A lot has happened in the week we missed. Let's catch up, shall we? Tops news: My Grandma liked the BBW Hurricane Katrina coverage, "even with the awful swearing." However, she did laugh at the caption calling Barbara Bush a 'bitch,' scientifically proving once and for all that my Grandma rules. From here, Bornbackwards can conquer the world and by the 22nd Century we expect to be the world's premier source for all news about anything. By then, we hope to have more than three writers and update more than once a week (by the way, if you'd like to help construct the Bornbackwards Global Media Hegemony of the future by writing for us, click here!! Don't miss this chance to get in on ethe ground floor). Our Katrina news may have been serious, but the time for that is past …

Let the hilarity begin NOW!!

Hilarity!

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Moving right along, it appears my Grandma wasn't the only one reading the BBW Katrina coverage, seems like the whole world read it. The proof? Bush's poll numbers are way down in the 30 percent range. To celebrate, he bathed in the blood of seven puppies while watching his Living Single boxset.

We are Liiiiiving Siiiingle .. in a '90s kind of wooorld, I'm glaaad I got my girls.

He then tried to call FEMA head Michael "Brownie" Brown to tell him his new nickname was "Drownie" and that he was still doing a heck of a job, only to find out that he had resigned last Monday. The president then, of course, realized that he was not doing a heck of a job, or any job really. Yes, Brownie or Drownie, or whatever, has been attempting to shop his resume since resigning as FEMA head only to find that no sane person in America would ever hire him again. When you kill a couple thousand people even McDonalds doesn't want to hire you ... as a fry cook. People need their french fries when they order them, not a week later and covered in bloated corpses.

What an asshole.

Of course Bush's low poll numbers didn't sit well with presidential advisor Karl Rove, who patiently explained to the president that 38% unfortunately does not mean that he's in the top 4th of his graduating class. Rove then had to also explain to the president that he had already graduated over 30 years ago and that being president is like 10 bazillion gagillion times better than being voted Prom King or 'Class Clown'.

In the aftermath of the Katrina debacle, Republicans in both the legislative and executive branches have attempted to block an independent commission to investigate the government's, and in particular FEMA's, failures. Instead they'd like to create a Republican-controlled commission headed by an advisor who helped reorganize the Homeland Security Department that houses FEMA. My new hero, CNN's Jack Cafferty editorialized on-air saying that "The public is not going to buy any of this stuff that comes out of Washington. They're not going to believe anything that comes out of these partisan reports or stuff that was done from within the White House. It just isn't going to wash. The game is up with John Q Public. They're not buying this stuff anymore!" [video]

Instead of appointing an independent commission, the president gave a big, inspiring speech that dropped his poll number by another 3 points the following week, meaning he's losing support from even his base. His base, of course, being hyper-intelligent reptilian humanoids, a subterranean Nazi-friendly super race with telekentic powers, and loyal viewers of Pat Robertson's 700 Club. You should click those links because the hilarity we mentioned earlier is gently cupped and sheltered within them, like tiny pearls of pure comedy.

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While the president's speech embraced liberal rhetoric about using government money to deal with poverty, Republican's are actual trying to use Katrina to push their agenda by creating a radical right-wing 'free market' zone in New Orleans to test out ideas passed in the normal legislative process. Worried that the cost of the Katrina cleanup will kill their plans for future tax cuts, Senate Republicans are now actively searching for a rich corpse to help them make their silly case for repeal of the estate tax, a tax that only affects 2% of Americans and 100% of Senators [link].

In the past week, the Bush administration has suspended minimum wage and affirmative action rules for federal contractors working in the Gulf region. Why would anyone cut the minimum wage in a region that was just divested by a hurricane when the local economy obviously needs all the money it can get? Because the president has acid for blood. Bill Clinton makes a good point that this reconstruction should employ those displaced by the hurricane, not only giving them the opportunity to rebuild their own community but giving them money to rebuild their own lives. But that would be a good idea.

Republicans are also working on legislation that a) would limit victims' right to sue any person or organization that helps Katrina victims without compensation, b) offer vouchers for displaced school children, and c) lift environment restrictions on new refineries and create tax-advantaged enterprise zones to maximize private-sector participation in recovery and reconstruction [link].

