Sticking his finger in the dyke...

As for what’s in those documents, God only knows. WhoTF has even read them yet? I mean, this makes the last couple of Harry Potter books look like Victoria’s Secret flyers! Wikileaks founder Julian Assange tells us that there is evidence of war crimes there. The Guardian–the British newspaper given advance looks at the stuff–says there no such thing. But one thing, they and the NYTimes and Der Spiegel agree on–it’s worse than we were told.

The White House is making sure that everyone knows that the bulk of these documents deal with things that happened B.O.–Before Obama! But if this was the situation B.O., WTF are we still doing there now? The Pentagon, sharp as ever, wants to remind everyone that no one vetted these documents. Hell, back in the good ol’ days when Stan McChrystal was in charge, the Army vetted all leaks!

As for the reaction of the American public, who knows? The loudest shouters are so far, and have always been, the people who think we’re at war in Afghanistan because THEY ATTACKED US! Wait a minute, that war was over seven years ago–and WE WON! But perhaps these documents may convince more people that the reason for being in Afghanistan vanished a long time ago and–like the guy at last call who hasn’t left yet–the reason we’re still there is because we’re too drunk to see where the door is.

But I doubt it–the size of the leak is too vast for anyone to get a handle on it and its sheer weight will dull its own impact. As for war crimes–hey, there’s only a couple of them in there and they’re just little ones anyway! Besides, it’s war! You can’t make an omelet without breaking a couple of eggs!

I’m afraid we’ll be eating that Afghan Omelet for some time. And it will be about as appetizing as eating my Aunt Margie’s Afghan.

No cartoon next week–I’m taking time off and going to Otakon! Have fun y’all and try to stay out of the heat!

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

Sarah Palin--Shakespeare of Our Times

Presumably, it’s because the fatcats who write out checks for University sports want to hear the next President of the United States speak. What? President Palin? What am I THINKING? That Alaskan state trooper better watch his ass NOW! Hey, Russkies–I have you in my sites–from the ROSE GARDEN! Maybe those college administrators who invited her weren’t so crazy. After all, they raised 60K–no, now they claim it’s really 207K from the event! They must’ve hired someone from Lehman Brothers to do the accounting!

Sarah’s other workload, as we all know these days, is her work as a poetess in that American haiku form of poetry in 140 characters or less–the Tweet. Sarah is so gifted in this form, she twitters several hundred times each day. And we know it’s really her, no one else could come up with a word like “refudiate”. Except George Bush. Oh …. My …. GOD! GMTA Bill. GMTA George!

Sarah compared herself to Bill Shakespeare–that old dead white guy that used to write plays 800 years ago (Sarah isn’t sure how long ago it was–no one can understand the language he wrote in anymore). After all, he made up words when he wasn’t sure how to spell them either! I say Sarah is better than Willie! He took 14 lines a sonnet to express his thoughts. Sarah has that down to 140 characters!

I’m announcing right now that I’m a candidate for President in 2012. Let’s start those university fundraisers coming in.

Oh BTW, BP has capped the well. It may or may not be working. It may or may not have a leak. It may or may not need to come off again because it may or may not need to be put on straight. We may or may not have a Gulf of Mexico by 2020. And the guys who are helping with the clean-up? Their pay will be deducted from any money they’re entitled to from the 20 Billion Dollar kiss off.

And June was the hottest on record. Haven’t heard anyone talking about global warming fraud since the spring. But like the swallows at Capistrano–who missed their target this year–the deniers will be back next winter! HAPPY SUMMER!

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

Gimme an OO-RAH!

Well, I got news for you, Lindsay. The judge wasn’t all that thrilled. Would somebody PLEEZE tell that girl that this ISN’T A MOVIE! We’re not in Disney World anymore–the laws hold–especially the ones about cause and effect! Actions do have consequences. Oh well, maybe some time in the slammer (maybe 9 out of 90 days?) will have some effect. It seemed to work on Paris Hilton. On the other hands, if her friends are right, LL might spend the entire time in withdrawal from nicotine.

