So, it seems that these two British agents in Iraq were stopped by police, shot at said police, were arrested, and HURRICANE RITA’S ON ITS WAY! IT’S A CATEGORY THREE AND GAINING STRENGTH!!
No seriously, these Brits actually killed an Iraqi policeman, were taken into custody, and, get this - HEADING FOR THE TEXAS COAST! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? WE’RE PREPARED THIS TIME BUT IT’S IMPORTANT TO FOCUS ALL OUR ATTENTION ON IT!!!!!
Let me get to this - the British military then stormed the police station with tanks, knocked down a wall, and freed their guys, killing a couple of Iraqis in the pro- LET’S STAY FOCUSSED HERE, PEOPLE - IT’S WINDY DOWN THERE. VERY WINDY!
But the craziest thing to slide towards page 2 since this storm started is President Bush’s suspension of the 74 year-old Davis-Bacon Act, which forced all government con- NOBODY CARES ABOUT THAT NOW! HURRICANE! YOU DON’T WANT ANOTHER NEW ORLEANS, DO YOU!!? NO!!! SO IT’S IMPORTANT TO SHOUT ABOUT THIS ONE UNTIL IT GOES AWAY!!!!!
Seriously, let me finish - Davis-Bacon forced federal contractors to pay the prevailing wage on construction projects, and now Halliburton doesn’t have to DO that as they hire Katrina victims to rebuild their own communities and roads. The very people who need work and money the most are - WIND!!! COME ON PEOPLE THERE’S A HURRICANE COMING AND TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE IS UNAMERICAN!!! PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE STORIES BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!! THIS IS THE STORY!! WHAT HAPPENED THEN WAS RICH, THE HOUSE BEGAN TO PITCH, THE KITCHEN TOOK A SLITCH, IT LANDED ON… THE WICKED WITCH!!!! SEE?
Fanny Roborat
39 comments
Ben Stanfield
September 21, 2005 at 1:52 pm
1Adam, I’m disgusted. This is a time when we should be coming together as Americans. Let’s have another national day of prayer and forget all about the overlooked news.
Harold
September 21, 2005 at 2:08 pm
2I only know about the Davis-Bacon thingie because Jon Stewart mentioned it on The Daily Show a few days ago. Then I heard it on Morning Edition - yesterday, I think. Now I hear about it from you. I guess you need to be listening to the right news outlets.
melina
September 21, 2005 at 2:16 pm
3were it not for fanatical apathy, i know i wouldn’t have known about:
a) HURRICANE RITA (lovely Rita…)
b) that little thing called the Davis-Bacon not applying to peeps who need it most $$$-wise. seriously…had no idea.
why do i even link to CNN anymore when it’s all here? IDK…
Mr_Blog
September 21, 2005 at 2:35 pm
4I don’t want to get into finger-pointer blame-gaming, but a TV weatherman (heh) in Idaho (chuckle) has PROOF (!!!) that Katrina was caused by ex-Soviet weapons of Dr. Evil scale!
http://www.weatherwars.info/katrina.htm
Maybe fellow-Idahoan Mark Fuhrman will claim the weapons are controlled by O.J.
Turd Blossom
September 21, 2005 at 3:32 pm
5Wow, that Soviet conspiracy theory link is wonderful! Plus, I think I see the image of the Virgin Mary in some of those sattelite photos. Or perhaps it is The Lobster.
Jeb
September 21, 2005 at 3:37 pm
6If you haven’t hunkered down by now, you’re SOL.
Mr_Blog
September 21, 2005 at 3:40 pm
7I see Sam Eagle
http://www.weatherwars.info/images/Aug05/visEAST08-30_05_1445.jpg
and Rove!
http://www.weatherwars.info/images/Aug05/sat_HURR_KatAug28_2315.jpg
Bob
September 21, 2005 at 5:36 pm
8The Weather Wars site is impressive. If you haven’t seen it, the writer not only predicts that there will be a big earthquake in the US before the end of the year, but that it most likely will occur in the western United States. News flash, citizens of Iowa: no earthquake for you.
I’m sure that if there is no earthquake, the writer will feel compelled to take down the site. Ha, ha! Kidding! He’ll keep making the same prediction until it happens, then declare victory. Because that’s what passes for scientific thinking in the good ol’ US of A these days.
Mojo
September 21, 2005 at 6:49 pm
9When the current administration starts trying to put attention onto their response to natural disasters, you know things have really gone in the toilet.