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Of course, all the reconstruction contracts went no-bid to the usual cast of hilarious characters and colorful sidemen. Shaw Group and Kellogg Brown & Root are, of course, clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, former Bush campaign manager and college roommate of your friend and mine, the unemployable Brownie. Kellogg Brown & Root are, of course, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's secret boys-only clubhouse Halliburton. According to tax filings, Cheney's income last year included $194,852 in deferred pay from the company [link].

Another company contracted to do Katrina work is Fluor, a company that, according to USA Today, has "previously paid millions of dollars to settle federal government lawsuits - including one that accused it of overbilling for 1989 hurricane cleanup work." It only makes sense that we would hire them again and the US government likes to make sense.

FEMA and Louisiana Governor Katherine Blanco have also outsourced the job counting bodies in New Orleans to Kenyon International. Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family that has been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses. We're not talking about the hilarious Weekend at Bernie's kind of body desecration that we here at BBW engage in every fortnight or so, we're talking about the painfully unfunny and outright disgusting body desecration of Weekend at Bernie's II that we here at BBW only engage in on only a semi-annual basis. And I quote, "The Menorah Gardens cemetery chain, owned by SCI, desecrated vaults, removed hundreds of bodies from two cemeteries in Florida and dumped the gruesome remains in woods frequented by wild hogs, investigators discovered in 2001. In one case, a backhoe was used to crack open a vault, remove corpses and make room for more dead bodies. SCI paid $100 million to settle a lawsuit filed by outraged family members of the deceased." So of course they're the perfect people to handle the decaying, bloated, two-week-old corpses left behind by Katrina. Liberals would probably want to spend a bunch of government money burying the bodies, but once again the free market comes up with the most efficient, profitable solution: wild hogs [link].

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At least North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear program. That's pretty good.

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Meanwhile, as the president was being photographed in California playing a guitar while New Orleans refugees drowned, Al Gore rescued 270 people. You may remember Al Gore as the man who won the 2000 election. He also invented the internet and filled it with delightful pornographic treats for young and old alike. Gore put up $50,000 of his own money to charter two flights to carry patients out of Charity Hospital in New Orleans. The flights were arranged at the urging of Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore's son, also named Al, in 1989. Dr. Kline was treating patients at the hospital in the aftermath of Katrina, and as he explains the situation was getting dire with no power, four feet of water surrounding the hospital and food and water running out. About 140 people, many of them sick, landed in Knoxville on September 3. The second flight, with 130 evacuees, landed the next day in Chattanooga. Then they all celebrated by downloading the internet porn Tranny Grannies on Gorillas 4: The Revenge, a personal favorite of Dr. Kline and the Gore family [link].

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In another part of the country, the anti-war movement picked up steam as a Cindy Sheehan rally in New York's Union Square Park was forcibly shut down by police. Sheehan was giving what could be considered the opposite of an inspiring speech, spewing monotone clichés about climbing mountains that she had read the previous day on inspirational posters. "Priorities: look to the future, for that is what makes today great! Attitude: What happens to a man is less significant than what happens within him! Integrity: Integrity comes when character is tested; keep true and never be ashamed of doing what is right! Indomitably: he who laughs in the face of adversity is probably hammered!" She suggested that the crowd should imagine inspiring pictures of sunsets, lunar eclipses, lighthouses, baby kittens, and crashing oceans waves to accompany her words.

Climb as high as you can dream.

The police then shut down the gathering and arrested Paul Zulkowitz, an organizer with "Camp Casey NYC," a small encampment that he and other activists set up Union Square in solidarity with Sheehan's vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, for failure to obtain proper permits. The crowd went nuts, surrounding the police and repeatedly shouting "Shame, Shame, Shame" while someone played "God Bless America" on a trumpet [video].

