Smooth Move, Travis

OK. So you’re running back Travis Henry.

Last year, released by the Tennessee Titans, you were signed by the Denver Broncos, who stick with you despite a positive test for marijuana.

Claiming to be a victim of secondhand smoke, you appeal your NFL suspension and actually win it (though you remain in the league substance-abuse program) and are allowed to play.

In February this year you tell Bronco fans, "I want to be a Bronco and make it all right. I don't want to be anywhere else. I owe those people something for all that happened last year. I want to clear my name there.”

Then you do something to anger coach Mike Shanahan enough that he flat-out cuts you in June, saying, "We did not feel his commitment to the Broncos was enough to warrant a spot on this football team. He’s just too inconsistent as a person.”

Inconsistent? Au contraire.

For in July it’s revealed you again tested positive for pot, which means a year’s suspension. Now on the last day of September you’re arrested by the feds for your alleged role in a cocaine deal?

Smooth move, Travis.

Actually, it has one advantage. Henry reportedly has fathered nine kids by nine different women, and therefore has serious child-support payment problems. I mean, you don’t have to pay child support if you’re in prison, do you? And even if you do, if you can’t pay it, where are they doing to do? Put you in prison?

Halloween Rules

OK, folks, it’s that time of year to go over “the rules”:

1.- When it appears that you have killed the monster, NEVER check to see if it’s really dead. It doesn’t matter if you’ve shot it, chopped it’s head off, set it on fire, stuck a 16 gauge needle into it’s carotid artery , or dismembered it and lowered it into a vat of molten lava; IT’S STILL ALIVE!!!!


2.- Never summon aloud from a book of demonology, even as a joke.


3.- Do not search the basement, especially if the power has gone out. The batteries in your flashlight are bound to be too weak, and that third step from the top is bound to have a crack in it.


4.- If your children speak to you in Latin, or backwards, or in tongues or any other language which they should not know, don’t ground them, shoot them immediately. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. However, it will probably take several rounds to kill them, so be prepared. Stock up on ammunition and keep your AR15 .308 caliber automatic weapon within easy reach at all times. This goes double for kids who speak with somebody else’s voice.


5.- When you have the benefit of numbers, NEVER pair off or go alone. Always be in the middle so you don’t get picked off from behind or run into the large impaling device while in the front. 6.- As a general rule, don’t solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.


7.- Never stand in, on, or above a grave, tomb, or crypt. This would apply to mausoleums, sepulchers, catacombs, charnel houses, boneyards, slaughterhouses, pyramids, necropolae or any other house of the dead or undead as well.


8.- If you’re searching for something which caused a loud noise and find out that it’s just the cat, GET THE HELL OUT! If you happen to be in a spacecraft, you’re shit out of luck.


9.- If appliances start operating by themselves, do not check for short circuits or call Sears. Back slowly to the front door ease out on the front porch and do your best Carl Lewis imitation (i.e. 100 meter dash in 9.79 seconds).


.- Do not take ANYTHING from the dead; even for a short term loan with intentions to give it back.


11.- If you find a town which looks deserted, there’s probably a good reason for it. You can assume it’s not a tourist destination, and the phones definitely won’t work. Even if the wifey want to do a little antique shopping, don’t stop and look around.


12.- Don’t fool with recombinant DNA technology or subatomic particles unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing.


13.- If you’re running from the monster, expect to trip or fall down at least twice; more if you are of the female persuasion. Of course, you will also be wearing the six-inch spike heels instead of your Runmaster Air 2000’s, and branches will be whipping and roots will be tripping you. Also note that, despite the fact that you are running a sub 4 minute mile and the monster is merely ambling along at a leisurely pace, it’s still moving fast enough to catch up with you.


14.- If your friends suddenly begin to exhibit uncharacteristic behavior such as hissing, tongue-flicking, fascination for blood, glowing eyes, increasing hairiness, pointed ears, etc., immediately plunge a sharpened wooden stake into their chest cavities.


15.- Stay away from certain geographical locations, some of which are listed here: Amityville, Elm Street, Transylvania, Nilbog (if you recognize this one, you definitely need to get a life), anywhere in Texas where chainsaws are sold, the Bermuda Triangle, the Ninth Bolgia, furnace rooms in the basement of schools, or any small town in Maine.


16.- If your car runs out of gas at night on a lonely road, do not go to the nearby deserted-looking house to phone for help. If you think that it is strange you ran out of gas because you just filled the tank at the last gas station 5 miles back, shoot yourself instead. You are going to die anyway, and most likely be eaten.


17.- Beware of strangers bearing power tools. For example: chainsaws, staple guns, hedge trimmers, electric carving knives, reversible drills, combines, electric riveters, grappling hooks, lawnmowers, threshers, butane torches, soldering irons, band saws, grub axes, breast augers, wood chippers, scissor-like fingers, or any devices made from deceased companions.


18. - If you find that your house is built upon a cemetery, now is the time to move in with the in-laws. This also applies to houses that had previous inhabitants who went mad or committed suicide or died in some horrible fashion, or had inhabitants who performed satanic practices in your house. Clue: when the real-estate saleswoman says, “This house has LOTS of charm and character” as she’s standing over a Pentagram, make sure there’s a No-Haunting Disclosure in the contract.

Obama Informercial? Hire Lawyers Instead

Talk about money to burn: Tonight the Barack Obama campaign presents a half-hour "infomercial" on three television networks — 30 minutes more than many Americans might want in a single sitting about the person increasingly likely to be our next president.

