Empty Glass Full

President Newt to Re-Right History - Every Week!

2012-01-31T15:27:00.003-05:00

Although he's not quite there yet, Newt Gingrich has a presidentially grandiose plan for History. Like most of his Republican peers, Newt wants to go back to the past. In his case, of course, he wants to take American society and its government back to 1802, even before there was a Nevada to caucus.

More personally, however, he only wants to return to his glory days of the early 70's academia when he was a Mash teacher--a semi-pro, in fact--lecturing on Geography-based History at the College of West Georgia and Map Repair. There his most daring course as a Wolfie, “Mason and Dixon Were Not Straight Enough” was famously, and wrongly, criticized by Liberals and West Virginians.

Candidate Newt is faced with the difficult task of feverishly rewriting rewritten history on the fly, mostly in the pearly teeth of his supporter Sarah Palin's literate revisionismitis.

Unlike Sarah, Newt is an acknowledged expert in such things and knows how to re it right.

For example, in the undiscipline of Middle Eastern Geography, as evidenced by his Biblical History From 1517 course. Newt is truly unparalleled. It is narrowly believed that he, alone among candidates, has endorsed this Blog's sage use of Proximania in lieu of the histrionically inaccurate term “Palestine” and Firstians for always-there Israelis and Laterians for the non-existent Palestinians.

There is likely zero truth to the disappointing rumor that Newt advocates this Blog's own One Again Proximania Solution, to be implemented by Crazy-Gluing individual Firstian and Laterian Proximates together (at their shoulder-to-shoulder) into a single united Proximate. This geographically inspired effort would render Proximate punches fully self-inflicted and not very hard, ultimately leading to happy fist-bumping and an alphabet someone can actually read.

All this erudition aside, as President, Newt would bring more to the bully lectern than any president since Bill Clinton's Oval Office tutoring. For President Newt and America, his Geographical History on-line course would be enlightening and efficient, doubling, perfectly, as a foreign policy.

With the help of modern technology—Google Earth from an iPad, thrown onto a whiteboard via an LCD projector--and a Sharpie, Newt could redraw borders willy-nilly, as he expertly remembers them or wishes them to be.

The syllabus for the first semester of 2013, released yesterday to Miami voters, indicates that new borders for Cuba are the first lesson.

And those hangmen beardy stick figures? They are just Newt's doodling.

St. Santorum & Pope Cliff Boost Semenhood

2012-01-02T23:43:00.013-05:00

Newt Gingrich--so very yesterday--is about as much a papist as a post- Boleyn Henry VIII. Like Henry, Newt was a serial spouser, but went the opposite conversion direction. Newt became a Catholic for love but shucked his death-do-us-part vow; Henry became a not-Catholic for love but stuck to his do-us part vow.

If you want a real Catholic for President—and who doesn't-- Newt would be pathetically lame in one of your New Year's mitres.

There are literally dozens who support Planned Personhood, the liberal offshoot of the Catholic Anti-Definition League, but damned few who pledge fealty to Pope Benedict XVI I, who played Aloisius Ratzinger in "Springtime for Young Hitler" and Cliff, the voluble Bull carrier, in “Cheers.”

Damned few even know what “fealty” means, but pledge away they do.

Not, not as in “touchy fealty”.

Pope Cliff controls the second best conservative definition of the beginning of life. The best, of course, was written by Moses when language looked a lot like Wingbats and was etched in stone by lightning.

Which brings us, however elliptically, to St. Santorum, previously known only as the Prince of Northern Virginia, which is where he lived while he was living in Pennsylvania. Being half viable in two places at one time is a sure sign on sainthood, beating the crap out of Schrödinger's cat, which only managed to be alive and dead at the same time, way short of qualifying for beatification.

St. Santorum was almost solely responsible for redefining life in 2005 and more recently redefining the life of a presidential campaign as only requiring a tortured smile, a wink and a nod, brain function or Lone Star Governorship optional.

St. Santorum must now be taken as seriously as any hat in the ring containing an Angel's Diary. He is in Iowa. The second best place for him. He has shocked even Ru Paul, which it pretty hard this side of eight- inch platforms and glitter for mascara. St. Santorum is going to win the Iowa Crocuses, granting him the more rights to the color purple than Whoopie Goldberg's.

Okay. Who? And how?

The “Who” is not important. He could be anybody who hasn't learned how to smile. The “How”?

Semenhood.

St. Santorum has more ideas than Rick Perry has oops, and they are better, but the winner is the Papal Decree of Semenhood.

To keep this part short, Semenhood means that no abortions are allowed after the semen comes out of the blender, like a pina colada but not as frozen, yet (more on that below). Semen is derived from the New England term “Seaman”, because the tiny—okay, okay, microscopically really big--semen floaters are crazy swimmers like the guys who were pitched into the ocean by Moby Dick. Only one, of course, ends up with the prized coffin, but that is one very long narrative away from the point, even for this Blog.

Semen is a tad of a misnomer. Semen is really just the way an Intelligent Designer always packages spermapaloza, which is where the soul really begins but sounds too laughable to support even bingo. St. Santorum believes Semenhood down to his every bone. To know this Semenhood theory, one need only study the Pope's Cliffmail on Semenhood Sanctity. Papist dogma requires that Semen be treated as containing millions of quantum tithers.

As such Semen is only to be time-regulated to a Katy Perry-beat mp3's; is not allowed to be detained on Saturday nights by terrifying French ticklers (uh... whatever those are); and is neither to be frustrated days before arrival by some forearm implant nor sunk downside-up--if there's got to be a the morning after--by the damned French again.

St. Santorum and Pope Cliff's fluidy dream has led them to whip out a master plan--know in the Latin as the Bull Semen--to protect Sememhood and they expect to expose themselves soon, probably in New Hampshire, unless it's not too frakkin' cold: American Males are to be herded together and interned (not the 1998 meaning) in an Vatican Naval base in Greenland until all their little semem-borne quarks can be granted proper legal representation and definitely long, long before the next Megan Fox film.

This Bull will accomplish two things: It will lower Greenland two-tenths of an inch and it will save the Pope the draining expense of busing to the polls a trillion trillion new little voters otherwise stuck to movie posters.

Here's to Semenhood! And its patron saint, St. Santorum! Off to Greenland!

Shocking! Devil Not Causing Earthquakes

2012-01-01T14:12:00.002-05:00

And you have long thought Pat Robertson had proven that Haiti's pact with the Devil back in the 1800's caused their 2010 earthquake. That earthquake caused horrific effects, including a visit by Sean Penn and a photo of George Bush and Bill Clinton together.

Well, forget that.

Unless Satan is a Capitalist (yes, yes, Barak), he did not cause the end-of-times-of-2011 earthquake that seems to have rattled a McDonald's near Youngstown, Ohio.

Hold on. Ohio?

Ohio votes Republican!

More evidence that the Devil can not be involved.

The earthquake was not all that bad, a 4.0 on a 10.0 scale (unless Barak raises yet another ceiling). It probably didn't knock the tranche'd pickle off of a single Big Mac or jiggle a chocolate shake. People in Youngstown probably thought it more Walmart price rollbacks, you know, when the Zorro'ed price cards fall away from new, lower ones. Or maybe, Newt Gingrich's polls hitting.

Severity, however, is not the point. The point is what or who caused the earthquake.

Brine.

Wait. Don't flee to the nearest Ru Paul Iraq Indirectly Caused 9/11 Website. Real elucidation awaits. Here, not there.

Brine.

The stuff that makes Heinz pickles down I-76 from the quake?

Not really, although you may have just solved the pickle juice recycling crisis.

Brine is used in Fracking, which is the only way to profit from natural gas stored in the rock under Youngstown and other places. Fracking is all the rage, since it will make America the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. This even though nobody really wants to be the Saudi Arabia of anything, unless you think women drivers...

The United States can not long survive without Fracking. America needs to cook with gas. Figuratively and actually, too.

Natural gas burns cleaner than anything this side of, say, the Sun. It is a great way to make electricity and char Rib Eyes to Pittsburgh Rare. Had America used natural gas instead of coal to industrialize, there would be no Global Warming. Or Al Gore movies. Greenland would be 0.8 inch lower in the water, where it was when the Vikings first rammed a Dragon Head into it. Antarctica would cover Terra Del Fuego, which would just be mapped as Northwest Antarctica, Magellan having circumnavigated only the Falklands for all the damned ice.

Fracking is all about Brine and some benign chemical additives and their high-pressure injection into the gas-hording rock. The rock fractures and America gets gas for it pipelines and twelve fuel cells. Of course, to keep the gasless rock from collapsing, Frackers shoot in sand, long known as compatible with brine and little crabs, into the space where your new water heater fuel used to be. You know how well sand supports your sandal much better near that briny water?

That's the theory, anyway.

