While the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been ridiculed for inefficiencies, waste, and absurd restrictions, it has taken a bold effort to close one of the greatest remaining threats to the homeland: muleskinners. Under a new anti-terror law, TSA has determined that mule skinners (who actually do not skin mules but drive them) must have criminal background checks.
TSA’s reach now extends to the seasonal workers who dress in colonial garb at a historical park called the Hugh Moore Historical Park in Easton, Pa. who must acquire biometric Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWIC). The park as one boat pulled by two mules moving two miles an hour.
The local congressman, Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pennsylvania, has requested a waiver.
Dent’s actions may endanger us all. I am tired of constantly looking over my shoulder to see if a mule-skinner is slowly gaining on me. While a terrorist moving at two miles an hour may seem slow, it is 100% faster than terrorists moving at one mile an hour on a rolling log. After all, William Faulkner wrote “A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.” The question is what mule cells are already in place in our country. Indeed, I have personally seen (and been repeatedly pulled) by mules working within our very own government on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
The “soft-on-terror” liberals are inviting Al Qaeda to infiltrate all of our historical parks. (You can often pick them out with the mules named Infidel and referring to children as “little crusaders.”).
Thank you, TSA, for standing against the mule-skinner menace.
For the full story, click here.
And speaking of fiction, it looks the the GOP has found the real Damien Thorne.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/jonathan-krohn-13-year-ol_n_170642.html
Someone check this kid’s scalp!
Mike,
Yes, that was one of the things I really loved about Farmer – he was a consummate world builder. Very few are as good. Chalker, Niven, Brust and of course the master, Wolfe, but Farmer ran with a good crowd. Anyone mentioned in the same sentence as Wolfe has got to be top shelf talent. I remember just being blown away by the “World of Tiers” series. I think I read them all in one semester, but I remember for a fact is was back to back. He will be missed.
Was I the only one who thought of Bill Monroe’s song, “Mule Skinners Blues” ? I wonder if they can add another chorus line that states that as long as you can pass a TSA background check, you can be one.
Well, good morning, Captain
Well, good morning to you
Do you need another mule skinner
Down on your new mud run
Ha, ha, hip, ee, ee…
[Chorus:]
Well, I’m an old mule skinner
From down Kentucky way
And I can make any mule listen
Or I won’t accept your pay
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, ha, ha
Well hey, hey
Little water boy, come here boy
Bring that water bucket around
Ha, ha, ha
If you don’t like your job
Water boy, put that bucket down
Ha, ha, ha, ee, ee, ha, ha, ha
[Chorus]
Thanks Mike
Buddha, Bron,
Farmer was one of the great writers of his time. I don’t consider SF a genre, I consider it literature. His “Riverworld”
and “Tiers” series rank up there with Zelaszny’s “Amber” and Brust’s “Adrihlanka” as my all time favorite SF series. Oh but there are also so many other good ones. What was also great about Farmer, as referenced in the link was that he pioneered in introducing sex into SF. From the current crop too check out the “Takeshi Kovacs” books by Richard Morgan.
Buddha:
sounds like a decent guy. I used to read the John Carter of Mars series and Doc Savage when I was a kid. That River World sounds like one of Mars stories where the Martians go down the river to the “after life”.
As a conservative I am going out and purchasing “New Riders of the Purple Wage”, although I dont know if it a good satire or a bad one (that depends on your prospective)
Thanks for the introduction.
Off topic.
For the S/F readers here (you know who you are), some sad news. Philip José Farmer has died at age 91.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/books/27farmer.html
I think everyone is missing the bigger picture.
Mule?
Indeed? were not talking Mules here are we?
no, we are talking the donkey the symbol of the democratic party.
what else can this be but to rid the last vestige of Democracy than by ridding the nation of one of the very symbols of a political party thus ensuring the victory of the remaining party symbol- the Elle-phant…
to those that would deprive us of our beloved donkey, mule, burro, jackass or ass, I would remind us all of the ‘Ode to Ike’ circa 1950.
The election is over- the results are now known,
the will of the people has clearly been shown,
lets get together and show by our deeds’
we’ll give Barack, all the support that he needs,
So as we pull together, let bitterness pass,
I’ll hug your ‘Elle-phant’,
If you’ll kiss my ass.
CCD:
damn I know what you mean, Mike could have been throwing around some ancient Aramaic or some other arcane reference.
If you come to this site you better be loaded for bear, grizzly bear that is. My spelling has improved and I also dont make gratuitous statements anymore, I hate the pain.
MikeS:
We true conservatives dont claim McCain as one of our own.
We were all actually pretty upset, I even called the RNC and told them they were going to loose in January or February of last year if McCain won the nomination.