Both Obama and Republican candidate John McCain have run some effective half-minute commercials, McCain's appearing with less frequency as his fund-raising appeal is fading and his public-financed budget of $84 million is a trifle alongside the Democratic champion's $150 million during September alone.

So after three ho-hum debates and countless "town hall" events by both parties' presidential and vice-presidential candidates in battleground states, Obama is spending scads of money selling — or over-selling — himself?

His fans will love it. The show is certain to help validate all the phone-banking and door-to-dooring so many people have done on the Illinois senator's behalf. But barring something spectacular — the candidate canning 10 three-pointers in a row? Reciting the Bill of Rights backwards? A two-minute sprint from the Capitol to the White House? — how many undecided voters will keep their remotes tuned to Obama and make their decision by station-break time?

To be sure, John F. Kennedy did lengthy commercials. But so did Ross Perot. Somehow, we can't help thinking there are better things Obama could do with his money — besides massive advertising.

Lawyering up, for example. If recent presidential elections are any indication, the next few days will be full of dirty tricks:

Spurious challenges to voters in the poor parts of major cities, where the masses are pinning their hopes on the man from the south side of Chicago

Attempts at intimidating folks by telling 'em sheriffs, bill-collectors, la migra and others lie in wait at the polls, ready to pounce on 'em for daring to exercise their rights.

Fraudulent procedures aimed at spoiling ballots — or miscounting them.

Both camps, by now, must have armies of poll-watchers organized against mischief by the opposition. But ever since the Bush campaign sent a flying squad of suits into Florida to render that state's already-faulty 2000 election system totally chaotic, Democrats have been on notice: Fight lawyers with lawyers.

Some might show up out of dedication to party principles; others might heed the advice so often issued smilingly by the late legendary law prof Walter Henry Edward Jaeger of Georgetown: Get the fee first.

Voter-registration fraud, real and imagined, could prompt people to toss monkey wrenches into the works. Cool legal minds, not hotheads from the vested interests, might be badly needed in many parts of the country to sort out valid claims from the merely vehement ones.

That, to my mind, is where Obama could better invest the embarrassment of riches that have come his way.

McCain Plans Chain of Obama Recovery Centers

John McCain reportedly has already laid plans to heal the nation’s political wounds, and to offer new hope to countless journalists and other liberals whose faith will have been shattered by the defeat of Barack Obama at the polls on November 4.

According to an unnamed campaign insider, Sen. McCain’s “compassion for the multitudes who will suddenly be like sheep without a shepherd” has resulted in detailed plans for…

■a nationwide chain of in-patient Obama recovery centers,
■community-based 12-step groups, and
■fast-track FDA approval for a post-Obama patch (a wearable mix of sugar, Koolaid and a mild steroid) designed to “help the user through the rough spots after losing his hope for change.”
A top Democrat strategist today acknowledged that colleagues have discussed privately what they would do in the “doomsday scenario” of an Obama loss, but they’ve dealt with the threat by “simply putting it out of our minds and focusing on the transition plan for his ascension to the White House. Anything Barack can conceive, we can believe. Yes, we can.”

The strategist added that transition planning has been much easier this year because “most of the research has been done, and we’re just revising and synthesizing the transition plans we have on file for Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry. In other words, we already know how long the drapes need to be.”

Multo in Parvo

"A lot of dog in a small space". We now have seven dogs. These two, Angus and Max are Chinese Pugs and the latest additions to the pack. They join Elmo, Zoe, Grover, Oscar and Sarge who are all Boston Terriers. All seven are what we consider rescue dogs. they either came from the pound or were resecued from an environment not in their best interests. Angus and Max are littermates and are 5 years old. They belonged to two elderly sisters who lived together and are moving into a nursing home. We agreed to take the dogs as a pair because they ladies did not want them to be separated. All seven sleep on the bed with us. And all seven snore. One of these days I will write a tome on how dogs interact with each other, how they seem to get along fine at first meeting and how a hierarchy is established in the family. Of course I am the Alpha Male and all seven know it. They travel with us and it is a sight to behold with seven small heads sticking out of the rear windows as we drive.

How to Screw Up Your Legacy -- The Brett Favre Way

First, play the diva for several off-seasons and hold your team — and their fans — hostage to your whims.

Second, after you’ve finally retired, tell bald-faced lies when the itch to play again proves too much for you.

Third, give no verbal support at all to the young man tapped to replace you, even though for three years he’s been nothing but a loyal to you.

Fourth, after you’re traded elsewhere, try to hurt your old team — and their fans — by calling up one of your old team’s opponents and spilling club secrets.

The first three items are documented facts; the fourth is alleged in a report by FoxSports.Com’s Jay Glazer, who says the former Green Bay quarterback, now with the Jets, called the Detroit staff to dish all he knew about the Packers offense before that team played the Lions.

A Lions executive denied the report but Lions coaches would only issue “no comment,” which is suspicious, at least. Favre denied it, but a few months back he also denied he was looking for a team to make a comeback with when, in fact, he was.

After being traded to the Jets, Favre admitted a desire to hurt the Packers, and this certainly would fit with that mind-set.

In any case, this is more reason to think that if Favre is expecting a statue outside Lambeau Field one day, he might have to wait a bit longer than he thought.

McCain Backs Colin Powell's Obama Endorsement

Sen. John McCain today shocked reporters aboard the ‘Straight Talk Express’ by backing former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s recent endorsement of his presidential rival, Barack Obama.