Pete IVDL
September 21, 2005 at 8:38 pm
10Yeah Mojo. The nice FEMA lady said on the radio that there were 45 trucks of water, 45 trucks of ice, and 9 trucks of MREs staged, with medical staff on standby for Rita the Texas eater. Which brings me to my comments:
heh heh) somewhere will wonder out loud why FEMA didn’t get ready this way for New Orleans, where the affected were mostly black.
- I’m sure someone with an axe to grind (sorry Cooper, that’s an “ax”
- I think the nice lady will be disappointed to find she now has 90 trucks of water. Maybe they started with 90 trucks of ice, but decided to hold a press conference when half had melted?
- I wonder if the MREs have been shipped from Iraq? Maybe the remaining National Guardsmen (stuck in a sandy, dry desert thousands of miles away from where they should be) wanted to help?
- Maybe the MREs are all the infamous “Five Fingers of Death” that the contractor is too scared to send to Iraq?
- Or perhaps a Halliburton subsidiary has contracted with Georgie Porgie’s alumni buddies to make a few more bucks on the side?
The repealing of the Davis-Bacon act is nothing short of disgusting sleight of hand by Georgie (actually, I’m now convinced that Bush is just too genuinely stupid to think of something like this himself. On the other hand, I can sadly see the pale, sweaty, frat-ring encrusted fingers of Cheney in this. If it was a movie, Cheney would be the fat guy who gets into the jeep in the pouring rain in the Dinosaur park, but we can’t hope for anything so satisfying as that here). The vast, non-thinking majority of voters will surely see this only in terms of the White House’s spin announcement, so they’ll just be amazed at how the Republican party can be so focused on helping the poor folks in Lousiana that laws are changed to get things done The American Way.
BTW, my doctor recommends that I no longer listen to the American news services, as my blood pressure is a bi… *BANG*
Harold
September 21, 2005 at 9:47 pm
11I think Karl Rove is actively manipulating the weather, and will continue to do so until everyone forgets why they were so mad at him in the first place. Realistically, he could only count on Cindy Sheehan to distract attention from him for so long.
dee
September 21, 2005 at 10:28 pm
12Oh for pity’s sake. Everyone knows the weather’s been messed up ever since we started those moonshots in the 60’s.
Bob
September 21, 2005 at 10:31 pm
13So if we go to the moon again, does it like, all cancel out? Because that would be cool.
Landis
September 22, 2005 at 2:06 am
14If you want something else to distract you from the real news: I’m getting MARRIED tomorrow!!! Yikes! I’ll be heading down to New Zealand for my honeymoon for two weeks and I’ll miss reading all of you every day (or several times a day). I just wanted to share. (http://www.KatAndLandis.com for a picture of the couple).
Keep up the great commenting, I look forward to catching up with the real news when I return.
cooper
September 22, 2005 at 7:08 am
15Pete, good boy. Now today’s assignment is to work on the superfluous “u” that the marauding and rapacious British Empire has burdened you with - colo(u)r, humo(u)r, etc.
Landis, charming couple, best of luck! Enjoy New Zealand - steer clear of Melbo(u)rne,OZ. We’re all working on the Americanization of Pete - see above - and he shouldn’t be disturbed.
Mary
September 22, 2005 at 9:33 am
16Landis,
You and your lady make a very lovely couple. May Lobster grant you many years together.
Mabruke ya saeedi- as they say in Basra
Pete,
You need to work on those deep breathing exercises, and repeat after me- It is only a dream. It is only a dream. If that doesn’t work, apply copious amounts of alcohol.
Ken... Just Ken
September 22, 2005 at 11:51 am
17And now we hear that Bush is planning to give the Military the Authority to act in Domestic “Emergencies”.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-17-katrina-military_x.htm
But it’s OK. I can’t see them abusing that Authority… What could possibly go wrong?
Harold
September 22, 2005 at 1:55 pm
18So if Septmber 11 had happened on President Gore’s watch, do you think the Republicans in Congress would have treted him differently than they have Bush? And would President Kerry be in a position to call for an abolition of Posse Comitatus if he had dealt with Katrina as incompetently as the Bush administration did? Hell, both of them would have been impeached and imprisoned nine months after having taken the Oath of Office.
Pete IVDL
September 22, 2005 at 5:57 pm
19Landis (and Katherine), may all your dreams come true but one.
