If you're gonna be an NRA aficionado, you really should handle guns better than this.
No way am I taking these IQ tests. If I want to depress myself, I don't need that kind of help. But apparently some people are braver than I am.
Finding out you're not nearly as brilliant as you thought you were isn't the only way to depress yourself online. You can also learn that you're completely out of touch.
And speaking of depression, are any of you Alanis Morissette fans? If so, you should visit the Alanis Morissette Random Lyric Generator. Then you too can make a fortune writing morose pop tunes. Here's the one it created with just a little help from me:
What have I done to deserve this black horror?
Surrounded on all sides with the Hell of Dubya
Like a Dickens character, I'm wordy and alone
Why God, Why?
What have I done to deserve this black disaster that is my life?
Surrounded on all sides with the Hell of Dubya
Like a Dickens character, I'm wordy and alone
Why God, Why?
What have I done to deserve this black misery?
Surrounded on all sides with the Hell of Dubya
Like a Dickens character, I'm wordy and alone
Why God, Why?
Will Coulter's publisher correct her slander-laced lies? If all her misstatements were eliminated, Coulter's book would surely be even slimmer than she is.
And speaking of secrecy, the Bushies were plenty steamed over the Saudis are terrorists Pentagon leak. Needless to say, Rumsfeld immediately condemned the leak and pronounced the Saudis to be "super-duper, all-round good-guy pals who can't stop weeping over being hometown to 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers."
Bush was equally incensed, saying: "Damn those bureaucrats! Poppy's gonna be pissed! I'm the healthiest President whoever lived! Now watch this drive!"
Note for the literal-minded: I've taken liberties with these quotes. But I haven't taken your liberties.
Nausea Advisory Do not look at this Bush Sr. photo unless you have a very strong stomach. For those who can't risk viewing it, the "41" photo bears this caption:
Former President George Bush puts his hands to his face while talking about his recent dermatological treatment for sun-induced keratosis, as he finished a round of golf with his son President Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, Saturday, Aug. 03, 2002. The lesions, caused by sun exposure over the years, are not skin cancers and are effectively eliminated though treatment, but can leave the skin inflamed.
I would really love to know how someone who's experienced so much sun-induced damage can keep going back for more. Then again, learning from history isn't exactly a Bush family trademark.
On the other hand, the Bush administration is really good at rewriting history.
And speaking of nausea, Dubya has purportedly penned an intro to a 9/11 book. One can only hope he doesn't do it in audio.
Ken Layne isn't overly fond of lefty writers. How do I know this? From subtle comments like:
...lefties generally can't write. They sound like earnest preachers. They're rarely funny. Everything's always horrible, the world is so mucked up, we have failed as a species, blah blah blah. As somebody said -- P.J. O'Rourke? -- you'll never hear a good bar described as "leftist."
Okay, I don't really get the leftist bar reference. As for the rest, I have to assume Layne wrote this solely to stir up an argument and increase his traffic. Because a smart guy like Layne surely wouldn't buy into such a foolish generalization. So call me naive, but I'd rather view Layne as a hit-whoring provocateur, rather than a smug, humorless misanthrope.
In any event, I'm prepared to forgive Layne, even though he hurt my lefty feelings. After all, he hangs with my pal Mike Jasper So how bad could he be?
And speaking of lefties, I still haven't made it into the Lefty Directory. Was it something I said?
Since 9/11, Republicans have led a deafening "Clinton did nothing about terrorism" chorus. So they can't be too pleased with this fascinating and long overdue Time Magazine feature.
According to Time, the Clinton administration did a hellofalot more than nothing. Unless you don't count stuff like conducting substantive transition briefings and handing the Bush administration an anti-al-Qaeda plan.
Of course, the vacationing Bush administration disputes the story. I'd love to know how many lawyer-hours it took to create the tortured language of the Bush & Co. denial
"The Clinton administration did not present an aggressive new plan to topple al Qaeda during the transition," White House spokesman Sean McCormack told Reuters in Kennebunkport, Maine, where Bush spent the weekend at his parents' summer home.
No doubt that statement is technically true, if you buy into creative definitions of "Clinton administration," "present," "aggressive," "new," "plan," "topple," "al Qaeda," "during," and/or "transition."
Here's some Katherine Harris humor from the "Damn, Why Didn't I Think Of That?" department. Just a snippet from The Angry Liberal's spoof interview to whet your appetite:
TAL: Can you tell me about the circumstances surrounding your resignation?
Harris: It was those damned election laws again! Geez, you think the Florida legislature would have better things to do than sit around writing page after page of election laws! I mean, there are speeches to give, hands to shake, lobbyists to entertain, Swiss bank accounts to manage. . .
Sunday night my husband managed to drag me away from my computer long enough to see "The Road To Perdition." And I loved it despite my withdrawal symptoms.