In a move a McCain aide called, “self-sacrificial, but the best long-term strategy for Republican dominance,” the Arizona senator said he decided to join his fellow Republican in supporting the liberal Democrat for the same reason Mr. Powell did — because Sen. Obama is pro-choice.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, help ‘em beat themselves,” said Sen. McCain, “Obama’s eager support of abortion, up to and beyond the moment of birth, will help to rapidly deplete the ranks of Democrats, while we Republicans continue to be fruitful and multiply.”

Sen. McCain noted that since black babies get aborted almost four times as often as white babies, and blacks are 10 times more likely to vote Democrat than Republican, “one of the best long-term strategies for reducing the Democrat electoral base is by attrition through abortion.”
In addition, about half of abortions are performed on lower income women, a group twice as likely to register Democrat as Republican.

“I’ve never been able to figure out these Democrats,” Sen. McCain added. “On the one hand, they give millions to ACORN to register voters. Then they turn around and pump millions more into Planned Parenthood to boost abortions among their core constituency. You’d called it genocide if they weren’t doing it to themselves, but since they are, I guess you call it democide.”

Obama to Joe: Plumbing in a Constitutional Right

After a presidential debate which focused on the needs of one man, a plumber named Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama this morning announced that “plumbing, like health care, is a Constitutional right, and therefore a federal government responsibility.”
“Millions of Americans go to bed every night listening to the incessant drip of a leaky faucet, fearing a flooded basement or a backed up toilet,” said Sen. Obama. “In my travels around the country, I’ve learned that single mothers, children and seniors are hardest hit. Often it comes down to a decision between buying groceries, or getting the garbage disposal fixed.”
Sen. Obama noted that since the poor usually don’t get proper preventative plumbing, they often wind up making emergency calls in the middle of the night, the most expensive treatment option.
“If this nation is going to continue to hold out the American promise of equal results for all,” the senator said, “then we need to make sure that the millions of un-plumbed families have affordable and accessible plumbing maintenance.”
The Obama plan would force employers to provide plumbing insurance to workers, slapping penalties on firms that fail to comply. But it would also retain free market options, he said.
“If you’re happy with your current plumber, keep him,” Sen. Obama said, “But my plan would also allow you to choose from a list of government plumbers, and to get the kind of quality service that Sen. McCain and I, and our Congressional colleagues, enjoy at taxpayer expense every day.”
‘Joe the Plumber‘, as he is now known to politicians who can’t pronounce Wurzelbacher, would also benefit under the Obama plan.
“Instead of buying that plumbing business and bumping himself into a higher tax bracket,” Sen. Obama said, “Joe the Plumber can simply go to work for the federal government, where his six-figure salary and the taxes on it all come from people who are compelled by the IRS to support his work. His income remains stable and grows whether his services are in demand or not. This removes the uncertainty from his business, and the burden of having to compete and of being constantly judged by customers.”

Editorial Board Endorses Obama

Rarely has one man so captivated a nation with his readiness to prepare to serve.
That’s why the editorial board at Hunterpartyofone, on behalf of the vast editorial staff, today endorses Barack Obama for the office of junior senator from Illinois.
Although the prospect of an Obama presidency, from a satirical perspective, represents a hopeful future of full employment, the editors of Hunterpartyofone cannot let their own needs stand in the way of the needs of the Senate, or indeed, of the people of the world.
Barack Obama’s temperament makes him ideally suited to an institution that President George Washington reportedly once called ‘the cooling saucer’ of the Republic. Evidence of Mr. Obama’s suitability for this role is manifold…
According to friends (who he calls ‘Obam-associates’) , Barack Obama is so cool…
The only reason he doesn’t smoke very often is that the flame on his cigarette keeps going out.
Once, during a conference committee meeting, Rep. Barney Frank borrowed Sen. Obama’s pen, and immediately got his tongue stuck to its frosty surface. Even then, Sen. Obama was so cool, he just reached over and snapped the pen from Rep. Frank’s mouth, leaving the grateful Congressman with no lasting effect but a barely-noticeable speech impediment.
At a recent concert and political rally, when Bruce Springsteen got ‘The Fever’, he skipped the Tylenol, because his friend Barack was there. When The Boss sang ‘I’m on Fire’, Sen. Obama extinguished him.
When his wife Michelle, his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, or a guy in his neighborhood named Bill Ayers, occasionally let loose with fiery outbursts of anger, just being near Barack Obama allows them to ‘chill’ like a typical white grandmother, shivering because she just saw a black man.
Despite his elite education in private schools and substantial wealth acquired through individual initiative, he calmly tells fellow African-Americans that their only hope lies in dependence upon union bosses and government social programs.
When pondering the fate of an aborted infant, accidentally born alive, he can dispassionately discourse on whether the mother’s right to privacy, under the Roe v. Wade amendment to the Constitution, should continue until the baby’s first, or second, bounce on the delivery room floor.
All told, we find a man with a public personality that forgoes the messy ‘person’ part. He’s a man who connects with the emotions of a crowd, like a magnet attracts its polar opposite, because his heart is a lean and pure blood-pumping muscle, unhindered by emotion.
Barack Obama’s experience with, and oft-stated appreciation of, John McCain’s decades of service, will make him a leader among his senate colleagues in reaching out to President McCain to write new sentences in his own multi-paragraph history of ‘Great Acts of Bipartisanship’.
Sen. Obama’s sparse record of writing legislation means only two things…1) as they say in baseball, “He’s due” (a significant bill could emerge from his pen any minute), and2) he’s rested, ready to craft laws that will shape our future.
Sen. Obama’s legislative track record makes the so-called ‘do-nothing Congress’, by comparison, seem like a beehive of activity and accomplishment. With its historically-low approval ratings, Congress needs someone who will make it look good.
While critics contend that his entire Senate tenure has been little but a series of tactical maneuvers in a carefully-calculated strategy to become president, Obam-associates know that his aspiration to higher office makes him a better senator because he’s likely to avoid controversy as he cultivates his reputation, thus fostering a more civil atmosphere at the Capitol.
The Senate’s leisurely pace (he once called it ‘glacial’) also provides the ideal setting for writing — perhaps that eagerly-awaited third memoir, tentatively entitled “Brush with Greatness: Ordinary American’s Stories About Meeting Barack Obama.”