Then we have our new man at CentCom, General James Mattis. Since General Petraeus is taking over the post of hoof-in-mouth specialist General McChrystal, his old post at CentCom needs re-filling. Enter James Matiss of the US Marines! OO-RAH!! Another victim of hoof-in-mouth on the scope! UH-OH!

Looks like someone unearthed a video of him saying was fun it was to shoot people. He meant the enemy, of course. Even a Marine General isn’t crazy enough to mean it was fun to shoot at friends. Or random people, although that does seem to be the nature of targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. SecDef Robert Gates said we shouldn’t pay any attention to that video. It was five whole years ago and General Mattis has learned his lesson. He now knows it’s not fun to shoot civilians. At least to admit it. And if anyone asks him anything he hasn’t been given the answer for, he’ll just stand at attention and yell “Semper Fi.” Confuses everyone–works all the time.

Anyway, it’s been a good week for misstatements–looks like the only guy NOT getting into trouble has been Paul the Octopus. What’s that? Even the Germans want to turn him into sushi for not predicting them to win the World Cup? Hey football fans–he’s a psychic, not a witch doctor. Get it straight! Paul did. Besides, he’ll taste awful with wasabi!

But we all have to agree–Paul is one cephalopod who doesn’t just suck for a living!

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

The reason behind all those beheadings of Illegals Jan Brewer was talking about--Clan McLeodo! There can be only one!

The star of Governor Brewer’s political compass is not Ron Paul. It isn’t Rand Paul. Hell, it isn’t even Ru Paul. It’s ADRIAN PAUL! That’s right. Duncan McLeod! Not Connor McLeod from the daffy but lovable old movie which has a Scotsman played by a Frenchman who does a Peter Lorre impression (Christopher Lambert), while having an Egyptian with a Spanish name and clothing being played by an actual Scot (Sean Connery). About the only character who was what he was supposed to be was the Kurgan, a weird guy played by the even weirder Clancy Brown. No, we’re talking about the TV series with Adrian Paul (Adrian who?) which ran into the ground when his character Duncan McLeod decided he had two many co-stars and started killing them off at the end of season five.

So you see, it isn’t about crime, or racial prejudice, or white people wanting to hang around outside of Home Depot to pick up contractor jobs. After all, the instructions are NOT to use racial profiling in trying to pick out potential wetbacks on the street. After all, that hot blonde with the Eastern European accent could be one of them mail-order Russian brides who have married American just to get a green card! And we want to make sure those kind of criminals are arrested and searched for illegal ummm, illegal, well who cares, as long as we get to perform a full body search.

No. It’s finally clear that Jan Brewer’s and the Arizona legislature’s concern is to protect the people of Arizona from all the sword fights and beheadings that have been plaguing the streets of Tombstone! Forcing Arizonans to rush to the shelter of churches they would not have entered except for Christmas, Easter, weddings and funerals for the protection of Holy Ground where the Illegals cannot fight. Ever since Duncan’s dark quickening, Brewer said, we cannot depend on the Highlander of Clan McLeodo in the hope of having a good Calvinist only being the One Only Being. Arizona must be protected against ALL Illegals! Especially Canadians!

And speaking of Duncan McLeod: once I was in the Playboy mansion–that place is so huge and with so many rooms with SO many different things going on, I got completely lost. I was stumbling around, not knowing whether I was in the grotto or the bedroom wing! In my confusion, I turned a corner and went into a room and was aghast to see Hugh Hefner and Hugh Jackman humping on top of Adrian Paul. Aghast, I ran up to them, waving my arms and shouting: “Hey! Hey! Hugh! Hugh! Get off of McLeod!”

OK, I stole that part from Joe Bob Briggs. Happy 234th Birthday, U. S. of A.

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

The Belgians thought it would be better to hire local labor to exhume the Cardinal...

Anyway, on to the real story…no, not the one about Fox and Friends wondering what that BP robot was thinking when it accidentally knocked the cap off the Gulf gusher–Jon Stewart already handled that. Hey, guys, The Terminator was just a MOVIE. No, I’m talking about the latest development in the ongoing story of Churchly pederasty. Holy Hercule Poirot! The Belgian fuzz raided church offices to seize evidence about priestly child abuse and its coverup. You gotta hand it to those Belgians. They ain’t sitting on their hands with this one. But the icing on the cake was the opening of two Cardinal’s tombs–what, did they think they were going to catch them in a smoking erection? Evidently, somebody thought that evidence might have been buried with the prelates, instead of being burned like anyone with half a mind would have done. On the other hand, the Church is full of bureaucrats, better photocopy those papers before you burn them, just in case we need them again!

