Posted on 02/16/2008 11:19:33 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
What makes you so certain that it wasn't one of our spooks. Or at least that one or more in our community who pipelined the information to those who did it.
After all, that's how Panama's Torrijos and Pakistan's Zia got their own noisy punctuation mark ending the close of their careers. And there were most certainly Americans involved in both of those jobs.
It's much more likely that it was indeed being guarded when the replacement headrest was substituted. And that it was a previous shift driver or guard who made the change.
It was *all* devised by a source a *little* higher up than that.
A hint: he used to be the SOUTHCOM Commander when Manuel Noreiga took over for his suddenly deceased predecessor, Omar Torrijos, who passed away unexpectedly when his aircraft exploded on 01 August 1981.
This event is easily explained without Mossad, CIA, Deuxième Bureau, KGB, or GEICO involvement.. During WWII, the Japanese conducted many suicide operations (You remember, those kamikaze guys?) Well, obviously, the Japanese, never ones to sleep when research is to be done or stolen, have developed a smart car, the Cyborg Mitsubishi Pajero Mitsubishi Kamikaze MkI. The engineering department thought they could control it, but they were wrong. So solly. The computer did it. It is all an unfortunate accident and Mitsubishi, who have more experience in building kamikaze machinery than any one else on the planet, feel so bad about this that they are giving the family a brand new Pajero under their warranty program.
OnStar... May we help you?
I still suspect that sneaky GEICO lizard. Note carefully how his eyes are set in his face....
...obviously, the Japanese, never ones to sleep when research is to be done or stolen, have developed a smart car, the Cyborg Mitsubishi Pajero Mitsubishi Kamikaze MkI...
Ah, so. The game was almost given away by linguistic analysts who noted that the name Pajero is derived from the Japanese word for Semtex
Isn't that part of the complex and unbreakable Corolla code?
But a more important cultural question remains unanswered to my satifaction. Viz, if a warrior of Muhammed (May Peace Be Upon Him) screws up his mission, through no fault of his own (e.g., headrest goes off ahead of schedule, dynamite vest is activated by garage door opener or wrong number on the cell phone, etc.) despite the screw-up, does the martyred hero still get the 72 cherry pies promised in the q'uran (note politically correct spelling)? Does Allah The All Just cut the hapless fellow down to 15 ugly non-virgins? Or possibly 200 75-year old virgin librarians, or what?
If we are going to keep fighting these guys, we ought to know their expectations.
I'm retired now and only write my column - 20 years and running. It's understood that my columns are NOT news stories and the titles are to be left alone, indeed, not one word is to be touched in the entirety, puncuation only! - I've had 9 editors since I started the column = they fall fast - and we've had a couple who had to be threatened with murder and mayhem to leave out titles be!
At the rag where I worked in the '80s and '90s as a photog and columnist for the chain's flagship paper, heads were more commonly written by interns. Which were called *cubs* when I started in the newspaper racket, in which days we wrote obits, not story headlines.I'm retired now and only write my column - 20 years and running.
Congrats. My first paid published work was in the old Chicago Daily Noise while I was still in J-school, in 1970. I kinda sorta semi-retired in 2001, on 09/12, though I'm still active with the Tennessee Investigative Reporters project and other IRE-type efforts. Call it *consulting.*
It's understood that my columns are NOT news stories and the titles are to be left alone, indeed, not one word is to be touched in the entirety, puncuation only! - I've had 9 editors since I started the column = they fall fast - and we've had a couple who had to be threatened with murder and mayhem to leave out titles be!
Pretty much the same with us, though it's pretty common for photo cutlines to be rewritten as later news or updated info makes earlier efforts erronious. The dear sweet little old lady who functioned as our ME was fond of coirrecting intentional misspellings and scrambled aphorisms with which I let fly. Then along came spellcheckers, which brought new headaches. We once had a story featuring a local band that listed the lineup of players, ending with ...and Tom Smith, on drums. The machine corrected it to and Tom Smith, on drugs....
But we could happily screw up without machine assistance, too. Worst example: we had a morning edition front page feature called Knox Knotes, which covered anything from anniversary salutes, local team encouragement- and barbs, for many of which I was the author. When there was a basement gas explosion and fire in a local boarding house, my Knox Knote for the next morning read something pretty close to: When the boarding house blew up, roomers were flying.... [and there really was some whispered talk that a meth lab was involved] In any event, it was good for a chuckle.
The next morning, two of the victims had died of burns. No cookies for me that week.
I reckon you can figure out from whence my *archy* moniker comes.
If we are going to keep fighting these guys, we ought to know their expectations.
This deponent knoweth not. Ask this guy, if you ever get the chance.
When this guy was nothing but a kid, his imam was always asking him,
Ayah.
was fond of correcting intentional misspellings and scrambled aphorisms with which I let fly
Oh yes! My column is 'nostalgia' - mostly about growing up in the country of Maine's north woods MANY decades ago = and I drive both the copy editors and my spell-checker wild...but thanks to the "add" button, my spell-checker has adjusted much better than the copy editor,,,
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