10) Tell oil companies they can only have near-record profits.
9) Research combustion engines that run on wishful thinking.
8) Reanimate Buddy Ebsen and have him hunt for bubbling crude.
7) Introduce new "$54.40 a barrel or fight" policy.
6) Remove environmental protections until people are too sick to drive.
5) Reduce fuel usage of soccer moms by encouraging children to stay home and play soccer video games.
4) Authorize CIA to resume their work on creating a Crackmobile.
3) Give those gasoline pumps a steely squint until they automatically drop prices.
2) Throw a lot of feces and see if it sticks.
1) Ask Americans to conserve more energy...just kidding, we’ll probably annex another oil-producing country.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
Bush Reveals Plan to Curb Illegal Immigration Via Giant, Man-Eating Eagles
Gargantuan birds genetically engineered to defend freedom, Caucasians
Bush, displaying a prototype of the “Freedom Eagle,” explains that the avian defenders will be fully authorized to conduct “swoop and poop” missions.
WASHINGTON - Seeking to placate a conservative base clamoring for tough enforcement of immigration laws, President Bush unveiled a new weapon in the war to defend the nation’s southern borders: giant, man-eating birds.
“Today, America stretches its wings across a new era of immigration reform,” the President said in front of a meeting of the immigration reform group, “Gringos for Change.”
The President explained that the eagles had been in secret development by the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Pentagon, since 2002. The birds sport thirty-foot wingspans, with talons capable of holding 54 cubic feet, or six adults. They will be officially classified as the 1st Feathered Calvary Division.
“One of these birds can take out an entire El Camino,” the President remarked, “and two should be able to handle all but the most packed flat-bed pickups and conversion vans.”
While the exact orders of the 1st Feathered Calvary are classified, the President mentioned that all responses are, “on the table,” and that the birds are allowed to devour man-flesh.
The typical avian interception scenario involves the birds spotting suspicious groups of individuals moving across the border. The Freedom Eagles may then release excretory droppings at the individuals, as warning shots or to immobilize them. The birds, trained to spot green cards, passports, and other official identification, will scratch at the ground once to ask for proper ID. If the individuals do not produce it in a timely fashion, the Freedom Eagles will grab the perpetrator and fly him or her back to Mexico. If the perpetrator resists, the eagles are authorized to swallow them whole.
“This is exactly the kind of tough law enforcement we need,” said political analyst Britt Hume. “And what better symbol than the eagle to put the white back in red, white, and blue.
“Plus, the program pays for itself, as the eagles can eat their fill of illegal aliens.”
Democrats were cautious about the program, applauding its creativity while denouncing its carnivorous aspects. “I agree with the President that we need to do something about our porous borders,” said Senator Hillary Clinton, “and I appreciate the President using a natural, environmentally friendly means of enforcement. But I'm not sure what kind of message we're sending to the the rest of the world when we have giant birds devouring immigrants.”
Republican Senator Bill Frist downplayed the human consumption potential of the program. “Let’s not forget, these people are criminals. Criminals need to be punished. And keep in mind, only those illegal immigrants who resist will be eaten. These are the hard cases, the repeat offenders, who will only be emigrating to a giant gizzard.”
The President emphasized that the program would be safe. “If you're not an illegal immigrant, you do not have to worry about getting eaten by these birds,” Bush said.
The program will be tried on an experimental basis, explained Agent Charles Whiting of the Department of Homeland Security. “We will be monitoring the birds closely, to make sure they do not abduct native-born cows, pets, children, or legal immigrants and visitors. “Each bird has a regurgitation safe word as well, so agents can control them in the event of a digestive malfunction.”
Whiting noted that, if the program along the border proves successful, the Department of Homeland Security plans to shore up the Canadian border with patrols of giant, man-eating moose.
Bush, displaying a prototype of the “Freedom Eagle,” explains that the avian defenders will be fully authorized to conduct “swoop and poop” missions.
WASHINGTON - Seeking to placate a conservative base clamoring for tough enforcement of immigration laws, President Bush unveiled a new weapon in the war to defend the nation’s southern borders: giant, man-eating birds.
“Today, America stretches its wings across a new era of immigration reform,” the President said in front of a meeting of the immigration reform group, “Gringos for Change.”
The President explained that the eagles had been in secret development by the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Pentagon, since 2002. The birds sport thirty-foot wingspans, with talons capable of holding 54 cubic feet, or six adults. They will be officially classified as the 1st Feathered Calvary Division.
“One of these birds can take out an entire El Camino,” the President remarked, “and two should be able to handle all but the most packed flat-bed pickups and conversion vans.”
While the exact orders of the 1st Feathered Calvary are classified, the President mentioned that all responses are, “on the table,” and that the birds are allowed to devour man-flesh.
The typical avian interception scenario involves the birds spotting suspicious groups of individuals moving across the border. The Freedom Eagles may then release excretory droppings at the individuals, as warning shots or to immobilize them. The birds, trained to spot green cards, passports, and other official identification, will scratch at the ground once to ask for proper ID. If the individuals do not produce it in a timely fashion, the Freedom Eagles will grab the perpetrator and fly him or her back to Mexico. If the perpetrator resists, the eagles are authorized to swallow them whole.
“This is exactly the kind of tough law enforcement we need,” said political analyst Britt Hume. “And what better symbol than the eagle to put the white back in red, white, and blue.
“Plus, the program pays for itself, as the eagles can eat their fill of illegal aliens.”
Democrats were cautious about the program, applauding its creativity while denouncing its carnivorous aspects. “I agree with the President that we need to do something about our porous borders,” said Senator Hillary Clinton, “and I appreciate the President using a natural, environmentally friendly means of enforcement. But I'm not sure what kind of message we're sending to the the rest of the world when we have giant birds devouring immigrants.”
Republican Senator Bill Frist downplayed the human consumption potential of the program. “Let’s not forget, these people are criminals. Criminals need to be punished. And keep in mind, only those illegal immigrants who resist will be eaten. These are the hard cases, the repeat offenders, who will only be emigrating to a giant gizzard.”
The President emphasized that the program would be safe. “If you're not an illegal immigrant, you do not have to worry about getting eaten by these birds,” Bush said.
The program will be tried on an experimental basis, explained Agent Charles Whiting of the Department of Homeland Security. “We will be monitoring the birds closely, to make sure they do not abduct native-born cows, pets, children, or legal immigrants and visitors. “Each bird has a regurgitation safe word as well, so agents can control them in the event of a digestive malfunction.”
Whiting noted that, if the program along the border proves successful, the Department of Homeland Security plans to shore up the Canadian border with patrols of giant, man-eating moose.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Scott McClellan Denies Resigning After Announcing Resignation
White House press secretary Scott McClellan confuses an AP photographer by walking backwards down the ramp to Air Force 1.WASHINGTON - Moments after announcing his resignation as White House press secretary, Scott McClellan told reporters he was not resigning as White House press secretary.
"That information is not accurate," McClellan said when a reporter asked what he planned to do after he resigned. "I am not resigning at this time."
"But you just told us that you are resigning," the reporter said.
"That’s unconfirmed," McClellan replied. "I would check your sources on that information."
"You are the source of that information," the reporter shot back.
"I don’t think you should be basing a story like that on one source," McClellan said, snickering.
Another reporter presented photos showing McClellan cleaning out his desk, as well as a cake that said, "Good luck, Scott," decorated with a pair of lips that had been zipped shut.
