A dunk is...just a dunk

A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, and a dunk, well, it's just a dunk according the Vice President.

As an unexpected October blizzard dumped a foot and a half of the fluffy stuff in Colorado, Tony Snow was doing his own snowjob back in Washington.

"We don't talk about techniques, that would include waterboarding," Snow said, trying to twist Cheney's words into something palatable to the just-say-no-to-torture administration. "He does neither - he neither confirms nor denies its use; neither supports nor shows a lack of support for it."

Snow added, "A dunk in the water is a dunk in the water," then broke in an extraordinary rendition of Louis Armstrong's As Time Goes By.

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
A scream is just a scream
The fundamental things apply
Except habeas corpus
As time goes by

Really Tony Snow? Really? That is all you could come up with? You are the press secretary for god's sake, you can lie better than that. That is why they are paying you the big bucks. Better shape up or you will be a permanent guest on The O'Reilly Factor, like Geraldo.

Snow went on to suggest another possible interpretation of Dick Cheney's statement, explaining that Cheney doesn't support torture, he is a Methodist, and as a Methodist by dunk in the water what Cheney was really refering to was the Methodist form of salvation;
baptism. He is trying to save them through dunking.



While Snow writhed and twisted like a scarecrow in a cornfield (or Michael J Fox off his meds), time has gone by for Bush and Maliki, whose brief camaraderie is looking more and more like Paris and Nicole's adversarial relationship on an episode of the Simple Life.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki winced and grimaced as he told first the President on Friday, then his senior aide today, that he is a friend to the US, but not "America's man in Iraq."

No worries, Prime Minister, we all know who holds that title.



Time finally caught up with Fr Anthony Mercieca, the Catholic priest hung out to dry by former U.S. congressman Mark Foley looking for a scapegoat to help cushion his fall in Congressional-underage-page-sexual-textual-sex-scandle.

Mercieca, who now resides in Malta, an island paradise where even the Boy Scout Association of Malta embraces gay members, has admitted to swimming naked, being unclothed in the same room as Foley and massaging him in the nude, but said the allegations did not constitute a basis for him to be prosecuted.

"[Mercieca] considers the aggressive and unfavorable exposure as being unfair and unjustified," said his lawyer.

And Mercieca's agressive and unfavorable exposure in front of young men is justified?

The priest was quoted as saying: “We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers”.

And when two lovers woo
They still say, "I love you"
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by

It gives a whole new meaning to "here's looking at you kid."

The blame game

It's fall, the leaves are turning, there is a cold breeze in the air. As we round the corner on yet another highly charged election year, thankfully, everyone has someone to blame, both in the US and abroad.

Republican candidate John Spencer blamed Hillary's double digit lead in the New York Senate race on millions of dollars in plastic surgery, earning him the only media attention he has had this fall. Hillary demurely retorted by saying she was "cute" in high school, before she met Bill.

In a televised version of the Sacrament of Penance, otherwise know as the Oprah Winfrey show, Madonna, who built her career and her fortune off the media,
blamed the media for her adoption woes.

"The media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa by turning it into such a negative thing."

Unbeknowst to the rest of the media, "The Media" (capital T, captial M), not Madonna, actually went and took the child from his birth father and brought him to London, and is now raising him to be the black Maury Povich.

Bush, who has routinely blamed The Media for our poor showing in the war in Iraq, has finally found someone else to blame, the Shi'ite finger puppet of Muqtada al-Sadr, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Malaki, who pretends to lead the country with his rubber fist.

Bush warned al-Malaki, ever so gently, that maybe, just perhaps, you never know, but some day, America's patience, may, perhaps, might, run out. Seeing the line in the sand, Nuri Kamal al-Malaki shot back, "don't threaten me with deadlines!" Then they shook hands, and then the balance of stupidy was restored.

Bush pressed on with the press, trying to explain how one loses in Iraq. "The only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done." And the only way to lose the midterm elections? If the Republican Congress leaves before their job is done. Or the Diaboldic machines malfunction and we have to use paper ballots.


Facing a ravenous pre-election press corp, Bush fell back on a Republican bastion of blame; illegal immigrants. "We must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here," Bush said, then signed into law the construction of seven hundred miles of new fence along the Mexican border, sending a strong message to the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States; you guys now have no way to get back into Mexico! Can you say fiesta?

