Putting the Bye in Hiatus

This is one of those posts I don't want to have to post--I'm headed back to New Jersey for a week as my mom is sick. I don't think I'm ready to be that grown up, thank you fates.

I might get to stop into the blog once or twice, but I'm not sure how things will go and any internets access will be via dial-up. Posting a blog entry on dial-up is the closest I ever want to come to have to give birth.

Just so you know that unpleasantness doesn't dim my dark humor (is that automatically a mixed metaphor?), I briefly thought to myself, "Oh, time on a plane...maybe I can finally get around to reading Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking."

I leave you with the boys in yearning mode, and I'll pretend it means they want to see me and not that they're fascinated to see their mom in a canoe on a pond....

The Un-dogable Lightness of Being

For Dog Blog Friday: Because they're so unbearably cute. Because it's already Friday where I'm headed tomorrow. Because I will miss them lots for a few days.

Just Like Tom's Dumb Blues

At INOTBB we expect our Republican leaders to be corrupt. But do they have to be stupid, too?

Go check out the Tom DeLay defense site (Motto: Give Us Your Money So We Don't Have to Go to Jail for Stealing Your Money). Yes, I'm linking to Tom DeLay's site. Be sure to click on the video at the top of the homepage.

Tom DeLay doesn't know that Stephen Colbert is satirizing a right-wing nut-job. You'd think he might have heard that Colbert tore Bush a new one (the old asshole with extra added asshole incident, you might say) at the Correspondents' Dinner. Then again, if DeLay doesn't read blogs, he wouldn't have heard about it the mainstream press.

Or maybe it's just that DeLay thinks we're all too stupid to know Colbert is a put-on. That is if you're part of the "we" that might give him money in the first-place.

(All kinds of hat tips to Talking Points Memo for the two links.)

(And wouldn't a blog called Talking Pints Memo be fun?)

Blowing More than Smoke

You have to love this one. A guy goes on Fox (strike one) fronting for an organization called the National Center for Policy Analysis that has received over $390,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998 (strike two). And he decides the way to slam Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth is to say the following (a big swing and a miss):

That’s the problem. If I thought Al Gore’s movie was as you like to say, fair and balanced, I’d say, everyone should go see it. But why go see propaganda? You don’t go see Joseph Goebbels’ films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don’t go see Al Gore’s films to see the truth about global warming.

Let's ignore that if there's the slightest hint that anyone on the left calls the right Hitleresque, O'Reilly et al. get their loofah-stuffed tidy-whities all in a bunch. Let's not consider that to be the Nazis, you have to be the people in power, like, say the party that runs all three branches of government or some multi-billion dollar company. We won't even mention that to say propaganda on Fox is like saying Tony Snow is press secretary.

But INOTBB will proudly point out a faulty analogy. What Sterling Burnett is trying to say is Goebbels:Nazi Germany::Gore:global warming. That makes Gore the environment's propagandist? Insert your own Lewis Black triple take here.

You Took My Joy, I Want It Back

Our local paper has been running columns by the Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi and I've been trying to figure out why. Today's was a particular doozy, particularly since it captures a certain mindset of journalists/editorialists (I'll let you decide how thick or thin to imagine that slash). It begins:

THE COUNTRY still has George W. Bush to kick around for 2 1/2 more years. But the thrill is gone. Bush-whacking isn't as much fun as it used to be.

Now, if she started the piece by reversing that first sentence--"Bush has the country to kick around"--she might be telling us something. But are we really supposed to get a thrill out of it? Or is her worry that we won't enjoy hearing about it, so won't read newspapers? Oh, yeah, nobody does read newspapers. Maybe because of lines like this one:

The joyless political left started up in 2000 and shows no signs of letting up.

As a member of the political left, I stand un-bemused. Bush stole an election, thanks to the Supreme Court. Those of us paying attention had a feeling he'd be a disaster. Six years later, we get to be proud, miserable Cassandras and point to a New Orleans still ravaged by Katrina, to an Iraq leveled for its own freedom by the U.S., to a mushrooming deficit (maybe that was the cloud Condi Rice meant way back when?) fueled by the foolish Iraq war. That's just the start.

But it's not enough for Venocchi, who seems to want theater more than real government, and even seems to want to invoke the pity rule.

But the joy of ''I-told-you-so" fades with the realization that Bush looks less like a worthy opponent than a sorry dog, waiting for the next kick.

