I’m sure most patriotic right-wing Americans don’t even know what a Vuvuzela is, since they would never be caught dead watching anything but American Football. But if they use their trunks instead, that will be even better, since it will grow every time they say something!
[This is another story from Fred Wickham that I’m reposting. See his site for more.]
On January 20th, 2008, a truckload of Whup-Ass was delivered to the White House. The pallets sat unbroken for nearly eighteen months until today, when President Obama had Rahm Emmanuel bring a box into the oval office.
“How do we test this out?” asked the President.
“What about Sasha?” Rahm said.
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you say, Mr President, that she was leaving her algebra homework unfinished? And she didn’t have that paper on Guston Borglum done?”
“That Mt Rushmore sculptor?”
“Yeah, and she left that big box of crayolas open. Now they’re all broken.”
Obama picked up a can of Whup-Ass. “Get her for me, will you, Rahm?”
A few minutes later Sasha was ushered into the room. Her father asked her why she’d been slacking off on her duties, and she didn’t have an answer. He pointed the can at his daughter and pressed the top. It blew her hair back and ripped the collar on her blouse, but it didn’t knock her over. Still, the President felt she’d learned her lesson.
Back in her room, Malia asked what happened.
“Oh, father broke out the Whup-Ass. It kind of stung a little bit.”
“Wow, that’s mean.”
“I think he was just testing it.”
“Oh, yeah, Daddy’s got that meeting in the Gulf of Mexico. There he goes now with Rahm. And they’re carrying two boxes of Whup-Ass.”
“I hope it works,” said Sasha.
“Girls, Whup-Ass is a deterrent.” They looked up to see their mother standing behind them. “It is not meant to be used. Go to Wikipedia and type in ‘Mutually Assured Whup-Ass’.”
The girls did this and were happy to discover that America still had 23,952 cans in its stockpile.
Later, they heard their father’s stern words to the BP executives. “I am ordering a victim’s compensation fund. And if I have to, I’ll open a can of Whup-Ass on these oil executives.”
Sasha was relieved. But Malia simply walked over with one of the cans she pilfered from the stockpile. She stuck it under her sister’s nose.
“Yeah, it says ‘Whup-Ass’ all right.”
Malia said, “Look closely.”
“Uh oh, I sure hope it is a deterrent. It’s twelve months past the ‘use-by’ date.”
“President Obama was in the gulf region again today, having lunch at a local seafood restaurant. Horrible timing. A clam coughed up a tarball.” – David Letterman
“President Obama also ordered a lemon-lime snow cone on the beach. A little awkward. Obama was like, ‘Forget the oil spill for a minute. Can we figure out how to fix the leaks in the bottom of these paper cone things?'” – Jimmy Fallon
“This spill makes the Exxon Valdez look like a leaky juice box.” – Craig Ferguson
“While he was in Mississippi yesterday, President Obama ate mini crab cakes, fried shrimp and shrimp salad sandwiches to show Americans that seafood from the Gulf Coast is safe to eat. And if you don’t believe Obama ate all that stuff, just ask our new president, Joe Biden. He’ll tell you.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Well, President Obama said today he’s going to use the gulf disaster to immediately push a new energy bill through Congress. I got an idea. How about first using the gulf disaster to fix the gulf disaster?” – Jay Leno
“Oh, and the heads of the five families — we call them ‘oil companies’ — testified before Congress today. It was billed as ‘the tarballs versus the slimeballs.'” – Jay Leno
“Well, during the testimony, the president of BP said the underwater cleanup is pretty effective. And when he was done, Congress gave him a standing ovation. Well, sure, they’ve never seen anybody who could lie better than they can.” – Jay Leno
“You know something, if the oil industry could suck up oil the way they suck up to Congress, the gulf would have been cleaned up a month ago.” – Jay Leno
“I’m sorry the show is on later than usual. It was delayed by the president’s speech about the gulf oil spill. Obama has been criticized for not doing enough. To be fair, he’s been using every strategy in the book. Unfortunately, it’s the same book President Bush used for Katrina.” – Craig Ferguson
“You know it’s a real catastrophe when our biggest hope is Kevin Costner. I’m not kidding. Costner spent millions of his own money to develop a water-cleaning system that soaks up oil-tainted water and spins it around and pumps out pure water at the other end. Director James Cameron is also helping out. He offered up his fleet of private submarines. If he’s serious about cleaning up the spill, why doesn’t he soak it up with his ‘Avatar’ money?” – Craig Ferguson
“Speaking of the oil spill, yesterday, BP ordered 32 oil-separating machines designed by Kevin Costner. Costner said, all along, a voice kept telling him, ‘If you build it and there’s a huge oil spill and the oil company and government have absolutely no idea whatsoever how to clean it up, they will come.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Hey, here’s an amazing story. A 52-year-old construction worker — a guy from right here in California — was arrested in Pakistan today, armed with a pistol and a 40-inch sword. He said he was on a mission to capture Osama bin Laden. Hey, at least somebody’s looking for the guy. Give him credit.” – Jay Leno
“Well, it seems the United States has found over $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. And here’s the great part. The country comes pre-invaded. We don’t have to invade again.” – Jay Leno
“And besides the deposits of iron, copper, cobalt and gold, they found the largest deposit of lithium ever discovered; most of it on land controlled by tribal communities. Wait a minute. Wasn’t that the plot of ‘Avatar’?” – Jay Leno
First, Obama meets with BP and gets them to set up a $20 billion fund to help people whose livelihoods were damaged by the Gulf oil spill. Second, Republican Congressman Joe Barton apologizes to BP in a Congressional hearing, saying:
I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private company would be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown. I apologize [for it].