Some environmentalists, who obviously do not have land in Youngstown to license, decry fracking as certain to give you earthquakes as well the most environmental-friendly fuel this side of, say, the Sun.

Uh.

Turns out that, however dumb they look hum... hugging trees, these guys are right again.

Earthquakes. Not Satan, Pat. Brine.

So, Youngstown! American! Stop with the Pickle Fracking Juice already!

Not to be confused with Battlestar Galactia-speak. Although, thanks to a few little earthquakes, Youngstown, along with the rest of the now-former Saudia Arabia of Gas, are Frakking doomed.

Newt Decrees Ultimate GOP Fall Back

2011-12-28T11:55:00.007-05:00

Over its entire personhood, this Blog has wondered how much further its Republican chum wanted turn back their clocks. Beyond, that is, the usual, depressing November hour.

For Pat Buchanan, it was surely back to beginning of “Father Knows Best”. But back to the 1949 radio or 1954 TV version?

For Antonin “Scaly” Scalia, it was 1788, when the Constitution was being written without anyone's authorization.

For Rick Perry... Uh. (Whisper) The Magna Cum... Carter. 1215. That's it!

Anyway, the wonderment is over.

Relax. It's not that far.

In the eye of Gingrich, that time reboot is a relatively modern 1802.

Ever the historian of record for any Christian Family-After-Family Values Party, Newt pandered back to 1802, this during what was--you hope to God--the last Republican pre-Iowa posture test. The clock face cracked at 1802. This date was necessitated by Newt's bold plan to place the Personhood Doctrine right up there with the Bible and the Constitution, no matter what Scaly and the Supremes may say.

The Personhood Doctrine, more liberal than that of Newt's new boss, the Pope would even consider, finally establishes for all-time that the right to a separate lawyer begins when an human egg is fertilized. Even on a unisex toilet seat.

To put the Supremes in their place, Newt harkens back to, perhaps, the most famous American Biblical editor and slave-owning race-blender, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson invented the razor cut and later added pasting, the combination of which he perfected, without an iPad, in rejiggering the Bible, along with any other books and documents that needed his help.

In 1802, Tom Jefferson and his number one Democratic-Republican--ah, the good old days, eh, Newt--flunky, Jimmy Madison cooked up a plan to extend the vacation of the Supreme Court way beyond two weeks and have their newly elected majority in Congress roll back the judicial clock to the the near- Scaly 1789. This very pre-Walmart rollback seemed fair to Tom since he and Sally Hemings were mostly in Paris and could hardly be blamed for that year's Judicial Act. Fair or not, there were, as there always are, nay-sayers.

One such was Billy Marbury, whom this maneuvering deprived of the political job he had been promised by John Adams, who ended up with a better TV movie than Tom or Jimmy ever got, unless you count when Yul Bryner proved he could do more than dance and tick off Moses by doing “The Buccaneer”, in which Jimmy let the British burn the White House. And the Capitol, not that he cared all that much.

Jimmy Madison, not Yul Bryner.

To Newt, Billy Marbury's annoyance with Tom and Jimmy is where time stopped. You have seen this time-freeze thing before on TV, all the way back in '61 when the next stop was “The Twilight Zone”. Newt, himself, manipulated time recently when he began ticking the Palestine clock with the day after the Ottomans took over Jerusalem's best parlors.

To Newt, Tom “De-Biblist” Jefferson and Jimmy “Burn Baby” Madison proved his concept that Congress can do whatever the hell the current President or Speaker (rarely both) wants it to do.

Sorry, Newt, but even your clock has to start again. When it does, Billy Marbury sues Jimmy Madison and gives Chief Justice John Marshall a really sweet case with which to smack Tom and Jimmy around... for a couple centuries. Marbury v. Madison is, for those other than Newt and, maybe, Scaly, the most important judicial document in American HISTORY.

Hey, Newt! Landmark!

Not the tour map.

History!

Okay, okay. Newt. Put down that razor.

Congressize Social Security!

2011-12-14T00:22:00.002-05:00

There is currently much political ado about Social Security. It is called a Contract with Ameri...

A Ponzi Scheme. AIG for old people. A bankrupt burden on our please-be-generous-to-Grampie youth. A giant sucking sound. A Fannie Mae for mortgaging the House of O'bama Socialist Regime.

Basically, Social Security is an investment of the once-current payroll of potential retirees into O'bama's flimsy paper promises to pay out fat retirement income to anyone who can photocopy a social security card.

What do you expect? It was FDR's idea and FDR was no Ronald Reagan. Hell, FDR was no Rick Perry, madly consumed, as he was, with packing the Supreme Court way over its usual eight members. FDR held weekly fireside chats. With wood fires. And do you honestly think SUV's raised Greenland half an inch?

So, every politician this side of Sarah Palin has read that something must be done about Social Security. Whatever is done must be kept secret (this blog being a perfect example) or else FOX will need an army of Lars' Real Girls to handle the opposing views to Hannity 24/7/52.

The favorite solution of the Newts and the traders of Goldman Sachs is to privatize Social Security. George III pushed manfully hard for such an advance, but got himself bogged down in more important pursuits such as creating the Arab Spring and festering the Syrian Autumn.

Face the truth: Privatizing is a seductively simple concept. Just hand over your retirement savings to the bull artists on Wall Street. They will spin it into derivatives and Collateralized Retirement Security Securities and sell it to the Greeks and Icelanders. Again.

2008, you say? Economic Ash Cloud grounding your IRA's, you say?

Pessimists! Was not your glass 401K still half full?

Pumice aside.

Never mind. Who remembers that far back anyway? A brilliant new plan has emerged. Although this Blog cannot rightly claim full credit, it will anyway. "Pushing Daisies" was still of, for God's sake.

Flush that old GOP roasting chestnut. Give your retirement money to the we-can't-miss-crowd: Johnnie Boehner, Nancie Pelosi and Spencie Bacchus and their fellow revelers in Congress.

Super Committee Orgies? Phooey.

This is the definitive retirement party.

Johnnie, Nancie and Spencie can do something with you money you can't do without sharing a fallen bar of soap with Bernie Madoff. Even Goldman Sachs can't do it without feeling remorse.

Congressional Insider Trading!

Or the new investment grammar: “I before E; when E is everybody else not in Congress.”

These keen-eyed Congressional investors can use any insider information that they themselves generate or even hear from Lobbyists over Christal and caviar to sell everyone, repeat, everyone, else short.

How? Well, you're a Congressperson, named, say, Johnnie or Nancie or Spencie, and your committee tells AT&T that it can, FCC be damned, buy that pink cell phone outfit that looks so nice on that very slim not-Catherine-Zeta-Jones. With that super secret information, you can buy sadly depressed AT&T stock and shares in anything not-so-hot pink, well before the Market opens or is fully occupied.

Oh. You're Shocked! Shocked! Your once limp stocks doubled in price by Noon and you--Johnnie, Nancie and/or Spencie--just made more money than Mitt can gamble away in a thousand debates.

Think of it. You—you're not Johnnie, Nancie or Spencie, anymore, and, like, really you're not--you can not execute the above strategy because you are not otherwise busy writing laws to exempt you and your fellow sharks from being harpooned for stock fraud. But glug not. Give your money to Johnnie, Nancie and/or Spencie to invest for you. And promise not to watch "60 Minutes" and absolutely guarantee you will keep your eyes off anything they do...

[Okay, okay. That was mean.]

Who needs Social Security's investment in 0.01% Gilt Edge Barak-o'bonds?

You won't be needing no measly Social Security Administration less Part B charges direct deposit. Not a one.

Hey, Paulson, Bernanke, throw a wet TARP over this one, baby!

Newt Invents Ottoman For His Feet

2011-12-10T15:08:00.007-05:00

Newt Gingrich is a man with two left feet stuck permanently...

[don't go up there!]

Newt Gingrich is an historian. Of all the Republican presidential aspirants in 2011-2040 campaigns, only Newt knows history. All other Republicans except maybe Mitt, know history through the best of all Republican historian known as Moses. Newt, alone, makes up his own.

Lately, Newt has disturbed Proximanians with his scholarly declaration that someone else made up the Palestinian People (now known as the Proximanian "Laterians"). Now, he is himself disturbed, probably because these Invented People were not a concoction of one of his books, which you can have him sign. Pretty much anywhere near an early primary.

Still, thanks to Newt, everyone knows that the outmoded term “Palestine” (ingeniously supplanted by the historically better Proximania^tm) never really existed. Palestine was never a state, like, say, Rhode Island, just a part of the Ottoman Empire.

Newt, being an historian, did not bother to define the Ottoman Empire, but it is probably a furniture chain in Georgia accenting the accent pieces that are big footstools. It is hard to establish the origin of the padded footstool, but the chain seems to have started in Eastern Turkey in the 1300's. By 1517, Ottomans were in every master bedroom in Jerusalem and probably the suburbs, like Tel Aviv, and any pubs named Beer-Something-Or-Other.