She seems to forget the old line, "always kick a dead dog, you never know when it might get up and bite you." For if Bush is such a lame duck, how are we still getting an NSA spy/military man to head the CIA? What are we supposed to think when the AG says threatening the press is a good idea? Bush doesn't care what his numbers are, and that's the frightening thing. He's going to do damn well what he wants--no matter what the people, the Constitution, the Democrats (a couple have tried to stand up to him, no? once or twice?), or even Rush Limbaugh, to mention one of the folks Venocchi claims is ragging on Bush now, says.

I'd be more than happy for a columnist to write about that.

For They're a Jolly Oberkfellow

So with a quarter of the baseball season done, The Mets are in first but so are your Oberkfellows! Yep, as of last night my fantasy baseball team pulled 29 points ahead of the squad in second, even on a partial schedule night when I couldn't even field a full team for not enough of my guys were playing. Not that I'm bragging or anything.

Now, there's lots of baseball left, and nothing puts you in first place like shutout outings (not necessarily full shutouts, as that means somebody has to pitch a complete game and this is the 21st century) on Friday, Sunday and Monday, and young pitchers will break your heart, even when their nickname is King and they're not old enough to drink. But I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

And if you want to play along at home, here's the latest roster I have to piece a nightly team out of:

Josh Willingham
Brian McCann
Justin Morneau
Brad Wilkerson
Dan Johnson
Ben Broussard
Rickie Weeks
Ian Kinsler
Brandon Phillips
J.J. Hardy
Craig Counsell
David Wright
Morgan Ensberg
Miguel Cabrera
Jason Michaels
Carlos Beltran
Bobby Abreu
Michael Cuddyer
Johan Santana
Scott Kazmir
Felix Hernandez
Dan Haren
Justin Verlander
Jeremy Bonderman
Jon Papelbon
Derrick Turnbow
Akinori Otsuka
Rafael Soriano

A Bud Is Better than a Bush

At the end of a Morning Edition segment today, Nina Totenberg made a very intriguing comparision, suggesting that the first term of the John Roberts Supreme Court was like a baseball team getting a new pitcher and third baseman and deciding it was best to learn how to play together and not do anything too extreme (like, uh, win? safety squeeze?).

OK, so there's 9 judges and 9 players on the field, so that makes sense. Antonin Scalia is the throwback fiery ethnic, like Tommy Lasorda or A.J. Pierzynski, and Clarence Thomas is no doubt a catcher, so those two sustain the metaphor.

But still, as if baseball doesn't have enough problems with Barry the Bulging Bonds breaking records. The last thing the sport needs is to be tarnished with the Supreme Court brush. After all, it was smart enough never to make W. its commissioner.

Nipples on TV Bad, Asses in Senate Par for the Course

News from the AFP comes with the following head:

US Senate votes to stiffen fines for obscenity on radio, TV

And then the AFP ships a check to the FCC.

Greyhound Smackdown

For Dog Blog Friday: There's no more fun on a vacation than killing your younger brother.

X Marks the Johns

May 19 turns out to be the birthday for both Johns Hopkins and Malcolm X (if 130 years apart). Here's a case where hopping into the Way Back Machine in order to play "switched at birth" would be particularly instructive, if genetically messy. First, it would be something to have all those medical experts reporting from Malcolm X University Hospital. Second, according to legend Hopkins made a good part of his fortune running guns to the Confederacy, not exactly an idea that might pop into Malcolm X's head. Third, would he end up being Malcolms X? or maybe Malcolm XI? Fourth, when a student got caught cheating on an exam in a class he needed to graduate, he was reported to say, "By any means necessary." Fifth, Mark Twain, upon receiving an honorary degree from Hopkins, wrote, "I said the public is sensitive to little things, and they wouldn't have full confidence in a college that didn't know how to spell the name 'John'." Sixth, the school is in Maryland, a Civil War border state, so if it was renamed, that surely would have put Malcolm in the Middle. Seventh, why am I counting?

Defends -- Protects Countries in Continents

As the old saying around Washington goes, when life gives you an immigration crisis (real crisis not included), make pork. Today one reads in the New York Times:

The quick fix may involve sending in the National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: the nation's giant military contractors.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the largest, are among the companies that said they would submit bids within two weeks for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build what the administration calls a "virtual fence" along the nation's land borders.