At this risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, I have to ask: Why don't they make movies like this anymore? (Okay, other than Perdition, wise-guy.)
What a pleasure to see Hanks and Newman go head to head, both giving Oscar-worthy performances! And speaking of Paul Newman, here's a humor column I wrote a few years ago.
Bush sure didn't waste any time. Within hours of signing the corporate reform bill, he undermined it. How? By willfully misconstruing its whistleblower protections. So much for his feigned interest in catching those book-cookers.
Dubya may be planning a month-long vacation, but Ari Fleischer's working hard at playing it down. Perhaps he's taking DNC spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri's words to heart: "The presidency is not a nine to five job."
Here's hoping Dubya soon gets a permanent ranch vacation.
Paul O'Neill and Lawrence Lindsey sounded upbeat notes on the economy this past weekend. A dutifully rah-rah-rah O'Neill told NBC, "The economic fundamentals of our society are good." And not to be outdone, Lindsey told ABC's "This Week," "The long term for America is fabulous." Maybe they should educate themselves by reading this before making any more media appearances.
On the other hand, perhaps Lindsey's "long term" refers to some other Presidential term long after Dubya's out of office, after we've had a chance to recover from the Bush Mis-Administration.
No doubt Bush is licking his chops in anticipation of this credit card company bonanza disguised as bankruptcy reform. It would be nice if the media would follow Robert Scheer's example and get the word out, before it's too damn late.
The FBI does it (or, rather, doesn't do it) again. Check out this depressing tale of squandered opportunity.
Who can resist dismantling the patriarchy? Especially when you're doing it one drink at a time.
I'll drink to that!
One of the fun (okay, obsessive) parts of running a website is checking your visitor logs to see what domains people are coming from. Just today, for instance, a visitor from USDOJ.gov stopped by, visiting, among other pages, Dubya's Dayly Diary and my song parody Ashcroft's Favorite Things. So if I suddenly stop posting, you'll know where to look for me.
On the other hand, we still have the 1st Amendment, right? I'm sure I have nothing to worr...
Sorry for the interruption. I had some visitors, but they're gone now. By the way, Bush is great, Bush is great, Bush is great, and Ashcroft's great too!
Just kidding!
In his latest On Language column William Safire includes a somewhat condescending explanation of weblogs, having been educated on the subject by, of all people, Reagan aficionado Peggy Noonan. He says:
Blog is a shortening of Web log. It is a Web site belonging to some average but opinionated Joe or Josie who keeps what used to be called a ''commonplace book'' -- a collection of clippings, musings and other things like journal entries that strike one's fancy or titillate one's curiosity."
Okay, I'll own up to being opinionated. But though I've been called a whole lot of things over the years, "average" isn't among them.
I do give Safire brownie points for correcting Dubya's grammar in the same column. His Bush grammar gripes (so many choices, so little time) are the "and/or" and the "drug" instead of "dragged" in this gem of a statement:
''The International Criminal Court is troubling to the United States . . . ,'' President Bush told reporters in Milwaukee. ''Our diplomats and/or soldiers could be drug into this court.''
After pointing out these errors, Safire goes and spoils everything by assuring readers that in the past he's also corrected Clinton's grammar.
Heaven forbid that Safire should alienate right-wingers by so much as a whiff or a sniff of favoritism! Never mind that, unlike Bush, Clinton can speak in actual sentences, even whole paragraphs, without driving a 7th grade English teacher to drink.
My artist/writer pal Ray Berry, famed on the Web for his satirical photo-toon takes on the Bush administration, reports that he was recently strip-searched twice on his flights from Savannah, Georgia to New York City. Now I can't think of anyone who looks less like a terrorist than Ray ... except maybe me. (He's cute, but not that cute.) Could it be because ofstufflikethis? Just wondering.
Jim Capozzola over at the always entertaining The Lighter Side of The Rittenhouse Review has been complaining about an all too common bit of SPAM, frequently referred to as the "Nigerian Scam." While the email comes in several flavors, it always purports to come from someone with tons of cash in Africa who, due to war or some other equally tragic crisis, needs your bucks to access his own. Needless to say, the letter always promises you oodles of cash in return for several thousands of yours. Also needless to say, anyone who falls for this should send me his money instead.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I want you to read this excruciatingly funny piece on the topic by the hilarious Elizabeth Hanes.
By now you're probably muttering to yourself: "This humor stuff is all well and good, but where's the serious political commentary? Where are the links to Bush's latest travesties?"
Hey, what do you want from me? It's the weekend, and I'm trying to mellow out. But if you can't wait till Monday for something of a more newsy nature, you can always visit theseoutstandingliberalWeblogs.
And if that isn't enough to keep you busy on this dreary (in New York, at least) Sunday, scroll down to my "Regular Reads" links section to find some excellent sites.