But it seems Newt dozed off with his feet stuck up on an Ottoman before finishing his Levant 101 syllabus.

Newt makes no reference to what came before the shepherds around the Jordan River began relaxing with their Birkenstock Gizehs up on those cushy stools. Perhaps, Newt believes that the Earth, or at least, the Mideast, was created in 1517, but, as a historian, he knows Irish Archbishop Jimmy Ussher proved that Creation predates Newt's implied date by 5521 years, squarely on a pre-NFL Sunday in October, with that famous bye after the ensuing and busy week.

This kind of confusion can spell doom for any presidential campaign. This is not like guillotining the overcrowded Supreme Court down to eight; or mixing up Iran and Iraq, which will happen in a few years anyway; or abolishing the Department of Oops, which everyone favors no matter what it means.

This is the most fundamental of stuff, especially to Republicans who need to know just how far to turn back the clock.

So, for the next debate, maybe, the Donald can ask Newt to clarify the defining foreign policy issue of the Republican Presidential campaign of December 2011: Did Ottomans, or even feet, exist prior to 1517 AD in Proximania? And who the hell owned them?

Whew! Personhood Still Months Away

2011-11-09T13:37:00.002-05:00

Haley Barbour is a Person. He is also governor of Mississippi, rightly famous for supporting a redo of April as Not-Winners Month.

By the way, if you have read this far, you are a Person, too.

Oh, no, not a Political Correctness diatribe! No, but you know you are sick of addressing the Chairperson; honoring Joe Paterno as the Sportsperson of the Year; pointing skyward at Superperson;; hiring a Handyperson; spicing things up with a French Person's Outfit and six-inch heels.

(Ignore that last thought. That's just weird.)

Some group named something like Planned Personhood came up with this whole personhood thing and tried, successfully, to get Gov. Haley's vote for an amendment to Mississippi's constitution that may soon be coming to a state near you.

Is Planned Personhood trying to pull a Bill Clinton and redefine “Personhood”? Does the answer depend on what “is” is at the moment is is uttered? Kinda.

Maybe, in Mississippi everyone says “Personhood begins at conception”, but that pretty much has to be it. Sorry, but it sounds forever like a majorly liberal conception, so why did Planned Personhood expect to get more than 43 votes for their amendment in Deep South, Deep Red Mississippi?

In fairness, Planned Personhood looks mighty liberal from here in Naples Bay Village. They only want constitutions and texting conversation to say “life begins at the very moment of fertilization.” Leftist talk, if ever you heard it, at least here. Maybe Planned Personhood is more afraid of Italy than your average investment banker. It is the Catholic Church that has staked out the most right-wing claim: Life begins before birth control is applied or even conceived of, probably in a slightly darkened Walgreens aisle. However that may be translated into English.

The combination of two very liberal-sounding ideas is surely what convinced more than 55% of Mississippi voters who cast ballots to cast out the Personhood amendment. 45% voted for personhood, so give Mississippi credit for some liberalism.

First of all, everyone hates the whole “person” initiative because it was a purely girly idea even before the liberals got a hold of it.

But truthfully, even a layperson's gotta go with the Pope's “life” definition to be really conservative. Mostly because it is in Latin, the best language for those wanting things the way they used to be.

PIG Baby to Doom Naples Bay Village. First.

2011-11-05T14:15:00.003-04:00

Subtitle: Oh, Never Mind.

Lately, there has been much ado about the mythical Naples Bay Village that, really, defines South Naples, Florida. The Brigadoonish Naples Bay Village has been the subject of budget-stressed political infighting so fierce that makes national campaigning look like Herman Cain with his hands in his pockets at all times.

No, wait, lest that sentence be parsed by Rick Perry's campaign, substitute “elbow deep in pizza dough at all times.”

For Naples Bay Village, though, it has been all about evaporating budget dollars, daunting debt refinancing, juicy director salaries and a collapsing hooker-based economy. Forget all that.

Baby PIG is coming.

No, not some County Commission-sponsored Bayshore Road farewell block party with hogs on spits over mortgage bonfires .

This PIG baby spells D O O M.

Antarctica seems pretty far away from a toasty place like Naples, especially when you don't keep a decent-sized globe in your living room because the kids hands get stuck in the frame. You know that Antarctica has penguins skating on it. Maybe some poor navigated alien spacecraft buried two hundred miles down. Nice place to visit, not so much, unless you like to look up at nights for holes in the Ozone. In three layers of nano-polyester-filled body-length parkas.

The omnipresent “Scientists” are touting the new PIG baby as bigger than New York or Berlin, depending on where you banked your Greek bonds. Birthers, forget Hawaii and Indonesia, this is bigger than any lineal descendant of Kenya. It's bigger than Al Gore pushing a book on Letterman.

PIG stands for Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica (there being no Counties or Commissioners in Antarctica, that's the pettiest political subdivision available). Again, far, far away and too frakking cold to even think about. Really?

PIG is calving an iceberg as big as any metropolis this side of Oklahoma City. PIG's baby should crack off by Pi Day or April 1^st of 2012. These Scientists probably hope it crashes into the ocean by New Year's Eve, so they can dual-purpose the champagne.

To quote Al Gore, “Can you say 'Global Warming?'”

Well...

Actually, PIG gave the world a big iceberg back in 2001 when there hadn't yet been an inconvenient hysterical warming movie to carpet in a suitably warm red. And it has happened plenty in the past, but dinosaurs were notoriously uninvolved in the whole greenhouse gas thing, except, maybe, for contributing a few tons of methane after a late dinner.

For Naples Bay Village of South Naples, Florida, though, both political heat and global warmth will probably be watched through the wavy lens of a yard or two of Bay. Baby PIG is going to melt before long and sea-, Gulf- and Bay-levels will all rise. The Republican Economists (they don't actually have scientists anymore) pooh-pooh such concerns, saying that this happens all the time when the Democrats are in power. Democratic Scientists (they don't actually have economists anymore) say “run like hell to Denver... Uh. Wait, run like hell to Pittsburgh! They have more hills inside their city than fries inside their sandwiches!”

Villagers threatening to Occupy Bayshore Road should calm down. Since the 2007-08 credit freeze, Naples Bay Villagers have been treading water, figuratively, awaiting the return of liquidity, living on hope and unpaid condo fees. Now, the flash political threat to its existence and the negative equity of its real estate is meaningless to the Village. Baby PIG is going to melt and...

You know that liquidity you Villagers so desperately wanted? Over your already upside head.

Brigadoon, at least, got to disappear, neat as an 18-year Scotch, into the romantic mist.

A Mythical Village in South Naples

2011-11-04T13:45:00.002-04:00

A couple of Collier County Commissioners, Tom Henning and Georgia Hiller, are rightly skeptical of the very existence of the Bayshore area of South Naples, with its fancy new name, Naples Bay Village. Many are doubtful about the whole South Naples thing, too, assuming south means swamp.

To be fair, many world travelers and Naples residents are confused by the term South Naples and simply reject reports of a place called Naples Bay Village or Bayshore or even of a street by that name. These folks know of a place long-called Kelly Road, famed for its many indoor and outdoor drug marts, cheery red lights and ready bail loans. You can look it up in any Fodor's or follow it on any bargain vacation AAA trip-tik that drops you off at the Naples Botanical Gardens.

To the mind of most of Collier County and the world, there is no Bayshore. They've never seen a Naples Bay Village, unless you mean the nearby near-bankrupt Naples Bay Resort, where you can still get Bang-Bang Shrimp at Bonefish for five bucks on Wednesday; which means you are not at Naples Bay Village. So turn right out of Bonefish and keep going swampish on the Tamiami Trail for a couple miles.

Keenly aware of this recognition problem, a group of Villagers have heroically worked up plans to repurpose the neighborhood as an artsy beatniche well worthy of the name Naples Bay Village: A place where creativity can blossom and live performance centers can rise, unless, of course, it rains a lot. They have done wonders visually, too, for those who eyes do not roll into their heads at the sight of a Big Lots.

To the rare visitor who can actually experience Naples Bay Village, its residents do not mention--much--their one true curse: With real estate values stuck deeper than the bottom of Naples Bay itself, the Villagers can never leave their Village.

The H-monogrammable County Commissioners have certainly visited the region, missed the street signs, the landscaped boulevard and the modern empty lots and found nothing that looks remotely like a Naples Bay Village. All they see is Kelly Road, right where it has always been, running between the Tamiami and a mixed six-pack of Budweiser and night-crawlers from Del's. It is as Kelly as always, conclusive evidence that Naples Bay Village and Bayshore Drive, after the least-noted and briefest of appearances, have disappeared, along with their tax rake-off, for another 100 years.

Longtime residents of the mystical and missing Naples Bay Village, of course, view this disappearance as the blessing of sorts, an escape from petty politics and endless rebranding. They alone know that Kelly Road was probably named for the legendary performer Gene Kelly.