"Let me just clarify something," McClellan said. "I was cleaning up my desk, not cleaning out my desk. It’s just much easier to find things if you take them out of the drawers and put them in a cardboard box."
Regarding the cake, the potentially former press secretary explained, "I won a chance to win a car at a Wizards game, if I make a half-court shot. That’s what ‘Good Luck, Scott,’ means. There was supposed to be a basket on there instead of sealed lips. It was a confectionary malfunction made on the ground at the bakery. It did not originate from the White House."
Another reporter brandished copies of McClellan’s completed COBRA forms, which he allegedly turned into the White House human resources department to keep his health benefits active after leaving his job.
"That was a simulation," McClellan said. "We have an HR drill every month. I was simulating how I would leave, so that were I to do so, which I’m not, I would turn my forms in correctly so I could, in theory, keep receiving benefits, which I am, because I am still employed."
McClellan concluded the press conference by saying, "It has been a privilege and an honor to stand up here and not answer your questions." As he wiped away a tear, he finished, "I look forward to continuing to fulfill that duty."
Reporters later questioned President Bush about McClellan’s resignation. "Scott has the freedom to make that choice," the President said. "And freedom isn’t free. It’s quite expensive. As are Scott’s monthly COBRA payments.
"But if Scott were to leave, we do have several other parrots in mind for the job."
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Top Ten Tuesdays: Why are we enriching uranium?
10) Trying to make the radiation gap more equitable between uranium and its richer cousin, plutonium.
9) Preparing for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on all remaining Western cartoonists.
8) Finally using up all the centrifuges we received as wedding gifts.
7) Just keeping up with the Jewses down the street.
6) Giving President Bush a reason to say “nuc-u-lar” a lot. That always cracks us up.
5) Producing the extra electricity needed to recharge our new hybrid camels.
4) Need to distract our abundance of Western-educated scientists from focusing on things like freedom of speech.
3) What else is there to do in Tehran on a Friday night?
2) So we can generate the 1.21 jigawatts needed to power our time machine and prevent the Shah from kissing President Eisenhower at the 1953 Coup d’Etat Dance!
1) Because, just like with your president, our God told us to.
9) Preparing for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on all remaining Western cartoonists.
8) Finally using up all the centrifuges we received as wedding gifts.
7) Just keeping up with the Jewses down the street.
6) Giving President Bush a reason to say “nuc-u-lar” a lot. That always cracks us up.
5) Producing the extra electricity needed to recharge our new hybrid camels.
4) Need to distract our abundance of Western-educated scientists from focusing on things like freedom of speech.
3) What else is there to do in Tehran on a Friday night?
2) So we can generate the 1.21 jigawatts needed to power our time machine and prevent the Shah from kissing President Eisenhower at the 1953 Coup d’Etat Dance!
1) Because, just like with your president, our God told us to.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Nature Blows
Thursday night, as I sat in a windowless room in my basement, listening to a tornado roaring toward my house, what was running through my mind?
Fucking Twister.
That’s right, disaster comes knocking on my door, and my potentially last thought is a hack piece of celluloid Weather Channel porn. But as the roaring of came closer, and the house began to shake, and I heard all kinds of crashing and banging, I played the last scene of the movie in my head, where Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt chain themselves to a pole and look into the interior vortex of a tornado. Except that I was holding the knob of an old wooden door, and if my house lifted off the foundations, I was going to go up up and away into the next county, maybe to have one of those awful, humorously grizzly deaths where I get thrown right through the O of a Hooters sign. (Likewise, this is why the slightest bit of air turbulence also makes me immediately think of Alive. Yes, I have movie-death issues.)
While it is unsettling that my brain turned into the TNT channel during the scariest moment of my life, at least I didn’t pull a Hudson from Aliens and bombard my wife with “game over, man” whining. No, we were way too freaked out to say much of anything for the 20-30 seconds that we heard a sample from the smash hit, “All Hell’s Breaking Loose (Fujita Scale Remix).” I hope I never have to hear the whole CD.
In case you missed it, my little corner of the Big 10 got slammed by 5-7 tornadoes the other night, 150mph F2 monsters that flipped over cars, ripped off roofs, and destroyed a church, a sorority house, and an old-school Dairy Queen (you monsters! What did the Dilly Bars ever do to you?). My fears about my house getting ripped off its foundations were slightly displaced. It was the garage that endured my second worst nightmare starring Helen Hunt (the first being a Mad About You marathon):
Our house, it turned out, held its own with Mother Nature. We have some roof damage and some broken windows, but otherwise our abode is no worse for wear. But the rest of our block looked like a disaster area. Our western neighbor’s garage not only followed ours into the alley, their roof decided to come off and land between our two houses. Meanwhile, about a dozen Big Fucking Trees (trunkus fuckus hugeous) had fallen into the street or on houses. Our friend Grendel snapped some pics of our little avenue, including this doozy:
The missus also has a close-up account and some pics of The Twister and the Damage Done.
After the shell shock of the event and some late-night gawking, the cleanup began, as everything does in Iowa, at daybreak. And I learned quite a bit about...
The Hierarchy of Men in Disaster Areas
Here is a quiz: your neighborhood is hit by a tornado. The street is littered with trees, roofs, smashed cars, and other debris. What would come in the handiest in this situation?
a) A really biting sense of humor
b) An encyclopedic knowledge of the films of Bill Paxton
c) An expert command of an XBox controller
d) A lot of power tools and the skills to use them.
The answer is d. Bonus question: which one of these attributes do I not have? I’ll bet you can guess the answer.
I started out by doing the job that requires only prehensile thumbs and/or a trunk: picking shit up. Almost all the windows had been blown in on our porch, so I helped clear a bit of debris so we could get outside easily. I also did the Property Walk-Around, the disaster area equivalent of the Under the Hood Inspection, when you look under the hood of stalled car as if Keeanu Reeves will suddenly download an Advanced Auto Shop course into your cerebrum.
But soon the Chainsaw Symphony began, the multi-tracked layering of machine-powered saws that sounded like Jackyl’s “The Lumberjack” if it had been produced with Phil Spector’s Wall-of-Sound. For the Sawers of Rohan were descending on our avenue, ready to clear the street of the aforementioned Big Fucking Trees. This was where I first encountered the Hierarchy of Men in Disaster Areas:
The Power Tool Wielders (PTWs) sliced and diced the big parts of the Big Fucking Trees. The Hand Tool Brandishers (HTBs) chopped smaller branches into stackable chunks. The Empty-Handed Laborers (EHLs) picked up the chunks and stacked them. This group included some very helpful teenage girls, who were outside of the hierarchy because they were focused on helping and not how their penises compared to the other men.
As with any caste, there are subcastes, and among the EHLs, we had this grouping:
I began as a Medium Branch Handler. The PTWs and HTBs cut up part of a tree that fell between my house and my eastern neighbor’s, and I gathered branches and stacked them by the curb. I felt sort of defeated, as if I should be doing more, but I shut that out of my mind and focused on being the best Medium Branch Handler I could be. Well, my hard work paid off. Soon the PTWs were ready to cut larger parts of the fallen tree, and even the HTBs had to put down the axes/machete and join us EHLs. I seized the opportunity to grab the large trunks and haul them to the curb. I may have permanently destroyed my back, but advancement isn’t free, and I was happy to rise to Large Trunk Handler status.
With my tree done, we turned to the Big Fucking Trees blocking the street. The largest, the Really Big Fucking Tree crushing the station wagon pictured above, thwarted even the standard PTWs. Their chainsaws were not big enough. That prompted one of them to say, “let me get my bigger chainsaw.”