Mourning a Country Long Ago

Meanwhile, back at the War on Terror ...
You remember the War on Terror, don't you? It was in all the papers. Back before presidential politics sucked the air from the room and your 401(k) shrank till it was worth maybe dinner and a movie, it was considered quite the important news story. Abu Ghraib? Extraordinary renditions? Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here? Surely, you recall.
I ask only because of a news story that broke last week to a yawn of media disinterest. The Washington Post reported on two secret White House memos explicitly endorsing the use of waterboarding — simulated drowning — on so-called high-value terrorism suspects. This is, says the Post, the first time the still-classified memos have been disclosed. They were written in response to requests from then-CIA Director George Tenet, who worried his agents might be hung out to dry if the practice were discovered and the people or their representatives demanded someone's head.
According to the Post, the White House issued written authorizations in 2003 and 2004. Yet in 2006, President Bush told the nation, "The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it — and I will not authorize it."
Which was, of course, a lie.
You'd think the latest proof of that lie — yet another smoking gun to stack with all the others — would merit attention. But a computer search Thursday turned up only seven newspaper stories mentioning the memos. Searches of the CNN and Fox News Web sites also came up dry, though the story did appear on MSNBC's site.
If you think my point is that the media missed an important story, it isn't. No, the point is that normal is not where we thought it would be.
You remember how it was just after Sept. 11, 2001, right? Some of us vowed we would never enter a skyscraper again. Some of us didn't want to leave our houses again. The minutiae of popular culture became staggeringly unimportant. Humorists like David Letterman Dave Barry wondered if they could ever return to the business of laughter.
We were scared dry. And some of us said: Get used to it. This was the new normal.
But skyscrapers did not close from lack of use. We did not become a nation of agoraphobics. We did not lose our interest in singers and movie stars. Letterman and Barry went back to work.
Fear, which had cut through us like a hot poker, became instead a low-grade fever, ambient noise, wallpaper, something you feel without feeling, hear without hearing, see without seeing.
Then you look up one day and realize how profoundly that fear has changed your world. People are imprisoned without charges or access to attorneys, and it's routine. People are surveilled, their reading habits studied, their telephone usage logged, and it's commonplace. People, including children, end up on a secret list of those who are not allowed to fly, nobody will tell you why, there is no appeal, and it's ordinary. We swallow lies like candy, nod sagely at babblespeak, and it's unexceptional.
Torture is inflicted with White House approval, the president lies about it and it's just another Tuesday.
Once upon a time, Americans were fond of looking upon backward nations, upon places where law was whatever the king said it was, and noting with pride that we do things differently in our country. But that was a day long ago and a country long gone.
If we miss the one or mourn the other, you'd never know it to look at us. We live through what feels evermore like a Joe McCarthy fever dream. We feel without feeling, hear without hearing, see without seeing and do not protest what we have become.
Because this is normal now.

Four Tops Frontman Levi Stubbs Dead at 72

DETROIT – Four Tops frontman Levi Stubbs, whose dynamic and emotive voice drove such Motown classics as "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" and "Baby I Need Your Loving," died Friday at 72.

He had been ill recently and died in his sleep at the Detroit house he shared with his wife, said Dana Meah, the wife of a grandson. The Wayne County medical examiner's office also confirmed the death.

With Stubbs in the lead, the Four Tops sold millions of records and performed for more than four decades without a change in personnel.

"Levi Stubbs was one of the great voices of all times," former Motown labelmate Smokey Robinson said. "He was very near and dear to my heart. He was my friend and my brother, I miss him. God bless his family and comfort them."

The Four Tops began singing together in 1953 under the name the Four Aims and signed a deal with Chess Records. They later changed their names to the Four Tops to avoid being confused with the Ames Brothers.

They also recorded for Red Top, Riverside and Columbia Records and toured supper clubs.

The Four Tops signed with Motown Records in 1963 and produced 20 Top-40 hits over the next 10 years, making music history with the other acts in Berry Gordy's Motown stable.

"It is not only a tremendous personal loss for me, but for the Motown family, and people all over the world who were touched by his rare voice and remarkable spirit," Gordy said Friday. "Levi was the greatest interpreter of songs I've ever heard."

When he and others at Motown first heard "Baby I Need Your Loving," Gordy remembered: "Levi's voice exploded in the room and went straight for our hearts. We all knew it was a hit, hands down."

Their biggest hits were recorded between 1964 and 1967 with the in-house songwriting and production team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. Both 1965's "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" and 1966's "Reach Out" went to No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart.

Other hits included "Shake Me, Wake Me" (1966), "Bernadette" and "Standing in the Shadows of Love" (both 1967).

The acclaimed documentary film "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," which took its name from the Four Tops song, was released in 2002 and focused on the Funk Brothers, the talented but unheralded musicians who played backup on many Motown recordings.

While Stubbs didn't play a direct role in the film's production, director Paul Justman spoke Friday of the singer's immense talent.