Third, Democrats point out the irony of a Republican apologizing to BP for making them pay for causing what will probably be the largest environmental disaster in US history. They also note that Barton is the largest recipient of campaign money from big oil, and that if Republicans were in control of Congress now, Barton would be in charge of the committee that regulates big oil.
Fourth, even his fellow Republicans throw Barton under the bus. And finally Barton himself issues a non-apology for his apology, saying that his statements were “misconstrued”, saying “I apologize for that misconstruction.”
UPDATE: The Raw Story points out that all those Republicans who are throwing Barton under the bus are also being seriously hypocritical. Just days before Barton’s remarks, 114 members of the Republican caucus signed on to a statement calling the BP fund “Chicago-style shakedown politics”. So when Barton spoke up in Congress, he was only repeating a Republican talking point. And when Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) said “I couldn’t disagree with Joe Barton more. The congressman was only speaking for himself. That was not mainstream Republican thought” he was simply lying through his teeth.
UPDATE 2: As usual, Jon Stewart covers it far better than I ever could:
“How about that oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. And you know, the oil slick is going everywhere. So the next time somebody lands on the Hudson, it won’t be that big a deal.” – David Letterman
“The White House said today that BP is moving up its timeline for containing the oil by two weeks. They said they’d get it ‘done, even if they have to work six hours a day, four days a week.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“President Obama is now in the Gulf of Mexico. This is his fourth visit since the spill. So the president has been down there four times. And the head of BP is saying, ‘Well see, it hasn’t affected tourism.'” – David Letterman
“Actually, on Saturday, President Obama had a 30-minute phone call with the British prime minister, David Cameron, about the BP oil spill. The conversation was supposed to stay private, but given that it’s BP, you can probably expect a few leaks.” – Jimmy Fallon
“There’s some good economic news here. Employers plan to hire 5 percent more college graduates this year than in 2009. Unfortunately, almost all these jobs involve rubber gloves, paper towels, and a one-way ticket to the Gulf of Mexico.” – Jimmy Fallon
“The Backstreet Boys are boycotting BP. I think I’ll wait and see what the New Kids on the Block are doing.” – David Letterman
“Hey, have you been following what’s been going on in the South Carolina Democratic primary for the Senate? This is very bizarre. A man named Alvin Greene has won the Democratic primary. But he didn’t go to any campaign events, spent no money, gave no speeches, was kicked out of the Army, he’s unemployed, he lives with his mother, and he’s facing felony charges for showing lewd photos to students. I know. Sounds like a senator to me.” – Jay Leno
“Did you hear about this? In Afghanistan, the U.S. has discovered large deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and lithium. Or, as most people would call it, ‘not Osama bin Laden.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“The FAA now looking into the possibility of pilotless commercial flights. I guess that they figure if they take away the leg room, the pillows, the blankets, the food, they might as well take away the pilots, too.” – Jay Leno
This isn’t recent news, but it is so hilarious that I just had to write about it.
A friend of mine really wants to buy a Volkswagen camper van. The only problem was that VW stopped selling them in the US in 2003, despite the fact that that they have remained so popular that a used VW camper van – even with more than 100,000 miles on it – often sells used for as much as it originally sold for. So why did VW stop selling them?
The answer is, because of chickens.
Yes, chickens. You may not believe me, but it is true. And this story also forms a fascinating vignette of how our government works (or rather, doesn’t work). But first, some history.
I know it is hard to believe now, but prior to WWII, chicken was considered a delicacy and was quite expensive. The US diet was meat and potatoes, and meat meant beef (and occasionally pork). After WWII America began intensive chicken farming and the price of chicken dropped, while in Europe, chicken continued to be expensive. But then, in the early 60’s the technology was developed to freeze chickens and ship them to Europe. In 1961 alone, the per capita consumption in West Germany rose 23%, almost entirely on the backs of US chicken.
This not only angered German chicken farmers, but the Americans had a bad habit of using dangerous drugs to fatten up their chickens, doping the chickens with arsenic, antimony, and estrogen-based hormones. Europe responded by slapping large tariffs on American chicken.
