Mice are Smarter

"Steve, tell about the books."
"Everyone will write books about how great your administration was."
"And they'll write lots of books because we still got lots more years to go. Right, Steve?"
"That's right, Donny. We still have years to go."
"Tell again how many years, Steve."
"There's about three and a half years to the next election, and if we win that..."
"We will- we will-we will-we will! Won't we! Cause we're the best! Right?"
"Calm down, Donny, or I'll call in the Secret Service."
"No, please. I promise I'll be good. Just tell about the media. Pleeease, Steve."
"OK, the media are evil."
"I know- because they lie all the time and they're so unfair and they hate me. Right, Steve?"
"That's right, they hate you."
"And I'm gonna put it all on twitter. And everyone will know they're so nasty. Right, Steve?"
"Now what did we say about twitter, Donny?"
"Uh. That I'm not supposed to go on it so much?"
"That's right, Donny. You're not supposed to go on twitter so much. It causes a lot of trouble."
"Oh I know. But sometimes, sometimes I forget. There's so much stuff I have to remember. Remember how I almost forgot to salute the flag? That nice lady helped me."
"I remember."
"Is that the lady I'm allowed to grab by the pussy, Steve?"
"We'll talk about that in the morning. Good night, Donny."

Rub My Belly

Chris ("I worked the cones") Christie seemed uncomfortable as Trump's lap-dog as he stood in back of Trump during his Super Tuesday victory speech. Whether the calls for Christie to resign by a group of Jersey papers, his tanking favorability numbers (worse than turnpike traffic), or the fact that he is now supporting a man he once claimed was unfit to be president, is suddenly getting through his thick skull, Christie did not look amused Tuesday night. Who could have guessed that standing behind Donald Trump would be as onerous as kneeling behind him?

Wish I was Making This Up

  Sarah Palin endorsed Donald Fucking Trump tonight.
  During the course of the ramble, she mentioned the 'squirmishing' among the various factions in the middle east.
 
Note: I want to thank Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, both for playing the clip of Palin and confirming that I had indeed heard her say 'squirmish'. I imagine there's some sqirmishing going on in the GOP right now.

Not So Super

  "I have, like, this incredible vocabulary."
                                 Donald Trump, December 21, 2015
   "Fershur. Totally."
                          Your Blogger, just now

Update (A continuing tradition of rhetorical eloquence):
    "Her statement changed bigly."
                                 Donald Trump, March 29, 2016

  It is, rightly, said, that there can be too much of even a good thing. It must also be said that there are, of course, a few things of which there never can be too much. Off the top of my head that includes: beer, redheads and chocolate. Although not necessarily in that order. But definitely in combination.... Yes.... Definitely in combination.
  I digress. But, yeah, in combination....
  Right, where was I? Oh yeah, too much of a good thing.
  In oratory, as in writing, the impact of a superlative is directly inverse to its frequency of use. The more often a word is used the more commonplace and insipid it becomes.
  Which brings us back to Trump.
  Traditionally, there have existed two kinds of political speakers; the man of few words, and the great orator. For a man of few words, whatever he says, due to the laws of supply and demand, seems to have more substance. A great orator, on the other hand, can speak often, and at great length, if, like Winston Churchill, he can draw his thoughts and phrases from a deep well. Trump is neither of these. He speaks often, and at great length, but his supply comes from, at best, a stagnant puddle. He is a man of few words, repeated endlessly.
 
Herewith; a Trump lexicon:

Great, nasty, terrific, horrible, amazing, disaster, powerful, important, awful, tremendous, disgusting, incredible, terrible, and, of course, yuge.

  Throw a handful of random nouns and verbs in with the above, stir well, and you have a pretty typical Trump paragraph. It might even make an interesting drinking game. With beer... and redheads.... Well, once again, I digress.
  We must still see how the primaries shake everything out. But, as I said once before: schadenfreude.

