BlameBush!

Wouldn't You Give Your Hand to a Friend?

It speaks volumes about the forgiving nature of our French and German friends that they don't run the Shrub out of Europe on a rail, especially in regards to recent events. Last week, Bush asked for $100 million to help improve the Polish Army. Yup, the KILBASA KORPS! Congress must have thought it was some sort of sick Polack joke. The nation that caused WW2 will have new tanks and planes, and the once mighty French army that led the allies to victory in Europe lies in disuse and disrepair. Even De Gaulle's cherished 4th Armoured Division can no longer afford to feed it's goats, let alone armour them. It's no wonder the whole world hates us, but it explains Bush's weeklong European suck-up-athon. It's time to pay off his corrupt little minions, while at the same time wheedling for support from those he spent 4 years insulting with his swaggering.

Bush was too proud to crawl to our European allies and beg them to be equal partners in this illegal and immoral war before he started it, now he wants them to hop on board when Iraq is in ruins and there's nothing left to loot? He'll have to put a little icing on that eclair if he wants help out of this quagmire. He might have to take some of those lucrative rebuilding contracts he handed out to his Coalition of the Coerced and the Bribed, and give them to our REAL friends...yes, our bestest and most truest friends who stand by us in clear weather and are always there when they need us.

But Bush's tiny chimp brain can't comprehend the concept of "friendship". He thinks that a "friend" is obligated to obediently back your play whenever you pick a fight, or at least not side with your enemy against you. But what if your enemy pulls out a pair of brass knuckles and kicks both your asses? What will it accomplish for both you AND your friend to be beaten senseless? Worse - what if you defeat your enemy? Who is going to buy brass knuckles from your friend then? Poland? I don't think so. Your poor friend will starve and then you won't have anyone to keep your swaggering in check. Some friend you are!

Friendship is not about "tit for tat" or "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". It's not about demanding your friends fight along side your sorry imperialist ass in order to cash in on the loot. No, friendship is about giving without the expectation of receiving. In the past week, our NATO allies have made it abundantly clear that as friends, they're perfectly willing to lend a hand with the spoils of war without expecting anything in return - except for maybe control of our military, justice system, and economy.

But that's what friends are for.

The Swaggering Swaggerer Swaggers No More

After alienating our allies and isolating us from the International Community with his senseless swaggering, the cowboy clown is now crawling on hands and knees to countries whose names he can't even pronounce and begging them for forgiveness.

I must admit I'm pleasantly surprised at Bush's willingness to swallow his pride and reconcile with our European allies, although his visit hasn't been entirely without incident. A small riot erupted in Brussels when Bush cocked his head in manner that many eyewitnesses described as "dangerously close to swaggering." Then he nearly caused an international incident by suggesting that French president Jacques Chirac would "make a good cowboy". Chirac quickly recovered from the crippling effects of the vapors and both leaders shook hands to show there were no hard feelings. Indeed, it appears that "Old Europe" is slowly resigning itself to the cruel reality that we're all stuck with the swaggering chimp for four more years.

Nevertheless, it's a hard pill to swallow for those who still remember when the Nazis swaggered across Europe, flustering millions of Frenchmen and leading to the great Smelling Salt Shortage of 1941. Ronald Reagan's swaggering during the dark ages of the 1980's is still bad memory for the gentle, peace-loving quisling peoples who found security beaneath the nurturing warmth of the Iron Curtain. And who can forget the terrible events of 9/11, when the Swaggerin' Shrub insulted our most trusted allies, squandering the golden showers of international support? "You're either for us or against us!" he swaggered. "God Bless America! Yeee haw!"

If the events of past week aren't some clever Rovian ruse, then perhaps Bush has finally learned that it isn't swaggering that creates strong bonds between nations, but wheedling. He may be able to supress his primitive urge to swagger, but can he commit himself to the sort of full-time wheedling that endeared Europe to great presidents like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton? Or will he continue to swagger down the same wheedleless path that led a flustered North Korea to arm itself with nuclear weapons?