Despite the insistence on sound permits, the police did nothing when a young folkie set up a microphone and portable amp to play protest songs shortly after Sheehan and her entourage had left. Witnesses report that Sheehan's mic wasn't that much louder than the folkie's. Inspector Michael McEnroy, commander of the 13th Precinct, insisted the shutdown order had nothing to do with the content of Sheehan's speech, but was instead about the "provocation" caused by Zulkowitz. "This has been going on for much longer than today," McEnroy said, adding of Sheehan, "I don't even know the woman." That last part prompted one pissed-off onlooker to shoot back: "Haven't you watched the news or read a paper in the last three months?" Only the gossip rags, replied McElroy, who then engaged activists in a gossipy conversation about how he thinks Brad doesn't deserve Jennifer Anniston or Angelina Joele and how could he possibly sleep with Vegas prostitutes when he's got such hot 'tang waiting for him at home and of course he was good in Fight Club and Twelve Monkeys but what a bastard because I would give all but one of my fingers just to lick Angelina's ear and here this fuck is CHEATING ON HER can you believe that stupid shit I would buy her tacos every night and thank her for looking in my general direction even once per day. The activists had no idea what McElroy was talking about, to which he replied, "Haven't you watched E! Entertainment Television or read Star Magazine in the last three months? Jesus Christ, people, at least pretend to keep up with important current events!"

Let me warn you now: this edition of the Bornbackwards news will only be about hurricane Katrina. None of it will be funny. The human toll is just too enormous to be ignored, even by a shitty e-zine that normally talks about how much they despise Good Charlotte. As anyone following the current events already knows, it's not just the hurricane that's the problem. It took six days before food and water even began to arrive in flooded New Orleans. Now, a week later, there are still those without them. The United States, the richest country in the world, has been reduced to the misery of Somalia, with an emergency response at least as good as that of Bangladesh.

Make no mistake about it, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath may be the single worst disaster--natural and manmade--to ever happen in the United States. On a human scale it is much, much worse than September 11th. An entire city is gone, not just two buildings. Rather than fear it is engendering anger, and rightfully so. After being reelected on the basis of 'security' and claiming 'vote for me or you'll die', after years of supposedly reorganizing the federal government to deal with terrorist attacks or other disasters, after spending billions of dollars trying to rebuild Iraq, we find that it takes six days for our government just to start to get water to a major urban area in our own country. New Orleans is a fucking disaster in the most powerful, humbling sense of the word.

And the lies are staggering. The president is claiming that no one could have foreseen the levees would break. Who told him that, because it is just a flat-out lie: people have been predicting the levees would break for years, running computer simulations, and begging for money from the federal government that was instead earmarked for war and tax cuts. Sitting in my home two weeks as Katrina barreled down on New Orleans, I knew that the levees would break and New Orleans was pretty fucked. Saturday Night Live Claymation figure Mr. Bill knew that the levees would fucking break two years ago! Then Bush tells Michael Brown, the completely incompetent head of the Federal Emergency Relief Agency, that he's doing "a heck of a job." As the New Orleans Times-Picayune said, "Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President."

Michael Brown is completely incompetent.
FEMA turned away three trucks from Wal-Mart carrying water. FEMA turned away 500 airboat pilots from Florida who offered to ferry survivors out of the flooded city, and threatened them with arrest if they set foot in New Orleans [link]. FEMA restricted the Red Cross from fully accessing the city [link] and urged first responders not to respond [link]. FEMA workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA [link]. Now FEMA is training 1,400 firefighters in Atlanta to do public relations work for the government while there are still victims waiting in Louisiana and Mississippi for help. Their first mission: stand next to the president as he tours decimated areas [link]. Brown waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already hit before asking Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to dispatch 1,000 federal employees to the region - and gave them two days to arrive [link]. The list runs on.

In the midst of such rampant stupidity, mismanagement, and callousness, President Bush tells Michael Brown--a man with no qualifications to be the head of FEMA other than being fired from the Colorado-based International Arabian Horse Association--that he's doing "a heck of a job." As we already quoted the New Orleans Times-Picayune saying, "Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President."

Video of a survivor telling her story. Rather than working to get the rest of the survivors out, the administration is also attempting to spin the situation, blaming state and local officials and often the survivors themselves. The people left behind in New Orleans are those who were simply too poor to leave or had nowhere else to go. They were largely black. While the richer white people lived mostly in the hills above the city, poor blacks lived in the most devastated areas below sea level in the center of the city. Yet the White House continues to describe them as "those who chose to stay behind" or "those who ignored evacuation orders." Bill O'Reilly used barely concealed racism when he theorized that poor black residents stayed behind so they could loot and riot.