Another One Bites the Dust

  Bobby (Lucky to have made it to Governor) Jindal has dropped out of the presidential race.
  He will be missed- by those of us who noticed that he was running.

Help! I've Fallen, and I Can't Get Up!

  Rick (Under Indictment) Perry has left the race. He will soon be followed by more also rans who also haven't run very well, but Perry will be missed. He was the first person ever to run for president while under indictment, so we will never know how he would have handled both a campaign and a trial.
  It would have been both interesting and stomach turning.
  I, for one, am sorry we'll miss it.
 

Everything's Trumpy-Dory

  Donald Fucking Trump signed the Republican oath of fealty today.
  Republicans everywhere can now breathe a sigh of relief that Trump won't be running against them.
  He'll be running with them.
  Isn't that wonderful?

Dead Party Walking

  The RNC, in their infinite wisdom and incredible desperation, have put out a loyalty oath, to be signed by the plague of candidates running for president. Though the entire swarm is being 'asked' to sign, everybody knows that the real target is Donald Fucking Trump, who for some goddam reason leads the rest of the gaggle in all the polls, yet still refuses to rule out a third party run.
  Loyalty oaths.
  The weakness and fear the Republican party is projecting now is palpable.
  I think the only thing that could possibly top the pathetic, despondent hopelessness we are seeing, would be to- I don't know- commission an autopsy.
  But that would be ridiculous.

Fifteen Little.... Oh Fuck It!

  As of this writing, there are now seventeen people running for the Republican nomination for president. And, as of this writing, that number is irrelevant. Not because they espouse a political ideology that is obsolete and morally bankrupt- well, not only because of that. The reason they are essentially toast from the get-go is Fox News. Fox is hosting the first debate with only the top tier of the top ten candidates. With their usual integrity, they fudged the math to get John Kasich a seat at the table (more accurately, a stand at the lectern.) Since the debate's in Ohio, who could blame them for getting its sitting governor a shot at it.
  Kasich's spot came at the expense of Rick (currently on trial) Perry. Perry is famous not only for his 'oops' moment in the last race, but also for apparently falling in love with a bottle of maple syrup onstage, during a speech. (How's that square with your obsession with man-dog marriage Justice Scalia?) Also left out of the debate is the man who was number two (in both senses) during the last Republican primary, Rick (santorum) Santorum. Several campaigns, including Santorum's may run out of steam before the first race even starts.
  The biggest and saddest, most pathetic news is this: Donald Fucking Trump is still the leading contender.
 
Note: The Washington Post Reported that Bill Clinton spoke to Trump about politics back in May. It seems that Trump reached out to Clinton, and according to a Clinton insider, the campaign was not discussed. That being said, if Bill Clinton did happen to help Trump decide to run, he deserves to go down in history as the greatest political strategist of all time.

Thirteen Little, Fourteen Little, Fifteen Little...

  This just in: Scott (investigations all around me) Walker has entered the race to the White House.
  We've gone so quickly to fifteen, that I missed the chance to use a baker's dozen joke. I have no fear, however. There are plenty of jokes in the pipeline. (And fifteen already oozed out of it.)

Paradigm Shit

   How many of us could endure the shock of being confronted with the sure and certain knowledge that the safe, solid foundation upon which we've built our lives is nothing but a rickety scaffold, and that our conception of the world is merely a flimsy, paper thin facade before the stark reality that awaits us behind the stage.
   I've been married five times, so I'm used to it. But even I was shaken to the core by revelations about our government which came into my hands a week ago.
   One week! How can it be that only seven days have passed since my life was changed forever.
 