Only time will tell.

Fear and Loathing in Anaheim

As fate would have it, I was nowhere near Barstow when Hunter S. Thompson passed into the great beyond. I was crouched under my kitchen sink with balls of cotton stuffed into my ears, waiting for the battery to die on my cellphone. The damned thing had been ringing nonstop for five days, driving me beneath the sink to salvage the tattered remnants of my sanity and curse the day I gave that devil-woman Paris Hilton my number.

It was the 2001 Mensa Colloquium in the heart of downtown Anaheim. As the only member of the Kent, Washington chapter with a mouthful of teeth, I was chosen to represent. Although I was still walking funny from the atomic wedgie I received at the previous shindig, I was grateful for another opportunity to petition the organization to change its name, preferably to something more gender-neutral. So I happily accepted the nomination and made travel plans.

In preparation, I ingested every heinous, over-the-counter, mind-enhancing herb I could get my hands on. Six shots of ginseng for starters, followed by 4 grams of crystalized guarana, nine hits of taurine, and to wash it all down: a gallon of pure grade, 200-proof caffeine freshly squeezed from Howard Schulz's liver by a disgruntled Starbuck's barista. By the time they threw me off the plane at LAX, I was ready to match wits with the best minds of the country. Of course, I hadn't slept in 5 days and the squirrels were closing in on me, but after a mad, 9-mile sprint to the hotel I was in excellent spirits.

"Do you f*cking know who I am? MY DADDY OWNS THIS F*CKING DUMP!"

The tall, leggy blonde in the hotel lobby was out of her mind, pounding her fist on the counter and screaming obscenities at the concierge like some crazed Norwegian hooker.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the young man with a face like a woodchuck replied calmly. "But with this Mensa thing happening, we have absolutely no vacancies."

"Can you read?" she snarled, pointing at her Mensa badge. "If you want to keep your shitty, minimum-wage job, you better get me a f*cking room N-O-W!!!!"

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GAIA WHAT'S THE FREAKING HOLD UP? I had a reservation! I shouldn't have to put up with this crap! Yet there I was...ten minutes until the Colloquium started and I hadn't even checked in yet. Mensa delegates from all over the country were already filing into the huge hotel conference room, their translucent skulls pulsating with excitement. The keynote speaker was probably making her way to the podium and this coked-up psychopathic whore was holding up the check-in line! I had to reason with her, calmly talk her down and then hustle her out of there before she ruined everything.

"YOU CRAZY BITCH!" I screamed. "I'M GOING TO MISS ANNA NICOLE'S SPEECH!"

Despite the 19 grams of Gotu Kola I had inhaled out of a dirty sock at the airport, I barely saw the flash of cold steel as it arced toward me. Chaos erupted. The woodchuck fainted. The bitch had a pigsticker the size of a Louisville slugger, and she was going to gut me like Mussolini. It was my worst nightmare: I was going to die within a five-mile radius of Disneyland.

Pull a knife on a 13th level Tai-Bo blackbelt and in one swift movement he'll dodge out of the way, pluck the blade from your grasp, and take the first three fingers of your left hand for souvenirs. But this was no time for half measures. I was coming down from the Yohimbe buzz and the squirrels smelled blood. One false move, and the little bastards would be kicking my severed head around the lobby in a twisted match of Guatemalan street soccer.

As Hilton lunged, I feinted to the left and whacked her across the back of the skull with a folding chair. She crumpled like a rag doll and the pigsticker went skating aross the linoleum. A couple of giant hamsters in security uniforms made a move towards me, then thought twice when they saw my vomit-encrusted Grateful Dead t-shirt.

There's nothing more frightening than a man in the throes of a Ginko Biloba binge. You can't speak. Your legs turn to rubber. Then the puking starts, and it doesn't stop until you're knee deep in the liquified vestiges of every meal you've had in the last 4 years. Drive through Seattle's Fremont district on any given Tuesday and you'll see them, crawling down the sidewalk like lobotomized carpet layers. The hamsters may own Anaheim, but they weren't about to screw with a deranged tai-bo monk twisted on Gink and drenched in vomit.

