The Bush/Schwarzenegger Call

(Sorry, that should have been “OML”… Slip of the claw…)

This is just too damned delicious for words, but you still found a way, Adam. Might be more like Jim Jones Koolaid at this point.

But these two phonies deserve each other, whether the Clueless Celeb realizes it or not. Really fascinating that the whole caca-brained California Republican Machine has turned on Bush.
How ignominiously the Bullhorn Superman has fallen. Where the hell is that other ersatz hero Giuliani when poor, beleagured Georgie Boy needs him.

May they all wind up in the same cirle of Dante’s Inferno so they can keep each other company.

Very, very good! You nailed them both!

Okay, I’m just back from the third reading…brilliantly funny!

I can still remember some of my friends urging me to vote for das Schwartzenfuher during the 2003 special election, and telling them I’d sooner vote for Larry Flynnt because at least he’s a devil I know. And I remember some of my friends urging me to vote for Bush because he “knows what he’s doing” after 9-11. It’s nice to know that people can occasionally learn. Albeit, only after everything’s all fucked-up.

tess,
“It’s nice to know that people can occasionally learn.” I wouldn’t include George Bush with that group of learners. His backers often attribute his actions to his stubborn streak. He latches onto an thought and, no matter where it drags him, through brick walls, briar patches, third world open sewers, or whatever cartoon slapstick situation you may conceive, he never releases his bulldog-like grip. Some people actually admire him for that.

A hopefully illustrative analogy involving auto racing, since I was raised in the South.
Formula One = Mental abilities of the vast majority of freely elected leaders: Agile, can freely change direction when necessary; able to nimbly slow down, maneuver, and get back up to speed as required; can make crucial changes within the cockpit of the vehicle, based on his (her) experience that positively affects outcome; and relies heavily on a large team of conceptualizers, designers, technogeeks and hands-on workers for preparation and support.

Drag Racing = George W. Bush: straight ahead as fast as you can; finesse - an unnecessary waste of effort; only brute power is required.

Hey, I never said what people learned from this. Just that they learned something. Or forget that that they fucked up, or that what they did was fucked up.

BTW, Thompson, looks like you was right. Tropical Depression Alpha is a-stewin’ and a-brewin’. If Lobster has any sense of humour, this one’ll have Bush’s “career” written all over it…

Murray, Demolition Derby, of course! Good analogy.

The scary thing about Adam’s latest is that it actually makes Der Gropenfuhrer look like he knows what he’s doing, by contrast; a concept many of us here in California find hard to swallow. Of course, since Ahnold drives a modified APC (Hummer to you), any race he’s in becomes a demolition derby by default.

The California Republicans hate Ahnold because he’s more interested in winning elections than in standing on principle. I don’t know what it is about this state the makes people at both ends of the political spectrum more interested in standing on the burning deck and going nobly down in flames than in negotiating some compromise that would get people into the lifeboats….

Anyone want to start a pool on how many more hurricanes we’ll get before things settle down to mere winter storms??

hedera,

Are you staring the count with or without “alpha” (assuming it becomes something more than a depression)?

It’s pretty late in the season but either way (re:alpha), I’ll string along bri and say two. I’ll go one further and say that one of them will be the another badass.

Well, how ’bout picking both the number of hurricanes and their names? I have a funny feeling “beta” won’t be the one after “Alpha”. Too many bad connotations… And I don’t think “Betty” will be a popular choice - you know, “Black Betty, bam-a-lam, woo-ooo”.
I reckon two, too : Buffy and Charlize.

Chapter 4

Marilyn’s Diary

1/1/05 Dear Diary, I know I haven’t written for quite a while. My New Year’s resolution is to write more often.

2/15/05 Dear Diary, I have never been so mad!!! Dan sent me another toaster for Valentine’s Day, plus a membership to the Dutch Chocolate of the Month Club! Doesn’t he remember I’m going to announce for the Governor of Arizona in several weeks? My youthful complexion cannot be fed chocolate. Plus, he knows that chocolate gives my not so youthful “constitution” a dreadful case of the wind. On top of that, Dan made no effort to come up to see me here in our new Colorado house. He claims that another last minute golf game with the boys from Bechtel, required him to stay in Phoenix for another two weeks, maybe three. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’s jealous that I’m jumping into politics after his painful stab at it. I’m so sorry, Diary, I really must watch this temper of mine.

3/2/05 Dear Diary, Good thing Dan is down in Phoenix. I’ve been a bad girl; I’ve been eating my chocolate, with the predictable results. Oh, excuse me! That was embarassing, and loud! Anyway, things are really hopping now. My friend, Penelope, has a friend, who has a friend, whose mother-in-law’s first cousin ran the successful political campaign of a member city council in Flagstaff. He’s agreed help in my campaign for Governor! He just wants in on one of Dan’s “golf games” (his quotes). I’m sure Dan will say “yes”, so I guess I’m running for Governor of the great state of Arizona! Of course, I’ll have to close the house here in Colorado and move back to Phoenix. Dan says that’s great! However, he says he has to be in Washington for the next month, something about a series of “arm twisting and breaking knee-cap” meetings with various Congressmen and “Congressladies”, (I think that’s the new “lingo”). Oh, that Dan is such a cut-up!!