Several of us stood in awe. That was a man, a guy with a chainsaw for every occasion. A Mega Power Tool Wielder (MPTW). He returned and began slicing up the Really Big Fucking Tree. Again, I leapt at a chance to better myself and joined the Giant Log Rollers, pushing huge pieces of lumber out of the street and onto the curb. I was still an EHL, but I had graduated to the top of my caste, and in only one day.
On Saturday, with the street clear of the Big Fucking Trees, we turned to the alley. My western neighbor’s garage had blown into the alley and was blocking traffic. One MPTW, who was a construction contractor with three saws on him, guided an HTB and myself as we ripped apart the destroyed garage and removed it from the alley. The HTB had a sledgehammer to smash larger bits of the garage, and I, now proud of my EHL status, sang as I removed debris from the alley to piles on the side.
There was still the problem of my garage, though. It had blown onto its side, leaning precariously against my eastern neighbor’s garage. It was too large and heavy for even the MPTW. It required the next level of the Hierarchy: the Construction Equipment Owner (CEOs). In this case, it was a man who informed us he had his own Bobcat, a mini tractor/bulldozer that’s powerful enough to crush a terminator (the Arnold T800 model, not the liquid metal T1000 model, which could slip away). The CEO offered to not only push our garage into a more orderly pile, but to remove, single-handedly, the roof rubble on the side of our house. In about 15 minutes, all rubble had been confined to a pair of hot spots in the back, allowing the rest of the yard to return to its safer (albeit much muddier and torn up) Green Zone status.
By Saturday afternoon, about 40 hours after the lights went out, the Fully Authorized Officials (FAOs) had repaired our power. At this point, I was relieved of my EHL duties, as the remaining work required FAOs and Fully Licensed Contractors (FLCs). The flow of electric current in the house soothed me and helped me return to my natural 21st Century Useless Layabout status. But I learned a lot from the experience of working with the Hierarchy. And God help me, if there is a next time, I’m going to make sure I at least have a motherfucking machete.
Epilogue: On Global Warming
With her tongue very firmly in cheek, our friend SER noted: “I heard today that this was the first tornado ever to hit Iowa City itself. I blame George W. Bush.”
Of course, none of us really do. Tornadoes are a way of life in the Midwest, and I’ve ducked into many a basement in my life as the sirens sounded. This was just the first time that doing so was a necessity and not a precaution.
But here’s the other thing that’s been going through my mind: we are Mother Nature’s bitch. For all our advanced technology and science and Google Bombs and Stealth Bombers, the best solution we have for dealing with a tornado is to run and hide in the lowest hole you can find. And for hurricanes, the solution is to flee somewhere else.
Not to make this too political, but it would seem to me that it’s a good idea to at least be cautious about tweaking Mother Nature in the nose. And to definitely not slap nature in the face with a Spotted Owl that’s impaled on the antenna of a Hummer that’s burning a mixture of coal, asbestos, and old tires for fuel. Lord knows I’m not going to doubt her power ever again.
Fucking Twister.
That’s right, disaster comes knocking on my door, and my potentially last thought is a hack piece of celluloid Weather Channel porn. But as the roaring of came closer, and the house began to shake, and I heard all kinds of crashing and banging, I played the last scene of the movie in my head, where Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt chain themselves to a pole and look into the interior vortex of a tornado. Except that I was holding the knob of an old wooden door, and if my house lifted off the foundations, I was going to go up up and away into the next county, maybe to have one of those awful, humorously grizzly deaths where I get thrown right through the O of a Hooters sign. (Likewise, this is why the slightest bit of air turbulence also makes me immediately think of Alive. Yes, I have movie-death issues.)
While it is unsettling that my brain turned into the TNT channel during the scariest moment of my life, at least I didn’t pull a Hudson from Aliens and bombard my wife with “game over, man” whining. No, we were way too freaked out to say much of anything for the 20-30 seconds that we heard a sample from the smash hit, “All Hell’s Breaking Loose (Fujita Scale Remix).” I hope I never have to hear the whole CD.
In case you missed it, my little corner of the Big 10 got slammed by 5-7 tornadoes the other night, 150mph F2 monsters that flipped over cars, ripped off roofs, and destroyed a church, a sorority house, and an old-school Dairy Queen (you monsters! What did the Dilly Bars ever do to you?). My fears about my house getting ripped off its foundations were slightly displaced. It was the garage that endured my second worst nightmare starring Helen Hunt (the first being a Mad About You marathon):
Our house, it turned out, held its own with Mother Nature. We have some roof damage and some broken windows, but otherwise our abode is no worse for wear. But the rest of our block looked like a disaster area. Our western neighbor’s garage not only followed ours into the alley, their roof decided to come off and land between our two houses. Meanwhile, about a dozen Big Fucking Trees (trunkus fuckus hugeous) had fallen into the street or on houses. Our friend Grendel snapped some pics of our little avenue, including this doozy:
The missus also has a close-up account and some pics of The Twister and the Damage Done.
After the shell shock of the event and some late-night gawking, the cleanup began, as everything does in Iowa, at daybreak. And I learned quite a bit about...
The Hierarchy of Men in Disaster Areas
Here is a quiz: your neighborhood is hit by a tornado. The street is littered with trees, roofs, smashed cars, and other debris. What would come in the handiest in this situation?
a) A really biting sense of humor
b) An encyclopedic knowledge of the films of Bill Paxton
c) An expert command of an XBox controller
d) A lot of power tools and the skills to use them.
The answer is d. Bonus question: which one of these attributes do I not have? I’ll bet you can guess the answer.
I started out by doing the job that requires only prehensile thumbs and/or a trunk: picking shit up. Almost all the windows had been blown in on our porch, so I helped clear a bit of debris so we could get outside easily. I also did the Property Walk-Around, the disaster area equivalent of the Under the Hood Inspection, when you look under the hood of stalled car as if Keeanu Reeves will suddenly download an Advanced Auto Shop course into your cerebrum.
But soon the Chainsaw Symphony began, the multi-tracked layering of machine-powered saws that sounded like Jackyl’s “The Lumberjack” if it had been produced with Phil Spector’s Wall-of-Sound. For the Sawers of Rohan were descending on our avenue, ready to clear the street of the aforementioned Big Fucking Trees. This was where I first encountered the Hierarchy of Men in Disaster Areas:
- Power Tool Wielders (chainsaws in this case)
- Hand Tool Brandishers (axes and one “why the fuck do you have a” machete guy)
- Empty-Handed Laborers (me, and also a number of teenage boys and girls)
The Power Tool Wielders (PTWs) sliced and diced the big parts of the Big Fucking Trees. The Hand Tool Brandishers (HTBs) chopped smaller branches into stackable chunks. The Empty-Handed Laborers (EHLs) picked up the chunks and stacked them. This group included some very helpful teenage girls, who were outside of the hierarchy because they were focused on helping and not how their penises compared to the other men.
As with any caste, there are subcastes, and among the EHLs, we had this grouping:
- Giant Log Rollers
- Large Trunk Haulers
- Medium Branch Handlers
- Small Twig Pickers
I began as a Medium Branch Handler. The PTWs and HTBs cut up part of a tree that fell between my house and my eastern neighbor’s, and I gathered branches and stacked them by the curb. I felt sort of defeated, as if I should be doing more, but I shut that out of my mind and focused on being the best Medium Branch Handler I could be. Well, my hard work paid off. Soon the PTWs were ready to cut larger parts of the fallen tree, and even the HTBs had to put down the axes/machete and join us EHLs. I seized the opportunity to grab the large trunks and haul them to the curb. I may have permanently destroyed my back, but advancement isn’t free, and I was happy to rise to Large Trunk Handler status.
