in honor of Corporate Appreciation Week

YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West.

There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!

And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy.

There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business.

The world is a business, Mr. Beale.

It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Beale: But why me?

Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Moonbase Belltown, Seattle

http://www.smickandsmodoo.com/lyrics/swingin.htm (just if you want to run the music in another window-rightclick and then click play)

Oh would you like to swing from a star,
Carry moonbeams home in a jar,
And be better off than you are --
Or would you rather be a BAT?

A bat is an animal with long funny wings,
she flys out at night to do her things.
Her eyesight's challenged but the radar's fine.
People say she's screechy; that's so out of line.
And by the way if you know just where it's at,
You may grow up to be a bat

And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo -
On the news you see quite a few.
So you see it's all up to you --

You could be better than you are,
You could be swinging on a star!


OOOoooWeee! What trouble one can get into expressing an opinion or two these days! Now I know why Letterman had to open up a computer center to handle the hate mail after he had O'Reilly on.

And I was getting friendly fire! But that's okay, if fairly ironic, considering the topic. To tell the truth, I kind of like being a Moonbat -- lord knows I've been called worse. Beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Not to mention working on this current post led me to a really sweet music website for those of us with dino computers. I am a sucker for an old standard, not to mention ragtime piano. I just wish Mama had a computer; she'd get such a kick!

I guess some folks don't understand there are some of us that do this blogging for the fun of it -- with the sad state of this world, we all need a chance to have a laugh. People, you should think SNL, not Face the Nation when you come to my blog. And while welcoming any and all comments, don't forget when you visit somebody's house, common curtesy is appreciated, and please check your baggage at the door.

Meanwhile, back to Unca Dick; somebody must have been thinking along the same lines as I was (see previous post, near bottom)...this is a great poem, and I want to share: http://withinsight.blogspot.com/2006/02/poetic-justice.html Thanks, e4e, for sending it to me.

Well, it's a fantabulous night for a Moondance, so I must fly away. Later, y'all.

Happiness is a Warm Gun -- and a Cold Beer

Well, folks, it's been a week since Unca Dick mistook a 78-year-old lawyer for a half-pound bird. And I hear Harry is somewhat of an anomaly in Texas; he's got a reputation of being a level-headed, moderate Republican. Now I spent about 15 years livin' down in the Lone Star State, and know such a thing is more scarce than hen's teeth. Makes me wonder if violating the Endangered Species Act is an impeachable o-fense.

I know everybody else has been having a field day (field -- high grass -- get it?) making jokes, but bear with me while I chime in. Now that I've quit gut-laughing uncontrollably.

For starters, it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out why nobody found out about a Saturday happy hour shootin' until about church-time Sunday morning. Every half-bright drunk in America knows it's a lot better to get charged with leaving the scene of an accident than to wait around for the cops to get there and breath-alize 'em. Do the math.

Then there's the 'eye-witness' account of ranch owner/diva (and lobbyist) Katharyn Armstrong; she starts off saying she saw the medics heading over to where Cheney and buddies were, and her initial thought was that Unca Dick must of had another heart attack. Then she went on to describe the shooting in detail. This was covered in detail on Arianna's blog, and the obvious conclusion is that if Katie thought Dick had a coronary, she couldn't have been close enough to 'eye-witness' the actual shooting. More elementary math.

The first report I heard of this little faux pas on the part of the Veep, this ol' gal actually said that Harry 'failed to make his presence known' or some such nonsense, and that resulted in his being injured. Now I know every Bubba in the country sat up and said "Huh?" Anybody who knows anything about hunting knows that the responsibility of where any shot ends up at is with the person pulling the trigger. I saw a picture on the news of the areas of Whittington's body that were peppered with the birdshot, and I got news for you - that wasn't any boo-boo shot from a hundred feet away. Looks more like about a 10 foot range (they don't call it a scattergun for nothing), and not too much of it missed the lawyer.

Not to mention exactly what these two ol' boys were doin' out in the willy-wags with a couple of wimmin other than their wives anyway. I guess Lynne must have been too busy writing one of her steamy novels; or maybe she's still working on her PMRC campaign with Tipper. Guess she already knows what Craig Ferguson does; if you spend the weekend with a Dick, you might get shot in the face.