3/11/05 Dear Diary, things couldn’t be better! I met with the political consultants and they had a lot of good ideas about how I should present myself to the voters of Arizona. However, some of the ideas weren’t so great, if you ask me. THEY TOOK AWAY MY FLIP!! I have a much shorter hair-do these days and they added streaks of highlight and took a bunch of publicity and campaign photos. I e-mailed them to Dan to get his opinion about which to use. Well, I thought he’d get back to me in a couple of days with his thoughts, but instead, he flew back that afternoon. I don’t know what got into him, but I know what got into me! Hee, Hee! I missed all my meetings that evening. He was an animal, a lot like that sinful passage that Nancy and I came up with for “Embrace the Serpent”, where Ernesto and Allejandro corner the spinster sister romance novelists, tie them up and have their way with the up-to-that-point virtuous women of words. The next morning, Dan had to catch a plane back to Washington – another golf game with the boys.

4/30/05 Dear Diary, it looks like the Red Sea is parting! All these Republican men are backing out of the race for Governor! Even that convicted felon, J. Fife Symington has dropped from the race. He told The Arizona Republic: “I think Marilyn Quayle would be a perfect nemesis to Napolitano.” I guess he’s right, since that’s who they tell me I’m running against – Janet Napolitano – I think is her name. Dan keeps saying we should hold off printing the posters and literature for the time being. I wish he’d finish that work in Washington. I really would like some more of that Allejandro impersonation he does so well – (blush!)

5/1/05 Dear Diary, still no Dan. He says he’ll be home soon. There’s beginning to be a wave of support for my candidacy. I saw one of the late night news interviews with people on the street last night and one said “I think it’s excellent that two women would be vying for the highest state office in Arizona. Even if Marilyn’s husband is kind of a putz.” I’m going to look up the word “putz” when I get a chance. My friend Penelope thinks it might mean virile.

5/30/05 Dear Diary, I am crushed! Dan says I’ve got to withdraw from the race for Governor. He says my place is in the home and I should obey my husband as I promised I would in my wedding vows, oh so many years ago. He says maybe next time. I bit my tongue, as any good wife should, but I’m growing my “flip” back as I write this, as a show of protest and he’ll have to be a smoother talker than even Ernesto to get back in my good graces…

Hey Cooper, you can always post as an author at the weaselden.

Thanks for the good laugh. Great stuff.

Hedera, what about going with named tropical depressions? In that case I’d be willing to make the long wager on Zeta (ζ).

If you’re going to go for hurricanes only (Cat 1/winds of ≥ 64kts) I’d say one more after Wilma (and I doubt it will be Mr. α who is already on his way out).

hedera, sadly, yes, or at least contemplated and briefly hyped. See for your self - http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0417polinsider 17.html

Wow, Coop, you speak Strine real well! Goodonya, cobberdiggerpalbuddymate!
And I guess that’s “Moon” as in “M-O-O-N, that spells Moon Pie”, huh? (Yeah, that’s one of “our” favo(u)rites… That, and the Green Mile) (sorry, way OT)

Hedera, since the system gets a name as soon as it gets depressed, er, becomes a tropical depression (one of the two), the only way to bet on how far the names will go is to include tropical depressions (such as the almost dead α). I was hoping for setting a new record by far and going through α (alpha), β (beta), γ (gamma), ε (epsilon), and &zeta (zeta). With α on its way out, nothing but weak waves out in the Atlantic, and dry and cooler temperatures over the hurricane centers I doubt we’ll see much more at all. One more hurricane is probably out of the question and we’ll probably not even get to β.

It’s not that I like destruction, I just really like weather. The good news for me is that I’m likely to get much more of a show in coming years.

Oh, and the greek letters are html entities. Put an & followed by the greek name (alpha) and then a semi-colon (;) and you’ll get the greek letter you want in almost any web page (α becomes α)

Landis, I hate to be picky, but you forgot δ (delta) after gamma. Thanks for the instructions on getting the Greek letters to appear. You can learn the neatest things on this blog! I’m betting on one more hurricane, Hedera. But I hope I’m wrong. My mom lives in Florida.

I’m betting on Beta. The Gales of November will be about more than just the storm in that song.

And the weather-related traumas of the past year-and-a-half are just the warm-up act.

Meanwhile, here’s hoping Fitzgerald serves up multiple entrees of White House mountain oysters.

Yes, beta’s forming up - and there are 3 more little incipient “tropical waves” trailing behind it! Landis, you may have been closer than we thought with your bet on ζ! If all three of these develop, we’ll be up to epsilon ε… (And on top of the HTML, I’m learning to count in Greek, just think.)

I’d post the link to the satellite map but I think you have to be running FireFox and ForecastFox to see it… Check your favorite Hurricane Center for details.

Landis, isn’t it fun escaping HTML escapes within HTML? I think it’s infinitely regressing : “&” means “&”, but to show it takes “&”, and to show that takes “&amp”, and so on ad infinitum.

Just a brief note to tidy this whole OT hurricane discussion up. Since the 2005 hurricane season is officially over as of today I think we can give a tally (even though one tropical storm is still spinning out there). We made it to Tropical Storm Epsilon (ε). So on my little scale we’ve not got:

α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ

We didn’t quite make it to Zeta (ζ).

A great summary of the season is located at the NWS Hurricane Center website.

In terms of the little pool we had going, there was officially one more hurricane after Wilma: Beta (β), and there were 5 named storms (shorting my wild-ass prediction of 6 by only 1).

ZeTA! ZeTA! ZeTA!

Not quite a hurricane yet, but looks promising. And we did officially make it to ζ!