Three New Things

Swine Flu! How retro!

…not that I’m saying this is a retrovirus, that would be really, REALLY bad (as opposed to being really, really bad).

Good point, data boy. I mean, didn’t we do this already about 90 years ago and wound up losing more dough boys to the Spanish Flu than the German military machine? I certainly hope our new wonder drugs are up to the task. Apparently Tamiflu is proving helpful.

As for Christian Finnegan, the boy’s career is definitely on the upswing. He’s been getting more and more face time on Countdown lately. Good for him!

Cardinal Luigi insisted and Anselmo backed him up, so I named 5 more dearly departed souls to sainthood (4 Italian, 1 Portuguese) this week and immediately His Eminence Archbishop Emeritus Bernard F. Law called dibs on the souvenir concessions. I said OK, but Father Guido will be in charge of counting out the till each evening. Lord knows we can certainly use the extra cash around here and there’s nothing like new Italian saints to get the faithful coughing up squirreled away euros for shameless religious gewgaws.

A blind man walks into a bar with his seeing-eye dog. He stands in the center of the bar, takes the dog by the chain, and starts swinging him above his head.

Everyone gasps. Upset about the way the animal is being treated, a patron runs up to the blind man and demands, “What the hell are you doing?”

The blind man turns toward the patron and says, “Oh, nothing. I’m just looking around.” (tish!!)

Well David, I would suspect there is at least one charge for rendering his services. That is, unless he’s able to sneak up on his patients.

I was in the back giggling, Jerry.
You were in Minne-so-wet-ta, where it’s gone beyond raining cats and dogs to “when pigs fly”.

These emails are killing me here. I apologized already, I made a donation of $250 to our local Humane Society online last night and still the death threats are coming hot and heavy. “Pete from Peta” how about a little love here. You are after all “people for the ethical treatment of animals”. I’m an animal (after a fashion), so stop suggesting that I do things to myself which are anatomically impossible and rightly should be done only by a licensed proctologist. You’re sick, Pete! Really, really sick!

By the way, do you know the definition of a proctologist? He’s a brain surgeon for lawyers. (Ba-dum!!!!)

aka juice harp, Jerry, I think because that’s what the word sounded like to the folk who passed the name down down here on the edge…

Jim, you’re right, of course, but it is one free-wheeling charge. Pit bulls, by the way, are actually supposed to be catch dogs for hog hunters down our way, not child maulers, and they can catch smaller boars. Sometimes, however, the dogs don’t come back. I really have seen a loping wild hog in the Ocala Forest that made me say Holy shit, and my uncle had a 300+ pound brood sow. This boar was bigger, but without any fat.

I never ran catch dogs, so no Jerry-mail. I considered it cruel (at least after I passed adolescence, and it wasn’t a possibility in my teens). We did once catch a wild piglet at the edge of an open field in the Appalachicola National Forest west of Tallahasse with sufficient vision to see mama coming if she heard the piglet squealing, which piglet we released pretty quickly and went back to drinking our Dos Equis.

Love wild Florida, love wild hogs…and beer, and GRITS (Girls Raised in the South). But I gotta say there’s a Jersey Girl I will never forget.

Off topic, but you sometimes have to wonder if politicians really think we aren’t paying attention. Case in point: the following is a quote from Mitch McConnell the Republican leader in the Senate about Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democratic party. After calling the change “a threat to the country” he followed up with “…whether or not…our people want the majority party to have whatever it wants, without restraint, without a check or balance.” Wait … what? Wasn’t this the party that thought the majority getting it wants without checks and balances was just dandy not too long ago? Wasn’t this the party talking about “permanent majority” status not too long ago? Just like filibusters are the new black now that Republicans are in the minority when a few short years ago filibusters where to be banned completely. I really wish Bill Frist were still in the Senate, I would love to hear him explain this.

Cheers,
Jay

Just Jay, I heard some GOP functionary this morning on “Talk of the Nation,” complaining that he’s afraid people are starting to view the Republican party as a “regional Southern party dominated by conservative white males.” Could this be because the GOP now is a regional Southern party dominated by conservative white males??

And in California it’s worse - California Repubs make the main Southern wing of the party look almost reasonable. The only reason Meg Whitman has any crack at the governorship is that she can pay her own way.