And the Village's real name has always, surely, been Brigadoon.

Global Warming Causes Piracy

2011-07-22T00:25:00.004-04:00

If you could believe an outfit with the name “Woods Hole”.

A bunch of oceanographers up there in Massachusetts are in a tizzy over Carbon Dioxide in the salt water.

Like it can taste any worse.

These scientists published their worried study this month in the Journal of Fish and Fisheries. Care to guess whose side they come down on?

Nope.

Not fishies.

Mollusks and crustaceans. If you graduated 6th grade, you know these things are not fish. So, why not the Journal of Mollusks? Maybe, that journal was full up with dazzling photos of wet shells.

Still, lots of people like mollusks, but only because no one in the restaurant or Publix calls clams and oysters such an unattractive name. And Crustaceans sounds like some dead ethnic group who preceded the Romans. Who wants to eat one of them with drawn butter?

So, were those ancient Crustaceans wrecking piracy of the title? No, they are lobsters and crabs and lots of poor countries rely on them for their Gross Domestic Product and exports, too.

All of that carbon dioxide you exhaled during your workout and driving to the gym or overheating China’s economy? That’s somehow turning the oceans into some sort of acid that these poor creatures don’t like. The Mollusks, not the cranky diggers or the lobstermen chasing touristy swimmers from their pots.

The Woods Hole experts use Somalia as an example, however inappropriately. Somalia, they say has been over-fished—not over-not-fished— to scaly extinction and the fisherman with all those diesel driven boats and AK-47’s have to fill their holds and time with something. Hence, “Let’s go rob a Super Tanker.”

Sure, the poor guy who used to dig clams out of the mud flats with a stick may have two oars and boat. An ex-lobster fisherman may have an AK-47 to pot those tourists,, but chances are his boat goes put-put on a good day.

Of course, everybody feels bad about the pH of the ocean reaching Coke Zero levels and the disappearance of the pretty color coral. Who won’t miss the occasional crab legs or trip with Megan Fox to Red Lobster for Oysters Rockefeller?

They don't?

But, really, heavy breathing just thinking of Megan dooms some poor Malagasy kid to a life with a talon-scared shoulders and a patched aye?

Apparently, melting icebergs and coastlines farther underwater than Arizona and Nevada, those horror stories are no longer enough for the eighteen leftovers in the Al Gore crowd. How many more Prius can one liberal drive?

Still, aside from the economic collapse of Maine, what's the worst that can happen? The Mollusks from the vinegary surf simply evolve and adapt to land life, just like the rest of us had to.

Stop fretting about the planet and think. No more losing Mojito-time scraping barnacles from your yacht. They will dissolve away into the sea without you. Mostly, we upgrade from Clams Bruschetta at Olive Garden to Escargot en croute at pretty much any Bistro this side of PF Chang's.

Let there be Pirates.

What's in a Kingdominium?

2011-07-17T17:53:00.002-04:00

What do you call a Kingdominium that isn’t one anymore?

Transparency Falls Kingdominium had many important issues, but the Privies spent much of their time debating a new name. Not the Transparency Falls part. That they were stuck with, as it was entrenched in Google and Bing. And the King part was long gone.

But “Kingdominium” seemed out of step with the Privies view of themselves as the permanent representatives of the Fallguys.

The latest Rave, called by the Principal, got off to a bad start.

“We could call it a Republic.”

“But then we might be known as Republicans.’”

Upon which much retching and a break to clean up.

“How about ‘Prividom’”?

“Not bad. It really represents what Transparency Falls has become.”

“It is too hard to spell. What is in the middle there? A ‘y’, an ‘i’?”

“And we might want to change the ‘Privy’ title to something more in keeping with our view of ourselves.”

“True, again.”

"How about 'Portominium?'"

"Not bad. We do border a cascade-less canal."

"Ports are great if you're looking for a hookers and peg-leg."

"Hey, I know her."

“’Dominium’. It almost sounds like ‘Dominion’ which was good for Canada for a while.”

“Yeah. They liked it so much they just call themselves Canada now.”

“’Dominium’ was an ‘Exorcist’ prequel. Do we want to be named for a prequel?”

“What’s next?”

“Very funny.”

“If Canada is just Canada, why can’t we just be Transparency Falls.”

“Is your ambition to be just like Canada?”

“Their ‘dollar’, maybe.”

“I can’t believe we’re undecided.”

“There’s always ‘The Democracy of Transparency Falls’”.

Laughter.

“You do recall that we fill out the ballots before we send them out to the Fallguys.”

"We don't have to; it is just more efficient."

"We send them out?"

“Back to Prividom. It’s the most descriptive.”

“Yes, it is the best, but this is too important to rush. Let’s decide in a couple years.”

“And I won't be able to spell it then, either."

A Rave in Transparency Falls

2011-06-23T00:04:00.003-04:00

From Dispatches Sent Completely Out of Sequence

In many societies, a Rave is a huge, unauthorized, necessarily secret, wall-to-wall crush of X-fueled dancing, shouting and carrying on, with bowls full of Ruffies. Some are held in out-of-the-way places like unused tunnels or shuttered factories, but most are on TV. Finding out about a Rave in advance is nearly impossible if you are over 23 or think “sexting” is Latin for pretty much anything done in groups of six.

Indeed, almost everybody at such a Rave is about 20, except for the Big Security Guys (BSG’s) who may be as old as 25. The music is so loud that all intelligent conversation is checked at the door and the whump-whump-whump of the beat rivals the sound of California setting sail for Hawaii.

Beer kegs are tapped by guys who can not dance a lick and would otherwise be shunned. Buckets of bodily fluid, much of it beer-related, are lost and much fun is had by all and barely remembered the next day.

Well, in Transparency Falls, the Raves are almost a complete secret with a single invitation, the emailing of which is banned. Most attendees are older than 23 and do things in groups of six. Or maybe, it is five. The Raves are very small and they are called Privy Council Meetings. Privies and their favored advisors, called Crats, prefer to hold the Raves in sterile rooms, located as far as possible from Fallguy population centers, because that leaves lots of room for the empty chairs.

(Yes, there are plenty of what one might call Fallgals, but the Transparency Falls Some Equal Rights Amendment eliminated that term and forgot to replace it.)

Privy Council Meetings are not about ecstasy or music, but dancing aplenty is always heard if not seen. Some Crats have combined the skills of the keg-tap whilst dancing, an art referred to as... really neat.

Since crowds are not cheek to cheek, only a lone BSG is even on call. The only whump-whump-whumping is taken by Fallguys who are dumb enough to raise their hands. Probably just to go to the bathroom for a cigarette.

Anyone who leaves the Rave early, bathroom or no, usually misses the crescendo that defines the Rave. The Crats' special style of dancing, mentioned earlier, grows so intense as to become virtually impossible to follow.

Thank God for FallTube, the online site for hysterically funny Transparency Falls videos.

It may not sound like it, but at Transparency Falls Raves, much fun is had by almost all. And the intelligent conversation?

Come on. It’s called a Rave.

A Killing in Transparency Falls Kingdominium

2011-06-18T16:16:00.004-04:00

Or All Parody is Local

Part One

In a land pretty close by...

Down the block, even...

There was a mighty Empire that stretched beyond imagination to the North and nearly to Cuba in the South. Its breadth measured less than a days' walk for an alligator. In the Empire was a rich, but hard-headed Prince, who saddled with a peck of mere Principalities, relentlessly followed his dream. Even more than gathering excessive riches, the Prince just had to be a King.

So, the Prince purchased a small kingdom and chased out the few vagabondsmen, hookers, alligators, vultures and other lawyers using just the power of his voice.

And, like that, declared himself a King.

The Emperor did not hear the new King amid the din of twelve hundred other declarations directed his way, being at a Tea Party that day, but the declarations were legal just for the saying.

The new King searched Empire Records online for weeks and finally gave his nascent Kingdom a positively musical name: Transparency Falls, after his planned cascade you could see through emptying in the canal adjacent to his Kingdom. And what other name was left.

The King envisioned his Kingdom as a kind of large hedge-walled principality with a charmingly babbling cascade and an inviting Welcome Gate, since that was pretty much all he knew. First, he hired a laid-off engineer, John Foureyes, ironically diagnosed with terminal myopia, to be his Royal Building Code Department, because someone had to do it. Foureyes proved his worth immediately by writing a code section banning cascades.

"It makes no sense," said the King.

"That's Braille," replied Four eyes. "It's in the millions of nano dollars of babble, Sire."

"Say again."

"Millions... Oh. Sire."

"Then, no cascade. But I keep the gate. You gotta have a gate." He then added, with an obvious twinkle, "And a drawbridge."

"Uh..."

"Can't you see I twinkled.... Never mind."

"Plans approved, Sire."

