NEWS: Can I Charge You For Being an Asshole?

POLITICS: Can I Charge You For Being an Asshole?

Message from the State Department:

We are excited to offer a new but limited travel bargain that will start on July 16, 2006! Enjoy the sea and sun on one of our military vessels in the lovely Mediterranean. Voyages will begin off the coast of Lebanon and will take you to the goat filled island of Cyprus. As we push off into the sea you can watch the many explosions and fires of the devastated country in which you were living or vacationing. This sea voyage from Lebanon to Cyprus will cost you a yet to be determined amount of cash. If you don’t sign this arbitrary bill, we’ll leave you to enjoy the death zone that is Lebanon. We realize you are American citizens and that it is our job to protect you in times of need but we also want to make some sweet cash off your desire to live. Sign up now!

And don’t forget, while on Cyprus you can see the goats, and also watch goats. From Cyprus you can pay a very high fee to fly on a commercial plane to anywhere!

Sincerely,
Your State Department.

In history this administration will be know as the "How-can-I-profit-from-this?"

Okay smart people out there:
Has the US Government ever charged American Citizens to get them out of a war zone before this?

good question.

ask not what your country can do for you - ask how much you can pay your government to do anything for you.

once again I can't believe that there wasn't a plan already in fucking place...

The US government might not negotiate with terrorists, but you are free to negotiate with Priceline.com to find the best deal on getting the fuck out of a warzone.

Really, American citizens are being royally screwed by our government? That's crazy talk. Hope they have a good supply of KY over there. It's going to be a painful one.

Presumably this is punishment for living outside of the US and allowing there to be enough jobs back home for the Mexicans who keep sneaking over the border, damn them.

But on a serious note, that's fucking shit.

I wonder. Did the government pay for the flights which took members of the bin Laden family out of the U.S. immediately after 9/11?

i guess they gotta balance the budget somehow, right?

seriously, though-- repatriation fees..if you're on vacation in a country and a war breaks out..you have to pay the government to take you home? why do i bother paying taxes again?

Because if you don't jackbooted stormtroopers with bowties and very, very sharp pencils will break down your door and subpoena your bank records.

I'd have been shocked if there had been, though, to be honest.

Oh shit! I totally forgot about THOSE guys!

yeah this didnt go over so well. condi just changed her mind on this one.

You see, that flight was essential to national security, and their security. If they'd stayed here, they'd be in danger, and...and...

Gahh, trying to justify things this adminstration does makes my head hurt.

I'm pretty sure I didn't see a boarding agent in the videos of helicopters taking people out of the US Embassy at the end of Vietnam.

I'm sure there's a first-class upgrade if you have the right last name and need to get the hell out of there.

Were we to flirt with a bit of a conspiracy theory for a moment. It has been suggested that the lack of action from the both the US and UK governments is in order to down play the humanitarian crisis. The need to down play it being that both are supporting Israel's, wide ranging, attacks continuing for some time yet.

Seems a bit extreme to me. Don't ascribe to evil what you can ascribe to incompetence. But what to believe when they are both evil and incompetent? Tricky.

We can spend 300 billion on Iraq, but we're charging Americans to get them home? Rediculous. Abso-fucking-lutely rediculous.

And Nancy Pelosi agrees with me:

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/436374p-367571c.html

Really? Got a link?

So, the options are:

A) Pay the Man.
B) Don't pay the Man; stay in Lebanon and bitch about the current administration until you're torn to ribbons by a stray RPG.

Yeah, I'm gonna need a minute to figure this one out.

So people really pick Lebanon as a vacation destination, or... to attend American University - Beirut campus? Then, when it blows up (literally) in their face, they seem shocked? Golly, Lebanon has always been such a safe place to be...

how extremely ignorant.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/19/lebanon.evacuation/