"He was a tremendous artist," Justman said.

Stubbs "fits right up there with all the icons of Motown," said Audley Smith, chief operating officer of the Motown Historical Museum. "His voice was as unique as Marvin's or as Smokey's or as Stevie's."

The Four Tops toured for decades after their heyday and reached the charts as late as 1988 with "Indestructible" on Arista Records. In 1986, Stubbs provided the voice for Audrey II the man-eating plant in the film "Little Shop of Horrors."

The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Stubbs' death leaves one surviving member of the original group: Abdul "Duke" Fakir. Original Top Lawrence Payton died of liver cancer in 1997. Renaldo "Obie" Benson died of lung cancer in 2005.

Stubbs hadn't done much performing in recent years because of his declining health, but was known to step up on stage from time to time when a Motown touring production came through Detroit.

He was born in 1936 and attended Detroit's Pershing High School, where he sang with Fakir. They met fellow Payton and Benson while singing at a mutual friend's birthday party, then decided to form a group.

Stubbs is survived by his wife Clineice, five children and 11 grandchildren.

Bush Calls For Panic

WASHINGTON—In a nationally televised address to the American people Wednesday night, President Bush called upon every man, woman, and child to spiral uncontrollably downward into complete and utter panic.

President Bush addresses the nation shortly before shaving his head and soaking the Oval Office in his own urine.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush assured citizens that in these times of great uncertainty, the best and only course of action is to come under the throes of a sudden, overwhelming fear marked by hysterical or irrational behavior.

"My fellow Americans, the time for running aimlessly through streets while shrieking and waving our arms above our heads is now," Bush said. "I understand that many of you are worried about your economic future and our situation overseas, and you have every right to be. Yet there is only one thing we as a nation can do in times like these: give up all hope and devolve into a lawless, post-apocalyptic, every-man-for-himself society."

"For those of you who have remained resolute in your belief that things will turn around eventually, I urge you to close your eyes, take shallow rapid breaths, and begin freaking out immediately," Bush added. "At this point, anyone who isn't scared to death needs to wake the heck up—because we're screwed here.

The Department of Homeland Security's website provides information for Americans not currently losing their minds.
The president then picked up the telephone from his desk and hurled it through the Oval Office window.

During the address, Bush laid out a historic five-point plan for panic that he hopes will help the American people fall apart as quickly as possible. The plan—which many are calling Bush's most well-thought-out proposal to date—calls for citizens to abandon their daily routines entirely, and engage in a weeklong period of bloodcurdling screaming, arm flailing, dry heaving, and gnawing on one's fingers while rocking back and forth in alternating bouts of maniacal laughter and gentle sobbing.

Under the new bill, Americans are also advised to withdraw all their money from U.S. banks and the stock market, place it in a Maxwell House coffee tin, and bury it in a safe place in their backyard. In addition, Bush has urged the legalization of Americans trampling one another in a mad rush to compete for the nation's dwindling resources, and proposed allocating $3 billion toward a program that would give every citizen a gun and a bottle of 140-proof whiskey.

The final part of the plan calls for the immediate release of all convicted felons and death-row inmates from the nation's prisons.

Immediately after Congress approves his plan, the president said he will order multiple B-2 stealth bombers to fly over America's cities at low altitude. The resulting sonic boom, Bush said, will set off all car alarms and cause all babies to cry uncontrollably, which he believes will promote a real sense of chaos throughout the nation. In addition, Bush intends to release 50 live cobras into the Senate chamber.

"I realize this is a difficult vote for members of Congress, but at this critical time in our nation's history, it is imperative that we not sit back and pretend like everything is fine, because everything's not fine, it's just not," Bush said. "Even if Congress fails to act, I still intend to do what is right and lead this country into mass hysteria by acting outside the framework of the U.S. Constitution, overriding the entire democratic process, and setting the Lincoln Memorial on fire."

Early reactions on Capitol Hill to Bush's call for panic have thus far been positive. Leading House Republicans and Democrats said they appreciate the president's candor, and will encourage their constituents to comply with Bush's request to "find something and smash it with all of their strength."

"For most of the day tomorrow, I intend to do my part by remaining in my boarded-up home and getting worked up about our standing in the world," Pacoima, CA resident Harold Miller said. "And then at night, I plan to lie awake in my bed and be scared to death about the loss of my job, pension, and retirement fund. Then I plan to run out into the streets in my bathrobe and shout that the End of Days is coming."

Bush told Americans that if at any point they catch themselves feeling even slightly at ease, they should remind themselves that, in the end, everything is going to be completely FUBAR.