With my tree done, we turned to the Big Fucking Trees blocking the street. The largest, the Really Big Fucking Tree crushing the station wagon pictured above, thwarted even the standard PTWs. Their chainsaws were not big enough. That prompted one of them to say, “let me get my bigger chainsaw.”
Several of us stood in awe. That was a man, a guy with a chainsaw for every occasion. A Mega Power Tool Wielder (MPTW). He returned and began slicing up the Really Big Fucking Tree. Again, I leapt at a chance to better myself and joined the Giant Log Rollers, pushing huge pieces of lumber out of the street and onto the curb. I was still an EHL, but I had graduated to the top of my caste, and in only one day.
On Saturday, with the street clear of the Big Fucking Trees, we turned to the alley. My western neighbor’s garage had blown into the alley and was blocking traffic. One MPTW, who was a construction contractor with three saws on him, guided an HTB and myself as we ripped apart the destroyed garage and removed it from the alley. The HTB had a sledgehammer to smash larger bits of the garage, and I, now proud of my EHL status, sang as I removed debris from the alley to piles on the side.
There was still the problem of my garage, though. It had blown onto its side, leaning precariously against my eastern neighbor’s garage. It was too large and heavy for even the MPTW. It required the next level of the Hierarchy: the Construction Equipment Owner (CEOs). In this case, it was a man who informed us he had his own Bobcat, a mini tractor/bulldozer that’s powerful enough to crush a terminator (the Arnold T800 model, not the liquid metal T1000 model, which could slip away). The CEO offered to not only push our garage into a more orderly pile, but to remove, single-handedly, the roof rubble on the side of our house. In about 15 minutes, all rubble had been confined to a pair of hot spots in the back, allowing the rest of the yard to return to its safer (albeit much muddier and torn up) Green Zone status.
By Saturday afternoon, about 40 hours after the lights went out, the Fully Authorized Officials (FAOs) had repaired our power. At this point, I was relieved of my EHL duties, as the remaining work required FAOs and Fully Licensed Contractors (FLCs). The flow of electric current in the house soothed me and helped me return to my natural 21st Century Useless Layabout status. But I learned a lot from the experience of working with the Hierarchy. And God help me, if there is a next time, I’m going to make sure I at least have a motherfucking machete.
Epilogue: On Global Warming
With her tongue very firmly in cheek, our friend SER noted: “I heard today that this was the first tornado ever to hit Iowa City itself. I blame George W. Bush.”
Of course, none of us really do. Tornadoes are a way of life in the Midwest, and I’ve ducked into many a basement in my life as the sirens sounded. This was just the first time that doing so was a necessity and not a precaution.
But here’s the other thing that’s been going through my mind: we are Mother Nature’s bitch. For all our advanced technology and science and Google Bombs and Stealth Bombers, the best solution we have for dealing with a tornado is to run and hide in the lowest hole you can find. And for hurricanes, the solution is to flee somewhere else.
Not to make this too political, but it would seem to me that it’s a good idea to at least be cautious about tweaking Mother Nature in the nose. And to definitely not slap nature in the face with a Spotted Owl that’s impaled on the antenna of a Hummer that’s burning a mixture of coal, asbestos, and old tires for fuel. Lord knows I’m not going to doubt her power ever again.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Top Ten Tuesdays: What are we thinking about while we're stuck in a meeting?
Special extra long off-site meeting edition!
12) Sending a T1000 back in time to kill the guy that invented PowerPoint.
11) Putting a concrete sock in Scooter's big mouth.
10) Engaging in a friendly merger with blonde from marketing.
9) The deal we're going to make when we turn state's evidence against the CEO.
8) Whether to use plastic knife to butter bagel or puncture own jugular.
7) Snakes on a Plane!
6) Wondering which one of these smelly bastards "moved their cheese."
5) Updating resume.
4) Sticking it to The Man through anonymous blog posts that skewer office culture.
3) Wishing we were practicing the Eighth Habit of highly effective people: Not Sitting in a Windowless Room Talking About the Same Bullshit Action Items That We Were Supposed to Put Into Action After the Last Goddamned Meeting.
2) How we would leap on the conference table, drop our pants, and molest the company mission statement, if only we'd picked the winning Lotto numbers.
1) The bullet points that will go on our headstones.
12) Sending a T1000 back in time to kill the guy that invented PowerPoint.
11) Putting a concrete sock in Scooter's big mouth.
10) Engaging in a friendly merger with blonde from marketing.
9) The deal we're going to make when we turn state's evidence against the CEO.
8) Whether to use plastic knife to butter bagel or puncture own jugular.
7) Snakes on a Plane!
6) Wondering which one of these smelly bastards "moved their cheese."
5) Updating resume.
4) Sticking it to The Man through anonymous blog posts that skewer office culture.
3) Wishing we were practicing the Eighth Habit of highly effective people: Not Sitting in a Windowless Room Talking About the Same Bullshit Action Items That We Were Supposed to Put Into Action After the Last Goddamned Meeting.
2) How we would leap on the conference table, drop our pants, and molest the company mission statement, if only we'd picked the winning Lotto numbers.
1) The bullet points that will go on our headstones.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Operation: Assrocket
Powerline is the worst conservative blog on the Internet.
I imagine there are many who would disagree with me. And the competition is certainly fierce with sites like the National Review’s Corner, Little Green Footballs, and Townhall serving up room-temperature IQ on a daily basis.
But Powerline is the one that still surprises me, the blog that, just when I think they have reached the Hubbert peak of stupidity production, they discover a fresh, untapped field of idiocy.
For example, leave it to the hip-to-be-fair (skinned) Powerline to add a little Commie peanut butter to the chocolate of illegal immigration hysteria:
That was from John Hindracker, the most powerful tool at Powerline. For those of you who don’t know, Hindracker used to go by the handle “Hindrocket,” with his co-cobag Scott Johnson using “Big Trunk” as his nickname. I can’t remember the nickname for Paul Mirengoff, the other tool in the trinity, but I think it was “The Gimp,” because it seems like he only posts when Hindrocket or Big Trunk unzip his mask.
Powerline packs a deadly mixture of Judge Smails snobbery, vintage William F. Buckley bigotry (like when he called Gore Vidal a queer or his National Review was railing against race mixing), and the delusional, masturbatory bluster of Bill O’Reilly.
While it was mighty white of Hindrocket to bring up the Commie menace driving the effort to treat illegal immigrants like human beings, he outdid himself when he went the extra mile to call for spying on your fellow Americans:
You see, it’s not enough for the Yellow Elephant Brigades and the elite Keyboard Kommandos to fight the conventional virtual war on liberals. They also require a secret Chickenhawk Intelligence Agency to conduct special cloak-and-blogger operations, with groups like A.N.S.W.E.R. serving as the new S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Armed with digital cameras and using Tom Clancy books for training, they are ready to conduct dangerous, covert infiltrations of America’s growing Red-and-Brown Menace.
I can just imagine the movie...
PowerTools presents
An Assrocket film
Orangefinger
Inside an abandoned warehouse near a racially mixed waterfront, members of International A.N.S.W.E.R. hold a secret meeting.
The leader of International A.N.S.W.E.R., Che Aloe Vera, wears a beret and Rage Against the Machine t-shirt. He addresses the crowd. To his right stands Odd Piñata, a large Mexican man wearing a mariachi outfit and an enormous sombrero.
