Missing robot. Reward offered if found.Hear that? The sweet sound of shovels clunking at frozen ground from sea to shining sea - Obama's $787 billion Stimulus Bill is in full effect! Only the murmur of the mob giggling in backrooms, divvying cement contracts and dead fishies, can overwhelm the anxious silence as billions of dollars flood our nation to rebuild roads, grids, bridges and bruised egos. Only South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford isn't content: The White House recently rejected his request to use up to $700 million to pay down his state's debt. Huh? You will remember that Sanford was one of the "unsmart" GOP loyalists to earlier refuse any stimulus dollars; in an annoying about-face, Sanford then asked for a waiver to pay retirement debt that plagues South Carolina like enslaved labor once did. Now Sanford is saying he (again) won't accept any stimulus dollars, which his constituents will surely appreciate - South Carolina has an unemployment rate of 10.4%, the second highest in the country.
AIG-ITATED!
An ugly lesson in scooping another's poop, President Obama railed against the "recklessness and greed" of American International Group (a corporate name so confusing that we'll just call it AIG) paying $165 million in bonuses to its brilliant derivative alchemists that have cost American taxpayers $170 billion in financial backing thus far. This stinking pile of bowel just gets bigger: Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson led the bailout of AIG and banks with compassion befitting the former Bush Administration, issuing exactly a page and a half of rules before handing over $700 billion to banks. Including no oversight for TARP funds, and daily massages for AIG execs, this bailout is akin to bending over and bare-handing a steaming stack of butt sausages, and Obama is following a pack of well-fed Saint Bernards intent on sullying the entire block (how's that for metaphorical coverage?).
Lord Cheney Is A Terrorist
Not to give disgraced former VP Dick "Call Me Dick" Cheney any more press, but he's sounding like an Al Qaeda spokesman lately: "[President Obama] is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack." Are you threatening us? Is Cheney and his cabal determined to strike inside the US again? Go away, please, back to Wyoming with you, dear Dick. Get to know your lesbian daughter, have a three-way with Rush "Got Any Pills?" Limbaugh and Scooter "Don't Call Me a Felon" Libby, go shoot some cronies, err, ducks, please just go away.
Coups This Week
Avoiding a potential bloodbath, Madagascar's President Marc Ravalomanana (rhymes with "orange") accepted a coup d' état by his own military, ceding power to an animated Disney character who will surely lead the African island nation on a series of hilarious hijinx. Also this week, the incredibly stable country of Pakistan reinstated its Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry (rhymes with "pro-Taliban"), which no one seems to fully understand the implications of - Pervez Musharraf is gone, Benazir Bhutto is still assassinated, and current leader Zardari is as powerless as a union organizer at Wal-Mart. Oh, and the Taliban is only 100 miles from Islamabad, and nukes.
And Another One Falls...
After 146 years, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed its last edition on Tuesday. Following the demise of the Denver's Rocky Mountain News, the loss of Hearst Newspapers' Post-Intelligencer continues the death-knell for all newspapers, as Heart announced it will also close the San Francisco Chronicle soon unless costs are decreased. The end of print newspapers is a sign of the apocalypse; anyone who knows journalists knows that so many snoops seeking scoops will lead to the rise of Lucifer and innumerable blogs. Speaking of blogs, who will bloggers steal their stories from when all newspapers are gone? Surely ace reporters in their pjs can't be expected to go out and find real news for themselves. The horror!
Stoned Students
So you just sparked a fat J, taking the first big puff and hoping not to cough - Then BOOM! The door bursts open and a cop shoots you! What a high! For Grand Valley State University (where getting stoned is an extracurricular activity) student Derek Copp (oh the irony!) this was the reality, and such a bad trip. Ottawa County cops forcibly entered Copp's off-campus apartment, the cops shining flashlights into Copp's eyes - Then a shot was fired. The cop's bullet entered Copp's chest, broke ribs, ruptured a lung and passed through his liver, remaining lodged in his lower back. Of course fellow stoners are protesting cop-brutality of Copp, holding signs reading, "Why was our friend shot" (each sign multi-colored and covered with sparkles, yet lacking requisite punctuation because, well, they were stoned while making them). Meanwhile, Copp rests comfortably at the local hospital, heavily dosed on his new friend, sister morphine.
WTF!? Trade Pants With Our Publisher! Seriously!It's been a long time since Upfront has seen the walls of a junior high from the inside. So when we heard from some highly placed sources that today's teens and tweens are breaking down gender barriers one pant leg at a time by swapping trousers, we were slightly on the puzzled side. Apparently, boyfriends and girlfriends and even friends of the opposite sex are (allegedly) sneaking off into bathrooms to exchange their pants. And we're not talking about the new fashion fad where guys wear shamefully skinny, '80s style jeans. No we're talking about bonafide clothes trading. As in they actually wear each other's pants. And teachers and parents are freaking out about this as they are wont to do when news such as this breaks. Now this whole thing might sound ridiculous, but we know enough to understand that teens know more than us about fashion.
And that's why our venerable publisher is so pumped on this trend that he has instituted the first-ever "Trade Pants With the Publisher" contest. If you have pants you think would be desirable enough for our publisher to trade with you, send us a photo to [email protected]. We're serious. Really. So send us some photos and who knows, we could be trading pants. Notice: junior high students are not allowed to enter.