The King proved his seriousness by hiring the small but famed architectural engineering firm, Piglittle & Piglittle, LLC to actually draw up some plans and realize his vision.

Piglittle & Piglittle, LLC was the remnant of the storied Piglittles Three, Inc. The third Piglittle brother had become disenchanted with the firm and moved to Reality Bites, far away in an Empire near New Jersey. He had tired of his brothers’ unwavering faith in and specification of certain building materials. He, this third Piglittle, spent years convincing his brothers to combine their materials to build buildings no one in the Empire could afford. He finally gave up and moved to Reality Bites, a place far up North where people actually paid money for houses made of the bricks he so loved. Unfortunately, he had the same obsessive gene as his brothers. He became too enamored of the Northern style using something called basements and soon designed nothing but brick basements.

Hence, it was only Piglittle & Piglittle, LLC that went to work for the King. The brothers had once squabbled over the relative merits of straw-only construction and stick-only construction. (“Brick, you can use the hell up where it snows”, said both Piglittle brothers together.) Thanks to their departed brother, they had fused their geniuses and now designed truly elegant buildings with stick structural components and straw walls and roofs.

The King, a utilitarian and nearly a Scot, had no interest in elegant and had his doubts about paying for sticks. But, if you want the Piglittles, you got sticks as well as straw. The King and the Piglittles settled on the brothers’ favored materials, but in squat, rectangular, multi-unit buildings. “With hedges, Bermuda grass all over the place and a pink gate, it will look grand,” the King told the Piglittles with his powerful voice blowing a half ton of straw off of recently tarred street.

The King hired a master builder, von Buffy, who had been using sharpend sticks and mallets long before the Piglittles even sniffed straw. And let the sensitive Piglittles know it. Von Buffy had built for the King’s other fiefdoms several successful strip markets, perpetually flooded, it seemed to the Piglittles, anyway, with all the extended family of Piglittles simply to lazy to work.

In no time, the King's vision developed, with the help of many mercenaries hired by von Buffy to keep costs way under his bid and because he had no choice anyway. The Kingdom had few remaining inhabitants more skilled or even larger than a geko. Unfortunately, von Buffy’s mercenaries, though larger than a geko and with eyelids, were no more skilled and less able to walk on walls and ceilings to do the wiring or duct work properly. Despite that failing, the mercenaries, encouraged by the King’s powerful voice, and von Buffy’s piece-work wage, roughed in the sticks for buildings with great speed and no Chinese drywall. It was a triumph of the King's will. Fortunately, the King was in a pub when any straw was being tied to the sticks, albiet with Grade-C string and... you’ll see.

Ironically, just as the King began construction, a race of foreigners far, far from even Hawaii suddenly developed a voracious appetite for straw. They had learned to like straw better than cat meat. Trillions of tons of Grade-A and even Grade-B straw were suddenly being bound into bundles with string and placed in 40-foot stick-and-spit shipping containers. Just when all those materials were supposed to be headed for Transparency Falls.

In a desperate conference, the Piglittles expressed their horror. Von Buffy was demanding they approve inferior straw and sticks, since “air may be transparent around here, but it ain’t as strong as up North.” And the mercenaries? “They have dry mouth by 9 AM. From the Tequila.”

There was nothing for the King to do but halt construction or approve straw you wouldn’t feed your least favorite goat and fund daily allotments of chewing tobacco for the mercenaries.

The King thought long and hard, agonized to be honest. Transparency Falls had made him a King, a title that would be forever his, inside pubs and out. King! No matter what.

Also, he mused, in some other Empires, Kings who overstayed were often offed in a big Public Square.

It was a long, seemingly endless blink of the King’s eye, but it was decided.

“Put another building in there instead of that big Square.”

Transparency Falls was to be finished. As solid as could be. Expected. Under the circumstances.

Sneezing became a Capital Offense.

The King, with the Piglittles and von Buffy beside him, beheld his vision that day when his Royal Code Inspector sealed the Certificate of Completion. “Jesus. Right there,” pointed von Buffy. The straw, sparkling in the morning dew, rustled in a breeze oh so gentle and soothing. Upon feeling which, the Piglittles did dare open their eyes. There all the rectangular buildings stood.

Whispered on Piglittle to the other, "They look like they're swaying."

"The straw's stiffness index?" responded the other. "Way below my spec."

John Foureyes came within a foot of patting both Piglittles' behinds. "Fellas, it's an optical illusion."

At that very moment, the King was thinking, Now, the easy part.

Following Empire tradition, the King declared a Constitution, hired a scrivener to cut-and-paste together—a process ironically much like his building--a body of laws, the “BodyofLaws”. Pursuant (in scrivener-speak) to the BodyofLaws, the King installed a Privy Council, the members of which were privileged and had keys to the executive privy, the only one that flushed half-decently in Transparency Falls. Which might explain their titles as well, the Privies. The King filled in the first Privies himself. The Principal Privy was called the Principal Privy, or the Principal. In the very early days, the Principal mostly trained the under-employed gekos for the Easter festival.

In no time, the King had assembled suitably gullible people, many with down payments, in his Kingdom, called Fallguys.

As much as the King knew about building a kingdom, he was a little vague on running one, except for designing himself a royal flag emblazoned with a transparent crest. “Trust me,” the King told his subjects.

Again.

And, this being a fable, they did.

As close to wise as the King would ever get, he followed Empire custom and hired more mercenaries to run administer his kingdom, as he would surely too busy with something else. They were called the Mercenary Bureaucrats, but soon, of course, the Crats for short.

Best of all, the King could levy taxes, originally called His Majesty’s Due. This gave the King cash to do complete his Way Early Bucket List, which he called the budget. These taxes after several years of 12% increases came to be called the “Frikin' Dues” in the Fallguy vernacular.

Early on--at that fateful construction meeting, in fact--the King planned to turn the governance of Transparency Falls over to his Fallguys subjects. He had the title; he didn’t need the annoyance of a kingdom, anymore.

Thus, the King amended the Constitution, as only he could, and declared the Kingdom “Transparency Falls, a Kingdominium” and turned the keys to the Welcome Gate to the grateful Principal Privy. Though he was to keep several abodes there, to let, the King left Transparency Falls forever behind him, spiritually, physically and... legally.

He hoped to hell.

End Part One

Panned Parenthood Saves A Couple Bil

2011-04-09T00:45:00.041-04:00

The deal was struck! The Bureaucracy was saved! The Budget? Not so much.

All American workers--aside from the shoe stink-dusters at the Senate gym--breathed a sigh of relief. All Americans now work for the Federal Government in some guise and the Shutdown scared Whole Foods to death. Who would buy cheese for $27.65 a pound?

Principled Republicans and Democrats...

Anyway, the politicians who keep us a couple Trillion ahead of a Four Trillion Dollar deficit came together for huge $39.5 Billion--yes, Billion, as in one Facebook share--cut in the non-gym Federal Budget.

But because of Principle...

Anyway, the only way to make the deal work was to finally fix Planned Parenthood.

No, Jesus! Not that kind of "fix". But, hmm, hold that thought.

Planned Parenthood is the Bête Noir of Rightists everywhere, poor choice of racist French adjectives notwithstanding. Most Republicans still think "Bete" is their second favorite century's top movie starlet or an exceptionally good gay-magnet concert performer.

Planned Parenthood advocates planning parenthood. Instead of, like, using the driving beat of Bete's songs to time zygote-production the way the Pope and the Irish tried from before writing not in Latin to 1997 and ended up with floods of green beer and stumbling parades in every American city this side of Utah.

While the Deal that Statesmen... Sen. Not-Nancy Pelosi Reid and House Speaker John Boehner so honorably cut will barely prick the deficit, but it took the... "Planned" out of Parenthood. The staffers, who were right up there with the House masseurs in payment security, are still working out the details, but it is pretty much like this:

Sen. Not-So and Speaker Johnny made a special joint announcement. To a respectful playing of the anthem--borrowed from a film about a ship about as upside down and underwater as your average Fed-- "There Has to Be a Morning After", hauntingly performed by the Irish-French band RU2-486, the Congressional heroes declared that Planned Parenthood [correction] generously agreed to change its name to Parenthood: Home to the Spontaneous Generation [the crack about renaming it as "Fetuses In a Jar Associates", Speaker Johnny said, was "just my funny"], ship its birth control pills to China and turn its considerable marketing skills, instead, to running running gay sex clubs, handing out some FDA-approved "B", ah, hangover remedy and, most importantly, promoting Absinthe.

Library books containing the words "sex", "condom", "pregnancy" and "welfare" will be cleansed, in all generally empty suburban malls, with subsidized gasahol and tax-exempt cigarettes. Henceforth, all TV characters will sleep in wool pajamas in separate Twin Beds, if any of the latter can be found in Hollywood.

Bristol Palin buttons will be worn by all female tweens who seriously can not dance.

Sexually active post-tweens will be requried to marry or swear allegiance to Brigham Young.