Sorry, but I can't help but have an image of Marcel Marceau leaning up against that "virtual fence." After all, we might as well keep out the Frenchies and the Mexicans, if we can do it. You do have to hand it to the White House and how it gets more brazen, for if Bush truly is dyslexic, there can be no better acronym for what he has proposed -- Strategic Border Initiative.

The Times also goes on to report...

The winner, which is due to be selected before October [gee, does October come before November?], will not be given a specific dollar commitment. Instead, each package of equipment and management solutions the contractor offers will be evaluated and bought individually.

"We're not just going to say, 'Oh, this looks like some neat stuff, let's buy it and then put it on the border,'" Homeland Securty Security Chertoff said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Chertoff continued, "Nope, we're going to say, which of these companies will give us the most money and help us get Republicans elected in the most crucial districts? After all, the hallmark of good government is killing two birds with one federal contract."

Why I Am Not an Economist

CNN reports:

The Consumer Price Index rose a surprising 0.6 percent in April, the Labor Department reported, compared with the 0.4 percent rise in March. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a 0.5 percent rise in the government's key measure of inflation.

Higher energy prices, led by an 8.8 percent jump in the price of gasoline, helped account for the higher inflation reading. Gas prices were up even further excluding seasonal adjustments that government number crunchers make ahead of the summer driving season, soaring 14.5 percent.

The so-called core-CPI, which excludes often-volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.3 percent, the second straight month that the closely watched reading came in at that level. Economists had forecast there would be only a 0.2 percent in core CPI in April.

Don't know about you, but my core has to eat and I move it around in my gasoline-powered automobile.

Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar

Just in case you wanted to know, B.B. King must get paid by the word, at least based on his show in Santa Barbara yesterday. He's 80, he's a legend, he can still play (unlike, say Bill Monroe, who can only sing). He just doesn't seem very interested in playing. He will talk Lucille's ear off, though.

Activist Judges--Energize!

Get ready for the blatherings of the right (in name only)--a judge just struck down Georgia's attempt to ban gay marriages. The AP reports:

A judge has struck down Georgia's ban on same-sex marriages, saying a measure overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2004 violated a provision of the state constitution that limits ballot questions to a single subject.

The ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell had been eagerly awaited by gay-rights supporters who filed the court challenge in November 2004, soon after the constitutional ban was approved.

Russell said the state's voters must first decide whether same-sex relationships should have any legal status before they can be asked to decide whether same-sex marriages should be banned.

[...]

Gov. Sonny Perdue said the decision ran counter to the voice of Georgia voters in defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

"The people of Georgia knew exactly what they were doing when an overwhelming 76 percent voted in support of this constitutional amendment," he said. "It is sad that a single judge has chosen to reverse this decision."

Yep, it's such a bitch when one single judge can change the will of the people.

As for you, Gov. Sonny Perdue, I guess you have to flap your arms about and puff up and act manly when your first name is a diminutive and your last name is a chicken's.

I also can't wait for someone to say Judge Russell is ignoring the will of the people on a technicality. Geez, it's a pity that the way our laws are written can be so technical. If the people so eager to get anti-gay marriage bills onto ballots could learn to craft a well-written proposition, then maybe they wouldn't have had such problems. Good thing their hate blinds them from being smart. Or maybe that's the other way around.

A Fine Willis Read

Although I've lost track of her work of late, there's no doubt one of the most influential books on me as a thinker (no snickering) and writer (hey! quit it!) was Ellen Willis' Beginning to See the Light: Pieces of a Decade. Some of the best writing of the '60s and '70s lies in those pages--ripe, witty, wise, still totally relevant on rock and roll and religion and how those two types of varying fanaticism might coincide with a feminism that's decidedly Dionysian. So it was great to see a comment on Eric Alterman's blog today point to Willis' response to What's the Matter with
Kansas, not surprisingly called "What's the Matter with Tom Frank?"

