Scrapbook
Scrapbook Ballad of the Black Berets When Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki announced last October that he'd be appropriating the black berets of the elite Army Rangers in order to give them away...
...So our "allies" unceremoniously voted us off the "Western" slate of candidates for next year's Human Rights Commission—in favor of delegates from Sweden (a decades-long government program of racial sterilization), Austria (Jrg Haider), and France (take your pick...
...Not of the Peter Principle, as one might suspect, but of the transformation of the Army into a lighter, more deployable fighting force, one that could more readily respond to crises (a skill at which Shinseki himself has subsequently proved deficient...
...Customs Service has neither the latitude nor the resources to ensure that such unusually horrible contraband doesn't slip through our ports...
...A few high-end clothes washers (usually front-loading ones) already meet the new energy standards, but fewer than 9 percent of consumers have chosen them—perhaps because they run anywhere from $700 to $1,100, according to Consumer Reports...
...Don't expect the appliance makers to complain about intrusive federal regulation...
...That would seem to be a problem, no...
...Meanwhile, the "rites of passage test"—the Army-history pop quiz that the brass told soldiers they would have to take in order to wear the Rangers' beret, which the Rangers typically earned through a grueling yearlong training regimen—has been scrapped...
...You could be British...
...Please, no jokes about spin...
...Things could be worse...
...But if all you Old Army soldiers are dispirited, take heart...
...This way, even if consumers balk at buying the new models, the companies still get paid...
...Two months after it was revealed that Shinseki's beret-conversion deadline had forced the Defense Logistics Agency to help fill the 4.7 million beret order by contracting with companies who manufactured them in China (in violation of a buy-America amendment), and a full month after the Chinese bumped our surveillance plane and took 24 Americans hostage, Shin-seki has finally called off the made-inChina portion of his order...
...This may sound nice, but as Lieber-man pointed out, the only way the consumer comes out ahead financially with the new machines is if he does 392 loads a year and owns the machine for 14 years...
...In the land of marmite, it was recently revealed, members of the British Army and Royal Air Force are being given free sex-change operations...
...Three cheers for Rep...
...That will only get us more agitated...
...Scrapbook Ballad of the Black Berets When Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki announced last October that he'd be appropriating the black berets of the elite Army Rangers in order to give them away as feel-good hats to the rest of the Army, he said it was symbolic...
...The state of Indiana, at least, seems determined to keep its hands clean of Chinese barbarism...
...With all these soldiers shot full of self-esteem from black berets and big breasts, now might be the time to launch a new, elite NATO regiment: The Fighting Monicas...
...Help Wanted Contributing editor Charles Krauthammer seeks a research assistant...
...As Competitive Enterprise Institute analyst Ben Lieberman warned in these pages last fall, one of the last acts of the outgoing administration was to promulgate a new set of minimum efficiency standards for clothes washers to take effect in 2004 and 2007, raising efficiency by 22 percent and 35 percent respectively...
...Send rsum to Matthew Mooney at 1225 19th St., NW, Suite 620, Washington, D.C...
...In the United States, importation of products from China's laogai camps is forbidden under a memorandum of understanding both countries ostensibly observe...
...To which The Scrapbook can only add: "Duhhh...
...Much too long, concluded the U.N.'s European member nations, irritated as always with America for being bigger, richer, freer, and otherwise better...
...Beijing Apparently not realizing that they were supposed to call the State Department for permission, both houses of the Indiana General Assembly have now unanimously approved a bill prohibiting state agencies from procuring products manufactured by slave labor...
...Human Rights Commission every year since the group was originally constituted in 1947...
...Atterholt and his Hoosier colleagues...
...Likewise, the Ministry of Defence, as a morale-boosting mechanism, has been providing female soldiers with free breast implants, leading to our favorite headline of the year, from the Nelson Mail: "Falling Into a Big Booby Trap...
...torturing them with electric cattle prods...
...One more piece of evidence, were any necessary, that the United Nations is pretty worthless...
...Well, as one manufacturer has commented, "Selling it in the marketplace is easy if there is a standard in place...
...Bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to set up tax credits for manufacturers whose washing machines meet the new standards before the 2004 and 2007 deadlines...
...Last week's big winner in the human rights bazaar...
...Indiana vs...
...It's not a matter, necessarily, of consumer acceptance...
...A Pentagon spokesman admitted at a news conference that the black berets are "a very symbolic measure of the new Army . . . and to [Shinseki], the symbolism of such a beret was inconsistent with the berets' being . . . manufactured in China...
...Indeed, the deal may get even sweeter for them...
...Sudan In, America Out Until last Thursday, the United States had held a seat on the U.N...
...20036, or e-mail krauthammerra@hotmail.com...
...beating them with clubs...
...Washed Out Apparently not content with having ruined the American toilets that were once the envy of the world (the abundant 3.5 gallons per flush became a paltry, federally mandated 1.6 gallons), the Department of Energy is now taking aim at our washing machines...
...And that the United States should never have felt guilty about withholding our "dues...
...According to exiled dissident Harry Wu's Laogai Research Foundation, China maintains a population of between four and six million prisoners in roughly 1,000 slave labor camps...
...House Bill 1395, according to its author, state representative Jim Atter-holt, Republican of Indianapolis, will have general application but is designed with the People's Republic of China in mind...
...Shinseki's decision would have been more welcome before 2.2 million berets had already been manufactured by Chinese manufacturers (new ones will have to be made...
...confining them in leg irons...
...But China doesn't observe this agreement, and the U.S...
...Factories based at those camps produce everything from heavy trucks to children's toys—while depriving their "employees" of food and sleep...
...and harvesting their organs for the international medical black market...
...Sudan, which despite being generally acknowledged as the world's worst current human rights violator (see Elliott Abrams's account in our May 7 issue), won itself a seat on the same commission from which the United States has now been unceremoniously booted...
...After suffering embarrassment in communal showers, which is surely akin to the fear one must face under fire, one lance corporal traded up from 32A to 32C...
...And after even more dramatic surgery, Sergeant-Major Joe Rushton, formerly of the men's room, has become Joanne Rush-ton, proudly parading in a woman's uniform...
...Alas, rather than invite yet another "environmental" controversy, the Bush White House has acquiesced in these Clinton-era regulations...
Vol. 6 • May 2001 • No. 33