If you don’t enjoy NZ, or get bored there (neither of which is remotely likely), drop in. We’re in the big island thingy to the west.
BTW, nice line drawing. Yours?
Hot Tub Tommy
September 22, 2005 at 6:18 pm
20Hey, blogs, it’s me, W. That’s right, POTUS, in the flesh. Heh, heh! I gave the slip to my secret service minders and I’m hiding in Delay’s back office. Heh, heh! Bug Boy is gonna have a stroke, when he finds out I’ve been using his computer again! The last time I used it, he shorted out the keyboard, hosing it down with all that Lysol - what a germaphobe - a certified East Texas wussy, as we say in Crawford! I nicknamed him “Bug Boy” because he used to run a pest control company in Houston, back before he started really making the big bucks in politics. Didn’t know that, didya?
Anyway, boys and girls, I want you to know that I’m right on top of this Rita the Hurricane thing. A lot of peeps thought I didn’t do such a great job taking care of the Gulf folks after that last storm. Of course, if they had been golf folks, well, that would have been a different story. Hyuck, yuck, yuck!
Oh oh, Centurian One just busted into the front office, so I gotta run to my other hiding place! Hee, hee! W
Lily
September 22, 2005 at 8:02 pm
21Might we have to pull out of Iraq when Halliburton gets stretched to the limit?
Lily
cooper
September 22, 2005 at 9:24 pm
22Lilly, well that would do it, for sure!
hedera
September 22, 2005 at 9:55 pm
23Pete’s image of Cheney’s “pale, sweaty, frat-ring encrusted fingers” has given me a brilliant idea. In the spirit of rotisserie baseball, how about a movie about all this (except no one would believe it), with - are you ready? - Sidney Greenstreet playing Cheney! Is it perfect or what? Remember the sequence in one of the Bogart movies, I forget which but not the Falcon, where Greenstreet plays an Anglo who is oh-so-Japanese until the time comes when he’s supposed to commit seppuku because he blew it big-time, and he can’t do it? He begs Bogie to shoot him. Bogie walks away.
Trouble is I can’t think what the plot could be, or who Bogie could play (there’s nobody in this crap game that Bogie would want to play), but maybe we could get Bonzo out of retirement to play Dubya…
Landis and Kat, best wishes, and may all your troubles be Little Ones. You’ll love New Zealand.
Murray
September 22, 2005 at 10:32 pm
24Landis old buddy, congrats. Just don’t bring that knife along on the flight.
Adam, you are a bit behind the curve here. The NY Times had an editorial on this last week. Of course the Republicans want to pay for helping the poor by taxing the poor.
Just take the gathering of Republicans at the capital yesterday to talk about where the budget should be cut to pay for Iraq (200,000,000,000 and counting), Katrina, (200,000,000,000 and counting), and now Rita (?). The answers were
1. Earned Income tax credits -given to the poor.
2. Public Broadcasting and NPR
3. National Endowments for the arts.
4. EPA
Of course taxing the obscenely wealthy was off the table.
Even when the Republicans HAVE to help the poor, they do it only by screwing them first.
Mr_Blog
September 23, 2005 at 7:13 pm
25Oh shoot! Scott Stevens has quit his job to spend more time with Art Bell:
================
Idaho weatherman quits, says he wants to pursue hurricane theory
The Associated Press
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – A Pocatello weatherman who gained attention for an unusual theory that Hurricane Katrina was caused by the Japanese mafia using a Russian electromagnetic generator has quit the television station.
Scott Stevens’ last appearance on KPVI-TV was Thursday.
His departure comes after station officials learned a link labeled “Make a Donation” on Stevens’ Web site, www.weatherwars.info, where he expounds on his theory, opened a payment form connected to Stevens’ KPVI e-mail address.
Still, station manager Bill Fouch, who’d told Stevens he should keep his views separate from his TV role, insisted his former employee wasn’t forced out.
“Scott advised me several months ago that he wouldn’t renew his contract so he could devote full time to this,” Fouch said. “He wants to get right at it.”
Stevens believes a little-known oversight in physical laws makes it possible to create and control storms using a Cold War-era weapon allegedly made by the Russians in 1976. The nine-year KPVI weatherman said he’s received 120,000 hits on his Web site in two days, now gets about 100 e-mails a day and has 15 radio bookings in the next five days.
“I needed more time to do everything that’s been put in front of me,” said Stevens, 39. “I have not been able to dedicate the 40 hours a week to this place.”