Really, no more 3D Katy Perry or 1D Robert Pattinson posters. Or Megan Fox. Anything.

The list, as usual, is only limited by the imagination of Congress...

In an extremely brief Joint Congressional Session, the German-born Pope and the Luau-born TB0 and the now-available-for-weddings-and-bar-mitzvahs Glenn Beck will sign the Budget Deal together, hopefully before the Rapture wisks them, Sen. Harry and Speaker Johnny and all the kids away in the middle of...

I See Dead People

2011-04-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

And Salvation!

The USA doesn't make much anymore. Our TV's come from the Far East and that doesn't mean Newark. Most of our cars are shipped in from the same Far East or even Canada. We don't make most of our drugs, including crystal meth.

We have trade and budget deficits that make Fannie Mae look solvent. We have transferred most of our non-Bourbon wealth to China.

Who doesn't want any more of our dollars or T-Bills or -Notes or -Bonds, steroids or not.

The Loonie in Canada and the Wallabie (if that what they call their formerly-80-cent-Dollar) in Australia are worth more than the US Trillion Dollar Bill with TB0's winning grin on it.

But, now, that dismal story is over. And do you know why?

China.

Yes, that place with 1.gazillion people. They've got a huge problem and we are the very large answer.

They have dead people.

So? you say. Here, we call it n+ stage ObamaCare. Every country has... Oh.

That's right. China, by virtue of having all those live people, has an overwhelming domestic problem. According to USA Today, 9 Million burials a year. Burials. The Chinese are very traditional, respectful people and now they have the money to bury their loved ones instead of clandestinely scattering ashes on North Korea.

Only, all that money doesn't buy cemeteries. Those things take up a whole lot of ground.

Hello. China. Far West. Lots of gournd there. Ever see Wyoming. Hell,Virgina's got lots of tobacco-less scrub just waiting to grow all Mandarin.

So, America sells some of its from-sea-to-shining-sea subsurface clay to its bereaved friends in the Far East. Think of the mortourism(tm). How about outside Vegas? It's not like they'll be building houses out in the desert for the next hundred years. Hotels, funeral homes, Ghost Whisperer theme parks.

Headstone manufacture... okay. Curb your enthusiasm. But all the service business, what we do best. Or only.

And, the best part, for TB0 and the Chinese Fed (honest, they call it that but more graphically): We'll take all those US Government Bonds piled up in Beijing filing cabinets as payment. Happily.

At a 32% discount.

We're America. We're not dead yet.

GOP to Cut Pi Day by 4.5%?

2011-03-23T15:33:00.003-04:00

Or maybe a little more than 4.50703%.

Pi Day (March 14th for those who read other blogs) went by this year with nary a circular blogument. Fortunately, some types never forget. The Republicans are celebrating by legislating Pi to 3.000000000. No more of Pi's endless decimal point extensions, like it was a national debt or something.

The GOP say,"We want it to be an even 3."

This without a hint of irony.

Why? Well our kids are too stupid to handle all those decimal places, even with all their iPhone apps and endless Facebook Friends to help.

Martha Roby, a Republican Congressperson from Alabama, is the intellectual force behind HR 205. This bill seeks to simplify geometry, which was pretty much Greek anyway, but before they went broke. In fact, Martha probably figures (if she does such things) that all that complicated Greek stuff caused their debt crisis.

"Endless numbers are hard to follow," she would likely say. "Like the Chinese."

Democrats, rightly for a change, seem to fear Gobal Warming will be replaced by Global Ovaling. Or, worse, Global Egging. That is really hard to clean up.

House Speaker John Boehner, with a name like a German physist to give him at least some gravitas, warned that circles are too complicated and that the French may soon be smarter than American 5th graders. Boehner's state, Ohio, was laid out in straight lines and is way easier to understand than elitist Massachusetts with all those circular rotaries that some poor drivers went around more than Pi times looking for SSE.

And the best early approximation of Pi was made by Archimedes, from a town named Syracuse, from before Jimmy Brown or the Final Four. Yes, you non-elitists, the guy in the bathtub.

Again, Greek.

Argue all you want, but at least the unafraid John and Martha will replace that ridiculously hard π thing. "3" is something any American high schoolers can draw, unless California takes back their pencils.

Now, students, try to figure out when the hell will Pi Day be honored.

Post script: It turns out the story was not entirely true, being mostly a hoax by some lame columnist (not a blogger). Republicans are running, yes, in circles trying to find out what part was untrue.

TP'ing Republicans Pledge America

2010-09-22T23:45:00.002-04:00

Congressional Republican outflanked Teabaggers today by leaking forth a new and really convincing Contract For America. In it, they pledge all of America's assets in exchange for a no-tax promise for all Americans, not just the rich and small businessmen like George Soros and Tom Cruise.

"America'r rich peoples' wealth and its resulting trickle can only be maximized if tax cuts are retained and improved to a zero marginal rate for those earning over $250,000 per year. Without nagging taxes, America's rich will be incentivized to invest their super wealth in new job-generating projects! That these projects are in China and Vietnam is best since the jobs are the type Americans don't really cotton to all that much, like in manufacturing which can be kind of dirty!" declared a House Republican in a simple black knit ski mask without his/her name emblazoned upon it.

"George III cut taxes for everyone for a couple election cycles and we want to be even more creatively destructive than that great indomitable American pet goat wrangler."*

*(In a later addendum, the statement was revised to "great American pet goat story narrator.")

Part of the promise is that Republicans, when put in power again by the Supreme Court, will not mark their ears ever again. It is unclear what that actually means.

Other clauses call for a freeze of hiring anyone other than security guards and for saluting anyone who is non-gay, non-Christian or non-Brown. Non-black is no longer considered much of nonsaluting problem.

Top goals are to Hedge-Fundize Social Security. The bold if Mickey-Mouse(tm) plan of turning Social Security over to Wall Street having been 2008'ed, Republicans now demand the use of hedge funds for all Americans retirement subsistence.

Republicans, patriotically on a mission, promised to roll back "Obamadontcare" as their very first missionary position: "Americans should only be screwed the traditional family way!" Also, Obama's Blue Cross Rejection and Termination Death Squads will be repurposed as redistricting committees.

Congress itself will be reprioritized and moved to K-Street where it belongs. Iraq will be forgotten, Afghanistan treated for bipolar disorder and Iran bombed back to the bronze age from which it almost emerged in the film "300".

Republicans realize that the American public is enraged enough to spurn coffee for tepid tea and is pretty much the way they were in "Network", so Republicans have resurrected their reassuring practice ducking and covering to avoid falling Flat-screens running Sean Hannity-Glenn Beck musical revivals.

Gulf Boom Starts Monday

2010-08-13T15:23:00.000-04:00

Things have been hard along the Gulf Coast, especially for shrimpers and slip-and-fall lawyers.

Oil slicks on the beach are causing thousands to fall onto the sands of Nothern Gulf Coast beaches. Injuries are mostly benign, but everyone just sends BP an email for compensation. Don't need a lawyer for that.

The shrimpers are another story. Sure they can get money from BP, too. Many have augmented their income selling Drill Babies(tm) and Drill Baby Accessories, often with a dozen free gulf shrimp slipped in.

The Big O forced Lady O and the kids to spend time down on the Gulf recently instead of some extra days in Spain or on Martha's Vinyard. TBO wanted the world to see that you can still vacation on the Gulf. Uh. With TBO's credibility swimming in the nearby port-o-john, that may make things worse.

This Blog has spent some time studying "Mad Men", Season One, and has conjoured a solution worthy of whoever Don Draper actually is.

No, neither sexual daliances, top shelf bourbon nor cartons of Luckies were involved. (And damn it.)

What seafood is better than deed-fried shrimp? Seriously? Fried clams or crabs may be as good, but better? Fish Sticks (even the "South Park" brand)? No way.

But Gulf shrimp, usually at 200 million pounds a year, are losing out to shrimp from China (big surprise) and Thailand.

Thailand? Isn't that the place where political dissent is written in a way that inspired the cranky new American Blood Party? Really. Dissent. Written. In blood. On your house. Like Red John in "The Mentalist", but without the cute smiley face or less cute body bags.

To counter this loss of business, the Gulf Shrimp industry needs a new, pithy, Don Draper-style marketing slogan. And no waiting for the art department to get back from their olive-spiked lunch this time.

Here it is:

No Extra Oil Needed! (tm)

Quick, Betty. Fire up the deep fryer.

No extra thanks needed, either.

The Alice Sarah Palin: The Creator

2010-07-20T00:15:00.001-04:00

There are few celebrities who command attention as does Sarah Palin, know principally as The Alice of the Tea Party of Wonderland. She has seen great distances and traveled far. She has single-handedly helped to nearly elect many.

But she is now credited as the poster pinupfore in the dimly remembered cause of "If You Won't Go Back to Hispania, Learn Some Frakin' English!"