Thank God Unca Dick himself finally went on TV to tell us all what really happened. On FoxNews. Ain't that a bitch.

And now that we've all had a good laugh, let's get back to the real issues. Shooting a friend is the least of Cheney's crimes, and if I were a bitter woman, I might suggest that it was a timely distraction from the really fowl deeds.

Friendly fire, indeed.

-----------------
2/19/2006
Allow me to submit a correction: In paragraph 5, I should have said 10 yards instead of 10 feet; I apologize to everyone for the unintentional undermisestimentation. Read in context, there is still a big difference in 30 feet and 100 feet. And in the interest of full disclosure, it is quite possible, nay, even likely, that at the time I first typed this post, I may have been past the point of being able to legally operate a motor vehicle in my state of residence -- that means the partaking of more than one beer, less than six. At last check, it is still legal to operate a computer keyboard -- even if possibly under the influence. And especially considering I didn't shoot anyone.

My apologies for the mistake, and any undo distress it may have caused.

The State of the Onion: Let's peel back a few layers

Was is just me, or has George almost learned to pronounce the word "nuclear"? He also seems to be trimming some of the smirks out of his speaking style, while being caught in only one inappropriate wink. But despite the almost Clintonesque tone of the address, Dubya did manage to provoke a few loud "huh??" moments.

Along with the expected references to September 11, the railing against the terrorists, and various and sundry other buzz phrases we've been conditioned to suffer through, there were a few new, dare I say it, subtle wrinkles. We learned that Iran is suffering under a regime, despite the fact many of us recall a quite lively national election there a few months back. I guess that must be like that regime the Venezuelans elected. And we can all be thankful that Rummy came out later this week and explained world politics to us. You see, Hugo is like Hitler -- these guys get elected, then they consolidate their power into a dictatorship. Wait, that reminds me of somebody...it's on the tip of my tongue...and seems a lot closer to home than South America.

We were also informed that hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy. Unless you're conversing in Orwellian Newspeak, wisdom is learned behavior, supported by a view of history, and the ability to adjust to situations as they arise. Doesn't hurt to have a plan, either.

But who needs a plan? America is always more secure when Freedom is on the March, as Dubya inferred after channeling the spirits of Reagan, Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy, who supposedly felt this way. Beyond the damnfool nonsense of lumping these presidents together (three Dems and a Reagan), it really makes my skin crawl every time a Republican calls upon the Spirit of Truman. For shame!

But the truly surreal moments for me came with the phrases "switch grass" and "human-animal hybrids".

HUH???

Now I'm assuming that woodchips, stalks, and switch grass are easier to pronounce than cellulose biomass (let's not tax the phonics at this point -- he's getting better), and besides, it sounds more downhome, y’all. Not necessarily presidential, mind you. But now I am grasping at straws (nyuk, nyuk! GROAN).

The one that really made me sit up was the dire implications of HUMAN-ANIMAL HYBRIDS. Ye gods and little fishes, other than the temporary mental image of flying monkeys in Brooks Bros. suits (with the matching fezs) swooping down on Wall Street, I was totally unaware of this threat to national security. Oh, those nasty scientists! They’ve been busy behind our backs, obviously operating under the smokescreen of ‘evilootion’. Then again, I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that our Shrub is either a.) a monkey-boy in cowboy boots, or b.) the missing link itself. Intelligent design my hind leg.

I’m making light of the address, at W’s expense, for very valid reasons. The day of the speech, we woke up to find that Dr. King’s widow, Coretta, (a tireless fighter for human rights herself) had passed. Only hours later our foolish Congress affirmed the ascent of the uber-neocon Sam Alito to the highest court in the land, thereby throwing away yet another of our checks and balances, and quashing one of the last remaining means of reigning in an administration already secure in the delusion of its righteousness. It's no small wonder Bush sounded so calm, and even centrist. The nation needs a soothing voice.

It’s never a good idea to spook the herd. Especially once you have it in the slaughterhouse.