Black survivors are portrayed as looting, while white survivors are said to have 'found food'.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert suggested that spending federal money to rebuild New Orleans would be foolish [link]. Bill Clinton later said that had he been in the same place where Hastert made the remarks, "I'm afraid I would have assaulted him." Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum showed he had not a shred of humanity when he said that people who stayed in New Orleans should face legal penalties [link]. They lost their homes! They lost their loved ones! Senator Santorum is a wretched scum of a human being who does not deserve to be alive after so many have lost their lives simply because they were too poor. Then there's Kanye West in one of the best video clips of the year stating on a live hurricane relief fundraiser that, "George Bush doesn't care about black people," and pointing out the racism of the entire situation, including news reports [link]. But Kanye isn't exactly right, its not that George Bush doesn't care about black people, he doesn't care about anyone who doesn't have $3 million or more in their bank accounts. It's clearer than its ever been that George Bush doesn't care about the majority of Americans.

His callousness, and that of his family has been displayed again and again in wake of the situation. For instance, speaking at the same press conference where he praised Brown, Bush callously offered sympathy not to the victims--the dead and dying--but to his buddy Trent Lott, "The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)" That's still not as bad as what his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, said while touring evacuees housed in Houston's Astrodome, "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle)--this is working very well for them." [audio clip] Reading that for the first time I almost choked. Barbara Bush is a terrible, terrible human being who obviously has no sense of human compassion at all.

Bitch.
You may ask, "Where was Dick Cheney during all this?" Well, he was still on vacation--shopping for a new mansion in Maryland, near Donald Rumsfeld's weekend estate [link]. Now Bush is saying he will dispatch Cheney to Louisiana next week … I mean, there's no hurry or anything. With the total callousness of America's top officials, its seems like our normally vacuous celebrities are better human beings than anymore in national office. Oprah is in the Astrodome interviewing survivor's "so their stories get told," John Travolta has airlifted five tons of food, Sean Penn is ferrying people out of New Orleans in a little boat, and Celine Dion broken down in tears on Larry King Live and lamented that her million dollar donation was simply not enough because right now the survivors just need food and water, not money [link]. It was actually very moving, and I almost cried myself.

Who would have thought that Celine Dion would show more urgency and compassion than anyone in the entire executive branch of the federal government?

It seems as though all the policies Bush has pursued through the last five years have finally and suddenly imploded upon this one disaster, each one exacerbating it in turn. The growing divide between rich and poor; tax cuts for the rich that could have gone to levee repair; the Iraq war sucking away money and National Guardsmen from more important things; the attempt to starve and bankrupt the federal government; the removal of FEMA from the cabinet and placing it under the larger Department of Homeland Security; appointment of ideologues and friends into important positions rather experienced, competent leaders; increased emphasis on state's rights and responsibilities; innumerable vacations; and now, corporate malfeasance. Oil companies are reporting record profits and Hilary Clinton has called for an investigation into whether prices are being manipulated and exploited in the wake of the hurricane [link].

Sean Penn's tiny rescue boat.

Perhaps the only silver lining about this entire situation is that it seems the press has awoken from their long slumber. Reporters are asking tough questions, Fox is behaving like a real news organization, and people are addressing issues of class and race that have been boiling below the surface unnoticed for the last five years. A month ago it would have been unthinkable to hear Greta Van Susteren talking about poverty in America, Geraldo cursing and crying on air about government ineptitude, or Shepard Smith discovering he has a soul and telling Sean Hannity that 'this is all the perspective you need'--all on Hannity and Colmes! Here's the video, and I recomend you watch it. It's pretty powerful. Then there's Geraldo flat out disagreeing on Fox News with Donald Rumsfeld on the deployment of National Guardsmen in Iraq [link]. CNN's Jack Cafferty mused aloud about the arrival of relief convoys and the president's photo opportunity happening on the same day [link] and blasted the administration for what is the worst disaster to befall America in his lifetime [link], "I'm 62 and I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earth Quake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people. Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people that are in that Super Dome down there...This is Thursday...This storm happened five days ago. It's a disgrace and don't think the world isn't watching..."