It is unfair, of course, to misreprobate The Alice for this creationism, but she has disappointed, too.

Flexicoining, The Alice called for New Yorkers to refudiate the implantationing of the Very Spanish-sounding Cordoba Center. She was zeroing in on the plan to build a cheerful Islamist Shrine and Yoga Bar pretty much where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were once knocked down by... well... some bad guys of irrelevant faiths.

The Alice has brought mockery upon a more noble crusade: To create words as if she were a god. Or at least, as she Twittated, Shakespeare.

Forget the whole Allahu Akbar and a Few Laps in Our Face thing, this word creation is creating, itself, a mighty stirrup. There is even a whole new world in Twitteria, @ShakesPalin, to populate with repurposed and prepositioned Shakespearean doublet cuff-offs.

It is a sad misdirection, for The Alice is, by her very nature, the Queenessence of the newly concocted. Who but Lewis Carroll himself reimbued English with words from nowhere but Wonderland. The great Jabberwocky is a poem that the Bard himself could never match in quilling words that had never even been declined in Latin.

The Jabberwock's poem was an original part of The Alice's Odyssey, "Through the Looking Glass and What [The]Alice Found There". Has she forgotten her Wonderland heritage? Is The Alice so busy velcoring syllables together for Tea Party retweettating that she can not refer to the nearly limitlessness of her birthright?

Worse, Twitteria has missed this as well. The Twiterians seem so bespeckeled by The Alice's own Shakespearean insight that they, too, forget her most libertarian literary running--and jawing--mate.

Perhaps, we can take heart, though, as the Jabberwock itself did not make it to the end of its own story even if the Jabbertalky did.

Scaley Has Jon-Bob Spank Terror-Huggers

2010-06-21T13:30:00.003-04:00

Antonin Scaley's black-robed possee dealt terrorist-huggers everywhere a major setback.

Ruling 6 good to 3 not-invited-next-time, the Court ruled that if you give a terrorist group advice or training, you are just as bad as they are.

Scaley's nominal Chief Justice, John Roberts ("Jon-Bob" to friends of this blog), was assigned to write down Scaleys' thoughts on the matter.

Justice Stephen Breyer ("the Ice Man", for obvious reasons), was allowed to disagree in public. The Ice Man read his dissent aloud so FOX Spews would not lose the text completely.

TBO sent some minions to agree with Scaley's view, although it is not clear where he could find any. Through them, TBO claimed that "material support", under the Be Unkind To Terrorists statute, meant pretty much anything. TBO now has more power over Americans that Dick Cheney or The Alice of the Tea Party of Wonderland, Sarah Palin.

According to Jon-Bob, here's it works. TBO scans the globe (Mars starts next term. And ha ha). He then points a finger at a bunch of Sihks, say, singing acapella to their favorite candidate on a Charleston, SC street corner. That is enough to designate them as a terrorist group, even if TBO was just indicating that he liked the hue of the lead singer's raghe... turban.

Now that, the group is a designated terrorist group, they are off limits for any training or advice, because anything that helps the terrorists, ups their morale, makes them happy--or even less miserable--or better informed is now a waterboarding offence.

Examples Jo-Bob probably meant would be:

Showing a terrorist how to inflate his new Nike's on the subway;

Teaching a terrorist how to surrender;

Giving any New York cabbie directions to Yankee Stadium;

Paying any New York cabbie;

Adding terrorists to your nightly prayer list;

Putting a soaking wet towel on your head in 99 degree heat;

Suggesting, just in passing, that a terrorist consider making peace with infidels;

Broadcasting Sean Hannity (no, wait, it said "better informed");

Showing stills of any Megan Fox scene in which she wears a boostier in "Jonus Hex";

Showing stills of Megan and Brian Austin Green with BAG's face photoshopped out and replaced with that or your favorite blogger;

Explaining a Scaley Court decision;

Offering a terrorist five tiny pretzels on a three-hour USAirways flight that will connect through Philadelphia to anywhere useful;

Feel free to add ideas in comments below. Do not worry, though, no terrorists read this blog, because it seems to be a big damned secret.

Afghanistan Idiot: We Know What's Worth Fighting For

2010-06-16T00:14:00.004-04:00

Face it. Do you or Green Day really care about Afghanistan or its combative tribes? Iraq, now that had oil worth fighting for. Afghanistan has what? Plants.

Of course, they should have democracy, burqas by Donna Karen, used voting machines from South Carolina and an American air base. They should be free to press, process and ship-by-super-tanker all the Poppy Juice Cocktail American can drink, too. They can make those nice throws and dogs, as well.

But, they are still pretty much Muslims who don't want infidels, largely and recently ambivalent about Muslims, shooting up their mountains, deserts and thorougfares. Not just Natoans, but Russians, as they indicated pretty well in the 1980's.

America and its willing allies really ventured into Afghanistan (damn it, not "invaded") to catch one guy, Osama bin Laden and break up his day camp network. The Taliban were simply so obsessed with Buddha shards and repurposing soccer stadiums that they missed the significance of one particular September in New York and, consequently, had to be shown both the boot and the door. Which door, unfortunately, led them back to Pakistan's mountains where they settled in next to Osama himself and where the Paki Intelligence Service just couldn't see them.

But really. Afghanistan?

Oh, my. How all that has changed.

Suddenly, under all the craggy hills, velcro-jamming sand, motley goats and prayer rugs Afghanistan is rich. Trillion dollars in minerals we need rich.

In a country where almost half the population lives on less per day than it cost to buy your Starbuck's latte on that day; where more than a third of $13 Billion in GDP comes from poppy juice and its derivatives. And that gaudy GDP is about 20% of what the US spends in shooting up the montains, deserts and both thoroughfares there.

The US Geological Survey, under contract with Harmid Karzai (but hopefully not his cleverer brother, Ahmid), found lots of gold, copper, iron ore and other mundane minerals. Like iron ore is worth an hour of drone fuel. True, but that's not the sexy stuff.

Sexy? Afghanistan? The camel vacation spot where Mullah Monocle made the guys where scraggly beards and the women head-to-toe draperies?

Can you spell Lithium?

No, not as in the med you just refilled. For batteries. The bass-drum-beating bunny things we're just beginning to need. For Priuses and their electric cousins; for storing solar energy where the sun don't shine and wind power when your flag flags. For our army of iPads and Droids. For crystal meth manu... Well, lots of important stuff.

Trying to revolutionize energy without Lithium is like trying to have a beach party without BP.

Ironically, TBO, just tonight, after asking the very same BP for some cash, has called on all Americans--except Dick Cheney--to gear up, seriously this time, for the green energy revolution. Like it was a big-time war or something. Our Green Day is upon us (to complete a quasi theme). And guess what afterthought is suddenly front and center in that Green Day revolution, at least until solar cells can run on moonlight. That would be long after your Lithium-driven pacemaker quits one last time.

Not a question, this time: Afghanistan.

That's almost like a big-time war already.

Solo Teen Sailor Has Screenwriter Hooked

2010-06-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

Abby Sunderland has been rescued from the Indian Ocean, five months after she set off from Marina del Ray, CA. The 16 year-old won't fulfill her ambition to become the youngest ever to solo the world in a really nice dingy, beating her brother's record of 17. But you know she will get a lot farther than her stinky brother in Hollywood.

Loyal types have suggested Megan Fox as Abby, but other think Megan too old or too yesterday. Taylor Momsen, Little J of "Gossip Girl" is a natural, assuming she can swim one-tenth as well as she can act or sing.

For product placement purposes, the film will have Abby sail off from the Cheesecake Factory in Marina Del Ray. And because a screenwriter reports they have really good Kobe Burgers. The Japanese not the Laker.

The most important part, finding that screenwriter, has been taken care of. Part of the script is actually already written, especially for Morgan Freeman as the Captain of the Quantas Airbus A330 search plane. An excerpt was stolen minutes ago.

Ext. Plane flying low over the Indian Ocean. DAY

Int. Cockpit DAY
Three men cram the cockpit, desperately searching for the tiny sailboat...

   SCATTY (off screen)
The fuel lines! They're ruptured! One more minute, Captain, and the engines will stop!

   DR. BANES
Bad time of year to scuttle anything but an American-made Boeing in the damned Indian Ocean, Jim.

   FIRST OFFICER SPACK
A330's are not designed well for such a rough Ocean, Captain.

   SCATTY (off screen)
Did I say a minute? I meant ten seconds! Ago!

   CAPTAIN (in God's voice, American-Australian Accent)
Restart engines.

Engines, ignoring their severed fuel lines roar into action.

   CAPTAIN (same voice, More American Accent now)
Find me that little girl. Before the French do.

Now, Abby, aside from formatting, is a rewrite even necessary?

Helen Thomas is Right About Moving

2010-06-08T14:52:00.008-04:00

As usual there is much ado about anything that anyone says about anything. Helen Thomas, the premier White House Seat Filler for years, is just the latest.