Rush Limbaugh has blamed Michael J Fox for thrasing about uncontrollably in a blatent attempt to win votes. Accusing the actor of using his Parkinson's disease for political stumping, he suggested the ailing actor was either acting, or off his pills, as he writhed, tossed and twitched in televion ads that blasted Bush for not supporting stem cell research.


Now, you might think that Rush Limbaugh has no leg to stand on here, figuratively, but in fact, Rush Limbaugh is an expert on perscription medication, having been arrested more than once for his illegal supply of amphetamines and viagra, a potent combination that leaves the user writhing, tossing and twitching uncontrolably, and the rest of us with a terrible, terrible image that we just can't get out of our heads.

Australian Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly blamed women for making men hungry. Likening women to meat, the sheik said,
“if you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it . . . whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.” The most senior Muslim cleric in the land down under happened to be speaking about a series of gang rapes last month.


Is it the cat's fault, or is it the fault of the meat for uncovering itself and lying there so raw and suggestively, as if to say "meow, come here and eat me, kitty." Bad meat indeed.

Common themes in paradoxes can be identified by their indirect self-reference, infinity, circular definitions, and confusion of levels of reasoning. Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly has definately come up with a fundamental paradox. Is the cat to blame? Or the meat? Or the person who allowed the meat to go out uncovered? Or the garden, park or backyard?

This brain teaser shall hence forth be known in the annals of illogic as the Taj al-Din al-Hilaly Rape Excuse Incongruity.

Finally, there is one thing we can all blame together, and that is our mobile phone. Turns out those little beasts not only destroy our peace and quiet, they also destroy our sperm, according to The Australian.

Doctors caution, however, that it may not be the electromagnetic radtion that is frying our little ones, but rather the general laziness brought on by cell phone use, and that subsequent sedentary lifestyle they encourage, leading to more pressure on the magic sack, and presto, no more marching men, similar to the syndrom many cyclists suffer.

Whatever the causes, we can comfortably blame cell phones for both our laziness and our low sperm count. And who do we blame for the cell phone? Wicked, uncovered meat, of course.

High crimes and misnomers

Alberto Fernandez, a senior State Department diplomat, apologized for saying to Al Jazeera that the United States displayed "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its handling of the Iraq war.

Speaking to CNN on his way to Guantanamo Bay, Mr. Fernandez said he was misquoted. "What I actually said was the US displayed a roguish cupidity, meaning that we have shown rascally love for Iraq," Mr. Fernandez said, before being gagged, hooded and waterboarded.

UN envoy Jan Pronk also misspoke this week, according the the Sudanese government, and was sent packing over his weblog. Pronk's blog, which reported that the army had suffered major losses and was woking in cahoots with the Janjaweed, was just a little too much truth for the Sudanese government, which perfers its UN envoys to follow the 1990's Rwanada model; silent and ineffective.

Jan, those aren't losses, they are negative gains.

Back in the US, city leaders in Omaha, Nebraska are urging citizens to be vigilant, and call 911 when they see smoke - the telltale puffs emanating from the recently criminalized activity of smoking in public. One wonders if the $8.3 million dollars in Homeland security funds that Ohama has to spend this year, funneled from real targets like New York City, went to fund this program.

According to WorldNetDaily, "Teresa Negron, sergeant in charge of public information for the police, explained the department encourages observers of infractions to pick up the phone to report the infraction – just like they would for any other crime they observe being committed."

The $8.3MM, earmarked for enhanced communications equipment, somehow makes sense considering that all the emergency lines will be tied up by people ratting out their neighbors who light up in public.

There is real irony in Omaha's legislated abuse of the 911 system, considering the 911 system of emergency communications, now used nationwide, was developed and first used in Lincoln, Nebraska.

And while the State that was once called "the great American desert" is taking down terrorist tobacco slingers, and beefing up its homeland security, the FBI has announced the capture of two ner-do-wells bent of taking down an icon of Americana.

No, not Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri (the FBI still can't seem to locate a six foot two inch Arab man hiding in an area of land the size of Massachusetts). Better. Our g-men successfully foiled the great Coke trade secret theft conspiracy of 2006.

Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney who sought to sell Coke's secret formula to Pepsi, were turned in to the feds by the One World folks at Pepsi.

