellor of California State University[11] and as Presidential Professor at Santa Clara University. He was urged to consider running for Governor of California during the recall election in 2003 but declined in part because of the short time available to raise money.

Panetta has long been an advocate for the health of the world's oceans. As a member of Congress from California’s 16th District, he wrote numerous successful acts of Congress to protect the California coast, including legislation creating the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.[11][12][13] In 2003, Panetta was named chairman and commissioner of the Pew Oceans Commission, which in 2005 combined with the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy to establish the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative. Panetta now co-chairs the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative with Admiral James D. Watkins, U.S. Navy (Ret.).[14] Panetta continues to pursue his commitment to ocean and marine life issues, serving as a resource for legislators and the media, advocating for ocean reform on behalf of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative as well as other ocean organizations, including the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation[15] and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.[16]

In 2006 he was part of the Iraq Study Group, also known as the Baker Commission.

bad choice

By RALPH PETERS

WOULD you ask your accountant to perform brain surgery on your child? That's the closest analogy I can find to the choice of Democratic Party hack Leon Panetta to head the CIA.

Earth to President-elect Obama: Intelligence is serious. And infernally complicated. When we politicize it - as we have for 16 years - we get 9/11. Or, yes, Iraq.

The extreme left, to which Panetta's nomination panders, howled that Bush and Cheney corrupted the intelligence system. Well, I worked in the intel world in the mid 1990s and saw how the Clinton team undermined the system's integrity.

Al Qaeda a serious threat? The Clinton White House didn't want to hear it. Clinton was the pioneer in corrupting intelligence. Bush was just a follow-on homesteader.

Now we've fallen so low that left-wing cadres can applaud the nomination of a CIA chief whose sole qualification is that he's a party loyalist, untainted by experience.

The director's job at the CIA isn't a party favor. This is potentially a matter of life and death for thousands of Americans. But the choice of Panetta tells us all that Barack Obama doesn't take intelligence seriously.

Mark my words: It'll bite him in the butt.

After the military, the intel community is the most complex arm of government. You can't do on-the-job training at the top. While a CIA boss needn't be a career intelligence professional, he or she does need a deep familiarity with the purposes, capabilities, limitations and intricacies of intelligence.

Oh, and you'd better understand the intelligence bureaucracy.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who was blindsided - and appalled - by the Obama mafia's choice, has the essential knowledge of how the system works. She, or a similar expert, should have gotten this nod. But the president-elect wanted a clean-slate yes-man, not a person of knowledge and integrity.

We're witnessing the initial costs of Obama's career-long lack of interest in foreign policy, the military and intelligence. He doesn't think the top job at the CIA's important and just wants political cover on that flank. (Guess we got Panetta because Caroline Kennedy has another engagement.)

Forget a "team of rivals." Obama's creating a campaign staff for 2012.

Of course, he's reeling from the shrill rage of the Moveon.org crowd over his nomination of grown-ups to be his national-security adviser, director of national intelligence, administrator of veterans' affairs and, yes, secretary of state. (By the way, how could Hillary be dumb enough to accept a job where success is impossible?)

Panetta's appointment is a sop to the hard left, a signal that intelligence will be emasculated for the next four - or eight - years.

Think morale's been bad at the CIA? Just wait.

Conservatives played into this scenario by insisting that any CIA analysis that didn't match the Bush administration's positions perfectly amounted to an attack on the White House. Well, sorry. The intelligence community's job isn't to make anybody feel good - its core mission is to provide nonpartisan analysis to our leaders.

To be a qualified D-CIA, a man or woman needs a sophisticated grasp of three things: The intel system, foreign-policy challenges and the Pentagon (which owns most of our intelligence personnel and hardware). Panetta has no background - none - in any of these areas. He was never interested.

If you handed Leon Panetta a blank map of Asia, I'd bet my life he couldn't plot Baghdad, Kabul or Beijing within 500 miles of their actual locations. (Maybe he can see China from his California think tank?)

This shameless hack appointment is the first action by the incoming administration that seriously worries me. Get intelligence wrong and you get dead Americans.

Ralph Peters was a career intelligence officer in the US Army.

boats at sea

Mike walks into a bar and sees Pat sitting at the end of the bar with a great big smile on his face. Mike says, "Pat, what are you so happy for?"

"Well Mike, I gotta tell ya... Yesterday I was out waxin' my boat, just waxin' my boat, and a redhead came up to me.. tits out to here, Mike. Tits out to here! She says, 'Can I have a ride in your boat?'

I said 'Sure you can have a ride in my boat.' So I took her way out, Mike. I turned off the key and I said 'It's either screw or swim!' She couldn't swim, Mike. She couldn't swim!"

The next day Mike walks into a bar and sees Pat sitting at the end of the bar with a even bigger smile on his face. Mike says, "What are you happy about today Pat?"

"Well Mike.... I gotta tell ya... Yesterday I was out waxin' my boat, just waxin' my boat and a BEAUTIFUL blond came up to me...tits out to here, Mike. Tits out to here! She said 'Can I have a ride in your boat?'

I told her 'Sure you can have a ride in my boat.' So I took her way out, Mike. Way out much further than the last one. I turned off the key and I said, 'It's either screw or swim!' She couldn't swim, Mike! She couldn't swim!"

A couple days pass and Mike walks into a bar and sees Pat down there cryin'
over a beer. Mike says, "Pat, what are you so sad for?"

"Well Mike, I gotta tell ya.... Yesterday I was out waxin' my boat, just

waxin' my boat, and the most desirable brunette came up to me... tits WAY out to here, Mike. Tits WAY out to here. She says, 'Can I have a ride in your boat?'

So I said, 'Sure you can have a ride in my boat.' So I took her way out,

Mike, way WAY out... much further than the last two.

I turned off the key, and looked at her tits and said 'It's either screw or swim!'

She pulled down her pants and.....She had a pecker, Mike! She had this great BIG pecker! ... and I can't swim Mike! I can't swim!"

silver anniversary

A man and his wife go to their honeymoon place for their 25th anniversary.

As the couple reflected on that magical evening 25 years ago, the wife asked the husband: "When you first saw my naked body in front of you, what was going through your mind?"

The husband replied: "All I wanted to do was to fuck your brains out, and suck your tits dry."

Then, as the wife undressed, she asked: "What are you thinking now?"

He replied: "It looks like I did a pretty good job."