EckerNet.Com

by Ross M Snyder, II

I laughed like a fool when I read this story.

Where to start? Well I guess the first paragraph would be a logical starting point. If you can read that without laughing you are a better person than I.

Second paragraph: How in God’s name do you live to be 17 years old and think to yourself “Hmmm…this here loaded and primed potato gun seems to be jammed. Let’s take a look-see down the barrel.”

Paragraph 3: Two words: “Prosthetic eyes”. Once again, I laughed hysterically. Satan is preparing a place for me as I write this.

Paragraph 4: I’m pretty sure that our friend Daniel wishes he had been hit with a rock or potato and was dead. At least without eyes he doesn’t have to look at his horrible disfigurement in the mirror every morning.

Paragraph 5: That’s it. Write up, in detail, how to construct a potato gun. Then make it sound really cool by saying it can launch stuff hundreds of feet. How many more children can we inspire to injure themselves? Maybe someone will launch a rabid ferret at themselves next time.

Paragraph 6: Dear Lord, this wasn’t even Danny’s gun.

Paragraph 7: Why shoot potatoes, when there are all these perfectly good frogs around? You wouldn’t want to waste food now would you?

Paragraph 8: “The gun, which the teens bought on the Internet, began to misfire.” The
internet is ruining the youth of America. Kids used to build their own potato guns, but now they buy them over the internet. It’s a dark day where an American boy can’t build his own potato gun.

Paragraph 9: Poor Danny was just trying to be a good samaritan, helping these poor boys with their malfunctioning potato weapon.

Paragraph 10: Cliff, the dad, was there!? What the hell kind of parent are you? “Hey son, go try and help those boys with their potato gun. Try looking down the barrel and seeing if it’s jammed.”

Paragraph 11: …

Paragraph 12: “…blew his eyelids off.” This is why I’m going to hell. I’ve never heard a more hilarious description of an injury in my life. I laughed hysterically for 5 minutes.

Paragraph 13: “If he cries, it burns his eyes,” she said. “I never thought any toy a child could order would wound my child like that.” Um, what century do you live in? I live in the 21st century where there are literally millions of ways for a child to do incredible harm to themselves. I think most toys have some level of danger associated with them. Especially the ones that involve setting fire to highly combustible material to launch a projectile a great distance.

Paragraph 14: Heh, heh. They said “penal”.

Paragraph 15: I guess you can’t sue for intense stupidity. Oops, wait a second, I forgot that I was in the US of A. They can sue whomever they like for the most ridiculous of reasons. They’ll be going after the owners of the gun, the internet company that sold it and the company that manufactured it!

Paragraph 16: Danny wants to continue his college education. Danny, I’m very sorry, but you’ve demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that you are too stupid to continue in college. I’d say that you could be a gas station attendant, but I’m pretty sure you’d light a cigarette at the wrong time and blow your town to Kingdom Come.

Paragraph 17: “We’ve been telling him we’re going to do the best for him,” Lisa Berry said. “He can still be a man, he can still be independent with this disability.” Of course he can still be a man. He didn’t blow his unit off or anything. I’d just going to be harder to pick up chicks…what without eyelids and all.

[Provided by Ross M Snyder, II]

After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and injured 1,000; President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed five U.S. military personnel; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and injured 200 U.S. military personnel; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 and injured 5,000; Clinton promised that those responsible! would be hunted down and punished.

After the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 and injured 39 U.S. sailors; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

Maybe if Clinton had kept his promise, an estimated 3,000 people in New York and Washington, D.C. that are now dead would be alive today.

And, now that Bush is taking action to bring these people to justice, we have opponents charging him with being a war monger…

AN INTERESTING QUESTION: This question was raised on a Philly radio call-in show.

Without casting stones, it is a legitimate question.

There are two men, both extremely wealthy. One develops relatively cheap software and gives billions of dollars to charity. The other sponsors terrorism. That being the case, why was it that the Clinton Administration spent more money chasing down Bill Gates over the past eight years than Osama bin Laden?

THINK ABOUT IT!

It is a strange turn of events. Hillary gets $8 Million for her forthcoming memoir. Bill gets about $12 Million for his memoir yet to be written. This from two people who have spent the past 8 years being unable to recall anything about past events while under oath!

Sincerely, Cmdr Hamilton McWhorter USN(ret)

[Forwarded by Ryan Koshiol]

Ok so even I was floored by this one. We always hear the argument that the United States sold Iraq most of it’s military equipment. It’s an argument the anti-war pull alot and I guess my response has always basically been “well even more reason why it’s our job to disarm him”. However, I found the following graph recently, originally created by TheDissidentFrogman (which I might point out is run by a Frenchman…poor guy) and has also been posted at by Admiral Quixote. It is basically a compilation of the raw data of a study done on the sale of arms to Iraq by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). You can find the raw data for this study here. Ok the first thing I’d like to point out, is that in terms of bias, with the exception of the Swiss there is no country more neutral than the Swedes. I mean Sweden didn’t even take a side between the Axis and the Allies in WWII. And the fact that this study comes from a peace institute makes it’s source all the more amazing. In any case, I’d like to encourage you to read the study for yourselves. You should always be in the habit of verifying so called “facts” before you form opinions based upon them. And anyone that has studied statistics will tell you, you can skew data anyway you want to give whatever message you want. However, I’ve taken a look at the study myself, and the graph here seems to give a very straight-forward summary of the actual data. Now before you say anything yes I know the data only goes up to 1990, because at that point Iraq invaded Kuwait. And nobody was supposed to be selling arms to Iraq anyway. And if they were they sure as hell aren’t going to advertise it. SIPRI didn’t feel confident enough in the accuracy of it’s post-1990 data to do anything with it. Ok so let’s look at the actual graphic here.

Ok so the first thing I notice is that I had problems even finding the USA on this graph. I mean for a country that once had the 4th largest army in the world, and we only sold them 1%??? Wow…we got screwed. Ok, so I’m joking a little bit here. But here’s something you can’t joke about….who are the people most opposed to this war??? France, Russia, China, and Germany. You notice a slight conflict of interest here at all??? I do….the numbers 57%, 13% and 12% come to mind. Wow, I wonder if perhaps greed has anything to do with their standpoints? And I want to know how the now very apparent MYTH about the US arming Iraq started. I mean even if we look at the data. I don’t see a huge amount even when we were supposedly aiding Iraq to defeat Iran. But let’s go back to the thing that’s really bothering me. France, Russia, China….how dare you? Saddam is using YOUR weapons against his own people and you want to sit back and collect on oil contracts??? What the hell is wrong with you people? But one very positive note on this graph is located just below the Big-Three. The Czechs and the Poles. They have been two of our biggest supporters against Iraq. I’d say they definitely win the “moral high-ground” award.