There is only one problem here; the secret formula is not a secret. A simple click over to Wikipedia, and anyone can learn that Coke's secret is, has been, and always will be - Cocaine. According to the all knowing, online source of profundity, "today's Coca-Cola uses 'spent' coca leaves, those that have been through a cocaine extraction process, to flavor the beverage. Since this process cannot extract the cocaine alkaloids at a molecular level, the drink still contains trace amounts of the stimulant."

The Coke-secrets-theft duo also stole fourteen pages from the "marketing playbook" which, according to super secret confidential sources, simply said 'keep spiking the sugar water with cocaine and they'll come back.'

With a rise of bribery and corruption along our southern drug border, it is nice to know we all have a safe and convienent place to get our fix - the convienence store.

The 325 to 675 metric tons (17,636,500 ounces on average) of cocaine entering the US each year is nothing compared with the 122,432,790,000 servings of Coke in the US each year.

So have a Coke and a smile, and call 911 if you see anyone drinking Pepsi.

Signs of progress

With 70 US soldiers killed in Iraq in October, this month has become the deadliest on record. Think that means we are losing? Think again.

Using typical Bushian logic, the administration has argued that increased violence is a sign of progress in Iraq. The more casualties there, are the more we are winning. Why? Because it means we are taking the fight to the enemy.

Applying Bushian logic to other areas, the administration has argued that low poll numbers prove Bush is actually doing a good job, increased national debt means the country has a healthy economy, and dwindling test scores means we are getting smarter.

We can all use a little Bushian logic in our lives. Honey, I didn't bring you flowers...which proves I love you. I ran over your cat...because I care.

As dawn breaks over marblehead, Bush has finally understood the parallel between Iraq and Vietnam - three weeks before the mid term elections, telling ABC news that Thomas Friedman might be right in his NYTimes Op-Ed comparing the violence in Iraq with the Tet offensive.

Here are some other parallels you should be thinking about, Mr. President, as we move closer a Decomratic led Congress.

It was a dark and stormy night

How better to lead off a meandering blog entry than a reference to the greatest dogged writter of them all, who inbued our young souls with both comical and mystical wisdom.

On the subject of young souls and commystical wisdom, there are many stormy nights ahead for Madonna.

First the material girl went to England and acquired an English accent, and husband with it. Then she went off to Israel to pick up some spiritual teaching, until she leaned that as a Kabbalist you can't celebrate Christmas, and gave it all up for the sake of her Christian children. Perhaps Madonna misunderstood the Hebrew word "Kabbalah", which literally means receiving, because now she has gone to Africa and taken someone else's child.

Couldn't she have been happy with one of those flowered hats or some banana leaf art? Apparantly she just had to have one of those cute black children for her other two children to play with.

According to Reuters, the child's father, Yohane Banda, who put him in an orphanage when his monther died, said "I suppose deep in my heart I always imagined that when he was better, or I had got another wife, I would go and take him back," Banda told the Mail on Sunday. "I did not think anyone would want to take him away."

With millions of dollars idle in her bank account, Madonna could easily have supported both the child and his father back in Africa. But somehow Madonna managed to get around the Malawian law that bans adoptions by non-residents, hustling the child on her private lear jet back to her estate outside of London. Now there is something they don't teach you in Kaballah school.

Back in New York, Lynne Stewart, the 67 year old champion of the underserverd, couldn't quite get around the law this time, and will be spending a dark and quiet twenty eight months in supermax.

Lynne received a reduced sentence yesterday, down from a requested thirty years by prosectors road testing the new Patriot Act, for coming to the legal defense of Sheik Omar-Abdel Rahman, the blind cleric convicted of "seditious conspiracy" from charges relating to the 1993 world trade center bombing.


Where is the widom in giving any jail time to our public defenders? Even if they are wacked out hippies who have trouble with the finer details of the law, such as not passing along notes to radical followers in Egypt that say, "the Jihad is on, baby!"

At her sentencing, Lynne seemed not to fear the darkness ahead, intoning with some obvious bluster, ``As my clients say to me, `I could do that standing on my head.' "

Lynne, you might actually get your wish, and do that time standing on your head. Today Bush signed away our habeas corpus, inking legislation that authorizes tough interrogation of terror suspects, and stripping (figuratively) detainess of their legal right to seek release from unlawful imprisonment, a pillar of our legal system.

"It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill that he knows will save American lives," Bush said. "I have that privilege this morning."

This epiphany marks a new nadir for Mr. Bush in his dark and stormy six year tenure. Just yesterday he bottomed out again in polls, the approval rating for his handling Iraq at a mere 34 percentage points.