"Nothing to see here!" I shouted. Or did I think it? The St. John's Wort was starting to take hold. It was only a matter of time before they found me on the roof, butt-naked and reciting Sam Coleridge completely from memory. Then it would all be over. I grabbed the dazed heiress by the ankle and dragged her outside.

"When my daddy hears about this, your ass is grass!" she slurred as I bounced her off the hood of my VW beetle. "My name is HILTON! H-I-L-T-O-N! Ring a f*cking bell?"

"Listen to me, you dimwitted Swede!" I slapped her across the face Jimmy Carter style. "This is the goddamn Anaheim SHERATON!"

She stared at me in confusion and wonder for a moment, then suddenly opened her reptilian mouth and emitted a bizarre, sheeplike giggle.

"Gosh, you're hot!" she said with a wink. "Not a limp-wristed sissy like most Mensa boys. Wanna exchange bodily fluids?"

I tore off my hand-knitted tam and threw it on the ground. "I don't have time for this! The Colloquium starts in 5 minutes and I haven't even changed into my orthopedic underwear!"

Never mind the squirrels...they were suddenly the least of my worries. Strange vibrations were in the air. We were crossing into uncharted territory, and there was no indian slave girl to show us the way home. One wrong turn and little old ladies in horn-rimmed glasses would be watching grainy videos of my naked ass on the internet.

But wasn't that the American Dream? No..the American Dream is dead. Dead like Susan "Boom Boom" Sontag and Arthur Miller. Dead like the Great Gonzo, chunks of his brains floating in his final Bloody Mary...and Bush conveniently out of the country establishing an alibi. One by one, the progressive giants of our time are dying off, vanishing like Rapa Nui and Maureen Dowd is next...then we'll really be alone in the wilderness. What then? Where do we go from there? What does it all mean? What are we doing on this god forsaken rock? Where were my pants?

"Why'd my f*cking parents name me after the asshole mecca of the known universe?" Paris pondered. "It's all so f*cking Kafkaesque."

I glared at her. She had taken her shirt off and was pouring a can of Rockstar on her naked breasts to facilitate the tanning process.

"Oooh..." she purred. "The bubbles are making me all tingly!"

That was it! My fate was sealed.

"As your attorney, I advise you to give me your phone number immediately."

She flashed me a sly grin. "I'll give you mine if you give me yours."

Liberal Larry's Big Bag O' Hate Mail

Three months after writing my provocative piece, Americans Are Dumb, I've received yet a second barrage of barely legible hate mail from lowbrow trogs in response to it. As first, I suspected my arch-nemesis, Doug Bandow, was up to his old tricks and was slamming me in the Wall Street Journal again. But the culprit was in fact a blog called The Museum of Left-Wing Lunacy, which waged a smear campaign on yours truly and packed the ol' mailbag full of seething screeds from right-wing lunatics.

Most of the hate mail followed the same, tired routine: Move to Canada, go back to France, Jesus loves you, blah blah blah." But there were a couple that stood out like fresh cat turds on a white carpet.

Darlene R. writes:

You need help. Have you tried a shrink? God could certainly help you, but you hate Him too much to give Him a chance. You call Bush-voters "hatemongers". Can you not see the vile hatred in your own writings (rantings)? Do you consider anyone with an opinion that differs from yours a "moron", be it political or otherwise? Do you have a healthy relationship with ANYONE? If so, what happens if they dare to disagree with you?

Just curious.

Oh, one other question...where and when did John Kerry get his 4th purple heart? I only heard of the 3 that he bamboozled from those in charge. Did he get it on Ebay?