ALOE VERA
Thank you all for coming here tonight. As you all know, since 1990, Communism has retreated to the fringes of society and North Korea. Glasnost, Yeltsin, and the desire for designer jeans undermined much of our work. But no more...
The camera pans above to the shadows of the ceiling, where a pudgy figure, dressed in ninja black, lowers a zip line above the crowd. He fastens a video camera to his chest and wraps one meaty, gloved paw around the line. We see flecks of orange powder on the gloves before the figure begins to lower, upside-down, toward the floor, filming the proceedings from the rafters.
ALOE VERA
For while the eagle of capitalism has nested on its cozy, um, nest, the bear of socialism has been hibernating, waiting for a Red Spring. Well, the alarm clock of revolution is now going off, and illegal immigration is our chance to give America a wake-up call!
The shadowy figure pans the camera, showing an assortment of hippies, yippies, burnouts, washouts, social workers, coop owners, blacks, Hispanics, and a couple of guys in Daily Kos t-shirts. They all carry Soviet flags.
ALOE VERA
But immigration protests are just the tip of the iceberg. And once we take over the immigrant rights movement, we’ll infiltrate every other liberal movement, too: welfare, Rock the Vote, hybrid vehicles, and gay marriage. Every one will fall before our insidious hammer and sickle (laughs maniacally).
The crowd members raise their fists and cheer. As the shadowy figure tapes, a shiny, silver package slips out of his pocket. It falls away and hits the floor near Aloe Vera. It is a snack-size bag of Cheetos.
Odd Piñata looks up and sees the figure. He removes his sombrero, the brim of which is made of razor-sharp steel. He flings it at the figure and cuts the zip line. The spy falls to the ground, landing with a thud and a crunch as he crushes the Cheeto bag.
Aloe Vera steps forward and pulls off his hood, revealing the face of a fleshy white man with really bad hair.
ALOE VERA
Who are you?
SPY
Goldberg. Jonah Goldberg.
Odd Piñata picks up Jonah by the scruff of the neck, hoisting him off the ground in a chokehold.
GOLDBERG (gasping)
Do you expect me to talk?
ALOE VERA
No, Mr. Goldberg, I expect you to die!
GOLDBERG (breaking down)
Die?! N-n-nobody said anything about dying! I'm too young to die! And too important! And too good looking! (sobs)
At that moment, an enormous red-white-and-blue Hummer crashes through the warehouse wall, running over the room’s occupants. Michelle Malkin is behind the wheel.
MALKIN (yelling out the window as she runs over a Hispanic woman)
Jonah! Get a hold of yourself, doughboy, and stop being such a girly man!
She runs into Odd Piñata with the Hummer, causing him to release Goldberg. Piñata quickly recovers though and begins to wrestle Goldberg. The two men wrestle to the ground, while Aloe Vera flees the stage. Piñata gets on top and wraps his fingers around Goldberg's throat. Before Piñata can finish the job, Goldberg holds up his orange-speckled fingers and blows Cheeto dust in Piñata's eyes and knocks the temporarily incapacitated Piñata to the floor.
Holding him down with one hand on his throat, Goldberg reaches into his pocket and pulls out a can of CheezWhiz. He fills Pinata’s mouth with the entire can, choking him to death.
MALKIN (backing over an old hippie)
Jonah, hurry! We don’t have much time!
Goldberg leaps from the stage into the Hummer, landing upside down in the passenger seat and revealing a peek of his Star Wars Underoos. He rights himself as Malkin plows over the guys in the Daily Kos shirts. As she barrels toward the warehouse entrance, Aloe Vera tries to escape by getting on one of the buses outside the warehouse. He turns long enough to wave.
ALOE VERA
Adios, amigos!
GOLDBERG
He’s getting away!
MALKIN
Not on my watch.
Malkin yanks the wheel, jumps off a piece of board, and sends the Hummer flying through the air, until it lands on top of the bus, crushing Aloe Vera. As the Hummer bounces off, the bus explodes into a fireball. Malkin swerves to avoid hitting an oil drum marked “Missing WMD,” swerves again to avoid touching a series of crates marked “Extra copies of the homosexual agenda,” and instead runs over some fleeing Guatemalan schoolchildren.
MALKIN
Phew, that was close.
GOLDBERG
I’ll tell you what, there are two things we never should have given women: the Nineteenth Amendment and driver's licenses!
They look at each other and laugh as Michelle swerves to run over one last Hispanic.
MALKIN
Just don’t ask me to parallel park.
I imagine there are many who would disagree with me. And the competition is certainly fierce with sites like the National Review’s Corner, Little Green Footballs, and Townhall serving up room-temperature IQ on a daily basis.
But Powerline is the one that still surprises me, the blog that, just when I think they have reached the Hubbert peak of stupidity production, they discover a fresh, untapped field of idiocy.
For example, leave it to the hip-to-be-fair (skinned) Powerline to add a little Commie peanut butter to the chocolate of illegal immigration hysteria:
Another round of pro-illegal immigration demonstrations is scheduled to take place tomorrow. One of the groups organizing tomorrow's demonstrations is a Communist organization called International A.N.S.W.E.R. A.N.S.W.E.R., which has championed every tyrant from Kim Il John to Fidel Castro to Saddam Hussein, has now taken up the cause of illegal immigration, and was the principal organizer of the massive demonstration in southern California a week or two ago.
That was from John Hindracker, the most powerful tool at Powerline. For those of you who don’t know, Hindracker used to go by the handle “Hindrocket,” with his co-cobag Scott Johnson using “Big Trunk” as his nickname. I can’t remember the nickname for Paul Mirengoff, the other tool in the trinity, but I think it was “The Gimp,” because it seems like he only posts when Hindrocket or Big Trunk unzip his mask.
Powerline packs a deadly mixture of Judge Smails snobbery, vintage William F. Buckley bigotry (like when he called Gore Vidal a queer or his National Review was railing against race mixing), and the delusional, masturbatory bluster of Bill O’Reilly.
While it was mighty white of Hindrocket to bring up the Commie menace driving the effort to treat illegal immigrants like human beings, he outdid himself when he went the extra mile to call for spying on your fellow Americans:
Unfortunately for A.N.S.W.E.R., the meeting was attended by a couple of bloggers from Vital Perspective, who taped the meeting and reported on it on their site. They shared their audiotape of the proceedings with us, and we have posted a short excerpt on Power Line Video. In this excerpt, you can hear Becker wonder whether there are undercover policemen present (he forgot about bloggers), pose a tough question to his audience, and speculate about how illegal immigrants could be the
"catalyst for a broader class struggle, even possibly a revolutionary struggle."
Tomorrow, pro-illegal immigration demonstrations are planned to take place in around 60 cities. You can find the schedule of events here. If the past is any guide, conventional news coverage of the demonstrations is likely to be unilluminating. We think this is an opportunity for a bit of citizen journalism. Anyone with a video camera (or most digital cameras) can attend one of the demonstrations and record what he sees. How many people are participating in the demonstration? What signs are they carrying? What flags? Who seems to be in charge? If people are arriving in buses, who runs the buses? Are professionally made signs being distributed? If so, by whom? How about flags? How visible are radical groups like A.N.S.W.E.R.?”