While giving the Belgian police high marks for energy, initiative and creativity, I have to ask what they were smoking. Did someone read/watch The Da Vinci Code one too many times? How about Young Frankenstein? In any case, Our Holy Father is in a state of Righteous Dudgeon–something he forgot about doing while HE was in charge of investigating priestly child abuse–How DARE they act like the Church was full of bankers? I mean, criminals! “Huff! Huff!” he huffed, “Thou Shalt Not Hear the end of this!” And the former Hitlerjugend member from Bavaria (in what was to become WEST Germany) called the Belgian cops worse than Communists!

The Belgian church is now thinking of suing the Belgian police if the Jesuits can torture out a legal basis for the suit.

Finally, as we heard this morning. Robert Byrd, longest serving Senator in US history, passed away last night. Byrd was a living example that you CAN teach an old dog new tricks, having turned from a member of the KKK to one of the most reliably liberal members of the Senate. He will be missed. Our condolences to his family, the Senate and the people of West Virginia.

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

Explosion is CG--No Squirrels were hurt in the production of this cartoon

It’s the Democrat’s fault for allowing themselves to be bullied into toothless regulation. It’s the fault of those damn liberals who forced them to drill so far off-shore. It’s the fault of the American people for buying those gas guzzlers and not forcing the auto manufacturers to make electric cars. It’s their fault for not throwing away their incandescent light bulbs and replacing them with mercury-filled CFLs that are 10 times as expensive and require a HAZMAT team to come clean up if one breaks. It’s their fault for keeping on using gas and oil instead of smoke-belching coal, since they don’t have any other viable alternatives. Except ultra-safe nuclear! It’s the fault of the alternative energy folks for not developing their technologies on a shoestring while Congress is giving subsidies to the oil folks who are already making the largest profits in history. It’s the fault of that guy in all the emergency contact documents who had the temerity to die without informing the oil companies of the need to update their plans. It’s the fault of the turtles in the Gulf for being so delicious that they’re endangered.

Yeah. And as the bank robber said to the security guard:

Damn you! if you hadn’t gotten untied and started screaming, I wouldn’t have had to shoot you.

See. It’s YOUR fault.

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

In Saturday's talk, Obama assured David Cameron that BP is important to the US

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrr, this load of medical rubber hoses could be used to make giant slingshots to use against us!

Doesn’t Israel have the right to defend itself? Of course it does. But that right falls a bit short of piracy on the high seas and the murder of civilians (I’m going to keep my criticism to the issue at hand rather than get into any kind of hoohah). Uri Avnery made some interesting points in his own critique on his news site. The arrival of this aid ship wasn’t any surprise to Israel. They’d had months, nearly a year, to prepare a response. And basically, they had three choices. Let the ship go without incident, and undermine their own blockade by doing so. Stop the ship and inspect it for articles of military use…and then let it go, affirming their right to blockade but giving a measured response to a humanitarian effort. Or put their knives between their teeth, drop onto the ship in the middle of the night like a swarm of pirates 35 miles out to sea and when the unarmed civilians aboard try to defend themselves with deck chairs and other improvised weapons, mow them down rather than throw a few canisters of tear gas. Guess which they chose? Arrrrrrrrr, right you are, matey!

Avnery compares the situation to the Exodus incident (a MAJOR motion picture by Otto Preminger from the book by Leon Uris, with Paul Newman as the handsome Israeli!) from Israel’s formative years. Why had the British done something so completely stupid? They weren’t stupid people. No, their actions came from arrogance, Avnery suggests, and that arrogance turned public opinion against them. Israel’s arrogance (and bunker mentality) is fast turning the world against them and they stand to lose their only Islamic ally, the Turks, because of it. Pretty soon, all that will be left to them is the US and as had been noted (in an article I can’t find right now because the net is acting wonky), the new generation of American Jews is not as solidly gung-ho behind Israel as the previous one. Only the Christian right (Glenn Beck IS Christian, isn’t he? We’ll find out when he reveals God’s Plan later this summer) in unquestioning in their support and heck, they’re seeking Armageddon!