All Helen said was that the Israelis (known here as "Firstians") should get out of [Proximania(tm)]. (Helen actually said Palestine, but this Blog no longer uses that term, having invented a new, improved and trademarked one, Proximania.) Helen opined, outloud, that the Firstians should go back where they came from, that being, as she recalled first-hand, Germany and Poland and, maybe, the US.

At first bright-red blush, this may sound incredibly stupid. This, even while taking into account that Helen is, like Miss USA, of Lebanese descent and breathtaking, if in an entirely different way. Helen thinks it only fair that the land of Proximania be returned to the people who were originally there.

Uh oh.

Helen is really old, but not old enough to remember when the Laterians (aka "Arabs") first took over Proximania. It was pretty recent, in Proximanian years, in 638. A couple thousand years before that the Firstians wandered into Proximania without the aid of a Garmin or iPhone app. Because the Firstians were in Proximania before any of the other current claimants, they get to be called that. Unfortunately, as is the case with most real estate, the Firstians couldn't hold onto the place and all manner of historical rivals took over the neighborhood.

(All of this you should know already, since you surely have read this Blog's background piece about the neighborhood.)

In any case, after all the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and a few others tromped all over Proximania, the Laterians arrived, however late, conquered and held it for a few hundred years, after which the Turks took over. The Turks are not Laterians, in case Helen forgot.

After World War I, the Turks were essentially replaced by the British, who, as usual, screwed up an entire region to make themselves feel important.

But Helen doesn't really care about that, nor should she.

Pretty much everybody in Proximania claims to be biblically descended from Abraham. The Laterians claim descent from Abraham's first born, Ishmael, Firstians from number two son, Isaac. Sounds pretty equal until one recalls that Abraham sent Ishmael packing so he could give everything in and around his tent to Isaac. This was probably unfair, but Ishmael was smart enough to go where the oil was, while Isaac got stuck with sheep, goats and the as-of-then unbuilt Jerusalem.

Take a minute to calculate who got the better deal. Use a computer.

Ishmael's descendants, the Laterians now seem to want the oil and the sheep, goats and since-built Jerusalem. But Helen doesn't see that as a problem since the Laterians were there when she was born, so she was an eye-witness to their rights.

However, astonishingly dumb that may sound, Helen is still right. Everyone should go back where they came from. To show evenhandedness, start with Americans. It is well known that no one was in America to begin with. Dinosaurs, ferns and cockroaches, maybe, but people? Nope. So, every American must go back to...

Before you leave, Helen, help your fellow Americans out, here. Where did Americans come from? Really. Or Europeans? Nigerians? The Hawaiians? Not to mention the Firstians and the Laterians Proximates.

The answer has been established in this Blog (see link above) and, admittedly, elsewhere.

It all started with the Big E, Mitochondrial Eve. So, starting tomorrow, everyone--repeat, everyone--everywhere, including Helen, pack one carry-on and report to the nearest train station. Next stop: Kenya.

Ragheads (and Hatters) Unite!

2010-06-05T00:52:00.001-04:00

It only took a deep South minor league Republican to do it.

Jakie "Not-Really-Webster" Knotts jested about his fear of having a "raghead" in both the White House and the South Carolina Governor's Plantation. This side-splitter was Jakie's highlight on a June 3rd internet radio show.

It seems that his opponent, Nikki Haley, was born a Sikh and, like TBO, converted to Christianity. Sikhs are not Muslims, by the way, and their Dastaar brand turban-style hats are no more rags than Jakie's own midnight-white head covering.

As a religious convert and, herself, a name-changer, Nikki should be a soul mate (sorry, Nikki) of Jakie, who converted from Webster to Knotts, as soon as he was old enough to know he was not unusually short, black and a TV star.

Ragheads, anyway, are a large faction of American culture. If one is old enough, one will remember Catholic women wearing everything from bonnets to doilies to half a spare Kleenex as head coverings before they were allowed to enter a church. Head rags in places like Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are sometimes called babushkas and there are usually yummy pierogies involved. The Crips and the Bloods Social Clubs popularized certain colors of head-wrappers, called do-rags, to tell each other apart when under stress.

And, Jakie, you probably still ride by night with a bunch of dedicated headcoverers.

So, Jakie, there are lots of ragheads out there, many converted to nonragheadedness, but still feeling (and probably dying) their roots. You've pissed off a whole lot of voters and some who don't bother with ballots in favor of spraying bullets, swinging baseball bats and knotting ropes.

Worse, Jakie, you've gone up against one Nikki-endorser who should scare you plain sh_tless: The all-powerful, ubiquitous (that means all over the fraking place, Jakie) The Alice herself, Sarah Palin. Coincidently, she and a dozen really mad Hatters are coming to your neck of the backwoods, accent on neck, just hoping you'll keep on jesting.

Don't think (please), Jakie, don't talk (double please), just hide the hell under the sheets tonight.

Oh. Like that would be any different.

Scaley Deals Miranda Out. Defendants to get Deck of Rights Cards

2010-06-03T00:32:00.005-04:00

It has taken him a long time, but Scaley has finally and forever finessed Miranda.

Once upon a time, criminal defendants in America were guaranteed certain Constitutional rights by the Founding Fathers. The best one--and, admittedly, the hardest one to use--was the Right to Remain Silent. If you're a criminal, you are probably so damned proud of how smart you are, you'll want to taunt David Caruso to his sideways, half-cocked, sun-glassed face. If you're an innocent, you want to provide all the details of your not-guilt. Stay silent? Very hard. Talk a blue streak? You bet.

The 1966 Miranda case, along with some others Scaley didn't like, required the police to tell a suspect that he or she had Constitutional rights and to summarize what they were. After a few fraked up cases, police started carrying cards with lawyer-approved sentences printed on them. The whole card was shorter than your last tweet, but really helped those who dozed through Constitutional Law in their first year of law school.

The police would spank their suspect against their cruiser, read the card to their suspect and invite him or her to flush all those Founding Father assured rights down a nearby port-a-potty. This was not called a "flushing", which would have made sense, but the better known, lawyer-word "waiver." This "waiver" became the most sought after thing in all of law enforcement. Next to health insurance.

Generally, when you waived your rights, the police could understand that. Your suspect might say, "Waive my rights? Sure. Them Founding Fathers didn't know shinola about crime, so phooey on them and their wigs." Or something very close to that. After that it was, "Hey, call Dick Cheney!" and off to jail.

Not always, however, were suspects so clear about waivers. Some got into the habit of looking skyward, scratching their chins and saying, "Hmm. I think I maybe want a lawyer." Or, "Perhaps not talking to you fellas would be more advisable than not." How is a cop to know if that's serious waiver talk?

So, Scaley directed his usual mouthpiece, Tony Kennedy, clear all that up. As of Tuesday, June 1, 2010 (mark it down and don't whine about it from behind bars if you forget), suspects are the beneficiaries of the Supreme Scaley Court's clarification of Miranda, called Berghuis v. Thompkins, which shall be referred to forever, here, as Thompkins v. Miranda.

Scaley, generous as ever, has actually enlarged upon Constitutional rights. From now on, a suspect gets a terrific new right: You have the right to waive the right to remain silent by neglecting to remain absolutely silent for however long you can be interrogated.

You are surely pondering this. Does Scaley mean that if you say, "yes" to the wrong question in day two of UN-approved waterboarding, you will have to no longer remain silent? Is that fair to the cops, who will now be getting the endless ear-beatings, not Scaley?

In the case of the soon-to-be-convicted Mr. Thompkins, he had a really good chance to waive his rights, by saying, "Of course, sirs, I waive all of my sacred rights", but he did not take that chance. He also had a good chance to speak up, proudly and say, "I invoke my right to remain silent..."

The Thompkins v. Miranda case, simply stated for any non-lawyers out there, stands for this proposition: If you do not remain silent, you waive your right to remain silent. Easy?

In a way, Thompkins, the perp, didn't miss out on much. Under Scaley's Thompkins v. Miranda Rule, Mr. Thompkins would have waived his right to remain silent by uttering the single word "I".

What if the bewildered suspect says, "I invoke my right to counsel, mister officer"? There goes the right to remain silent. And what good's a counsel then?

Damn, Scaley, are you sure about this? Isn't everything even more confusing?

Well, this blog is here mostly to help Scaley out of predicaments like this one. As of tomorrow, this blog may very well mail out to every potential criminal suspect a deck of cards that state "I choose to invoke" such-and-such sacred Constitutional right. The cards will likely have colorful graphics; maybe a caricature of Scaley in a wig indicating, with one finger, the right being invoked; and, by the way, a fast acting poison that robs one of the power of speech upon a single touch. For at least three hours.

Thes cards might be written in English and whatever other languages Google Translate can handle, except Spanish, since this blog supports Arizona so much.