Face the Nation's Bob Schaffer attacked not just the president but the entire Republican establishment, "No hint of intelligent design in any of this. This was just survival of the richest." [link] A clearly pissed Ted Koppel asked Michael Brown how the government could not have known about survivors locked by National Guardsmen in the convention center--with no food and surrounded by dead bodies, feces, and filth, like animals--when news reporters were covering it for days [link]. How about Anderson Cooper going off on Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu after she began thanking the president and Congress for their aid, "I have to tell you, there are people here who are very upset and angry, and when they hear politicians thanking one another, it just, you know, it cuts them the wrong way right now, because there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman has been laying in the street for 48 hours, and there is not enough facilities to get her up. Do you understand that anger?" [link]

Then only a few days later, Senator Landrieu threatened to literally punch anyone, including the president, who continues to try to pass the buck to state and local officials [link]. She then burst into tears looking at a single crane working to repair a gap in a broken levee that the president was photographed fixing the day before, "Perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government." [link]

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal showed how the Bush administration had systematically stripped power and money from FEMA, which had been painfully rebuilt under President Bill Clinton but had long been a target of Republican "small government" ideologues. The Journal said state officials had been warning Washington - as recently as July 27 - that the homeland secretary, Michael Chertoff, was planning further disastrous cuts.

In what may be the most moving clip of all, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard started sobbing on Meet the Press describing the death of a friend's mother as she drowned waiting for help to show up. Broussard then completely broke down and wailed, "No one is coming to get us, no one is coming to get us." [link]. I warn you, it is extremely moving and may be one of the most emotionally impacting things I have ever seen in my short life.

Prominent Republicans are distancing themselves from the president. After proclaiming his pleasure at the government's response to a stunned Anderson Cooper a few days ago [link], Trent Lott is now calling for an investigation into the failure of the national government. Conservative columnists and pundits are abandoning the president in droves.

It feels as though the country is changing for the better by the hour, as America shakes off its slumber and realizes it has some huge work ahead of it, not just in rebuilding New Orleans, but in rebuilding America. People are considering the fact that a stronger, active federal government would have been into New Orleans in hours, not days. Poverty is suddenly a potent issue again, for the first time since the 1960s. America is revealed as a place where we leave the poor to die in a kind of passive genocide.

We can officially declare that Bush is the worst president the United States of America has ever had. Worse than Herbert Hoover. Worse even than Richard Nixon. Nothing this disastrous, embarrassing, or devastating ever occurred under his administration, for all its irredeemable sins. It's just a shame it took something so unimaginably terrible to finally shake things loose.

Less you think we merely complain and joke here at Bornbackwards, we are getting involved in relief efforts. Paul is currently in New Orleans as a Red Cross volunteer helping survivors. For being so bristly and often-times abrasive, he is truly one of the most humane people I know. Evacuees from New Orleans are being housed in Red Cross shelters across the country, even here in far-off Gainesville, Florida and I plan to donate some of my time. Please, find one near you and donate your time or your money. This is vitally important.

Beyond that, massive protests are planned on September 24th in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. It is already getting large amounts of media attention. I will be attending in DC and I hope to see you there, to prevent something like this from ever happening again in the United States of America, because George Bush doesn't care about anyone.


A National Crime.

[Editor's note: Walter is mad this week. At Bush. And social conservatives. But mostly Bush. I know this is unprecedented in BBW news, and we normally keep things fair and balanced, but please bear with us as we editorialize for the first time ever.. News was updated twice this week, so check under this column for Adam's contribution. Death to False Country!]

So, honestly, I don't have a whole lot to say aside from fuck this fucking administration. Fuck them so hard, they bleed. There's a fucking natural disaster, people's lives are in jeopardy, their homes are ravaged... At least take a motherfucking breath between your opening sentence of "this is a tragedy" and "we have to drill oil from Alaska" you backwards ass piece-of-shit asshole-loving dickhead. Put aside your motherfucking agenda for two fucking seconds. Have the courtesy to at least make it an aside, or minor point, in your fucking speech.