The only problem will be finding a replacement for Paul Newman. Hey, Jake Gyllenhaal makes a great Persian!

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

Hole-y Reform!

But I digress. My real topic is that other corporate disaster, the Financial Reform Bill. Yup, Chris Dodd has finally achieved his valedictory legislation, a financial reform that is in every way the counterpart of the Health Care and Credit Card Reforms. Like underwear that is so full of holes, the skidmarks get on your pants anyway. Yes, there are some nice new picket fences with signs that say, “Don’t Go Here Or We’ll Slap You,” in place, but by and large, “too big to fail,” has become enshrined by law as the WAY THINGS ARE in the United Corporations of America.

Limiting the size of banks? Perish the thought–just like the US itself is too big to fail, our banks are too big to close. Breaking up some of the companies that were responsible for a worldwide economic collapse? You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet! Caps on credit card interest? We covered THAT back with credit card reform! And what a success THAT has been. And the piece de resistance? The wall between trading and commercial banking that would prevent banks from using our money to buy chips in their own casino? Hahaha you must be joking.

OK there’s a new consumer agency that Elizabeth Warren, darling of the Daily Show, has been pushing. And there’s some new regulation and oversight. But mostly Wall Street is left with the task of policing Wall Street and us chickens know what it means when the fox is guarding the hen house. The Street will still hire its own credit raters, you know, the ones who gave those risky investments AAA ratings? And derivatives will still be sold to hedge risk, thereby allowing risk to be swallowed up in bookkeeping. So in every way, the things that led to the economic collapse of 2009 has been left in place. Anyone want to take bets on another collapse by 2016? How about 2012?

If this is Chris Dodd’s valedictory achievement in the Senate, I’d say his retirement is a very good thing for the American people. But–couldn’t you have left a little quicker, Chris?

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.

Moe Inc., Larry Inc., and Curly Inc. Woowoowoowoowoooooo!

We were treated to the spectacle of BP, Transocean and Halliburton all pointing fingers at each other, saying that it was some other guy’s fault that for nearly a month now, crude oil has been gushing into the sea, endangering wildlife, fishing, creating a dead zone far greater than the previous one, and in general, becoming OILMAGEDDON. Really, it looked like a Three Stooges movie. In fact, it probably would have been much more fun for all of us victims to see these three guys slapping each other and poking fingers into eyes!

True, this is probably unfair to Moe, Larry and Curly. They only created disasters on a purely local level. Like leveling a house. It takes an oil executive to create one on a global scale! See what a college education can do for YOU!

The “Drill, Baby, Drill” ideologues have in the meantime weighed in with their peculiar brand of irrationality. Sarah Palin says this is why we shouldn’t trust furriners like BRITISH Petroleum (never mind that TransOcean and Halliburton are American companies). Rush Limbaugh ideates that environmentalists did this to scotch any further offshore drilling–this is the cutting off your nose to spite your face strategy–or maybe Koreans. He’s not sure–he’ll know in another dose of oxycodone. And of course, the pro-drill crowd says this just PROVES we need to do more offshore drilling–look at all the oil we’re losing, we’ve got to make that up SOMEHOW and after all, practice makes perfect!

In the meantime, BP has tried to cap the well with the TOP HAT and the HOT TAP–amazing that the ONLY thing they’ve gotten to work so far is something that allows them to recover some of the spill into a tanker, but in the meantime, we still have the 10 mile long plumes of crude shooting out to sea. And it’s getting near the current that will take it to the Florida Keys. Ernest Hemingway couldn’t do it, hurricanes couldn’t do it, but it looks like good old capitalism will finally shut Sloppy Joe’s down!

And as we watch the death of one of the most important bodies of water in the world, let’s have a drink on that old fisherman and his soon-to-be-vanished marlin. One more for my baby and one more for the road–because it was the road that got us here.

©2010 Intravenous Caffeine. All Rights Reserved.