You see, it’s not enough for the Yellow Elephant Brigades and the elite Keyboard Kommandos to fight the conventional virtual war on liberals. They also require a secret Chickenhawk Intelligence Agency to conduct special cloak-and-blogger operations, with groups like A.N.S.W.E.R. serving as the new S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Armed with digital cameras and using Tom Clancy books for training, they are ready to conduct dangerous, covert infiltrations of America’s growing Red-and-Brown Menace.
I can just imagine the movie...
PowerTools presents
An Assrocket film
Orangefinger
Inside an abandoned warehouse near a racially mixed waterfront, members of International A.N.S.W.E.R. hold a secret meeting.
The leader of International A.N.S.W.E.R., Che Aloe Vera, wears a beret and Rage Against the Machine t-shirt. He addresses the crowd. To his right stands Odd Piñata, a large Mexican man wearing a mariachi outfit and an enormous sombrero.
ALOE VERA
Thank you all for coming here tonight. As you all know, since 1990, Communism has retreated to the fringes of society and North Korea. Glasnost, Yeltsin, and the desire for designer jeans undermined much of our work. But no more...
The camera pans above to the shadows of the ceiling, where a pudgy figure, dressed in ninja black, lowers a zip line above the crowd. He fastens a video camera to his chest and wraps one meaty, gloved paw around the line. We see flecks of orange powder on the gloves before the figure begins to lower, upside-down, toward the floor, filming the proceedings from the rafters.
ALOE VERA
For while the eagle of capitalism has nested on its cozy, um, nest, the bear of socialism has been hibernating, waiting for a Red Spring. Well, the alarm clock of revolution is now going off, and illegal immigration is our chance to give America a wake-up call!
The shadowy figure pans the camera, showing an assortment of hippies, yippies, burnouts, washouts, social workers, coop owners, blacks, Hispanics, and a couple of guys in Daily Kos t-shirts. They all carry Soviet flags.
ALOE VERA
But immigration protests are just the tip of the iceberg. And once we take over the immigrant rights movement, we’ll infiltrate every other liberal movement, too: welfare, Rock the Vote, hybrid vehicles, and gay marriage. Every one will fall before our insidious hammer and sickle (laughs maniacally).
The crowd members raise their fists and cheer. As the shadowy figure tapes, a shiny, silver package slips out of his pocket. It falls away and hits the floor near Aloe Vera. It is a snack-size bag of Cheetos.
Odd Piñata looks up and sees the figure. He removes his sombrero, the brim of which is made of razor-sharp steel. He flings it at the figure and cuts the zip line. The spy falls to the ground, landing with a thud and a crunch as he crushes the Cheeto bag.
Aloe Vera steps forward and pulls off his hood, revealing the face of a fleshy white man with really bad hair.
ALOE VERA
Who are you?
SPY
Goldberg. Jonah Goldberg.
Odd Piñata picks up Jonah by the scruff of the neck, hoisting him off the ground in a chokehold.
GOLDBERG (gasping)
Do you expect me to talk?
ALOE VERA
No, Mr. Goldberg, I expect you to die!
GOLDBERG (breaking down)
Die?! N-n-nobody said anything about dying! I'm too young to die! And too important! And too good looking! (sobs)
At that moment, an enormous red-white-and-blue Hummer crashes through the warehouse wall, running over the room’s occupants. Michelle Malkin is behind the wheel.
MALKIN (yelling out the window as she runs over a Hispanic woman)
Jonah! Get a hold of yourself, doughboy, and stop being such a girly man!
She runs into Odd Piñata with the Hummer, causing him to release Goldberg. Piñata quickly recovers though and begins to wrestle Goldberg. The two men wrestle to the ground, while Aloe Vera flees the stage. Piñata gets on top and wraps his fingers around Goldberg's throat. Before Piñata can finish the job, Goldberg holds up his orange-speckled fingers and blows Cheeto dust in Piñata's eyes and knocks the temporarily incapacitated Piñata to the floor.
Holding him down with one hand on his throat, Goldberg reaches into his pocket and pulls out a can of CheezWhiz. He fills Pinata’s mouth with the entire can, choking him to death.
MALKIN (backing over an old hippie)
Jonah, hurry! We don’t have much time!
Goldberg leaps from the stage into the Hummer, landing upside down in the passenger seat and revealing a peek of his Star Wars Underoos. He rights himself as Malkin plows over the guys in the Daily Kos shirts. As she barrels toward the warehouse entrance, Aloe Vera tries to escape by getting on one of the buses outside the warehouse. He turns long enough to wave.
ALOE VERA
Adios, amigos!
GOLDBERG
He’s getting away!
MALKIN
Not on my watch.
Malkin yanks the wheel, jumps off a piece of board, and sends the Hummer flying through the air, until it lands on top of the bus, crushing Aloe Vera. As the Hummer bounces off, the bus explodes into a fireball. Malkin swerves to avoid hitting an oil drum marked “Missing WMD,” swerves again to avoid touching a series of crates marked “Extra copies of the homosexual agenda,” and instead runs over some fleeing Guatemalan schoolchildren.
MALKIN
Phew, that was close.
GOLDBERG
I’ll tell you what, there are two things we never should have given women: the Nineteenth Amendment and driver's licenses!
They look at each other and laugh as Michelle swerves to run over one last Hispanic.
MALKIN
Just don’t ask me to parallel park.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Are you a Negative Newsie?
In defending the War on Iraq recently, President Bush noted that Iraq has as much of a perception problem as a violent-destabilization-careening-toward-blood-red-civil war problem. Our leader said that one of the big reasons Americans think the war is going badly is because the media says its going badly. If only reporters would report some of the good things going on, morale would improve and Iraq could be a cheap knockoff of American democracy, instead of an expensive remake of the Balkans.
Such negativity extends well beyond Iraq. Does your news lead because it bleeds, or because your heart bleeds? And avoiding undue negative bias is not easy when a workforce consists of many highly educated, low-paid, overworked alcoholics.
Take the following quiz and see if your headline frowns should be turned upside down. Choose which of the following two leads more accurately tells the story.
1a. More than 2300 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.
1b. More than 147,000 U.S. troops have not died in Iraq.
2a. Insurgents assaulted an Iraqi police station.
2b. Employment opportunities in Iraqi security are booming!
3a. Electricity output in Iraq is still below pre-invasion levels.
3b. When the lights are on, you can clearly see the purple fingers of many Iraqis.
4a. Many parts of Baghdad are out of control.
4b. The United States has proven for years that non-violent capital cities are overrated.
5a. Due to the U.S. being preoccupied in Iraq, Iran and North Korea are moving forward with their nuclear weapons programs.
5b. Due to the U.S. war in Iraq, the White House now knows exactly which countries are making nuclear weapons.
6a. Democrats in Congress is investigating whether the President's authorization of wiretapping was illegal.
6b. The President is spying on your neighbors so you don't have to.
7a. Republicans in Congress want to forcibly deport or imprison many illegal immigrants.
7b. Republicans in Congress want to reunite many immigrants with their friends and family.
8a. President Bush's appointees to the Supreme Court could roll back women's reproductive freedoms.
8b. President Bush's appointees to the Supreme Court could roll back women's reproductive freedoms—huzzah!
9a. Prohibitions against stem cell research prevent research that could cure many diseases.
9b. Prohibitions against stem cell research encourages many sick people to pray for miracles.
10a. Abstinence-only education programs have not been successful at preventing sexual activity and teen pregnancy.
10b. Abstinence-only education programs have been highly successful at identifying the class sluts.
11a. Global warming is inducing Arctic melting, which could lead to rising sea levels and catastrophic climate changes.
11b. Surf's up in Arizona? How Tucson could be the hot beach property of the 22nd century.