   I was working on my blog at my usual research facility, during happy hour, when I was approached by a stranger. Clutching a sheaf of papers in his hands, he told me that he read my blog, and that he had secret government information that would "blow my mind."
   I have to admit that I was astounded. Because, quite frankly, I didn't think that I had any readers- let alone ones with secret information. He told me that he needed the information he had to be made public. And that he feared for his life if it wasn't.
   I took a closer look at  this mysterious stranger. He was middle aged and the very definition of the word 'nondescript.' He could have been a teacher or a  pharmacist, but he had a sort of skittish intensity that led me to believe either he was being hunted, or was off his medication.
   He handed me the papers to read and we agreed to meet there the following night (at happy hour.) What he said as he left chilled me to my very soul.
   "If you believe nothing else, know this: you're buying."
 
   The papers I'd been given seemed to have government letterhead. Skeptically, I began to read. After a few paragraphs, I was in a cold sweat, and realized that I was holding dynamite. It couldn't possibly be true, but if it was, this guy and I were both in a lot of trouble. For what those papers revealed was a conspiracy so vast, that it encompassed both church and state. Almost every branch and department of government was implicated: the CIA, the FBI, NASA, NOAA, the military, and the American Zoological Society. A conspiracy lasting decades, and dedicated to one thing, and one thing only: getting a camel through the eye of a needle.

   I needed to talk to my new friend, but I had to be sure that he wasn't just a nutbag peddling shit. I have a few contacts in government, but was only able to ascertain from my source that my informant had worked in some hush-hush capacity, and that I should "drop him like a hot potato" if I knew what was good for me. The thing was- I didn't know what was good for me. I not only avoided vegetables- I ran with scissors. And I was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery.

   We met at the appointed time and place, but he refused to talk until he had proof of my sincerity. Three rounds later, he started telling his story. I have not been the same since.

   It seemed that my strange acquaintance was an archivist, privy to the history of the entire project, and passed over for promotion. That prompted him to steal the papers, and to try blow the whole thing wide open.
  "The thing is," he said into his glass. "I can't get anyone to listen. I got kicked out of the Times, the Post. Even CNN said no, and their ratings are in the basement. I needed someone who would print anything." He looked up. "That's when I thought of you."
   I was flattered, and said so, but I still needed a handle on this thing. What was it for, and how did it start?
   "Don't you see," he said, signaling for another round. "All the rich religious guys in this country are worried about going to Heaven. You remember Mark 10:25?" he asked.
   "Uh- I mean..."
   "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God," he said smugly.
   "O.K. right," I said. "But since when do those guys believe in the Bible?"
   He snorted in derision. "Sure, they routinely ignore Jesus. But that's mostly the stuff about humility and charity. Things they can't relate to anyway." He looked hard at me. "Punishment and denial, though, that they understand.
   "See, first they tried to game the system. Some of them left their money to their wives on their deathbed..."
   "So technically they'd die poor?" I interrupted, confused.
   "Exactly. One of them even got a really huge needle. Claes Oldenburg designed it, I think."
  "So problem solved," I said.
  "At first. But by the time Reagan was elected, Billy Graham started to say it was cheating. When Nancy's astrologer concurred, that was it. They pledged billions to find a solution."
   Something didn't sit right. I needed clarity so I switched to vodka. Then it occurred to me.
   "How could they possibly hide such a big commitment?" I said, a bit angrily. "That much money can't be hidden."
   He smiled. "You can if you disguise it as something else. Remember the Strategic Defense Initiative?"
  "Star Wars," I gasped.
  "You didn't think they could really build a missile shield over the whole country, did you?"

   He laid it out for me then. Chapter and verse.
   Apparently, and not surprisingly, early experiments relied on brute force.
   "They put a camel on one of those rocket sleds. You know? The kind they use to train astronauts? At the end of the track was some sort of funnel arrangement, pointed at the needle."
   "Did that work? I asked.
   He shook his head, and ordered another drink. "Camels don't squish."