Obama Scraps Plans to Change Middle Name

Despite the fact that his middle name has been branded as “inappropriate rhetoric” by his presidential rival, Barack Obama announced today that he’s scrapping a plan to change the name before inauguration day.
Just yesterday, the chairman of the Lehigh County (Pa.) Republican Party was chastised by Sen. John McCain’s campaign for using the name ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ during a McCain political rally.
Sen. McCain said he’s sensitive to the issue because his own middle name, Sidney, “sounds either foreign or girly” and he has threatened to “beat the gumption out of anyone who uses it…except for Gov. Palin, who could kick my keister six ways to Sunday.”
“We don’t have to stoop to reminding people,” said Sen. McCain, “that Sen. Obama has a middle name that crawls out of a spider hole and bows toward Mecca five times a day. Besides, if we wanted stir up xenophobia, we could just say ‘Barack Obama’…which I think comes from the bar scene in Star Wars.”
Initially, campaign insiders said, Sen. Obama mulled changing the name because he believed that the presidential oath of office administered by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had to include his full name.
“He didn’t want to spur panic in the small towns and rural areas where folks cling to their guns and religion,” an unnamed source said. “Obama has great compassion on the little people and he didn’t want them unduly alarmed.”
However, he abandoned name-change plans after a review of historical records revealed that Ronald Wilson Reagan (’81), James Earl ‘Jimmy’ Carter (’77) and Richard Milhouse Nixon’s (’73) middle names were left out when they took their oaths, each for a good reason.
President Reagan sought to avoid offering an uncompensated endorsement to the manufacturer of sporting equipment. Mr. Carter, a humble Georgia peanut farmer, grew concerned his middle name sounded like a pretentious title of royalty, and thus he used only ‘Jimmy’. Mr. Nixon, in a prophetic decision, helped historians avoid confusing him with Bart Simpson’s best friend.
Gerald R. Ford (’74) used his middle initial, to avoid having to say ‘Rudolph’ because he didn’t want to stir up the latent, but virulent, anti-Germanic sentiment that threatened to tear the nation apart during the disco era.
Both Lyndon Baines Johnson (’63) and John Fitzgerald Kennedy (’61), on the other hand, used their full names during the swearing-in ceremony, according to one presidential historian, “so they could have nifty, monogram nicknames like FDR.”
Sen. Obama noted again that he is not a Muslim, and that Americans shouldn’t fear his “funny sounding name.”
“If you want to be scared of something,” he added, “be frightened of my socialistic domestic policies, my amoral social policies and my capitulationist foreign policy. After all, what’s in a name?”

Just What We Wanted to Hear

Candidates say the darndest things.

Whatever their real beliefs, the successful ones know exactly what they must and must not say. Kabuki politics.

Don't some of Barack Obama's peace-loving supporters wince each time he says he wants to hunt down Osama bin Laden and kill him? That's so violently un-Zen, dude.

The thing is, these candidates have to woo millions of voters. I try to take that into account when I watch one of the debates that aren't really debates.

Tuesday night the presidential candidates held a town-hall meeting that wasn't a town-hall meeting.

The moderator asked them whether the economy was going to get worse before it got better.

Neither answered yes, though I suspect that is the correct answer. And I imagine they didn't say yes because they figured the majority of us would rather hear the wrong answer.

And of course they both remember President Carter. During an energy and economic crisis in 1979, he warned Americans about rampant consumerism and urged people to conserve energy. He was concerned about our values.

He lost to Ronald Reagan, who told us we were wonderful. Republicans always mention Reagan in campaigns. He was upbeat.

Democrats talk about John F. Kennedy, but never Jimmy Carter. Asked what sacrifices they would ask of ordinary Americans, both candidates danced around a bit, but left us free from burden. They dare not voice an idea that would upset anyone who is not on the official list of bad guys, which this year features Wall Street bankers.

Candidates now are so scripted that in debates they often don't bother with the questions, they just try to look and sound presidential while repeating the speeches they've been using for weeks.

John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, said right up front in last Thursday's debate that she was going to ignore the questions.


That was refreshing, sort of. I mean the contest is partly about seeing how well a person can follow the rules. But, of course, she's a maverick.

She said there was nothing patriotic about being willing to pay more taxes.

At first I thought the tax thing was crazy. Isn't it patriotic to contribute one's share?

But, heck, didn't the founders split with Britain because they didn't want to pay taxes? Maybe it is American to want something for nothing.

I'd never thought of it that way. (Wink.)

In fact, part of the ritual of these debates is that all the candidates say they are going to cut taxes. They also have to say they like working moms and small businesses and the troops and hardworking families, and God, and Israel.

And they must tell us they are against marriage for gays, special interests (the other guy's supporters), and pointy-headed intellectuals (though, of course, they are for education).

It's a tight script that doesn't allow much room for significant discussions relevant to current circumstances.

That's why I was starting to zone out Wednesday night, but I felt guilty, because it is my patriotic duty to stay sharp and try to read between the lines.

I do it because America is the best country in the world and Americans are the best people in the world. Kiss, kiss.

545 People

This is circulating the internet. Most of you will probably receive it 30 times(if you haven't already). But it is too good not to post.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility.

Ican't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red .

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible.

They and they alone, have the power.

They and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

Bush: This is Probably Not the End of the World

With global financial markets tumbling despite multinational governmental intervention to flush credit markets clogged with worthless paper, U.S. President George Bush assured Americans today that “this is probably not the end of the world.”
During a video news conference from his presidential command center, deep beneath the White House, Mr. Bush tried to bolster confidence, saying, “I know that our citizens are concerned about their evaporating retirement accounts, the financial viability of their employers, the safety of their savings accounts, CDs and money market funds. But we’re not talking about celestial showers of blazing brimstone, or multi-headed beasts arising from the pit of Hell, or even about weeping boils covering our flesh so that the flies may feast on our bodily juices. So, just calm down people.”
The president recalled the words of another fiscally-progressive American chief executive when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is…535 amateur economists with unrestricted power to fiddle around with our economy. Even fear itself is afraid of them.”