Well well well, another CHICKENHAWK completely off her perch. How DARE YOU question John Kerry's patriotism? Sen. Kerry volunteered to serve his country in Vietnam, and deserves every decoration he received for raping, cutting off ears, cutting off heads, taping wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turning up the power, cutting off limbs, blowing up bodies, randomly shooting at civilians, and razing villages in a fashion reminiscent of Jinjus Khan. It's pretty slimey when someone who did NOT serve criticizes a war hero and belittles his five Purple Hearts, six Silver Stars with Clusters, and his Capn' Crunch Super Sailor Badge. For shame! SHAAAAAAAME!!

OldDrummer55 asks:

Were the aliens a bit rough on you during the anal probe?  I think you'd better increase your Zoloft dosage, you arrogant twit.  Better yet, face north and begin walking.  The Great White North Natives will certainly welcome you and your Koolaid swilling liberal automatons. Remind your looney left freak pals who made the pre-election emmigration promise to carry it out.  Please just stay there. You still haven't got a clue about what America is all about.  Luckily for our nation, the majority of Americans are on "W's" side. It's called common sense based on reality.  I'm typing this email verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry sloooooooowly so you will understand..

For your information, most of my friends have already fled to Canada on the underground railroad. Now before you start digging holes behind your trailer looking for a choo-choo full of liberals: "Underground Railroad" is a figure of speech. It's not really a railroad and it's not underground. And everyone knows that the aliens stopped giving out free anal probes after Oliver Willis refused to leave the mother ship.

"Janet and Gene Earl" sent me a blank email with the subject: "God you're stupid".

Then someone named "Keith" snivelled:

You need some schooling or something, maybe a shrink. Your facts are flawed with no proof. Morons like you got too much time on your hands. If you don't like it in the great USA, take your sorry ass to another country. I would bet your letters HOME would show a different attitude. I don't know if you know this or not but in 4 years you will have a different president. I would bet you didn't even vote in 2004. Maybe you should spend your extra time supporting our troops, yeah the one your buddy Clinton sent there. lol  lol  only in America, do we have idiots like you and your opinions.

"Morons like you got too much time on your hands"? Clinton sent the troops to Iraq? Amazing. I'm surprised you were able to type a whole paragraph with your forehead. lol lol!

Another right-wing attack dog babbles:

Larry, you are a moron who makes inane, unfounded generalizations.

I am a Democrat, a Jew and a Public school teacher with a Master's, and I voted for Bush. I refuse to let this country be run by people like you, Kerry, Dean, Moron, Franken and the rest of the nutcases who would sell America, Israel and freedom down the river to your beloved terrorists, France, Saddam, Osama and the rest of the murderers you want to pacify. Go burn flags with the Palestinians who you undoubtedly love.

Grow up. Bush is the best hope we have to end this age old crisis. You don't negotiate with terrorists, you bleeding heart, hippie, self-loathing jackass.

A Jew who voted for Bush? Yeah, right. After I informed him that he was a traitor to his people, he tried cozying up to me by taking a shot at gun-toting Jesus freaks:

Judging by your last name, you are Jew, too! Larry, I am not fond of the Religious Right nor the gun owning red necks, and that is why I am a Democrat (for now). But c'mon, the Left is putting Israel and the world in danger by portraying these savage terrorists as anything more than pieces of Mike Moore's excrement.

First of all, I'm not Jewish - although I have great respect and admiration for all Jewish people who vote how I want them to. However, Israel has become just a little too big for its britches. Things were just fine when everyone was following Bill Clinton's Magical Miracle Roadmap to Peace. Under Clinton's brilliant plan, leaders from both sides would come to Camp David once a year to be photographed shaking hands with the president, and then go home feeling all warm and gooshy inside. The Palestinians were happy. The Arab Street was happy. Even those Israelis who weren't scattered in a thousand pieces all over the asphalt were happy. Then that fascist, Ariel Sharon, came along with a big ol' bee in his yamulka about Palestinians spontaneously exploding on his public busses, and everything went sour. The Magical Miracle Roadmap to Peace lies in ruins. The Middle East is falling apart at the seams. And I'm afraid its going to get much, much worse unless Laura Bush wakes up and kisses Sufa Arafat on the lips.

