Friday, March 08, 2013

QotD: Gaffe-a-Minute Edition...

From Mark Steyn:
The United States has the biggest, most expensive government on the planet. For an ordinary U.S. citizen merely to be ushered into the presence of the president and his wife requires a Social Security and background check. But nobody thinks to do a Google search before getting the first lady and secretary of state to give an award to a Hitler-quoting terrorist-supporting America-hater.
Boy, I'll bet that Kerry and the rest of the State Department crew wish they could push the peregruzka button on that one!

The White House pays their sequester-proof official calligrapher $96k a year, and I know that they aren't actually making chicken scratches from nine to five, M-F, so maybe they could use the interludes to do something useful, like maybe Google foreigners about to be let into the Oval Office?

15 comments:

Ygolonac said...

I'm pretty sure the "overcharge" button is glowing white-hot with the goverment's hammering at it already.

(At least, according to the top results in searching for "peregruzka" via Google.)

Tam said...

Ygolonac,

Sorry, obscure State Department joke. Given the amount of attention paid to these things by the Administration's water-carriers in the MSM, they're destined to remain obscure, too.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Glad to see a little nasal snip hasn't affected the snark level around here :)

KM said...

There's actually 3 fancy writin' folks for Barry.
A Chief & 2 deputies that pull down $277,000 a yr.

What does a SS background check, check? Other than I haven't paid into that system since I was 28 yrs old in 1985?
Is it different than the check for me to get my passport or CCW?

Anonymous said...

"Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning."

At least Samira and Michelle have something in common.

Anonymous said...

If I had invited the young lady to my house for dinner, my security clearance probably would be in danger.

Gerry

Ed said...

See http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/06/clinton-goofs-russian-translation-tells-diplomat-wants-overcharge-ties/

"Peregruzka" also means "stress" or "strain" in my "Pocket Oxford Russian Dictionary", which at 5" x 7.6" x 1.8" thick is not very pocketable.

Curious thing is, why would you use Latin letters on this device for the Russian word instead of the Cyrillic letters that the Russians use? A Russian would need to understand a non-Russian European language to read this.

"Перегрузка" - "Peregruzka"
"Перезагрузка" - "Perezagruzka"

That "za" in the middle makes a big difference.

Justthisguy said...

Here's a Hitler quote:

From "Be Reminded", 1923:

When your mother has grown older, When her dear, faithful eyes
No longer see life as they once did,
When her feet, grown tired,
No longer want to carry her as she walks,
Then lend her your arm in support, escort her with happy pleasure---
The hour will come when, weeping, you must accompany her on her final walk...

See, even a famous world-historical asshole loved his Mom.

global village idiot said...

The Former Junior Senator from Illinois comes from the Land of the Sinecure. With his academia background it's frankly surprising there aren't more such postings.

gvi

AuricTech said...

But nobody thinks to do a Google search before getting the first lady and secretary of state to give an award to a Hitler-quoting terrorist-supporting America-hater.

Feature, not bug?

Kristophr said...

KM: important things, like:

Is this person applying for SS a newly immigrated relative of a naturalized citizen.

Mind you, the Obama admin wasn't checking on this at all before sequestration, since they are all on SS and not one has been charged with fraud and deported.

Jeffrey Deutsch said...

Justthisguy:

On the off-chance you quoted that seriously, note that Hitler's love for his mother didn't stop him from sponging off her for the roughly two years between his dropping out of school (fall 1905) and her dying (end of 1907):

The time between leaving school in autumn 1905 and his mother's death at the end of 1907 is passed over almost completely in Mein Kampf. From the vagueness of the account, it could be presumed that Klara's death followed two, not four, years after that of her husband, and that Adolf's time was spent in careful preparation for attendance at the Viennese Academy of Art, before orphanage and poverty meant that he had to fend for himself. Reality was somewhat different.

In these two years, Adolf lived a life of parasitic idleness -- funded, provided for, looked after, and cosseted by a doting mother, with his own room in the comfortable flat in the HumboldtstraBe in Linz, which the family had moved into in June 1905. His mother, his aunt Johanna and his little sister Paula were there to look after all his needs, to wash, clean and cook for him. His mother even bought him a grand piano, on which he had lessons for four months between October 1906 and January 1907. He spent his time during the days drawing, painting, reading, or writing `poetry'; the evenings were for going to the theatre or opera; and the whole time he daydreamed and fantasized about his future as a great artist. He stayed up late into the night and slept long into the mornings. He had no clear aim in view. The indolent lifestyle, the grandiosity of fantasy, the lack of discipline for systematic work -- all features of the later Hitler -- can be seen in these two years in Linz. It was little wonder that Hitler came to refer to this period as `the happiest days which seemed to me almost like a beautiful dream'.


Jeff Deutsch

Pakkinpoppa said...

Ah, Mark Steyn. I can't help but read the article with an accent in my head.

He's so less a doofus than Rush Limbo, and a joy to hear. "America's Undocumented Anchorman".

Justthisguy said...

Yep, Jeffrey, the poem does smell of a guilty conscience a bit, doesn't it? I know exactly how he felt, as a fellow ne'er-do-well. Well, at least I am unlikely to be elected dictator of a large nation-state with license to kill anybody and everybody, by the million.

Justthisguy said...

P.s. I am still voting for Michael Z. Williamson for Dictator. He has sort of implied to me that I can be throttleman on one of his chippers when he decides to clean up the Florida voter rolls and Florida law enforcement.