The people’s flag is deepest red.
It’s shrouded oft’ our martyred dead.
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, their heart’s blood dyed its every fold.
So raise the scarlet standard high; within its shade we’ll live and die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we’ll keep the red flag flying here.
HAPPY MAYDAY FANAP!
(That’s not Marxism or MarxoLeninObamaism [I wish]. The Red Flag started out as the anthem of the British Labour Party.)
I’ll be humming this all day.

And the party of white Southern females like Virginia Foxx. As Charles Barkley said, he left the Republican Party because it had lost its mind.

dee,
My sincerest sympathies. I was represented by Tom Feeney, the Tom Delay wannabee, but I am now represented by a Democrat, Suzanne Kosmas. God love white Southern women who are Democrats (including my sweetie).

Hedra, we do have some pigheaded H1N1-headed Republicans in our state, don’t we? We do, however, have a few moderates; the Govinator for one. His party so vilifies him that I would not be surprised to see the Specter of change here, as well.

These last two weeks have been the worst of my life, well except for our failed revolution down in Honduras, and that time I had to fly coast to coast on the McCain Campaign plane seated next to Douglas Holtz-Eakin (such a weenie!), and of course, all those typos I made in the final draft of the Dayton Accord (how embarrassing that was, but really, who could spell all those names anyway - Slobodan Milošević, Franjo Tuđman, and Alija Izetbegović, “Mo” Sacirbey - just go ahead and try it yourself sometime. In hindsight, I guess I shouldn’t have said I was fluent in all Serbo/Croatian dialects, but I was young and idealistic in those days and I just wanted to be there when history was being made, oh and that crack about “Old Europe” I slipped into one of Rumsfelt’s speeches - that was a bad day, maybe the worst (honest to God, I thought he read over the speeches before he gave them in front of the global press. It was a joke - I was sure he’d get a chuckle out of it and then he’d just mark it out and go on. He wasn’t laughing backstage afterwards.)

But I digress. These last two weeks have been the worst of my life. About a month ago, while waiting around to be declared a bank (why is this taking so long?), I had an opportunity to jet down to Cancun for a few days, so I went along - mostly out of boredom, I guess. Well one thing led to another, and before you know it, I had clearance to the Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory at the University of Mexico in Mexico City (don’t ask). I had distracted my minder for a moment and while his back was turned, I rifled quickly through some interesting looking vials in the liquid nitrogen freezer. I palmed two of them, slipped them into the pocket of my lab coat and we finished our tour. On the bus ride back to Cancun, we were stopped at a road block by a squad of Federalies. They were all in a bad humor, because they had been ordered to set up right next to a huge, fetid and wreaking hog farm. Before exiting the bus with my hands up, I dropped the two vials and a baggie of suspicious white powder out my window. I don’t know how the cops could stand to be for there any length of time at all - my eyes were watering 2 seconds after I stepped off the bus. When they finished roughing me up, patting me down, and taking my bribe, I sidled over to pick up my stash. The vials had broken and were leaking onto the dusty road. The wind began gusting and blew sand and the contents of the vial all over me, the other passengers and the policemen. They shoved us back onto the bus and we finished the ride back to the resort. I was more bummed on by the loss of my baggie than the two vials that broke. I really don’t know what use I could have gotten out of the contents anyway - H1N1 Puerco Influenza, whatever that is. After a few days, I got really sick, as did some of the other people on that bus. I just wanted to get on a plane and get back to DC and into my own bed. I was coughing quite a bit on the flight home, but the flight attendants were wonderful and brought me some blankets and hot tea with honey. I’m starting to feel human again. I wonder if Gidget and Trixie have made any progress with my bank application to the Treasury Dept…..

The pope and a lawyer are ascending to heaven. When they arrive at the gates, there’s a mad rush of angels, saints, and other holy people on their way to greet them. The crowd picks the lawyer up on their shoulders and carry him off cheering hysterically. The pope is deeply despondent.

St. Peter sees this and tells the Pope, “Don’t feel bad. We get popes in here all the time, we hardly ever get a lawyer.” (rimshot!)

Okay, how about this one?