The final letter in the mailbag is from Moderator Lauri at The Right Society, a bulletin board system where mouth-breathing neocons can pound their foreheads against their keyboards to their heart's content. I had been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to get an account there so I could throw some progressive pearls before the swine, but I think my moniker spooked them. I was just about to try one last time with a name like "KluKluxKyle" when Lauri mysteriously approved my registration and wrote:

i looked up your website...and here's a warning: you can discuss any issue here as long as you dont cuss your head off or call people nazis. if you cant do that, you'll be gone pretty fast...

That's the difference between the liberal and conservative concepts of "free speech", folks. Over at Democratic Undergound, they cheer me on when I cuss my head off and call people "nazis".

John Negroponte is No Negro

When I heard this morning that Bush had appointed John Negroponte to be his new intel chief, I was pleasantly surprised. Howard Dean's words of wisdom had apparently hit home, and the Shrub was finally adding a little color to his all-white cabinet.

But as I mulled it over on the way to work, things didn't quite add up. Bush has never put any minorities in positions of power before, so why start now? And "Negroponte"? Come on. Only white southern racists say "Negro" anymore.

Yup, I smelled a RepubliKKKan RAT, alright.

Sure enough, when I got to my office and hopped onto the web, I learned the truth about Bush's little soul brother. Folks, I have many African-American friends. I know what a black person looks like, and John Negroponte doesn't even come close. In fact, he's a veritible poster boy for the Master Race.

I guess this is Bush's way of scoring brownie points with black voters. Instead of hiring actual minorities, he's nominating stooges with ethnic sounding names.

It would seem like a plot destined for failure, wouldn't it? Someone is bound to find out that Negroponte is white and spill the beans. But the drooling troglodytes who voted for the Shrub get all their information from Faux News, and are probably too stupid to know who the heck John Negroponte is anyway.

The mainstream media is an accessory to the crime as well. When Bush unveiled his white "Negro" at a press conference this morning, not a single reporter called him on it. That, my friends, is the sad state of American journalism today.

John Negroponte, indeed! This has to be the worst case of deceptive labelling since Gaylord Perry.

UPDATE: Reader Andrew wrote to remind me that "Negroponte" means "Black Pope". Of course I knew that, being a UC Berkeley graduate with 17 degrees. I wrote a thesis on the history of sexual lubricants in Italian literature, so I know a thing or two about the language. But it does put a whole new spin on things, doesn't it? Could this be a Bush plot to weasel the title of World's First Black Pope away from John Kerry? I'm glad my readers are on the ball and are doing the work the mainstream media seems to be neglecting.

Our Old People Are Dying

How can any of us forget the Great Influenza Pandemic of 2004, when Bush sadistically withheld the flu vaccine in order to drive up the prices? Millions of traditionally democrat senior citizens perished, and the mass graves have never been found. But thanks to the hard work of real American heroes like John Kerry and Charles Dingell, those who desperately need the vaccine are finally getting it.

Sadly, it may be too late for many seniors. According to a recent study, a majority of elderly Americans will still die even after receiving the vaccine. In fact, statistics suggest that the death rate among Americans 65 and older will likely exceed all the other age groups combined this year.

Our living treasures are dropping like flies, and Bush is laughing all the way to the bank. As long as the Shrub and his Big Pharmaceutical Buddies control the FDA, we can expect more phony "vaccine shortages" and long lines to get our flu shots.

But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. When Hillary assumes the office in 2008 and takes charge of our failing health care system, we can all look forward to bending over and grabbing our ankles once again.

That's PROFESSYM Chomstein to You!

I've always been a strong believer in the words of Aristotle: "The fate of empires depends on the education of youth." So it was with great pride that I recently accepted an invitation to teach a course on "Institutional Racism and the Kama Sutra" at one of my old alma maters, Evergreen State College.