The whole essay is worth living with for awhile, but here's one stellar passage that jumped out:

The public’s continuing ambivalence about cultural matters is all the more striking given that the political conversation on these issues has for 30 years been dominated by an aggressive, radical right-wing insurgency that has achieved an influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Its potent secret weapon has been the guilt and anxiety about desire that inform the character of Americans regardless of ideology; appealing to those largely unconscious emotions, the right has disarmed, intimidated, paralyzed its opposition. From the time the evangelical right’s “pro-family” movement arose and joined forces with Catholic right-to-life organizers in the mid-`70s, the broad left, including liberal feminists, adopted a strategy of appeasement rather than militant defense of feminism and abortion rights. Many men on the left had supported the women’s movement only reluctantly and in response to tremendous political pressure at the height of the feminist surge; they jettisoned this baggage with relief. But plain sexism was only part of the story. It could not explain why Betty Friedan attacked feminist radicals and proclaimed herself “pro-family”; why feminist leaders insisted that the Equal Rights Amendment had nothing to do with abortion or lesbian rights or a critique of traditional sexual roles; why advocates of legal abortion began apologizing, praising the moral commitment of their opponents, and talking about “choice” in the abstract rather than the procedure that dare not speak its name. The appeasers argued that they needed to soften their stands to avoid alienating traditionalist voters from the ERA campaign, the “pro-choice” movement and the Democratic Party. But in truth their lack of conviction that a majority of Americans could be won over—if not immediately, then in the long run—to a politics of equality, freedom and pleasure reflected their own deep doubts about the legitimacy of those values. They were appeasing themselves as much as anyone else.

Predictably, the strategy of pandering to the right was an abject failure: Reagan was elected; the ERA lost. If an ambivalent public hears only one side of a question, the conservative side, passionately argued—if people’s impulses to the contrary are never reinforced, and they perceive that the putative spokespeople for feminism and liberalism are actually uncomfortable about advancing their views—the passionate arguers will carry the day.

Why would anyone support a movement that won’t stand behind its own program? But the left did not learn the obvious lesson—that to back away from fighting for your beliefs on the grounds that you have no hope of persuading people to share them is to perpetrate a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the contrary, the appeasers could see in their defeats only a confirmation of their pessimism. This scenario has been repeated countless times as the country has moved steadily to the right, yet it appears to have inspired no second thoughts. The stubborn failure to rethink a losing strategy can’t help but suggest that its proponents on some level do not really care to win.

57 Channels and Nothing On

At the conclusion of his prime time television address on Monday night, President Bush announced the formation of the all-new PrezTV. Starting Monday, May 29, all cable services (except ones handled through QWEST) in the United States, plus those in Iraq and the twenty-three sites with cable in Afghanistan, will offer as part of their basic tier of programming the new network -- for only $5 more per month. President Bush said, "Of course, the 29th is Memorial Day, so beyond laying wreaths at soldiers' graves since that's not like going to an actual funeral, I won't be working. But I'm sure the channel can broadcast a Rangers game or Fox News in the meantime."

Some brief previews of this exciting new channel's line-up:

Bush Does Brush -- There's nothing else like this on TV! Watch the president wield his mighty scythe more aggressively than Death himself!

A Town's Bars on $40 a Day -- Jenna and Not-Jenna get their own show, as they have to do something. Yes, they can still fall over by the end of the night on only four sawbucks of liquor, partially because they leave no tips.

National Debt Clock Lotto -- After watching the numbers spin, if they end the half hour program on an even number, say something like $8,369,132,500,000, everyone in the oil industry gets an additional $10 million tacked on to their golden parachutes when the oil runs out.

Laura Licks Reality -- The First Lady does what she's been doing since she killed a friend in high school. Future episodes include "Polls Don't Mean Anything," on which Laura Bush opines, "We didn't need a majority to win in 2000," and "My Husband Is a Good Man Who Read a Book Once."

Hunting with Dick -- This show is a blast!

Republican Indictment of the Day -- Which will end first, the number of Republicans in office nationwide or the run of this show?! Tune in and see.

Jeff Gannon's Blues... -- Hosted by that blogger-White House correspondent-hottie, this is the new PrezTV's attempt to win over not only part of the Cinemax After Dark crowd but also a bone thrown (so to speak) to the Log Cabin Republicans.

The Tomato Made Me Do It

It seems like ages since we've had a good Jesus-in-the-soap-scum-of-my-shower sighting, but it turns out there's a website that helps make up for that. For some Friday fun, go check out MoFA--the Museum of Food Anomalies. Of course, all food can be anomalous if you cook it wrong or photograph it right. You'll see. Here's a head start for whatever diablo sauce you might want to whip up this weekend:

Give Me a "T"

For Dog Blog Friday: It might have been vacation, but that doesn't stop Mookie and Nigel from working on a routine they stole from the June Taylor Dancers.

