The Ming Report

DUCT TAPE NATION

January 5, 2004 - Just when the President seemed poised to appear in the first color photos beamed back by Spirit from the orange tinted face of Mars, Osama Bin Laden, the forgotten terrorist, had to send a tape to remind us that he was very much with us. It was as if the mastermind of the Axis of Evil had been monitoring us from the Pakistani mountains and chose the moment after two weeks of high risk politics saw plot after plot uncovered and thwarted by Tom Ridge and his minions. Two weeks of Orange Alert and no bombs exploded in the US of A. It just shows how effective plastic wrap and duct tape can be.

Over the holidays the FBI used the Patriot Act to add the more than 300,000 Las Vegas hotel registrants to its database of suspected terrorists. One must wonder how many Mr. & Mrs. Smith entries were added. We can rest a bit more easily knowing that the FBI was among the first to detect that Brittany and Jason spent the holidays together in a Las Vegas hotel. Who knows how many terrorist plots that nugget of national security information blew out of the water?

Meanwhile the President leaked the broad outlines of his new budget proposal. He will deal with his growing deficit by cutting spending on domestic frills. With the economy bouncing along like a Martian Lander’s gas-bag; who needs spending on job retraining and reemployment programs? Let the Chinese spend money training folks to take those jobs, we no longer have them so we don’t need to fill them. God told Pat Robertson that He was going to bless China like it had never been blessed before. It is time that the Chinese heathens put their money where their mouths are.

We are finally taking concrete steps to keep the terrorists out of the U.S and in Europe where they belong. No longer can the evildoers just climb on a plane in London and ride it to DC. We cancelled those flights. They won’t be able to just fly from Paris to L.A. We cancelled those too. And when they get here we are going to take their pictures and scan their fingerprints so we can match them up and find out if they spent the holidays in Las Vegas. Unless, of course, they are traveling on a British or French passport; then we won’t know if they attended Brittany’s wedding.

All this in the week that Pakistan’s sales brochures touting its programs to sell nuclear technology to deserving third world dictators came to light. You remember Pakistan, our staunch ally in the War on Terrorism. If it weren’t for Pakistan supplying the Saudi terrorists with the wherewithal of WMD, we would not have the endless supply of enemies that the war on terror requires.

All of this calls for sacrifice, and the cost is high. For some it means walking dusty streets in Iraqi village wondering if the next bullet that whizzes by has your name on it. For others, those Americans who contribute by visiting Rio for Carnival, it means getting your picture and fingerprints taken for Brazil’s database. The rest of the world is learning from the Duct Tape Nation.