Evergreen is a progressive liberal arts college that focuses on interdisciplinary, collaborative and team-taught academic programs, rather than passive reception of information through selfish, individualistic thought-processes. Whereas some universities espouse a capitalistic educational system in which students are forced to compete for grades, ESC prefers a kinder, more socialist learning environment where students develop their skills through "shared study groups", or "pods". Thus, ESC transcends the primitive, gender-based concepts of "ration" and "reason" to embrace crossdressing and self-mutilation as forms of higher knowledge. Most importantly, everyone at Evergreen is stoned completely out of their gourds.

Indeed, some of my fondest ESC memories are of the many afternoons spent beneath the statue of Josef Stalin with my fellow pod people, passing around a bong full of grade-A campus-grown doobie. I've always had a place in my heart for Evergreen, and was looking forward to reuniting with some of my old mentors, only now as a colleague instead of a student.

Unfortunately, when college representatives asked me to come down for an interview Friday so they could go over my credentials and qualifications, I had to decline. As I explained to them, I like to spend my Fridays burning American flags, pissing on the graves of 9/11 victims, and wiping my ass with the Bible. But when they realized what a staunch defender of Free Speech I was, they agreed to dispense with the formalities and simply hire me on the spot.

Not so fast. Ward Churchill might blindly accept tenure at any two-bit university that doesn't require a psych test, but Prof. Larry Chomstein isn't that easy. I had to make sure that Evergreen still met my high standards as a progressive. So I took today off and drove down to Olympia to tour the school.

As I walked about the campus, watching students congregating in their small, collaborative learning pods, I began to notice a disturbing pattern: everyone looked strikingly similar, if you know what I mean. Every student and teacher looked like carbon copies of one another, and more I thought about it, the angrier I got. For a college that prides itself on diversity, I was seeing very little of it. Apparently, alot had changed since I wandered those hallowed halls, stoned out of my gourd. A once stalwart bastion of inclusion and multiculturalism, Evergreen had sadly transformed into the eugenic breeding grounds of the master race.

Well, needless to say, I marched myself right into the Dean of Admissions office and pounded my fist on her flotation tank.

"ARE YOU AWARE THAT THERE ISN'T ONE SINGLE MIDGET ON THIS ENTIRE CAMPUS?" I demanded.

I heard the familar sloshing of saline solution as she sat up inside her metallic chamber.

"Midgets built this country!" I continued. "We fought bravely in the American Revolution. We stormed the Bastille in the Civil War. We kicked the Hun's shins in WW2. But throughout history, we've been treated like second class citizens - shunned, ridiculed, and shut out of amusement park rides as if we were somehow less than human. I am incensed - nay, OUTRAGED that an institution such as this one would disenfranchise an entire class of people simply because we're half your size. I may have practiced drawing "Blinky" off the back of matchbook for a whole month to get this job, but I'll be damned if I'll sink so low as to teach at a heightest indoctrination camp run by modern day Mengeles!!"

The tank creaked open. The Dean sat there in stunned silence for a moment, regaining her bearings after her transdimensional voyage. Then in one fluid movement, she leapt out of the tank, pulled off her goggles and glared angrily at me.

"Excuse me, Mr. uhhh..."

"Chomstein. PROFESSOR Chomstein!" I told her. "But I prefer the gender-neutral 'Professym', if you don't mind."

"First of all, Professym Chomstein, we have at least 37 midgets enrolled at Evergreen, more than half of which are transgendered albino midgets. Since they exist below your eye level, perhaps you failed to see them. Ignorance and intolerance always go hand in hand."

Ooh, that stung!

"Secondly," she continued, her long, furry breasts swinging like two cats on a clothesline. "The word 'midget' is derogatory and beneath an alumni of this institution, let alone a college professym. I believe the politically correct term is 'Little People', and we'd prefer you use it here."

Now she was getting nasty.

"Finally, I find it incredibly offensive that you constantly refer to yourself as a "midget" when you're obviously well over six feet tall."

For someone with as many body-piercings as herself, she sure wasn't very open minded. I decided to let her have it right across her trepanned skull.

"Miss...?" I began

"MISTER Lang," she/he spat. "But I prefer the gender neutral, 'Mfgnee.'"