We Was Here

The last entry was kind of rude, and yet a step up from the penultimate entry about Butt Pong, so I figured I owed you a bit of beauty--early morning past the buck barn right near our cabin this week.

Can You Do It Dali?

Since today would be the 102nd birthday of Salvador Dali, it seems fitting to pay him tribute, and to give one of his lesser known works a big hand. Ladies and gentlemen, I present unto you The Great Masturbator. (That's the image above--don't worry, it might be great but it's not big, at least the file isn't.) Of course any such painting has to be a self-portrait, and that is his long-time wife and muse Gala popping out of his head, which now sounds grosser than even I intended it to be, and makes the myth of the creation of Athena a drity dirty thing to teach to schoolchildren. The real question is, why the locust? It bugs me, trying to figure it out, and VH-1 never explained on the Surreal Life.

Oh, and a small piece of advice: if you're going to be a masturbator, be a great one. I mean, it is sex with someone you love, isn't it? (Thanks, Woody.) (Allen, folks, that's a Woody Allen joke.)

Devo Indeed-o

I have a soft spot for Devo more than most, probably, and I don't mean hazy days nostaglia for a time when MTV played videos and "Whip-It" got to share face time with Martha Quinn. No, I mean "Beautiful World" with its beautiful riff and clear-eyed irony, "Uncontrollable Urge" which plays like it titles, even the poppy synth pop of "Big Mess."

But when I read an interview with Mark Mothersbaugh and get to this passage--"Meanwhile, Mothersbaugh is working on an independent project he informally calls Butt Pong - a low-brow Pong knockoff with scatological graphics and sound"--I have to figure someone's just got too much time on his hands.

And then I really want to play the game.

What Mookie & Nigel Did on Their Too-Short Late-Spring Vacation

Harassing Tillie, we aren't harassing Tillie...

What I Did for My Too Short Late-Spring Vacation

I really don't want any of you to go to Anderson Valley, to tell you the truth.

Abramawful

The AP reports (in between earth-shaking articles about Britney's pregnancy--see, that's what you get, you right-to-lifers, more spawn of idiot pop stars--and a surprise with the American Idol voting--seems the person who should have won lost, but it turns out his agent was Bob Shrum):

Secret Service records made public Wednesday show that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff went to the White House twice in the past five years, omitting three other occasions that have been acknowledged by the Bush administration.

The visits occurred on Jan. 20, 2004, the day President Bush delivered his State of the Union address, and on March 6, 2001. Abramoff stayed a total of 63 minutes, 29 seconds, but the records do not indicate where he went in the complex or who he met.

The documents are, by the White House's acknowledgment, an incomplete accounting of Abramoff's meetings with administration officials.

Copies of the Secret Service logs were released in connection with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which had been seeking the records to determine the frequency of Abramoff's contacts with President Bush and others in his administration.

Judicial Watch said the records appear to be incomplete, noting that similar logs released during the Clinton administration included more details.

The White House replied, "Once again we see how the world is worse because of the Bill Clinton presidency."

Later Dick Cheney stopped complaining about Russia in that wistful way that made it clear he felt the Cold War was so much easier than this war on terror thing to say, "Look, they call themselves the Secret Service for a reason. If they told you everything, they'd just be the service. There's absolutely no truth to the rumor Abramoff was ever here at the same time as Jeff Gannon, either. For we have no records about Gannon at all. And it's totally a coincidence that Abramoff was here for the same State of the Union speech that Chalabi attended. Even Art Bell, if he wasn't semi-retired, couldn't make anything of that. If you want to know when that damn Helen Thomas has been here, we've got that for you. We even added that appearance in the Colbert video, just to be safe."

You Don't Send Me 18-Page Letters Anymore

The AP headlines says: "Iran Leader Calls Israel an 'Evil' Regime."

Guess that means not even a postcard for Ehud Olmert.

Beers in Your Blog

Just got back from the 10th Annual Boonville Beer Fest and boy is my liver tired. So, all apologies for no entries, no dog pictures, no spleen, no sop, no tatters. In the meantime, some quick advice: if you're ever in Boonville and need a place to stay, especially if you're with your dogs, stay here. If you want to eat in Boonville, you can't beat this place, but if you end in Geyersville, here won't do you wrong.