Mr. President, you are only 34 points from zero, with two years to go, I think you'll get there.

You've got to wonder about that 34 percent of the American population who still thinks that the President is handling Iraq well. Something tells me they are probably followers of the mystical teachings of radical right's Jerry Falwell, who believes we are winning a holy war in Iraq, and blames CNN for misinforming the public.

As we round the corner of 300,000,000 people in America today, that is 102,000,000 who have no clue. Which also happens to be the number of people who watch YouTube on a daily basis, no coorelation of course. Perhaps Google can impart some wisdom there.

Back on the Korean peninsula, it will be dark and stormy nights for all as we learn that North Korea is gearing up for another nuclear test. This one they intend to get right.


On the subject of large, mystical explosions, back in Kansas, scientists have found an unusual 154 pound meteorite under a wheat field. Scientists say it fell to earth 10,000 years ago in a colossal explosion that makes north Korea's one kiloton test look like day old kimchee.

The Kansas State Board of Education, however, has declared the meteor further evidence of intelligent design. "Why would someone put a meteor in a wheat field? It's gotta be evidence of some greater intelligence," said Ken Willard, while chewing gum and scratching his head.


Finally its National Poetry day in England. Or rather, was National Poetry day on October 5. The theme this year is "identity", so I have done some deep inner relecting, and have written a short poem inspired by the esoteric Kabbalistic widsom my dog shares with me each night.

My dog barks to me at night
My dog barks
My dog barks to me at night
I have trouble sleeping

This poem brought to you by Ambien.

So pull out your old typewritter and bang away. Your dark and stormy oeuvre couldn't be any stranger than this weeks news.

To quote the master, Charlie Brown, "life is easier if you only dread one day at a time."

How I learned to stop worrying, and love North Korea

While George Bush was busy spending half a trillion dollars looking for non-existant weapons of mass destruction in the deserts of Iraq, North Korea went nuclear. With that October surprise, another pledge from Mr. Bush seems to have vaporized.

"I will not allow the worlds most dangerous regimes to acquire nuclear weapons," said the President in a state of the union address in 2002. "Except if I decide to invade Iraq. In that case, yes, I suppose I will allow the worlds most dangerous regimes to acquire nuclear weapons."

But did the wicked witch of Pyongyang actually set off a nuclear device?

Or was it a kiloton of dynamite, a most diabolical bluff on the part of Kim Jong-Ill? Or was it an explosion set off by an accidental lightning strike at the worlds largest kimchee fermentery? Or was it, in fact, a rather weak, as far as nukes go, nuclear device?

What, the world wonders, was that blast under the ground near Gilju, North Korea. Only time will tell.

One can only imagine the conversation Bush had with himself in the mirror that morning he learned about the North Korean nuke. "I said Kim don't go nuclar, but ya called my bluff, so now I'm gonna...I'm gonna....I'm gonna sanction you. You won't be shipping any more bicycles to developing countries. Thats right, and we're going to cut you off from our propaganda station that we have been beaming by satellite into your country. No more American Idol. That'll learn ya."

Excuse me, Mr. President, but North Korea is already isolated. And they already have the nuke!


In retrospect, one wonders what exactly was the Bush plan not to allow the worlds most dangerous regimes to acquire nuclear weapons. Was it diplomacy? No. The Bush administration has refused to hold talks with North Korea or Iran. Was it direct action? No. All our resources are tied up in Iraq. Was there even a plan at all? Apparently not. Unless you consider swagger a plan. Just one long, bad John Wayne movie.

So what card does Mr. Bolton, the man Bush foisted upon the UN, have up his sleave? A luxury ban. Yep. A luxury ban. A plan to put Kim Jong Il on, in his words, "a little diet." No more Chateau Neuf de Pap for you, Kim. Now, give up that nuke.

Like a character in Dr. Strangelove, Mr. Ill does seems to enjoy imbibing to maintain the purity of his precious bodily fluids.

Nevertheless, Mr. Bush, you have no cards to play. You spent our military in Iraq, you blew the diplomatic possibilities, you got nothin.

Nothing that steaming pot of bi-bim-bob and big smile can't fix. So get back on that diplomatic horse and ride, Mr. Bush. Talk to Mr. Ill, buy him a new pair of glasses, show him that oh-so-warm grin of yours and give 'em some good ol' American hospitality. Axis of evil? Axis of peace and friendship, I say. Or soon, that kiloton will be for real.