"Excuse ME, Mister Mfgnee, but although I may not 'look midget enough' for your satisfaction, my great grandmother was 1/4 midget. That makes me 1/32 midget, and damn proud of it! I'm officially recognized by at least 3 different midget organizations. Billy Barty was my godfather. As an active member of the vertically-challenged community, I will stand on a chair with my midget brothers against tall male hegemony and a heightocentric society that seeks to destroy the rich cultural heritage of the oppressed midget peoples.

And as for the term "midget", it is indeed derogatory when uttered by intolerant, non-midget nazis such as yourself. However, we Little People have adopted the term and employ it to express a sense of unity and brotherhood, id est: 'Yo whazzup, midgetz?' or "Ya'll one straight up midget!'"

So go ahead and snicker. Go ahead and call me 'Pee Wee' and make your short guy jokes. It only accentuates what a bigoted, hatemongering little Eichmann you really are."

We went back and forth like that for a good twenty minutes. When the smoke finally cleared, I was ironically informed that my services as an instructor of "Institutional Racism and the Kama Sutra" were no longer required.

Folks, you're looking at the new Professym of "Midget Studies and the Kama Sutra" at Evergreen State College!

Chalk one up for the little guy!

The highest result of education is tolerance.
- Helen Keller

Thanks for the Nukes, Dumbya!

Today, North Korea announced that because of Bush, they now have a nuclear bomb. That the Shrub is solely to blame goes without saying. But for us to fully understand how he got us into this horrible mess, it's important to put it in its proper historical context.

In 1994, it came to President Bill Clinton's attention that North Korea was pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Knowing that a show of strength would earn the North Koreans' respect, he sent Jimmy Carter to negotiate. Using his vast experience in appeasing the Soviets, Iron Balls Carter quickly persuaded North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions. In return for scrapping their nuclear weapons programs, the U.S. would provide them with the means to build nuclear weapons, along with millions of dollars in humanitarian aid so they wouldn't have to divert any resources from their nuclear weapons programs. He further convinced North Korea that should they ever break their promise and continue their nuclear weapons programs, neither side should acknowledge it.

Although Jimmy Carter deserves most of the credit, this monumental pact was the defining moment in Clinton's presidency, and along with his Roadmap to Peace in the Middle East, it's the main reason he's known as "The Great Diplomat".

Fast forward to 2002. Instead of rewarding our new friends with a big check for not building nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Colin Powell sent his lackey, James Kelly, to confront the North Koreans with evidence that they have been using the nuclear weapons technology we gave them to actually build nuclear weapons. The North Koreans were understandably outraged at this blatant breach of the Agreed Framework, but afforded Powell the opportunity to redeem himself by dancing a jig and singing "I'm a Little Teapot". Powell, however, is no Madeline Albright, and rudely declined. Insulted, the North Koreans withdrew from the Nonproliferation Treaty, vowing to continue their nuclear weapons program just to teach us a lesson. So like the Gipper before him, Bush's stubborn pride and cowboy diplomacy condemned millions of people to certain nook-ular annihilation.

But all was not lost. In the following months, North Korea graciously expressed a desire to engage in talks with the U.S., if Bush would bring something to the table. Indeed, they were perfectly willing to forget all about "I'm a Little Teapot" if Colin Powell would simply dance a jig, and then present them with millions of dollars and maybe a nuclear reactor or two. Bush cried "extortion", branded them a member of the "Axis of evil", and squandered his last chance to bring an end to the crisis.

While it may be too late to resolve the North Korean problem, there's still time to prevent a similar mistake in Iran. Condoskeeza must take John Kerry's advice and reach out to the mullahs, offering them the means to build nuclear weapons in exchange for the promise that they won't build nuclear weapons.

I'm not putting too much stock in Condi's diplomatic skills, though. I doubt she even knows the words to "I'm a Little Teapot".