This enraged the US so much that Senator William Fulbright interrupted a NATO debate on nuclear weapons to protest the trade sanctions against US chicken, and even threatened to cut the troops that the US was supplying to NATO. The so-called “Chicken War” was a major political issue for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
So under intense political pressure, in 1963 the US retaliated against Europe by instituting a 25% tax on a number of goods imported from Europe, including potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and (most importantly) light trucks. This tax became known as the “Chicken Tax” even though it was not a tax on chickens at all.
Interestingly, the tax has been rescinded, on everything except light trucks. So now, almost 50 years later, we still have a 25% tax on imported light trucks — enough to make them non-competitive.
So what happened in 2003 was that VW came out with a new model of their camper van, the Transporter T5, to replace the Transporter T4 (which was called the Eurovan in the US). For reasons I haven’t been able to figure out, the T5 was classified as a light truck, and thus subject to the chicken tax! Consequently, VW never even tried to sell them in the US. By the way, just to add insult to injury, the T5 campervan (in Europe) is sold under the names “California Beach” and just “The California”.
To make this even crazier, the tax on light trucks doesn’t even benefit the US automobile industry anymore. For example, Ford makes its Transit light trucks in Turkey. In order to avoid the chicken tax, Ford has them built with rear windows, rear seats, rear seat-belts, and everything else needed to get them classified as passenger vehicles. Then, after the vehicles arrive in the US, they are taken to a warehouse near Baltimore and are converted back into light trucks by throwing away the rear interiors, even taking out the rear windows and replacing them with panels. In fact, it isn’t even possible to buy one of those vehicles with rear seats and windows in the US — they are all converted into light trucks. The process costs Ford hundreds of dollars, but saves them thousands of dollars by avoiding the tariff.
And this is why my friend cannot buy the camper van she wants. Repeal the Chicken Tax!
When will we wake up? We directly subsidize things that cause us irreparable harm. We spend trillions of dollars killing people so that we can fill up our bloated SUVs. We must have a tin (Sn) ear.
“There is good news! BP today finally managed to almost completely stop the flow of information.” – Bill Maher
“Thanks to BP, the Gulf now has two new islands: self-service and full.” – David Letterman
“There is good news. Scientists sent a probe down there in the Gulf of Mexico today and they found traces of seawater.” – Bill Maher
“A review of BP’s 582-page plan to deal with a catastrophic oil spill was found to be full of errors and severely flawed. BP listed their lead drilling specialist as a Mr. Jed Clampett of Beverly Hills.” – Jay Leno
“BP’s stock has dropped 51 percent since the oil spill. Now that they’re leaking money like they’re leaking oil, maybe they’ll get up and do something about it.” – Jay Leno
“Certainly there’s no good news for Gulf business owners. They’ve been trying to get BP to process their claims. BP today said that they’re on the way. These are the two big lies in life, remember? The check is in the mail, and I won’t spurt in your gulf.” – Bill Maher
“A lot of people are upset and wondering why President Obama is willing to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not BP CEO Tony Hayward. I think Obama is afraid — Ahmadinejad only threatened to destroy the world and Hayward is actually doing it.” – Jay Leno
“President Obama may finally meet with BP CEO Tony Hayward next week. Obama plans to ask Hayward for an update on the spill, while Hayward plans to ask Obama for an update on the spill.” – Jimmy Fallon
“The only silver lining I can find is that British accents aren’t sexy anymore.” – Bill Maher
“The first big match of the World Cup is the U.S. vs. Britain. The loser has to clean up the Gulf.” – Jay Leno
“Vice President Joe Biden is actually in South Africa for the World Cup. Biden’s looking forward to all the matches — or as he calls them, ‘foosball re-enactments.'” –Jimmy Fallon
“The Brazilian referees for tomorrow’s U.S.-England game have been studying English swear words to make sure the players don’t curse. Because if there’s one thing that thousands of drunk, shirtless hooligans can’t stand, it’s naughty language.” – Jimmy Fallon
“The U.S. will face England in the World Cup, and the U.S. ambassador and the U.K. ambassador have made a friendly wager on the game. If England wins, we have to buy their ambassador tea and crumpets, and if we win, they have to buy us a new ocean.” – Jimmy Fallon
“It’s a great day for the world, as the World Cup begins. On behalf of all Americans, I’d like to say, ‘Eh.'” – Craig Ferguson
“They got Helen Thomas on tape saying the Jews should get out of Palestine. Yeah, not good, she had to quit. On the bright side, Hezbollah Magazine put her on the cover of their ‘Women We Love’ issue.” – Bill Maher
“This week we had primaries and they say this is ‘The Year of the Woman.’ The women dominated. As opposed to the last election cycle, which was ‘The Year of the Closeted Gay Republican.'” – Bill Maher
“Here in California, Meg Whitman is going to the governor nominee from the Republican side. She’s the former CEO of eBay. She said her eBay experience helped her convince voters to buy a load of crap that they don’t really want.” – Bill Maher
“John McCain is in love with Snooki – Snooki, you know, from Jersey Shore. Snooki was complaining in her Tweets that she does not like being taxed, as the Obama health care plan does, on her tanning bed. And McCain Tweeted back, ‘I would never tax your tanning bed.’ I think this is so sweet. She has a new best friend, he has his next vice president.” – Bill Maher
On Fox News, where apparently facts don’t matter anymore, Carly Fiorina (who is running for senator in California, despite a total lack of political experience) stated:
I’m really proud of my record, and the good thing about business is the facts are clear. The numbers are clear. I managed HP through the worst technology recession in 25 years. And despite those tough times, we doubled the size of the business from $44 billion to $88 billion. We tripled the rate of innovation to 11 patents a day. We quintupled the cash flow. We improved the profitability in every product line. We created market-leading positions in every category in which we competed. And our stock out-performed the technology peer (ph) index by 23 percent.