Draft of Lehman CEO Speech to Waxman Panel

Officials at bankrupt Lehman Brothers immediately disavowed a statement allegedly drafted by CEO Richard Fuld which apparently had been prepared for delivery to Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman’s House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee on Tuesday.
Revelation of the document comes after Mr. Fuld’s appearance yesterday at a committee hearing, during which Rep. Waxman portrayed Lehman Brothers as “a firm run by irresponsible leaders who continued to reward executives and spend billions on stock buybacks and other capital-depleting programs even as internal documents warned about the impending crisis,” according to a report in The New York Times.
Despite the company’s denial that Mr. Fuld penned the speech and the lack of evidence regarding its origin, the text has been circulated on the internet, and responsible journalists have therefore felt compelled to publish excerpts like the ones found below.
MR. FULD: “Mr. Chairman, yesterday I spent several hours looking up your nose as you looked down it at me. You accused me of running a irresponsible organization, lacking accountability. You said our leaders care about little else than their longevity, and increasing power. You said we ignored the warning signs of impending financial collapse while we secretly lined our own pockets.”
“Mr. Chairman, I’m afraid your aides may have misinformed you. For the record, I am merely a CEO of a Wall Street firm. I am not, and never have been, a member of Congress.”
“As CEO, I’m accountable to our stockholders, to our customers and to a legion of regulators that Congress has appointed to assure we comply with the law. If I perform my leadership duties well, my years of sacrifice and hard work will pay off in ways only dreamed of in most of the rest of the world. My success is measured in strict terms by the success of our clients and of our stockholders. If I fail to produce satisfactory results, or if I succeed but do so illegally, I will be fired and perhaps fined or marched off to prison.”
“On the other hand, Mr. Chairman, if you and your colleagues fail, you atone for your crimes by extracting more money from us, the American people, which you then use in ways designed to get you re-elected. The fact that incumbency is nine-tenths of victory gives testimony to the effectiveness of your self-serving system.”
“You hold hearings on the pretense of gathering information to help solve problems, but these hearings are really just a platform from which you look down on people who make this country work in order to find scapegoats to deflect attention from your own malfeasance.”
“Each year, I’m responsible to issue a detailed report of all of our business dealings to everyone who has a stake in the company, as well as to the federal agencies which oversee our industry and which answer to you in the Congress. Our books are audited by a third party, and our deals are scrutinized by attorneys, regulators, and sometimes by the courts, to assure that we comply with the vast and growing array of regulations through which the Congress has attempted to create desirable social outcomes by manipulating our formerly-free markets.”
“You, in the Congress, have no such mechanisms to ensure fair dealing or administration of justice in cases of corruption. You are the unwatched watchdogs, pretending to guard the master’s house while gobbling up everything in his pantry.”
If you’re truly interested in determining what went wrong and spurred this financial crisis, may I recommend a good book to you? This book contains an exhaustive account of the misdeeds that resulted in millions of mortgages being issued to under-capitalized borrowers. This book explains why and how Government Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were allowed to package these bad mortgages and call them ’securities’ when they should have been called ‘vulnerabilities’. And this book will help you understand why regulators overlooked the red flags as they waved the banner of affordable housing. This book I commend to you, Mr. Chairman, is called ‘The Congressional Record‘.”
“I pray that you, and most of your colleagues, will soon have a great deal of downtime on your hands during which you may peruse this instructive text.”

Obama: GOP Swift-Boating Me for Nearly Joining Army

Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama accused the McCain-Palin campaign of using “swift boat”-style tactics in new ads and stump speeches unleashed this week because Sen. Obama once considered joining the military.
“Just like they done old John Kerry, they’re doin’ me,” said Sen. Obama. “They know that I pondered military service and might have ended up as a swift-boat commander and decorated war hero if the Vietnam conflict hadn’t ended too soon.”
Sen. Obama told ABC News earlier this year that he might have joined the Army in 1979 if America had been at war because he “always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honorable option.”
Today, the senator from Illinois said, “Americans won’t tolerate attacks on a man who very nearly risked his life for his country, and almost certainly would have won the Silver Star for gallantry in action against the enemy. As I almost used to say to my comrades-in-arms, these attacks are going to fire back on him…you know…make the back fire out…you know what I mean.”

Breaking News

Voters Unhappy

59 Percent Would Vote to Replace Entire Congress 41 Percent Would Skip the Voting Part Entirely.
According to the latest Rasmussen poll, in the wake of the financial-sector bailout bill passed last week, 59 percent of Americans would vote the entire Congress out of office. The other 41 percent would achieve the same result without the voting part through a variety of means, the most popular of which involves a coal or petroleum byproduct along with a poultry byproduct.
Wall Street May Skip Bailout Bucks
Meanwhile, concern grows in the mainstream media, and its Democrat party, that few financial firms will take advantage of the bailout, but will instead seek so-called private-sector solutions to their balance sheet woes. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, (D-MA), said it would “add insult to injury if Wall Street snubbed this generous offer from the American people after all we did to make it possible.”
Wachovia Tries to Reject Gracious Offer
Rep. Frank said he was also concerned that Wachovia has moved to accept a roughly $15 billion all-stock buyout offer from Wells Fargo rather than the $2.1 billion acquisition by Citicorp of Wachovia’s banking assets — a deal brokered and backed by the FDIC, which would have put U.S. taxpayers on the hook for $42 billion in Wachovia losses.
“Here we have another case of rude Wall Street fatcats essentially saying that taxpayer money is not good enough for them,” said Rep. Frank. “It’s like when your grandma slaves over a hot stove all day, and then you don’t eat the turnips. It’s an insult.”