This is what half the god damn country wanted, and I hope they fucking love this. Cheer like the god damn Romans at the Coliseum while men were being eaten by lions. We're so much fucking better than the world. Fuck you and your fucking ideals. You want to save a fucking vegetable in Florida because you love life so much, but we can't even stop and try to do some shit about large scale death and destruction before trying to line our pockets. You make me sick, you fucking asshole. The trained monkey says gas is gonna go up. Who wants to bet gas goes up to 5 dollars by friday? All because they got us where they want us. This is so fucking dumb.

I just hope that everyone still alive from the hurricane manages to have somethnig to return to, even if they have to wait for it to be rebuilt. My heart goes out to you all, even if you probably can't read this. And hopefully we'll all be able to lend a hand in fixing your lives.

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Everything else feels kind of pointless now, but here goes...

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Recently, it came to my attention that Josh Staples of the Velvet Teen / the New Trust sent a nice message to Deep Elm Records. I'd paraphrase, but it works out well enough on its own:

"Dear Deep Elm...
You are the shittiest label in the world. Your trend-hopping tendencies are repulsive, your teenie-bopping, cookie cutter punk marketing techniques are shameless, and your business practices are unethical and often times downright mean. Am I mistaken that all the good bands that you work with whose multi-record contracts were fulfilled have never renewed their contract with you? Planes? Brandson? Appleseed Cast? Anybody? Why is that do you think? Not to mention that your johnny-come-lately myspace attempt follows the rest of your marketing campaigns: dorky, contrived, and a year late. Keep on being sucky, you ding-a-lings.
Josh"

But really, tell us how you feel. It's not a secret that bands on Deep Elm have a history of conflict with the label. It's never really been so widely talked about, but it's there. Now you know, too.

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The Video Music Awards were this Sunday, and the idiots were out in full force. Was it just me, or did it seem like they spent all this time making a set and everything, and forgetting to script and reherse a good part of the show? Sure, Diddy, anything can happen, cause no one knew what the fuck was going on.

Honestly, the VMAs remained one of the few reasons to watch MTV anymore, but over the last few years, they've really just screwed it to hell. Michael Jackson getting a cake for no reason a year or two ago...now MC Hammer showing up and no camera man gets a clear shot of his face. Diddy had to hand out diamond watches for christ's sake, it was so bad.

Notice my comments only reflect the show in its first 15-20 minutes. Why? Because that's all my sheer, morbid, curiosity could handle before I wanted to die. So, maybe the rest of the show had Lindsay Lohan miraculously regaining her figure and doing it to several other attractive young women. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my ass. Green Day was terrible, too.

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Chris Farley received a star on the walk of fame. His two brothers and mother accepted the award for him. Several of Farley's previous co-workers were there, including David Spade, Adam Sandler, and Chris Rock. Rock stated that "every fat comic working today owes him 80 bucks." I'm not sure how much Spade is worth, but he owes pretty much all of it to Farley's coat tails. Well, there was Jeremy Piven and PCU...

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Reggie got sho...er, Suge Knight got shot, yo.

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Fairly attractive and relatively talentless country singer Gretchen Wilson was asked by the Tennesse attorney general to stop pushing the tobacco on the yung'ins. Formerly known for her "Redneck Woman" song, Gretchen returns with her eloquence and mastery of songcraft, creating the masterpiece, "Skoal Ring." And, predictably, she produces a can of skoal chewing tebaccy in mid song. Who needs choreography? It's not like country has been reduced to pop with a fiddle from its folk tales of the working man/woman. This stuff has integrity, damn it!

Apparently, since many children attend these concerts, and they display the tobacco on the big screens, this counteracts laws against tobacco advertisement. Personally, I think it's because the attorney general is a music fan, and is systematically killing false country, song by song. Bravo!

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Yeah, fuck Bush. Drilling oil from Alaska ain't going to refine it any quicker, dumb ass. Do all you can to help those in need.

This is old news that was edited out of last week's news in the name of a few Jewish saints that Ryan kept rattling off but I don't remember their names. He also said something about an "attitude readjustment" but we live and learn and bow down to the editor. So here goes my second crack at this story...

