Sourpatch Slurpee Day

30 times the wait for half the value

It's 7/11Day and that means lines through the door of the soulless convenience store at the local strip mall of Americans looking for a hand-out. You never really know how much Americans love the iced sugar water of a Slurpee until you hand them out for free and then the humans come out of their hobbit holes by the mini-van load to fill their cup. You probably will think I'm making this up but I'm not - it takes about 25 minutes of waiting in line just to get in front of the Slurpee machine but people will do it for a free drink and do it gladly, happily. And they're not even getting a full sized Slurpee but some special edition super small cup which is more like a half Slurpee. So people are waiting inside a 7-Eleven (one of the most inhospitable environments ever devised by man) for a half hour (or 30 times the average wait time) for a product that's half its normal value and that product only costs about $1.00. No wonder politicians are always promising free stuff to the voters - people just don't do a CBA if it's free.

And that's a big problem because freedom isn't free. I've been amazed at the gentle treatment our president has enjoyed ever since he started sending US troops back to Iraq in June 2014. He was sneaky in sending a relatively small (300) group in first, but now it's grown to almost 5,000 and God only knows how many contractors who operate off the books.

The new troop deployment comes two years after Mr. Obama said that while the United States would help the Iraqi military reclaim territory from the Islamic State, those efforts would “not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.” Since then, he has steadily increased the number of troops in Iraq and given them more authority. Three service members have been killed.

In other words (words the NYTimes can't bring themselves to print) we're back in Iraq America. We're not balls-deep yet, but Barack is a skillful seducer who takes his time - like a free Slurpee you don't even realize you're getting screwed while it's happening - worse, you're stupid enough to think you're getting a good deal. Slurp up the sweet cold ice but not too fast lest you get brain-freeze.

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