The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Monday, December 27, 2010

November 29, 2003 by s.z.


Today's Town Hall Columns

The good news: it's a light load, due to the weekend.  Better news: the pieces are fully of juicy conservative goofiness.

Neil's business and economics expertise (plus the fact that his friend Tom is uncharacteristically buying nice presents for his family this year) allows Neil to predict that holiday spending will be up 8-9% over last year's.  Of course, if Tom is just having an affair, then forget everything Neil said.
Tom is definitely a wild and crazy guy now, and it's not a big raise at work or even signs he's more stable at work that's making him wild and crazy.
Tom is, in a word, restless. He's not spent much money in years, and he's sick of it. 
Robert Novak
Poor Dana Rohrabacher was misled by the Republican leadership, who promised him that if he would just vote for the Medicare bill, hospitals would report illegal aliens to Immigration authorities.  Hey, if you can't trust the Republican Leadership to report ailing aliens to the Border Patrol, who CAN you trust to be hearless and cruel?
As late as 3 a.m. last Saturday (two hours before the bill passed), ex-Ronald Reagan speechwriter Rohrabacher was ready to break party lines and vote against the bill because it expands health care for illegals. The Republican leadership won his vote by promising to put in the catchall appropriations bill a provision requiring hospitals to report to border control the names of illegals that they treat. When that massive spending measure became public Tuesday, however, Rohrabacher found no such provision. 
President Bush's visit to Iraq was necessary to boost troop morale (brought down by the lying press, which says that things aren't going well), and to keep the the evil-doers from thinking they are winning this war (which they do, thanks to the lying press and the whining liberals).  Sadly, however, the Democratic presidential hopefuls are traitors, and spoiled everything by saying mean things about the President's holiday surprise.
Unfortunately, in contrast to Bush’s steely resolve, cynical Democratic Party opponents who provide few concrete alternatives to Bush’s effort, continue to criticize the president and the war. In response to the Bush trip a spokesman for Democratic presidential front-runner, Howard Dean said: "It's nice that he made it over there today, but this visit won't change the fact that those brave men and women should never have been fighting in Iraq in the first place."
According to the Dean campaign US troops killed in Iraq have died in vain. These are welcome words to the ears of Iraqi insurgents and certainly demoralizing to US forces in a war zone.
Another presidential contender, Senator John Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran who voted in favor of the Congressional resolution that authorized Bush to use force against Saddam Hussein, echoed the defeatist Democratic theme stating: “When Thanksgiving is over, I hope the president will take the time to correct his failed policy in Iraq that has placed our soldiers in a shooting gallery.” But Kerry especially should understand that soldiers will be killed in any war, especially in a counter-insurgency campaign such as the one in Iraq.
And while every individual US casualty is tragic, the 400-plus American casualties in Iraq -- by any historical standard -- are still militarily insignificant. The United States loses several hundred troops annually just in peacetime training accidents. 
So, see!  Howard Dean is demeaning the deaths of patriots, and John Kerry (who should know better) is saying that soldiers shouldn't be left in the middle of an insurgency to be targets, even though they are a lot safer in Iraq than they would be if undergoing stateside training. 

Another reason Town Hall is such a valuable resource.

3:40:26 AM    



And here's a new trend we approve of: Just Saying No to the Dating Industry
"There's a fetishization of coupling," said Bella DePaulo, a visiting professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who studies perceptions of singles. "It's made the pressure that's always been there more intense."
[snip]
Experts say the rise of the Dating-Industrial Complex, and the burnout, is an inevitable result of the increasingly delayed age of marriage and the lengthening of the dating years. Nationwide, the number of single households continues to rise. The technology and advice industry that has developed in response advertises efficiency. In fact, Ms. Whitehead said, it offers anything but.
"It requires a whole bunch of energy and time and entrepreneurial drive," she said. "If you do that for a number of years, it begins to be fatiguing and you think, `There are better things to do with my time,' things with a known payoff like travel or learning a language."
So, in honor of this trend of not trying to get married, tomorrow's "Review of a Book I Haven't Read" will be John T. Malloy's  Why Men Marry Some Women and Not Others: The Fascinating Research That Can Land You the Husband of Your Dreams.