In an ever-increasing effort to confuse the American people with a combination of scare tactics, mental retardation, and political buffoonery, George Bush defended his policy on the war in Iraq by saying, "The only way to defend our citizens where we live is to go after the terrorists where they live." I agree. Since Iraq had nothing to do with any terrorist attack whatsoever, let's get the fuck out of there and start focusing on the real terrorist threat, our own red-blooded American government. And I don't mean we should bomb the White House and kill the president, because if I meant that, I'd just be another crazy religious nut with my own television network which I use to spout my nuthouse ramblings without fear of any substantial backlash.

Speaking of which, I was out on the street the other day campaigning for the assassination of Ryan Boyle for editing this story in it's orignal form when suddenly I was arrested and shoved into the back of the police car. "But!" I exclaimed, "Pat Robertson advocated the assassination of a world leader, an international offense, mind you, and all that happened was a bunch of talking heads debated whether or not he was too crazy, too old, or too religious to be of any harm! I only wanted to assassinate a dweeby online zine editor!" Of course I only got to "But!" before they tasered me into a coma. They're lucky I woke up after only a few days because my family would have sued the shit out of them, and my family isn't poor and black, so they might actually have had something to worry about.

Anyway, what I mean is we need to really start fighting the government and letting the world know that we don't support the actions taken in our name. People are finally starting to come together in opposition to this war so let's tap this energy and that ass and start a movement. How, you ask? I don't know exactly, I work for a fucking blimp.

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Hugo Chavez, the terrible terrible Venezuelan President who has offered to provide water, food, and fuel to US communities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, has announced "that [his] government is going to take legal action in the United States[against Pat Robertson] ... to call for the assassination of a head of state is an act of terrorism."

He's right, but what do we have to say about our terrorists here in America? Go back to your job! Get back on TV and "inform" thousands maybe millions of people on your TV station! Chavez is looking to extradite Robertson and has warned that he will bring the issue to the UN if the US fails to take action. Break out your silk screens and start pumping out some "Extradite Pat Robertson" t-shirts instead of something clever and fashionable. Give them to your friends! Take to the streets! We don't want the UN crawling up our ass! They are like sooooo annoying, always asking for their money like we owe it to them.

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In other "Hi, we're insane and we're Christian" news, the dinosaur park you remember so fondly from such movies as Pee Wee's Big Adventure and The Wizard (starring a hunky, preteen Fred Savage) has been bought by Christian Young-Earth theorists looking to show that dinosaurs showed up the same day Adam showed up in Genesis: the 6th day. The new owners contend that baby dinosaurs rode out the great flood on Noah's Ark while the rest drowned and washed away to all corners of the earth. They believe that "evolution birthed Communism, racism and Nazism."

Not only are they crazy, but they enjoy the arts! A poem on a sign next to a giant dinosaur reads, "Primordial soup, to the so, to you, is evolution true?" Why are you asking if you already know!! Hell, we all know! Because as they say, "There's something in [our] DNA that knows man walked with these creatures on Earth."

Quotes thanks to the LA Times except for that first quote about being insane Christians. That one is a quote from the dramitization of this story entitled Pat Robertson Presents: Another Group of People Who Shouldn't Be Telling People Things. Nothing. Seriously.

None of this is as important as the Video Music Awards where anything can happen except the show actually ending.


It paid off.

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Speaking of evolution, check out the new free downloadable Pachyderms EP A Communique From the International Society of Pachyderms, previously only available on handmade 3" CD-Rs. Now with bonus tracks about dinosaurs and Neanderthals and monkeys, lots of monkeys. Avant-pop that's cheap as free.

When you have a blimps-eye view, people look like ants and houses like Monopoly pieces. World problems seem to be oh so insignificant at 1300 feet as long as the ants can read the name on the blimp. You would think that George Bush, being firmly rooted to the ground 151 miles from the nearest blimp, would have a different take on the world's problems, many of which he has caused [RYAN: Here's a link to a mapquest of my location in Decatur, TX to Crawford, where George Bush may or might not be training on an elliptical machine this very instant].

According to the Washington Post, officials in Washington are saying that the "United States no longer hopes to see a model new democracy [in Iraq], a self-supporting oil industry or a society where most Iraqis are free from serious security or economic challenges" and also that they don't expect to defeat the insurgency, only diminish it. One anonymous official stated, "We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some sort of Islamic republic." So, basically, the United States just destroyed a nation. Excuse me, WE just destroyed a nation. Every single one of us. And WE won't even have a democracy to show for it.