Capitalism Trumps Democracy

The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair — stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout last week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror.
As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn't hidden, it was dumped in the nation's public square.
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
Many were surprised when democracy responded with such valiant defiance. As television screens split between the floors of the stock exchange and the House of Representatives, lawmakers initially voted with their constituents and against the bailout.
That's when this husband-and-wife argument escalated into a grisly crime of passion.
CNN's Ali Velshi frothed that "the banks and the companies don't care about the intricacies" of democratic deliberations. A CEO angrily told CNN that "the money is being held hostage to the political process" — as if government resources are rightfully Wall Street's. And as the Dow tanked, the Chamber of Commerce threatened retribution against recalcitrant lawmakers.
The final deathblow came from TINA, shorthand for "There Is No Alternative" — the motto that Margaret Thatcher used to peddle her corporatism, and that Washington and Wall Street used to promote theirs.
Whether it was a Barclays Capital executive telling reporters "there is no choice" or Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., insisting that "this needs to be done and it needs to be done right away," responsibly democratic prescriptions were pulverized by capitalism's deranged mantra of inevitability and urgency.
To even mention, as economist Dean Baker did, that the taxpayer giveaway could exacerbate the crisis was to risk flogging by columnists like Tom Friedman. The sycophantic flat-earther vilified bailout opponents (i.e., most Americans) as mentally incapacitated deadbeats who "can't balance their own checkbooks."
By the time the fight hit Congress' upper chamber, senatorial morticians were embalming democracy's corpse. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., permitted consideration of just one alternative, and he rigged parliamentary procedure to guarantee its defeat.
Yet, if capitalism took democracy's life through a perverse legislative process, then it robbed its grave with the bailout bill's substance.
American democracy is defined by vesting government power in systems and rules, not in individuals and whims. We have been, as John Adams wrote, "an empire of laws, and not of men" — until now.
Instead of responding to this meltdown by updating regulatory institutions or investing in job-creating infrastructure, the bailout gives one unelected appointee — the Treasury secretary — complete authority to dole out $700 billion to bank executives, with little oversight. And here's the scary part: That lurch toward dictatorship was motivated not just by crony corruption, but also by a deeper ideological shift.
We now face market forces uninhibited by democratic governance — Chinese dictators and Saudi princes can move trillions of dollars without so much as a news release. Thisbailout, marketed as a speed enhancer, is an aggressive attempt to discard democracy's checks and balances and pantomime that kind of autocracy.
While our political culture still required a public sales job (thus, the fearmongering), the bill's czarism aims to permanently euthanize democracy in the name of improving our capitalism's global agility. In that sense, last week's spousal killing wasn't random. It was the beginning of a systematic assault on our Constitution and a radical departure from Franklin Roosevelt's original covenant — a dangerous "new deal" we should have said "no deal" to.

'60s Bomber Ayers Repudiates NY Times, Obama Links

William Ayers, founder of the radical Weather Underground group which carried out a bombing campaign against U.S. targets in the 1960s, today attempted to distance himself from both Barack Obama and The New York Times.
Mr. Ayers distributed a news release in response to the Times’ 2,100-word investigative story, originally titled “Obama Has Met Ayers, but the Two Are Not Close” and later re-headlined “Obama Met Ayers By Accident, Worked with Him Unwittingly, Can’t Recall What He Looks Like.”
“I don’t read the mainstream media propaganda rags,” said Mr. Ayers, now terrorist emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “The New York Times and the rest of them are just tools used by The Man to deceive the people of the world. If I had the sixties to do over again, I’d bomb them first.”
As for Sen. Obama, whose political career Mr. Ayers helped to launch, and who served as chairman of Mr. Ayers “education” project in Chicago, the professor agrees with the presidential candidate that they barely know each other.
“Just because a guy lives in your neighborhood, starts his run for the White House in your living room, and helps you channel millions of dollars into a program to teach kids what kind of country we really live in…that doesn’t mean we’re close,” he said. “That’s like saying the dude I saw in the hardware department at Wal-Mart is my best buddy just because he showed me where the fuses were…and then gave me some bread to buy them.”

Will Rogers Speaks to Bankers

I ran across this today and it is just too good not to share. This is a recording of a Will Rogers talk given to a national bankers convention in 1924. It was on a 78 record. If the United States Congress would be as straight forward in dealing with the banking industry as Will Rogers was, maybe this mess can be solved. Just click on the link below.

MP3: Will Rogers Talks to the Bankers, VICTOR_45374-A (1924)

Latest Senate Bailout Bill

The Senate will begin debate within minutes on their attempt to revive the bailout bill rejected by the House. They have released the bill text this morning, and the Senate Conservatives Fund website has it for public perusal. The new version has no allocations going to the Housing Trust Fund, which the Dodd version originally did, so ACORN will get no money from the bailout.
However, the Senate did add a few winners to this new version:
New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill-
Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)- 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)
Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.-
Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)- American Samoa (Sec. 309)- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)- Railroads (Sec. 316)- Auto Racing Tracks (317)- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)- Wool Research (Sec. 325)
I love the auto racing tracks in particular. I can see the headlines now: “Global financial markets melt down, NASCAR, Caribbean rum hardest hit”. As many people have said now, I’d be more inclined to take this crisis seriously if people on the Hill didn’t use it to butter up their favored constituencies.
The Senate will vote at around 7:35 PM tonight on this bill. I’d expect an easier passage, thanks to provisions to expand FDIC insurance and an added authority to suspend mark-to-market rules that may make some of the rest of this bill unnecessary. Senate leadership isn’t taking any chances; they’ve added this as an amendment to a bill containing some legislation sought by both liberals and conservatives, making it difficult to oppose from any direction.
We need more people pushing back on the notion that a lack of government action caused this collapse; it was a government distortion of lending and investment sectors that caused the problem. But to the extent that government inaction contributed to it, it’s good to recall exactly who the obstructionists were.