   He told me that by the nineties the most promising avenue appeared to be quantum physics.
   One offshoot of superconducter research dealt with the behavior of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. It might prove to be the breakthrough they needed.
    "You she," he slurred. "At absolute zero, matter- atoms- behave strangely. Liquids defy gravity, and, more importantly, seem to have no friction."
   He giggled. " iss simple," he said. "All they haf do's cool liquid camel to abzloot zero, and pour it through the eye, and Koch brothers pour through de pearly gates."
   I was giggling myself, when a thought occurred to me.
   "How...how d'you liquefy a camel?" I managed to get out.
   "Oh. They solved that wit' da rocket sled."

   There was more, much more. But, for some reason, my notes become illegible at that point. My memories of the rest of that night are also gone. I fear that agents of the government have wiped part of my brain. And, since I have had no further communications from my source, I can only think the worst. My one hope is that telling this story will protect me. I also hope that he wasn't my only reader 'cause then I'm fucked.

 

 
   

 
 

 

Conservative Is Bliss

I have a habit of flipping channels, and, it so happens that Fox News sits between SyFy and 'The Big Bang Theory' reruns. So, as I thumbed my remote, I just happened to hear Sarah Palin explain that President Obama is the head of  "the administrative branch"  of the federal government.

Now, while everyone runs off to update their copies of the constitution, I am going to amputate those damned thumbs.

The (un) Music Man

Mitt Romney has taken a lot of heat for being politically tone deaf. He likes to fire people, he makes big bets, he doesn't worry about the poor and don't forget that tree height fetish. Well, I can't say that it has bothered me, in fact, it makes my job that much easier. But anyone who's heard him sing knows he's literally tone deaf as well, and that spells trouble. (With a capital T that rhymes with D that stands for Dems.)

You might think that Mitt's tin ear would be good for the Democrats. We've all seen the president rock with Mick Jagger and croon some R&B to Al Green. What could be better than that kind of contrast, you ask? Let me tell you.

Most of us can't sing. We don't admit it, and we don't talk about it, but few of us could hit a note with a shotgun, or carry a tune in a tote bag. It's common knowledge that people vote for the candidate they would be comfortable hanging out with, perhaps even having a beer with. I don't know about you, but after knocking back a few at my favorite pub, there's nothing better than singing some songs from the "auld sod" that would make your average Englishman run and hide. And, while we get points, (and citations) for volume- none of us can really sing, and we'd be mightily pissed at anyone who showed us up with a good voice. Mitt would fit right in on that score. Of course, he doesn't drink, and he's Mormon, so he wouldn't be welcome anyway- but I think I've made my point: Barack Obama is part of the melodically elite- the lyrical one percent, if you will.

This election could be very close. If the musically challenged have their way, Obama is gonna be singing the blues.

Onward Christian Soldiers

As I write this Rick Santorum has won the Alabama Primary, and seems poised to win Mississippi as well. Hawaii is so far west, that we won't know who won before October, and yet I feel a trend coming on.

According to all the polls, the Republican dream ticket is 'other.' But these guys will still keep plugging along.

And rightly so.

This nation needs the guidance only these good, very Christian men can provide. Ignorant souls may be put off by the fact that, to a man, they lie about themselves; they lie about each other; and they lie about the President. But I give them props for consistency. This is an important election. They have to win, and they've learned great lessons from reading the Bible. Jesus? Look where the truth got him. You can bet none of these guys is willing to end up on a cross. Besides, after pissing off the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Romans, Jesus couldn't have gotten himself elected dog catcher in Jerusalem, and every Republican knows it.

The separation of church and state makes Santorum want to "throw up."

I think we all can sympathize.

I feel quite nauseated myself.

Shakespeare had it Write

"And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope."
Shakespeare, Macbeth, act V, scene viii

Macbeth was complaining about the weird sisters, of course. It also applies, quite accurately to the weird candidates the Republicans are fielding this year.
It is my intent to jump on the bandwagon of satirical commentary.True, it's a bit crowded, but who can resist all the material those idiots are shoveling? The hardest part will be topping the sheer tonnage of unintended irony.

I intend to try.