Bush's Backwards Budget

When your average working Joe finds himself deep in staggering debt, he cinches up his moneybelt and makes some hard decisions. He sacrifices some luxuries, such as designer bongwater and ginseng colonics, in order to maintain the necessities in life, like ganja and donations to MoveOn.org. It's a simple concept that Republicans never seem to grasp. They always get it backwards, abandoning the bare essentials while pouring money into frivolities like national defense.

I still recall the dark ages of the 1980's, when the Gipper closed down the mental hospitals and loosed thousands of lunatics onto the public. The pacified democrats were thankful for the extra votes at first, but became outraged when Reagan cut federal funding for school lunches and condemned millions of children to death by starvation. Sadly, the mass graves still haven't been found.

As apparent in his newly released 2006 budget, Bush is proudly goosestepping in that senile old fascist's jackbooted footsteps. He quickly turned a record surplus into record deficits, and now wants to compensate by cutting important social programs that he has deemed "redundant" and "failures".

I'm sorry, but health care for our needy veterans is not "redundant". Every jingoist American should be outraged that under Bush's draconian budget, an impoverished war hero like John Kerry will now have to pay up to $250 a year to maintain his botox injections, while the ultra-rich continue to get a free ride at the taxpayer's expense. That's not what democrats meant when they called for Americans to sacrifice in the wake of 9/11.

Granted, many of these cherished programs may seem pointless and obsolete to the untrained eye, but real, hard-working and predominantly democrat people are employed to keep them running. If the Shrub has his way, hundreds of federal workers will find themselves in the unemployment line, or worse - forced into jobs in the private sector where they'll be held accountable for the quality of their work.

What the Shrub and his ilk fail to realize is that it's not what the programs accomplish that matters, but that they intend to accomplish. We can nitpick and focus on "results", but for many disadvantaged Americans, it's enough just to know that there are people out there somewhere who paid to pretend they care. If these programs are "failing" as Bush claims, then we should be putting more money into them, not less. Taking a chainsaw to these valuable programs certainly won't fix things, nor will it help the unwed midgets who desperately need the leg-lengthening surgery.

In short, Bush's budget is a fraud, a hoax, and a virtual death sentence for millions of veterans, orphans, seniors, and kittens.

I'll be damned if I read it.

Liberal Larry's Big Bag o' Garbage

Thanks to Bush's tax cuts for the rich, I had a root canal today. I haven't been in this much pain since Peaceblossom caught me peeing standing up. If it were up to me, I wouldn't post at all today. But as a newly appointed source for Google News, I have a responsibility to update my blog every day. So I rooted around in my draft box and found a couple moldy oldies that were never published because, well, they stink. Enjoy. Meanwhile, I'm going to make like Rush Limbaugh, pop about 40 oxycontin, and then fire my maid.

Michael Shiavo Pleads; "Let Me Whack My Wife Upside the Head With a Hammer"

CLEARWATER, FL: Just days after Florida Governor Jeb Bush overturned a court order to remove the feeding tube of a brain-damaged woman, her husband has asked another judge to allow him to whack her repeatedly across the skull with an ordinary claw hammer.

"She told me once in casual conversation that if she were ever in a vegetative state, and the fascist governor prevented her from being slowly starved to death, she would like me to please pound her head with a hammer", Michael Schiavo, the woman's husband explained. "If people really cared at all about Terri, they'd let me do this."

State democrats agreed. "How dare the governor interfere with this woman's right to be bludgeoned to death with a hammer?" said Sen. Steven Geller (D). "This is obviously a ploy by evangelical Christian extremists to force their backwards, pro-life ideals down our throats."

A Florida circuit judge, however, filed a temporary restraining order preventing Schiavo from whacking his wife's head with a hammer, or any other blunt instrument. Right-to-Die advocacy groups were outraged.

"It's inhumane and barbaric for the state to interrupt her natural death process this way," spoke Lisa Alexander of Operation Someone-Please-Whack-Me-Upside-The-Head-With-a-Hammer. "Please, allow the woman the dignity of being whacked upside the head with a hammer, before it's too late."