Humility found through lies

When the Tank was busy mocking Michele Bachmann, T-Paw and Palin (I smell an upcoming Swine!), seedier spinsters were successfully weaving a mystique around Ronald Reagan.

It turns out, all robot Republicans flock like morons to Reagan’s brand of fiscal conservatism and how trickle down economics and prosperity benefited everyone during his illustrious eight-year presidency.

Unbeknownst to this moron and, obviously, all robots Republicans, Reagan ran deficits throughout his presidency, the Star Tribune taught me Sunday. (Buy a newspaper or the terrorists win, so says Jim Souhan.)

Furthermore, so has every president since 1961, including Obama’s projections to near Reagan levels of two to four percent of GPD come 2012.

It – thankfully – awoke some skepticism in the Tank.

The gullibility was exposed again Wednesday with news of the major airlines peddling carbon offsets. It turns out the “offsets” are more like carbon ticks, carbon scratches or carbon bruises.

At prices of, say, $4 the airlines say you are offsetting the emission of your flight, but according to a New York Times source, it would have to be $200 or $300 for a flight from London to New York.

The lesson: Instead of looking at those claims with a keen eye, the Tank bought them as fact and caught a much-needed case of humility. (A humility that will last until it comes to the All-American moose hunter from Alaska. I’ll be back to cut her down shortly.)

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Noxious numbers: Palin’s handouts and racial overtures

1

Alaska’s rank as the state with the most welfare recipients. At 6 percent, Gov. Sarah Palin’s state had nearly triple the U.S. average, according to the new U.S. Census.

Hey conservatives, whadda think of your golden girl now!?

$2,000,000

The total that blowhard South Carolina Sen. Joe Wilson raised in the six days after he shouted “You lie!” to President Obama during his speech on health care.

Hey conservatives, what would  you have contributed if he would have added “boy!”? (Which was asserted by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.)

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Unqoute” Vietnam protest sign

“Nixon: Pull out like your father should have.”

A friend of a friend who was at Vietnam War protests in the 1960s reminisced on humor in one particular sign.

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Two Tank Milestones – This is the 201st post; and September marks the beginning of the third year of this hacky expirement.

Tyranny with a different face

Amid false talk of weapons of mass destruction and unfounded links to September 11, anti-war critics enthusiastically called the Iraq War a bellicose effort for oil.

Now, about six years later, Chinese and British oil companies have signed contracts to extract oil when exploiting poor Iraqi people that live in the areas, according to the New York Times. Also, 10 more oil fields will be bit out this fall.

Capitalism advocates will hoist this up as a “free market” out from under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. But when Iraqi people remain poor and unemployed as multi-national corporations reap multi-billion profits it’s just tyranny with a different face.

The anti-war critics were right.

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Noxious number: No. 4

17

The number of purple Brett Favre No. 4  jerseys spotted during a Sunday afternoon trip to the State Fair. I saw a few rubes wearing the new duds before I grabbed my first suds. So, at that point, my friends and I started keeping track over the course of a 6-hour stay at the Great Minnesota Get-Together.

In comparison, Adrian Peterson was the second most-frequent  jersey — and he only had a handful.

Can you say, “bandwagon?”

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