12a. Tom DeLay was forced to resign because he was facing indictments for illegal campaign contributions.
12b. Tom DeLay is leaving Congress to bring his skills for fundraising and bookkeeping to the private sector.
13a. The current response to rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina has kept many African-American residents away from their New Orleans homes.
13b. The current response to rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina has kept many African-American residents away from New Orleans.
14a. The fiscal policies of the Bush Administration could endanger the future of Social Security, Medicaid, and other social services.
14b. Here are ten great ideas for spending the extra hundred bucks you saved on your taxes!
15a. President Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low.
15b. President Bush's resolve is so firm, most Americans cannot swallow it.
SCORING
a=1 point
b=2 points
25-30: FOXy Fact Finder. For every cloud there's a silver lining, so why look down to see what's happening on the ground? Your leads help our leaders lead us to victory.
20-24: Fair and Blah-lanced: You're never going to graduate from MSNBC with this attitude. The news is supposed to report so that the audience decides what's best for America. Hop off that fence you're straddling and get on the sunny side of reporting.
15-19: Negative Newsie. Every stroke of your pen cuts Lady Liberty across the face. Your assignment and punishment: to have your eyelids taped open and watch the musical Newsies over and over until you learn how to sing and dance properly.
Such negativity extends well beyond Iraq. Does your news lead because it bleeds, or because your heart bleeds? And avoiding undue negative bias is not easy when a workforce consists of many highly educated, low-paid, overworked alcoholics.
Take the following quiz and see if your headline frowns should be turned upside down. Choose which of the following two leads more accurately tells the story.
1a. More than 2300 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.
1b. More than 147,000 U.S. troops have not died in Iraq.
2a. Insurgents assaulted an Iraqi police station.
2b. Employment opportunities in Iraqi security are booming!
3a. Electricity output in Iraq is still below pre-invasion levels.
3b. When the lights are on, you can clearly see the purple fingers of many Iraqis.
4a. Many parts of Baghdad are out of control.
4b. The United States has proven for years that non-violent capital cities are overrated.
5a. Due to the U.S. being preoccupied in Iraq, Iran and North Korea are moving forward with their nuclear weapons programs.
5b. Due to the U.S. war in Iraq, the White House now knows exactly which countries are making nuclear weapons.
6a. Democrats in Congress is investigating whether the President's authorization of wiretapping was illegal.
6b. The President is spying on your neighbors so you don't have to.
7a. Republicans in Congress want to forcibly deport or imprison many illegal immigrants.
7b. Republicans in Congress want to reunite many immigrants with their friends and family.
8a. President Bush's appointees to the Supreme Court could roll back women's reproductive freedoms.
8b. President Bush's appointees to the Supreme Court could roll back women's reproductive freedoms—huzzah!
9a. Prohibitions against stem cell research prevent research that could cure many diseases.
9b. Prohibitions against stem cell research encourages many sick people to pray for miracles.
10a. Abstinence-only education programs have not been successful at preventing sexual activity and teen pregnancy.
10b. Abstinence-only education programs have been highly successful at identifying the class sluts.
11a. Global warming is inducing Arctic melting, which could lead to rising sea levels and catastrophic climate changes.
11b. Surf's up in Arizona? How Tucson could be the hot beach property of the 22nd century.
12a. Tom DeLay was forced to resign because he was facing indictments for illegal campaign contributions.
12b. Tom DeLay is leaving Congress to bring his skills for fundraising and bookkeeping to the private sector.
13a. The current response to rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina has kept many African-American residents away from their New Orleans homes.
13b. The current response to rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina has kept many African-American residents away from New Orleans.
14a. The fiscal policies of the Bush Administration could endanger the future of Social Security, Medicaid, and other social services.
14b. Here are ten great ideas for spending the extra hundred bucks you saved on your taxes!
15a. President Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low.
15b. President Bush's resolve is so firm, most Americans cannot swallow it.
SCORING
a=1 point
b=2 points
25-30: FOXy Fact Finder. For every cloud there's a silver lining, so why look down to see what's happening on the ground? Your leads help our leaders lead us to victory.
20-24: Fair and Blah-lanced: You're never going to graduate from MSNBC with this attitude. The news is supposed to report so that the audience decides what's best for America. Hop off that fence you're straddling and get on the sunny side of reporting.
15-19: Negative Newsie. Every stroke of your pen cuts Lady Liberty across the face. Your assignment and punishment: to have your eyelids taped open and watch the musical Newsies over and over until you learn how to sing and dance properly.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Top Ten Tuesdays: Why are we so mad at illegal aliens?
Special 11 or 12 million expanded edition!
12) They’re robbing poor whites of the God-given right to be exploited by rich whites
11) Immigrants are undermining James K. Polk’s noble work of stealing half of Mexico
10) We really want American teenagers to do half-assed jobs on our lawns for twice the price
9) Increase in immigration is escalating the salsa spice index, making mild into medium and medium into hot, wrecking havoc on Caucasian digestive systems
8) Illegal immigrants take American jobs instead of properly transferring those jobs overseas
7) Uncontrollably projecting our hatred of J-Lo onto an entire people
6) We’re not really that mad, just want to change the subject from Iraq
5) We want our orange juice to only be picked virgins dressed in white silk during the vernal equinox
4) Letting people in who work harder for less money is giving us poor self-esteem
3) Hating brown is the new hating black
2) They don’t speak proper English and always end sentences in, “eh?”
1) Because we’re making money by sounding just like the guys who said our people were a blight on Germany.
12) They’re robbing poor whites of the God-given right to be exploited by rich whites
11) Immigrants are undermining James K. Polk’s noble work of stealing half of Mexico
10) We really want American teenagers to do half-assed jobs on our lawns for twice the price
9) Increase in immigration is escalating the salsa spice index, making mild into medium and medium into hot, wrecking havoc on Caucasian digestive systems
8) Illegal immigrants take American jobs instead of properly transferring those jobs overseas
7) Uncontrollably projecting our hatred of J-Lo onto an entire people
6) We’re not really that mad, just want to change the subject from Iraq
5) We want our orange juice to only be picked virgins dressed in white silk during the vernal equinox
4) Letting people in who work harder for less money is giving us poor self-esteem
3) Hating brown is the new hating black
2) They don’t speak proper English and always end sentences in, “eh?”
1) Because we’re making money by sounding just like the guys who said our people were a blight on Germany.
If you buy this book, you can sleep with my wife*
Today is a big day at Casa del Brando. My wife has published her first novel:
Icebergs, by Rebecca Johns
Icebergs is a multigenerational family epic. It starts with a plane crash off the coast of Labrador in Canada during World War II, and follows the families of two of the crew members, Walt Dunmore and Al Clark. The novel moves through the 1960s and into the present, showing how this one event continues to reverberate through the lives of the Dunmores and Clarks. (The plane crash is actually based on the real-life crash of Becky's grandfather's plane during the Second World War.)
It was written by this lovely lady:
When our friend MSF saw this photo, she said that Becky looked like she had just had good sex.
I looked at MSF and said, "Well, duh!"
Then I asked, "Seriously, who is she seeing?"
But in all seriousness, it's a great book, an intricate story spanning generations written with such beauty that, truth be told, there was some dust in my eyes when I got to the end.
You can also read her fabulous new blog, Illiterati, or as she labels it, "Inside one writer's mental breakdown."