Earlier this week, scientists told the Idaho Falls Post Register the theory was bogus.
“It’s laughable to think it (Hurricane Katrina) could have been manmade,” said Rob Young, a hurricane expert at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C.
hedera
September 24, 2005 at 12:00 am
26All right, after all these references, I went to the weatherwars site and read his introductory section. I’m sorry; this isn’t a brilliant insight into a previously unrecognized threat. This is bologna. High-grade, all beef, thinly sliced bologna, on wry.
The best meteorologists in the world are just beginning to understand hurricanes, and this guy and his source of inspiration think a bunch of thugs with an Evil Machine (made by Russians, too!) can control them??
I’ve mentioned this before: there’s this theory out there that if the scientific community considers you a nut, you must actually be an undiscovered genius. After all, didn’t they laugh at Galileo? Well, actually, no, they didn’t laugh at Galileo. He was deeply respected by the scientific community of his day (but boy, did he piss off the Catholic Church!).
Frankly, if the scientific community considers you a nut, the odds are pretty good that you are exactly that. Sorry, Mr. Stevens. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful career on the lecture circuit. Just don’t call yourself a scientist.
Pete IVDL
September 24, 2005 at 6:27 pm
27Hedera, I wouldn’t go so far as to say “high grade” bologna… Geez, if the writing style was any worse, it would be FULL of !!!!s and underlined important THINGS!!!. This we know. Know it we do. Thus are the colloquial phases of incompetent misunderstandings known in scientific circles as “pure, unadulterated bullshit.”.
I was looking for the ads for miracle ionized (ah, there’s that zed key) washing devices, or Fake Moon Landing links. Pseudoscience is a scary, scary weapon in the hands of people like that loon; kinda like seeing a toddler playing in a room full of loaded guns. I’ve got to start my own blog so I can teach people how to write, spell, punctuate, think…
hedera
September 24, 2005 at 6:57 pm
28Ok, Pete, cheap bologna. And I’m afraid that if people like Scott Stevens have reached the point of posting their opinions on the web and (worse!) accepting speaking engagements, it’s almost certainly too late to teach them to write, spell, and punctuate, and it’s definitely too late to teach them how to think…
Bob
September 25, 2005 at 2:37 pm
29But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. - Carl Sagan
Murray
September 25, 2005 at 6:54 pm
30Hedera, I’m with Pete, this isn’t high grade bologna, it’s bologna that’s been left out too long, slimy as hell. You’ve got to use tongs to pick up this shit.
Crack pots are one thing, but what sane institution would pay to have a crack pot come lecture to them?
hedera
September 25, 2005 at 8:56 pm
31Bob, thanks! I knew I’d seen that somewhere and couldn’t remember where - figures that it was Sagan.
Mr_Blog
September 27, 2005 at 12:44 pm
32“My bologna has a first name, it’s S-C-O-T-T”
Jamie
September 27, 2005 at 9:02 pm
33Ben Stanfield is the Ultimate Troll. He posts everywhere about everything.
karin
September 30, 2005 at 8:30 pm
34Re: Ben Stanfield. I pay the pension and health benefits for the Federal Trolls who spend their ‘work’ days posting to MacSlash. Way to go Ben Stanfield.
Sherry
October 1, 2005 at 7:10 pm
35Ben Stanfield? Talk about Gen Y beach rats who surf for garbage to post on blogs. Duh. “If I weren’t so wiped out I would post something to your blog that made sense.” Duh.
Jeremy
October 10, 2005 at 6:15 pm
36Ben Stanfield: Take a look at AOL’s TOS. What are you bitchin’ about? Unlike MacSlash, AOL is upfront and open. Unlike Ben Stanfield, AOL doesn’t have a political agenda.
Joe I-Pod
October 12, 2005 at 9:07 pm
37Ben Stanfield is a Professor of Ancient History insofar as Apple is concerned.
Susan
October 15, 2005 at 8:06 pm
38I too slave away for a corporation that is always trying to get more work out of employees for less money while Federal Workers have great salaries and benefits. What is especially discouraging are the Federal Trolls who spend their time at work McSlashing the corporations and their employees that pay the salaries and benefits to the same bunch of Federal on-the-job Troll retirees who spend their “work” days trolling.
//delete macslash
October 21, 2005 at 10:33 pm
39//delete macslash apple.ancient.history