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What does POTUS think of all this? Well, we tried to reach him for a comment but he was busy training to be the FITTEST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME! That's right, folks, President Bush may be the healthiest President of all time. Historically, the Oval Office proves to be hell on a Commander in Chief, presumably because he is spending his time trying to run the fucking United States, but not this President, oh no! This President goes on two-hour bike rides, lifts weights, rides a stationary bike, and attacks the elliptical trainer, a favorite of suburban moms everywhere. Not like that fat fuck Taft, who sat around bathing in bacon all goddamn day.

According to Bush, the people want a President to be fit so he will "make good, crisp decisions." Decisions like which protest to ignore today, which bike trail to follow, alternate vacation destinations other than the ranch, and new, innovative ways to fuck over not only the American people, but the peoples of all countries. At least we can say our President has a heart rate that rivals the top athletes of our time. Eat your heart out, Lance Armstrong. LIVESTRONG!

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In other Bush news, the White House just hired a new head chef! It was a long and arduous process, but Laura Bush finally found the perfect chef for her husband's unique tastes. The dish that sealed the deal was the boundary-breaking and utterly fresh Iraq-of-Ribs, a plate of the charred ribs of Marines blown to a tantalizing crisp in roadside bombings. Mmm, tastes like democracy!

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In news one month old and not relating to our President and his foibles, the top Canadian health officer has said that Canadians, and thereby everybody, should limit their cell phone use until the long term health effects are discovered. At a three-day conference of the World Health Organization, Dr. David Butler-Jones told the other scientists, public health officials, and academics in attendance that scientists are "playing a game of catch up" with the constantly changing technology of today's world. Cellphone use may affect obesity in children and their social interactions with friends and family.

I always thought it was normal for children shaped like Chicken McNuggets to bury their faces in their text messaging machines and GameBoys while having dinner with their family. There might be other causes like fast food and lazy parenting, but I'll go along with anything that gets cell phones out of the hands of the kids that go to the movies on opening night and yell across the theater, yell into their violently blinking phones, and run to talk in person to the friends they just got off the phone with who are sitting right in front of me just waiting for my foot to slip off the back of their chair and give them a concussion.

But seriously, be careful, Johnny Cochran died of a tumor that doctors are tying to his extensive cell phone use. If the tumor fits, you must acquit!

But seriously again, get a headset for your phone. You'll look like a douchebag, but you can randomly yell out, "I TOLD YOU TO DIVERSIFY YOUR PORTFOLIO!!" and people will understand that you are a busy businessman or businesswoman. It works better if you're a man. But everything does, really.

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Blimping update: I am writing this from Decatur, Texas, 151 miles north of Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. If we weren't leaving tomorrow and it didn't take over two hours to get there, I'd love to visit the vigil being held outside of the ranch and maybe yell "COCKSUCKER" as Bush rode by on his mountain bike, but alas, it's not to be. I know yelling "COCKSUCKER" wouldn't accomplish anything and it's very childish, but it would fill this void in my chest that hasn't been filled in years. While I was on night watch a few nights ago, a group of drunk teens showed up at 3am to check out the blimp and hung on the handrail like it was a monkey bar, which is really the sole use of blimps in America. Oh, Lord in Heaven my eternal savior, my life really isn't that interesting at this point.

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Check out this interview Shelby Cinca recently did with a Spanish-language blog. It explains the breakdown of Decahedron and the difference in approach he's using on his new Frantic Mantis project with member of Division of Laura Lee. Oh, and scroll down for the English-translation, I know you can't be bothered to learn a second language because everybody knows the whole world speaks English. Even the Irish.

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Ryan didn't like my original joke: "Madonna fell off her horse, kind of like when she filmed Swept Away! HAHAHAHA! Entertainment news is HILARIOUS" so I had to write the following: BBC reports that Madonna fell off a horse on her 47th birthday, breaking some bones and taking a trip to the hospital. The article also states that Madonna "wears sensible shoes around the estate...and looks after her chickens," finally cementing Madonna in the realm of the completely unfuckable.