Overnight Open Thread

I love the smell of ONT in the evening. Smells like…failure.

Most people would believe that Billy Squier did irreparable harm to his career by prancing around in the Rock me Tonight Video (Link not safe for eyeballs - it cannot be unseen), and most people would be right. But if you think about it, the warning signs were there all along:

I’m sorry I had to do that to you. Well, not really, but you can pretend I am. I’ll make it up to you later in the post. I promise. You can trust me.

Inspector Clinton and the Strange Case of the Vanishing Nuclear Codes:

(It's a couple of days old and I meant to do this as a separate post but that would require extra effort, something I am unacustomed to)

In a new memoir just released, Gen. Hugh Shelton, former Chairman of the JCS, alleges that Pres. Clinton lost the nuclear launch codes while in office and that they went missing for several months. From the ABC article (also contains audio/video clip)

"When you're President of the United States, you can lose a vote, you can lose popular support, and you can lose a round of golf. But you're never, ever supposed to lose the biscuit."

"That's what they call the card the president is meant to keep close at hand, bearing the codes that he has to have in order to launch a nuclear attack. And for several months during the Clinton administration, a former top military officer says they lost the biscuit"

Oopsie! Or at least that's how the media is playing this story...like it's some kinda' cutesy fumblerooski by da' prez. But it's a pretty damned serious issue for obvious reasons. Apparently it's not the first time he's alleged to have lost it:

Ret. Air Force Lt. Col Robert Patterson told a very similar account in his own book, published seven years ago. Patterson was one of the men who carried the football, and he says it was literally the morning after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke that he made a routine request of the president to present the card so that he could swap it out for an updated version.

No, Clinton isn't running for anything this year but this just adds to my belief that these are very unserious people and we live in very serious times. Hopefully the current Golfer-in-Chief doesn't accidentally shank the biscuit into the rough or a water trap, never to be seen again.

A CBS News piece on this seems to try and downplay thie incident(s) with this:

The biscuit is replaced every four months and is not itself sufficient to launch a nuclear strike; in fact, it would likely be meaningless in the hands of anyone but the president and a few other top officials. The biscuit is used to open the briefcase - known as "the football" - that contains launching orders and communication equipment.

So what? The "biscuit" is still needed to open the "football." So yeah, it's kind of an important thing to try and keep track of, right? But as he so often does, Prez. Carter provides us with an opportunity for comic relief:

"There are a few other accounts of "the biscuit" going missing. ABC says that President Jimmy Carter once left it in a suit that went to the dry cleaners."

Ok, early-onset dementia jokes aside, to be fair to Carter, there were clearly higher priority national security issues he was concerned with at the time.

The Beerbelly:

Old old old but still the best "stealth beverage system" on the market, for my money. Plus they've still got "The Wine Rack" for the wymynfolk among us. Seems appropriate on a football weekend to repost it, even if OU is doing it's annual mid-season faceplant at the moment. Happens every time they reach number 1. This year it's Mizzou peeing on their parade...17-14 at halftime.

*sigh*

Kitteh, doggeh AND prairie doggeh:

A little something to wash the Squier taste out of yer mouth:

No need to thank me or anything...

"All I want's a Pepsi. Just one Pepsi. And she wouldn't give it to me!"

Truer words have never been spoken.

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to xgenghisx@gmail.com. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

posted by Genghis at 10:00 PM

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