»  Radio Derb — Transcript

01 — Intro.     It's going to be a truncated Radio Derb this week, folks, and very likely a gloomier one than usual. Derb's got a cold, you see. I've dosed myself up on DayQuil and sundry other medications, and that may affect my coherence, too; so be ready for anything here.

Okay, let's see what's happening.

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Twelve hundred is only 0.01 percent of twelve million, so don't be breaking out the champagne. Also — a bit ominously, it seems to me — no charges have been filed against Swift and Co.

If the employers aren't scared, they'll just go on hiring illegals; and the illegals, most of whom have nothing to lose, will just keep on coming. You have to scare the employers.

Sha ji xia hou say the Chinese: You have to kill a chicken to scare the monkeys. Swift and Co. looks like a pretty good chicken to me.

Those twelve hundred people we've rounded up: You just know — don't you? — that once the ACLU gets on the case, they'll all be set free and given honorary citizenship and a free house and a car, and then they'll launch billion-dollar lawsuits for having their feelings hurt.

The way to stop this problem is to shut down the job opportunities. Go after the employers! No jobs, no problem.

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Two downsides there. Number one: Romney leaves office in January and the incoming Governor is Deval Patrick, a 99 and 44/100-percent pure specimen of Clintonian liberalism, who probably believes that immigration laws are just a ploy by the white, male, heteronormative patriarchy to stomp on the faces of the poor.

The dude's a lawyer too, so you can be sure he'll find some way to squelch Romney's order.

Downside number two: Mitt Romney, it's turned out, has his lawns mowed by a landscaping firm that employs illegal aliens.

I don't think the anti-Romney folks should set too much store by that, though. If there's going to be a fuss every time we find out that some politician's landscaper employs illegals, we'll be talking about nothing else from now till November '08.

Are there any landscaping firms that don't employee illegals?

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A reporter for the Congressional Quarterly asked the incoming chairman whether members of Al Qaeda came from the Sunni or the Shiite branch of Islam. "Al Qaeda? They have both," replied Representative Reyes. Then he added: "Predominantly, probably Shiite."

In fact Al Qaeda is fanatically Sunni. To Osama bin Laden, Shiites are contemptible heretics.

Then the reporter asked our new House intelligence overseer about Hezbollah. Reyes replied as follows, quote: "Hezbollah? Um, Hezbollah? Why do you ask me these questions at five o'clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?"

"Go ahead," said the reporter.

"Well, I, er …" said Reyes in English.

It's not as though Representative Reyes is unusual in his ignorance. This same reporter flummoxed two Republicans on the committee earlier this year, asking them about the difference between Sunni and Shia. They didn't know, though they were honest enough to say so.

We take our ignorance abroad with us, too. The Iraq Study Group noted that there are only six fluent Arabic-speakers among the thousand or so employees of our Baghdad embassy.

Not to worry, though. They have lots of Spanish speakers in the Baghdad embassy, so Chairman Reyes can find out anything he needs to know about Iraq by just phoning the embassy and pressing two for Spanish.

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The mother, we have now learned, is 27 years old and unmarried, and the boy is a problem child currently under a suspension from his school for taking a swing at a police officer.

Are you getting the picture here? The presents were stored at the house of the boy's great-grandmother — age not known, but my guess would be mid-fifties. The mother declared that her purpose in calling the police was, quote, "to teach my son a lesson."

I hope you won't think it's too un-Christmassy and uncharitable of me to note a couple of the lessons that the mother herself might take to heart.

Lesson one: It helps to have a father in the house when raising boys.

Lesson two: Don't have kids unless you're able to provide for them; which at age fifteen very few of us are equipped to do.

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David Duke was there of course, representing the United States. Quote from our Dave:

The Holocaust is the device use as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror, and Zionist murder.

End quote.

Now why does he feel he has to say "Zionist"? You're in Tehran, Dave, for goodness' sake. You can just come right out and say "Jew," they won't mind.

At the end of the conference Mohammad-Ali Ramin, an advisor to Ahmadinejad the Poison Dwarf, announced that he will chair a committee to find, quote, "the truth on the genocide of Jews."

Well, that's the quote I got from the Associated Press wire, anyway. I feel sure that in the original version the guy said "so-called genocide."

Meanwhile, Li'l Squinty himself showed up to tell the delegates that Israel's days are numbered. Here is what the Maleficent Midget had to say, quote:

Thanks to the people's wishes and God's will, the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards; and this is what God has promised and what all nations want. Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out.

End quote.

I'd be careful with the analogies there, Mahmoud. The U.S.S.R. may have gone down the tubes but the Russians are still around and they still have masses of nukes.

Dismantling an empire that's passed its sell-by date is one thing. Getting rid of a whole people who are prepared to defend themselves and well-equipped to do so is another story.

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Item:  I've got a headline here: Circumcision cuts HIV Risk in Half. That's according to some federal study.

Well that's great; but could we please have a total and permanent ban on headlines that include both the word "circumcision" and the phrase "cut in half"? Thank you.

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Item:  Barack Obama complained to Maureen Dowd that she poked fun at his big sticking-out ears. Replied Maureen: "We're trying to toughen you up."

Now, I'm no fan of Obama, who is a liberal's liberal; but this seems a bit harsh. Toughen him up? Why not make him run laps, or do pushups? Why not send them to Parris Island for a few weeks?

You all right with that, Senator Obama? "Yes, Sir!" I can't hear you, Senator. "YES, SIR!!"

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Item:  You all know the expression "prima donna," but do you know the male equivalent? I think it's "primo uomo"; and there was a specimen on display at La Scala opera house the other day when primo uomo Roberto Alagna stormed off the stage in the middle of a performance of Aida because the audience booed him.

His understudy came right on wearing street clothes; and let me tell you, there are few dressier operas than Aida. The understudy picked right up where the primo uomo had left off and ended up as the hero the evening. He won't be short of work from now on, you can be sure.

At this point I'd deliver a few bars of "Celeste Aida" for you, but my cold won't let me. Aw, heck; if you're going to insist.

[Clip of Luciano Pavarotti singing "Celeste Aida".]

I'm afraid that's all I can manage in my present condition.

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Item:  A gathering of scientists has warned that a small regional nuclear war could have environmental effects that would last for decades.

Oh, what a bunch of sissies! A National Review editor — now departed, but who I'd better not mention anyway — used to say that we shouldn't make any more nukes until we've used the ones we've got. That's my view of the matter, too.

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Item:  The world's oldest person has died aged 116; and the name of this person was not Fidel Castro, more's the pity.

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Item:  Dennis Kucinich has declared that he's running for President again. Dennis Kucinich for President in 2008. [Laughter.]

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I'm so doped up with medication, the news stories are starting to blur together. Am I going to get poisoned with polonium 210 if I eat at Taco Bell? Is it Osama or Obama who has the turban and the beard? Has Gwyneth Paltrow been definitely implicated in Princess Diana's death? Don't ask me. It's all a muddle in my poor, throbbing head.

Tune in again next week when with any luck, I should be compos mentis once again. Until then, this is a miserable, sniffling, semiconscious Derb offering you seasonal joy from Radio Derb.

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