On a golf tour in Newfoundland, Tiger Woods drives his new Buick into a gas station in a remote outpost. The pump attendant, obviously knows nothing about golf, greets him in a typical Newfie manner completely unaware of who he’s talking to.

“How’s she cuttin’ bye” says the attendant.

Tiger nods a quick “Hello” and bends forward to pick up the nozzle. As he does so, two tees fall out of his shirt pocket onto the ground.

“What are dose?” asks the attendant.

“They’re called tees” replies Tiger.

“Well, what on god’s earth are dey for?” inquires the attendant.

“They’re for resting my balls on when I’m driving”, says Tiger.

“Lard tunderin Jaysus”, says the Newfoundlander, “Buick tinks of
everyting!”

Jimmy told me that one. You should hear him tell it in his Newfie brogue. He has hundreds of those Canadian jokes. That boy keeps surprising me.

In Ireland, a wardrobe malfunction is known as a “braugh go erin’”.

This looks like fun. Let me try.

A North Carolina man and an Alabama man were both fighting in a war and were captured by the enemy.
“Before we put you to death,” said the enemy, “do you have any last requests?”
“Yes,” said the Alabaman. “Could you play ‘Yeah, Alabama’ before you shoot me?”
“Sure, we can do that” said the enemy. “How about you, Mr. Tar Heel?”
“Could you shoot me before you play ‘Yeah, Alabama?’” (rimshot!!)

Giggles all around, but Gillian that was masterful.

Where is Sparky with his hook when you really need him?

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/05/05/tomo/index.html

A neutron walked into a bar and asked, “How much for a drink?” The bartender replied, “For you, no charge.”

That last item is a great example of maybe taking “networking” just a little tooooo far….

In the interest of keeping the creativity flowing over time, we should periodically table the house rules.

House rules? Since when did we need any stinking house rules?
Granted, the house rules, and Adam is the absentee landlord, but I don’t remember no stinking house rules. I also don’t seem to remember the last time Adam threw a scrap of his genuinely teeming wit our way, FA waifs that we are. Please, sir, can we have some prefrontal porridge?

A chicken and egg are lying together in bed. The egg leans back relaxed and lights a cigarette. Irritated, the chicken looks over and says, “Well. I guess we answered THAT question!”

Warning: Serious rant ahead!

The moral and ethical bankruptcy of the conservative Christian right wing is currently on full display here in Washington. A couple of weeks ago when the legislature passed a budget that cut off health care for 40,000 of the weakest and most vulnerable citizens to avoid raising taxes, not a voice was raised in protest. Then when a bill passed granting some extended legal rights to same sex couples, the initative to overturn it was in the works before the bill was even signed into law. Now I’m not a theologian, and I don’t even play one on TV, but if my understanding of Christ’s message is anywhere near correct, I think this is exactly backwards of what he would preach if he were here today. I guess that means that greed is a higher family value than caring for the least among us, and that hate is a family value if people love differently.

I weep for my state.

Jay

On the other hand, if Kurt Vonnegut came back to life I would probably have to convert to something.

Just Jay, I’m not surprised. The extremist arm of the religious right believes that “God will provide except if those pesky homosexuals get equal treatment under the law.”

The rational mind boggles.

I wonder if any of the women here can help me with a situation. I should confess right off; I have a crush on Flora Litchman’s voice. I have no idea what she looks like, but I heard her again today on Sci-Fri. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine her lovely alabaster skin, her thick mane of dark hair, her dainty, slightly soiled, beige cashmere sweater with the tattered elbows, her cat’s eye glasses - alluringly held together with adhesive taped, her pocket protector.

What I need to know is this - how can I meet her? Sci-Fri comes out of New York City. Dale, you live up there now. I wonder if you know her and can put in a good word for me. Come on, New York City can’t be that big. There’s a pound of gummy bears in it for you. Let me know - anytime.

Chadwyke

Yeah, Dale, I know what you mean. Web video cams are problematic for the same reason. I don’t have one, myself, and that’s your good fortune.

Looks like my joke wound up in the moderation queue. I rephrased it and sent it through a second time. Busted again. Oh well. Enjoy the joke, Fanny. It’s a good one, don’t you think?