2:58:10 AM    




Reviews of Books We Haven't Read
A new feature, where we read the publisher's description of the book on Amazon, and extrapolate from there.  (Note: books may actually be less interesting than described.)

by Barbara Bush
This inspiring memoir by former first lady and current first mother Barbara Bush is sure to be a hit with everyone who wants to know more about the Bush family.  Republicans and Democrats alike will appreciate Mrs. Bush's warmth, candor, and devotion to her family. 
Picking up where her previous book left off, Reflections begins with the inauguration of her son, President George W. Bush, in January 2001.  Mrs. Bush's candid description of President Clinton ("What the hell was wrong with America!  How could they have voted for this dope-smoking, draft-dodging, bimbo-loving white trash prick instead of my husband?") make clear her disappointment with being voted out of the Oval Office.  Mrs. Bush also alludes to some friction with Hillary on the day Mrs. Bush showed her around the White House ("When she made that catty remark about being happy to finally meet the ex-president's mother, I reached over and pulled out a handful of bleached blonde  hair --  I would have done more if the Secret Service hadn't pulled us apart").

In this volume, Mrs. Bush discusses her experiences on the campaign trail with her sons:
The damned reporters found out about Georgie's drunk driving arrest, even after all the money we paid that state trooper!  Thank heavens that cocaine dealer "met with an unfortunate accident" and will never shoot his big mouth off.
The extraordinary amount of love she feels for her family and the pride she takes in their many achievements is always clear, even when discussing the mistakes all young people make while growing up:
Admittedly, the twins are hard drinkers, but that's to be expected, considering who their father is.  But they are lovely young ladies who will make the family proud of them. . .if they know what's good for them.  Their Secret Service agents have orders to shoot to kill if they get out of line one more time. 
And at least they are turning out better than Jeb's brats!  That damned Jebby was caught having oral sex in a Tallahassee mall parking lot -- although we were able to finesse that incident and keep it out of the papers until it no longer mattered, the boy should have been beaten to within an inch of his life for being so indiscreet that close to an election.  And his sister Noelle -- it's not bad enough that she has to be a drug addict, but then she gets caught forging prescriptions like a common criminal!  Or course, she didn't got to jail like a common criminal, but she doesn't seem to appreciate all the favors the family had to call in to arrange that.  Next election, she'll have to be incarcerated in a very secure treatment facility -- for her own good, of course. 
Mrs. Bush also discusses the challenges that come with being the mother of grown sons who "don't have a lick of sense." 
Failed business ventures are just a fact of life when you let idiots run companies.  But Georgie and Jeb had to learn somehow -- if people lost money in the process, well, everybody, even the FDIC, knows that investing is a gamble.  And yes, I worry sometimes that Marvin's dealings with the Saudis and Neil's consulting for the Chinese might be considered inappropriate, but if trading on the influence of their brother is the only way they can support their families, then who am I to tell them it's wrong? 
And Neil does need a lot of money right now, what with that messy divorce from Sharon-the-bitch.  I told him that an affair with that slut Maria Andrews was one thing, but that under no circumstances should he consider ditching his wife, even if Maria DID bear his child.  But Neil always did have to follow his heart.  He is such a romantic that he really thought those prostitutes the semiconductor firm sent to his hotel slept with him because they found him attractive!  But I love Neil and am proud of him, even though he is a loser and a terrible disappointment to me.  And if you try to hurt him or anyone else in my family, I'll have you whacked so fast you won't have time to regret your mistake.  Don't think I won't.
Reflections will delight Barbara Bush's millions of admirers with the former first lady's compassion and wit, as well as with candid revelations and bland casserole recipes.  Proceeds from book sales will be used to whack Mrs. Bush's enemies.

2:48:04 AM    

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