As for Iran, well President Ahmadinejad, you need to get with the program. Are you really going to let yourself be upstaged by a diminutive spoke on the axis of evil? And we all thought you were the most evil. So disappointing. While you were busy chit chattin at the UN, North Korea was getting down to business. You see now, the US can't actually do anything about your nuke program, so build those bombs with impunity, and show the Kimster who's the boss.

And as for Don Busho Quixote and Sancho Blairo Panza, looks like they'll get their beating at the hands of angry windmills in this year's midterm elections. Adios amigos.

Reminds me a song that play across the big screen as the bombs begin to fall.

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know yen, but we'll meet again, some day."

Tag, you're it

Thought the United States led the world in creepy Orwellian freedom-stripping technology? Think again. Later this year as you travel through the Hungarian airports (there really more than one) on your way to Székesfehérvár, you will be tagged with a radio frequency identifier courtesy of the University College London. Leave it to the British to test their madness on hapless Eastern European countries.

You don't hear about the British testing their madness in France or Sweden. Hungary, what are you thinking? You are already made it into the European Union.

The program, known as OpTag (does one really have an option?), envisions everyone at airports being tagged and monitored as they move about, particularly the suspicious looking ones. This way, you see, if a terrorist starts trying to access places he or she should not be, then the all knowing machine will detect it.

Of course, there is the obvious problem - what if someone just removes their tag? I guess they will have to staple it to people's ears. It works for meaty two-toed ungulates working their way through our feeding machines.


The system can be used to find lost children, claims the mad scientist behind this scheme. You ever notice that when someone needs to justify their madness, children are brought into the picture.


In fact, with a radio frequency identifier embedded in the skin, children will never be lost again, and we will all live in the place where there is no darkness.

Earlier this year, Hungary made the news when it became know that the country was a waystation in the Bush administrations extraordinary redition program. I guess you can take the country out of totalitarianism, but you can't take the totalitarian out of the country.

MeTube

Like three quarters of America, I actually thought of it first. Well, really it was Al Gore's idea, but hey, I am not bitter. I've got a blog, with a gazillion readers. Yes, gazillion, that massive number that follows 3, my dog, my mom and me.

This whole YouTube debacle has got me thinking; what would I do with 1.6 billion, or 2.2 billion, or whatever it was they actually paid for that site?

- buy Burundi whose GDP is $700MM/year (actually I could buy three Burundis), then like Madonna and Angelina I could adopt not just one token black child, but a whole country of 8,090,068, half of whom are under 14, then I would sell Burundi to Google for stock, and put all the Burundians on YouTube where they would become famous and get multiyear content licensing contracts with CBS and thereby alleviate poverty in Burundi forever

- buy land in Iraq. With 655,000 killed since the war began, everyone will be dead in a few years, which will mean the insurgency will be over, and we'll be left with prime Middle East riverfront real estate and a whole lotta oil underneath. Hey, someone has got to keep flushing money into that black hole. Who will do it once Congress changes hands and Bush is impeached?

- pay off my credit cards, at least the ones charging me 2,800% interest

As the great Graham Greene once said (or wrote), writing is a form of therapy. In the space of a few paragraphs, I have transcended my bitterness, and transmorgified my bile into ambition: I am just going to go out a start my very own dotcom - MeTube (or mytube, which I suppose is grammatically correct).

The tagline? "Why is it always about You?"

Look for me on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal in six months when I have sold it to Rupert Murdoch for $11BN. I'll do the deal at the lunch counter of a WallMart.

But you gotta love Google for reviving the dotcom days, at least those of us who pine for open loft spaces and first class flights to places like Roanoke, Missouri to sell some furniture company a $2MM web site. It is official, if you do a billion dollar deal at Dennys, you are talking dotcom, baby. Now we can all quit our banking jobs and go back to blowing someone's pension fund for a while.

Eric, I know you are king of the world right now, but $1.something billion on website? Billion, Eric, billllllll-yon. While you are at it, why don't you send some of that Monopoly money over this way. You can have parsingtheworld.blogspot.com for $26.95, I will even throw in an old typewriter.

Graham Greene also said "everything is useful to a writer- every scrap." Google, that algorithmic Internet omnivore, seems to be following that advice closely.