Ah, you want to know about beer. Four hours of unlimited pours as you sit under redwoods on a gorgeous Saturday--there are worse things to do with an afternoon. As for the best tasty beer surprises, Drake's had a terrific chocolate stout and imperial IPA, Moonlight Brewing's Death and Taxes is much tastier than their piss-poor website would lead you to believe, and the previously unknown to me Six Rivers offered a Kona Porter and a raspberry lambic that not only was perfectly balanced between tart and sweet, but also matched the dyed hair color of a woman in the crowd. I hope I don't have to tell you that North Coast Brewing's Old Rasputin Imperial Stout--on tap--is one of the best drinks on the planet, but now North Coast is also rolling out an abbey-style Belgian ale called Brother Thelonious that is also jazzily delicious.

More details, and more greyhound photos, to follow.

Does Anybody Feel a Draft?

And suddenly anything we've ever done to the greyhounds pales in comparison. You should see the photo where they make the wee thing play some mini-bag pipes, too.

Cruising

The IMDB reports--on a page that relegates to item number 4 the news that Madonna is posing provocatively in photos (item number 6 is George Bush is a dumb ass)--this thrilling tidbit about media whore Tom Cruise, who has somehow given birth to a baby and a movie in the same month:

Cruise Starts All-Action Day with NYC Firemen

In the story Cruise was quoted as saying, "Yeah, I think I'd make a great fireman. Sliding down that pole and handling a hose with the guys, I'm up for that." He also went on to say, "It just doesn't make sense to me that the Village People didn't have room in the group for a fireman."

(AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Alex Oliveira, HO)

When Justice Rhymes with Forgiveness

What makes me love America is there's always a glimmer, always someone who does something like this, according to the AP story about Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and his involvement in 9/11:

Rosemary Dillard, whose husband Eddie died in the attacks, said of Moussaoui: "He's a bad man, but we have a fair society." She said of terrorists: "We will treat them with respect no matter what they do to us."

Of course those who espouse the glory of the United States and the culture of life will denounce the jury as no better than the one that let Michael Jackson walk, the one that let OJ walk. Those with the Malkin of human kindness will want nothing less than blood.

Me, I'll stand with Rosemary Dillard.

The Detail's in the Devil

The Party of Tangentially United Satanists (POTUS) today publicized a release that despite all the claims on the internets that great mischief will be afoot on 6/6/06, they instead planned on calling that numerically ominous Tuesday "Day Without Satan." POTUS insisted that rather than ratcheting their nefarious schemes up a notch, they were more than willing to take a day off. "Just look around," said spokesman Scott McClellan, who is temporarily working two jobs until he is finished at the White House or Armageddon, whichever comes first. "POTUS has done one heck--hehe--of a job: Iraq, New Orleans, and at a gas pump near you. POTUS might just go cut some brush for a bonfire."

This Man Once Ran for President. Even Republicans Didn't Vote for Him

Reuters reports:

Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, said singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in a foreign language could be divisive in a nation of immigrants united by a common language.

"English is part of who we are as Americans. It's part of what unites us," he said. "That's why we should always sing it in our common language, English."

Alexander's support for an "English only" rendering of the anthem came in a non-binding measure introduced as hundreds of thousands of people rallied across the United States in support of legal rights for millions of illegal immigrants.

"Non-binding means even I know this is election year bullshit," Alexander the Not-So-Great went on to say. "But frankly I just got tired of the 'the Dems are for gay marriage and will take your guns and fetuses away while burning the flag and not praying in school' lines. It seemed like it was time for something new. Indeed, I move that we switch the fourth verse with the first so those lousy liberals have to sing that couplet, 'Then conquer we must, when our cause, it is just,/And this be our motto: In God is our trust.' You see, even Francis Scott Key believed in preemptive war. Besides, don't those Mexican-non-Americans have a song like 'La Bamba' or "The Mexican Hat Dance' that they can sing in their own language?"

If I May, Day

Standing on the bow of a kayak paddled by Karl Rove in McCovey Cove today, President Bush announced: "Admiral Turdblossom, Captain Snow, officers and sailors of the USS Hindenberg, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in this ballpark have ended. In the Battle of the Babe, Barry Bonds and his allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing the march on Hank Aaron. Operation Barry Does Balco was carried out with a combination of precision, and speed, and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before."

He was going to say more, but then Bud Selig sank his kayak.

Balls Like Boulders

I want to have Stephen Colbert's children, and so will you if you go watch what he did at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night.