But later things got easier...

THE SIMPLE LI(F)E 2
BUSH EXPLAINING MEDICARE DRUG BILL -- VERBATIM QUOTE
Woman in Audience: "I don't really understand. How is the new plan going to fix the problem?"
President Bush: (verbatim response): "Because the – all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those --changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."
Which really starts me wondering if the fool is actually capable of reading a Teleprompter.
(Sent by Doug the Bass)

The hippos may have to be explained tomorrow.

GAY PENGUINS
For the latest in the ongoing story. And from Al Jazeera, no less. Send by Valerie (why does your email keep coming back)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6A41FF85-C54C-4A5F-9E7C-FF616C070316.htm

The secret word is Preference

The last 48 hours have been, how can I put this, creatively busy. But, I hope, later today, I will catch up with everything including how the White House keeps away dangerous hippos, and the problems of gay penguins -- and, no, I will not work out a Brokeback Iceflow joke.

The secret word is Candy

MO READIN’ – LA CITYBEAT
My new media column is out today. Primarily about political doublespeak/
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3270&IssueNum=140

THURSDAY IS CULINARY CLIP DAY











The secret word is Bird

"I am not Bob Dylan. I am definitely not Bob Dylan."


Doc40 All-Time Icons # 11 – Vincent Price

IF YOU NEED TO ASK THE WAY TO VALHALLA, THE ODDS ARE YOU WON’T MAKE IT THERE
With so much else going, plus all the Brokeback jokes, the story of Jacob Robina has not had quite as much play and might have been expected. According to early reports, this contemptibly sad lone gunman, seemingly a skinhead/trenchcoat mafia spawn, walked into Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, Mass, first asked if it was gay bar and only then started shooting. Much more than the subsequent car chase, his killing of a cop and companion/hostage(?), and then his own death, the thought refuses to leave my mind that this fool was so unsure about the objects of his lethally phobic hate, he first had to ask. Unfortunately his pathology will probably not be studied the way it should be.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11208324/from/RS.4/

"Ann Coulter said drain the swamp."

ALL JUST HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF
As I still stand in awe muttering "what the fuck, they’re storming the Danish Embassy over cartoons!", I wonder if I’m the only one who remembers from schoolboy history that the 19th century "Indian Mutiny" – that almost lost India for the British and killed hundreds of thousands – actually erupted over pork grease. After the usual colonial tensions rose to a boil (folks just don’t like to be colonized) the ruling Brits (my bunch) introduced the Pattern 1853 Enfield (P/53) rifle. Its cartridge was covered by a greased membrane which was supposed to be bitten off for loading. Rumours spread that the membrane was greased by cow or pig fat, an anathema to both Hindu and Muslim soldiers. With typical upper-class Victorian pig-ignorance, Commander in Chief in India, General George Anson responded. "I'll never give in to their beastly prejudices." And he didn’t. And murderous all hell broke loose.
For chapter and verse...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Mutiny

THE POETRY OF THIS JUSTICE PROVES COMPLEXLY COMPLEX
"LOS ANGELES - A man was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to robbing Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis and forcing him at gunpoint to pose for a demeaning videotape as part of an extortion attempt."
For the full, dumb, "couldn’t happen to a more deserving" story...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11234146/

The secret word is Porcine

"I have made you an offer you won’t refuse."

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GOOGLE
(Or maybe the ten point program? Or maybe the Kryptonization of Earth?)
While we attempt to make up our minds whether Google is the Digital Satan or the Hope of Humanity, its "Ten Golden Rules" make fascinating reading. Pratical utopianism? Maybe, but I still feel reminded of that episode of The Simpsons, "You Only Move Twice" in which Hank Scorpio strives for World Domination from the Dotcom campus of Cypress Creek. Or is that Microsoft?

The most well known is, of course...
Don't be evil. Much has been written about Google's slogan, but we really try to live by it, particularly in the ranks of management. As in every organization, people are passionate about their views. But nobody throws chairs at Google, unlike management practices used at some other well-known technology companies. We foster to create an atmosphere of tolerance and respect, not a company full of yes men.

And for the rest....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10296177/site/newsweek/

MUSTANG, FORD...
The adorable hipspinster tells a vivid tale of driving her mustang across country. (Only her’s was yellow and a convertible) at... http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

And, by odd synchronicity, Miss Templeton posts at length about Henry Ford. (Plutocrat bastard)
http://horslipsmusic.blogspot.com/2006/02/man-who-built-americahenry-ford.html

..AND PENGUINS
Doc 40 usually rolls out penguin whacking at Yule for our simple amusement, but it would seem that there are folks out there who take it seriously enough to play versions with blood and without gravity. http://penguin.omnihosts.net/

"Gomez, what did that fool Ann Coulter say about fascism?"

Doc40 All-Time Icons # 11 – Morticia Addams

In the clear air above him, jet aircraft were fucking. Was it a sign he wondered? Had the predictions got the Rapture all wrong? At least it put a new twist on the Mile High Club.



BUT WHAT BETTER TIME TO FIND OUT ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TINFOIL HATS...
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

THE SIMPLE LI(F)E
(Observations on the World of W #1.)
The realization came as something of a shock that I had really stopped believing anything that I was told by my television. It crystalized during a recent cable news afternoon, when I found myself looking at an item on this super-MASH the military claim to have in Iraq where they boast "If you arrive alive, it’s 95% certain you’ll survive." (Or some similar Johnny Cochran-style rhyming couplet.) As I watched what was plainly DofD free promo footage, complete with a big shiny CAT-scan machine, a cynical bubble glooped up through the slough of war propaganda, and asked me if I even believed a single word of any of this? And did I care and did it matter? In the White House they’re making it up as they go along, so why should these gosh-wow PR jobs have any relation to reality? Even if there is such a MASH in Iraq, we all know that the poor bastard grunts have spent most of the war walking round in inferior flack jackets and driving Humvees with no underside armor. And if their wives or kids get cancer their lives will be in the hands of some dastardly gov-contract HMO who will start by denying all but the most primitive treatment. The important part, however, is that this was the moment when I found myself advancing into what I understand used to be the old-time, Stalin-style, Ministry-of-Truth totalitarian mindset in which one believed absolutely nothing but the shreds of reality that could be gleaned from reading between the official lines. Hardly an original thought, but a sobering one that I'd reached that point, here in the Land of the Free.

The secret word is Deceive