So put down the blog and buy the book. If enough of you do so, you'll fulfill my lifelong dream of being a kept man. And if you act now, you can have sex with the author.*
*Offer not valid to persons with male genitals. Not valid with female persons who are prettier, more intelligent, nicer smelling, or better at arm wrestling than the author of this blog.
Icebergs, by Rebecca Johns
Icebergs is a multigenerational family epic. It starts with a plane crash off the coast of Labrador in Canada during World War II, and follows the families of two of the crew members, Walt Dunmore and Al Clark. The novel moves through the 1960s and into the present, showing how this one event continues to reverberate through the lives of the Dunmores and Clarks. (The plane crash is actually based on the real-life crash of Becky's grandfather's plane during the Second World War.)
It was written by this lovely lady:
When our friend MSF saw this photo, she said that Becky looked like she had just had good sex.
I looked at MSF and said, "Well, duh!"
Then I asked, "Seriously, who is she seeing?"
But in all seriousness, it's a great book, an intricate story spanning generations written with such beauty that, truth be told, there was some dust in my eyes when I got to the end.
You can also read her fabulous new blog, Illiterati, or as she labels it, "Inside one writer's mental breakdown."
So put down the blog and buy the book. If enough of you do so, you'll fulfill my lifelong dream of being a kept man. And if you act now, you can have sex with the author.*
*Offer not valid to persons with male genitals. Not valid with female persons who are prettier, more intelligent, nicer smelling, or better at arm wrestling than the author of this blog.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Bush Enlists Assistance of Dr. Scholl’s in Training Iraqi Security Forces
President expects Iraqi army to be “gellin’” by early 2007
BAGHDAD - President Bush has turned to an unlikely source of help in fighting the war in Iraq: footcare company Dr. Scholl’s.
The company, famous for curing foot odor and sweaty feet, will try to help new Iraqi forces coalesce and stabilize though its patented massaging gel insoles.
In a supervised demonstration, the First Iraqi Comfort Brigade marched for reporters, turning expertly on their heels and moving with a spring in their step heretofore unseen in the Iraqi military. With the men standing at attention, the drill sergeant, Salim In-Stephan, called out, “Are you men gellin’?”
“Sir, yes sir!” the brigade yelled.
“How gellin’ are you?” Sergeant In-Stephan asked.
“Sir, we are gellin’ like felons!” the soldiers answered. Approximately 35-40 percent of the new brigade are former Republican guard members accused of committing war crimes.
However, the demonstration was immediately broken up by insurgent shelling. The First Comfort Brigade scattered, while Sergeant In-Stephan began yelling for the men to start repelling the attack.
He was unsuccessful in rallying his troops, as the soldiers new footware helped them race past even terrified journalists to safety.
General Henry Sole, a former Dr. Scholl’s vice president of marketing and now U.S. Commander for the Strategic Tactical Evasive Podiatrics (STEP) unit, downplayed the quick instinct of the men to scatter. “We were impressed by the improved quickness of the men. Their footspeed has improved an average of 33 percent. We plan to harness that speed into light, highly mobile units that can counteract terror, or, at the very least, outrun the terrorists until they are out of breath and U.S. forces can pounce on them.”
While Dr. Scholl’s has previously served an advisory role on trenchfoot for the military, this marks the first time the company had taken an active role on the battlefield. President Bush hailed the company for making such a bold step. “We are confident that, within the next six to nine months, Iraqi security forces will be more gellin’ than Vasco de Gama.”
“Don’t you mean Magellan, Mr. President?” asked White House correspondent Helen Thomas.
“Yes, yes, Magellan. Thank you, Helen. I guess I should leave these questions for Scott McClellan!” the President said, clapping his hands and letting out his trademark laugh of three short hehs.
Some in Congress expressed skepticism with the President’s plan. “At, ah, this point, there’s no telling what he’s selling,” said Senator Ted Kennedy. “I am not at all confident that this will keep the insurgency from swelling.”
Indeed, some fear that insurgents will infiltrate the Iraqi Foot Brigades and steal their gellin’ apparatuses. One insurgent group, calling themselves the Al-Tinactin Brigades, displayed pictures of captured gellin’ insoles on their Web site, with the caption, “We are so gellin’, we are rebellin’, praise be to Allah.”
The American soldiers on the ground had mixed reactions to the efforts. “I’m happy the Iraqis will be more comfortable,” said Captain Dan Arches of the Marine Corps. “We’ve had a hard time bringing these different groups together, so maybe they can rally around quality footcare.”
But Private First Class Jeffrey Heels was much less sanguine. “They’re gellin’? Good for them. You know what would help me start gellin'? Some (expletive) body armor.”
BAGHDAD - President Bush has turned to an unlikely source of help in fighting the war in Iraq: footcare company Dr. Scholl’s.
The company, famous for curing foot odor and sweaty feet, will try to help new Iraqi forces coalesce and stabilize though its patented massaging gel insoles.
In a supervised demonstration, the First Iraqi Comfort Brigade marched for reporters, turning expertly on their heels and moving with a spring in their step heretofore unseen in the Iraqi military. With the men standing at attention, the drill sergeant, Salim In-Stephan, called out, “Are you men gellin’?”
“Sir, yes sir!” the brigade yelled.
“How gellin’ are you?” Sergeant In-Stephan asked.
“Sir, we are gellin’ like felons!” the soldiers answered. Approximately 35-40 percent of the new brigade are former Republican guard members accused of committing war crimes.
However, the demonstration was immediately broken up by insurgent shelling. The First Comfort Brigade scattered, while Sergeant In-Stephan began yelling for the men to start repelling the attack.
He was unsuccessful in rallying his troops, as the soldiers new footware helped them race past even terrified journalists to safety.
General Henry Sole, a former Dr. Scholl’s vice president of marketing and now U.S. Commander for the Strategic Tactical Evasive Podiatrics (STEP) unit, downplayed the quick instinct of the men to scatter. “We were impressed by the improved quickness of the men. Their footspeed has improved an average of 33 percent. We plan to harness that speed into light, highly mobile units that can counteract terror, or, at the very least, outrun the terrorists until they are out of breath and U.S. forces can pounce on them.”
While Dr. Scholl’s has previously served an advisory role on trenchfoot for the military, this marks the first time the company had taken an active role on the battlefield. President Bush hailed the company for making such a bold step. “We are confident that, within the next six to nine months, Iraqi security forces will be more gellin’ than Vasco de Gama.”
“Don’t you mean Magellan, Mr. President?” asked White House correspondent Helen Thomas.
“Yes, yes, Magellan. Thank you, Helen. I guess I should leave these questions for Scott McClellan!” the President said, clapping his hands and letting out his trademark laugh of three short hehs.
Some in Congress expressed skepticism with the President’s plan. “At, ah, this point, there’s no telling what he’s selling,” said Senator Ted Kennedy. “I am not at all confident that this will keep the insurgency from swelling.”
Indeed, some fear that insurgents will infiltrate the Iraqi Foot Brigades and steal their gellin’ apparatuses. One insurgent group, calling themselves the Al-Tinactin Brigades, displayed pictures of captured gellin’ insoles on their Web site, with the caption, “We are so gellin’, we are rebellin’, praise be to Allah.”
The American soldiers on the ground had mixed reactions to the efforts. “I’m happy the Iraqis will be more comfortable,” said Captain Dan Arches of the Marine Corps. “We’ve had a hard time bringing these different groups together, so maybe they can rally around quality footcare.”
But Private First Class Jeffrey Heels was much less sanguine. “They’re gellin’? Good for them. You know what would help me start gellin'? Some (expletive) body armor.”
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