Yes, we were in tough times, and some people, sadly, unfortunately, lost their jobs. But I know, like families and businesses know, that if you make the tough choices well, you emerge stronger. And so, in fact, net-net, we created jobs.
I don’t get it. I work in the computer industry, and I remember Fiorina’s stint as the CEO of Hewlett Packard well. Previous to Fiorina, HP had a reputation as the best printer manufacturer, but under her stewardship that changed. The company I was running at the time even stopped buying printers from HP because their product quality declined and their customer support went into the toilet. Charging high prices for crappy products with poor support may “improve profitability” in the short term, but it is a very bad long-term strategy.
Fiorina brags about doubling the size of the business, but that was largely due to the disastrous merger with Compaq, for which Fiorina was personally responsible. The London Observer called it a “total flop”, and according to Fortune magazine:
First, under the only lens that matters, did the famed merger that Fiorina engineered between HP and Compaq produce value for HP’s shareholders? Second, with that merger nearly three years past, is HP in shape to thrive in its brutally competitive world? The answers are no and doubtful. … This was a big bet that didn’t pay off, that didn’t even come close to attaining what Fiorina and HP’s board said was in store.
HP lost its position as the #1 PC maker to Dell, saw their stock price cut in half, and laid off 18,000 workers. These are the numbers that are clear. Fiorina’s claim that she created jobs is simply a lie. In fact, Portfolio magazine rated Fiorina the “19th Worst CEO of All Time” saying:
A consummate self-promoter, Fiorina was busy pontificating on the lecture circuit and posing for magazine covers while her company floundered. She paid herself handsome bonuses and perks while laying off thousands of employees to cut costs. The merger Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq in 2002 was widely seen as a failure. She was ousted in 2005.
In fact, Fiorina was fired from her job, the job that she claims is her biggest achievement. What did the stock market think of Fiorina? According to the Associated Press:
H-P’s stock, which has gone nowhere for two years and is down two-thirds from its peak in 2000, rose almost 7 percent after earlier soaring almost 11 percent on the news of her ouster.
Why would anyone vote for this clown?
UPDATE: I thought it was bad enough that Fiorina was trying to compare herself to Sarah Palin (with statements like “Similar to Sarah Palin, we can look up to Carly”), but why would anyone want to be compared to Michelle Bachmann? But now political groups are trying to redefine feminism in the “Palin-Fiorina-Bachmann” mold.
In a recent interview on G. Gordon Liddy’s talk show, Congressman Steve King (R-IA) said:
the president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race — on the side that favors the black person.
Of course, King didn’t bother to point out any actual examples of this favoritism. King also accused Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder of not pursuing cases against minorities (again without citing any examples).
Is this a typical foot-in-mouth macaca moment delivered on a right-wing talk show (run by a convicted criminal) that doesn’t reflect King’s true positions? I guess not, since on a later interview King said “I have no regrets about what I said. I stand by what I said because what I said is accurate. It’s factual.”
Well, technically, it is an opinion. To be “factual” you would have to state some facts, not just your opinion. King even admits that it is his opinion: “I think the American people need to have this debate about what appears to me to be an inclination on the part of the White House and the justice department and perhaps others within the administration to break on the side of favoritism with regard to race.”
And you know what? I agree with King. I think we do need a discussion about favoritism with regard to race. And since I’m sure that King doesn’t consider himself a racist, he would have absolutely no problem discussing why he favors white people over blacks. In fact, I think it would be really healthy to get all politicians up there to discuss how they favor their own race. And not just politicians. I’d love to see the leaders of the tea party talk about this. What a wonderful discussion that would be.
Of course, we would have to ban the phrases “I am not a racist, but” and “some of my best friends are _____”.
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