A blind guy on a bar stool shouts to the bartender, “Hey! Wanna hear a really good blond joke?” The bar immediately goes quiet. In a hushed voice, the guy next to him says, “Before you tell that joke, you should know something.”

“The bartender is blond, the bouncer is blond, and I’m a 6′ tall, 200 pound blond with a black belt in karate. What’s more, the guy sitting next to me is 6′2,” weighs 225 pounds, and he’s a blond weight lifter.” He continues, “The fella to your right is blond, 6′5″, pushing 300 pounds, and he’s a wrestler. Think about it seriously, Mister. You still wanna tell that joke?”

The blind guy says, “Nah! You right. Not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times. (tish!!)

File this under Military Intelligence -

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/we-lose-yet-another-arab-lingui st-bec

Good jokes, BTW.

Guido an’ me is runnin’ security fo’ da Pope while he’s in Jordan. We hadda step in front of him on da stage yestuhday, when da people started t’rowin’ spoiled food at him. Seems da Pope made a few enemies in dis neighborhood lately. I know how dat can be.

Anyways, dey wuz t’rowin’ rotten tomatoes an’ 3 week ol’ humus an’ - now get dis - pork skins! I wuz t’inkin’ dat da Jews and da Muslims bot’ don’t eat no pork. Anselmo later said dat da pork skins wuz f’om da Maronites Christians and da Druze - a real cultural insult. Who let dem in anyways?

Anselmo had us round up all da reporters aftuh da event an’ lock dem in uh room at da main palace. He said sumpin’ to dem - I don’t know whot - but dey came outta dat room an’ wrote stories about how much da people loved an’ respected da Pope an’ t’ought he wuz da best. Seems da reporters were all Catholics and Anselmo slipped eacha dem five indulgences ta write a glowin’ report about how da people of Jordan cherish da Pope an’ can’t get enough of him. Guido latuh found Anselmo’s bag ov indulgences an’ we split dem 50-50. Security guys an’ t’ugs need time off in purgatory as much as da next Catholic - prolly more.

Yo Vinnie! 69 is divine!!!! Don’t be such a stranger, ya big lug.

xoxoxo

Cloud cover blocked my view of the launch of Mission Service Hubble today, gol darnit. Glad they are on their way and on this particular mission. Photographs thus far released from Hubble are genuinely awe inspiring. Move over “My God Is Awesome” and make room for “This Thing We Call Creation Is What Is Awesome,” whatever its mysterious genesis.

It’s not enough to steal the golden eggs. They also want to eat the goose.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124217336075913063.html

As badly as our goose is cooked thanks to the private sector greedheads and a federal government that got suckered, and then when red flags did get raised, ignored them, my questions are Who really stole what from us, who is most responsible for the global financial debacle, and when in history has any western government done anything anywhere near as fiscally irresponsible, and in reality utterly criminal? The favorite crime of western governments has been war, and even that at the behest of powerful private sector interests.

When anything significant that is actually good for society as a whole gets done, it is thanks to government intervention. And anyone who has paid any attention at all to history and is intellectually insightful knows that one of the functions of government which is partnered with capitalism is to redistribute wealth if it becomes overconcentrated.

I repeat, great wealth is the global oligarch.

I would gladly dine on AIG if it were a goose.

WF,

The value and flow of money gets hacked, hammered, and generally hurled all over hell’s half acre. What we owe our grandchildren are a clean, sustainable environment, a healthy economy, and a government that really does promote the general welfare. And we need to spend whatever will achieve those goals. As you well know, there is good debt and bad debt, and wise governance and unwise governance. But we cannot function without either credit or governance. And the private sector never brings an economy out of a recession/depression. It capitalizes on whatever trajectory the economy is in to whatever extent a particular business enterprise can, even killing the goose if it sees short-term wealth. Only government thinks in broader and longer terms, when it is a good government. When it is not, it either “gets out of the way” or joins in on the short-term plunder.

Sorry to see you still think Reagan was correct.

I second that, Chris.

Stay on the meds, Dirk. You really don’t want to face your own reality as SecInt. Actually, you don’t really want to face anything.
For $250,000, I’m thinking maybe Vinnie could remodel you, Rummie, and Darth Vader.