"Specious Inquisition" for 9/21/05

"Cheap Joke of the Day" for 9/16/05

"Specious Inquisition" for 9/14/05

"Cheap Joke of the Day" for 9/14/05

"Cheap Joke of the Day" for 9/13/05

"Specious Inquisition" for 9/10/05

Isn't this a little like telling Al Capone to get back in his house?

He's still the director.

"6 and 12" for 9/10/05or"DeLay'ed Response"

While visiting Katrina evacuees at the Houston Astrodome Friday morning, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay stopped to speak with three young boys resting on cots.

With reporters watching, DeLay actually, honest-to-Santa said this to the kids:

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"

Apparently not sure what else to do, the boys nodded, and DeLay moved on to his next horrible embarrassment.

So what else does DeLay consider "fun"?

6 examples:

• Starving
  

• Drowning
  

• Watching friends and relatives die
  

• Living in your own waste
  

• Losing your home and all possessions
  

• Searching for missing loved ones
  

  
  

Gee, that all sounds like a hoot to us. But perhaps- just perhaps- we're not being entirely fair to Captain Compassion- uh, I mean, Tom DeLay.

So what about outside of the context of Hurricane Katrina? Your Catchpenny is on it.

We made a few calls**, and here's what we discovered.

12 other things that Commander Givesashit enjoys:

• The WNBA
  

• The smooth, refreshing taste of motor oil
  

• Hammering rusty spikes into one's own urethra
  

• Robert's Rules of Order
  

• Being stuck in an elevator with Carrot Top
  

• Doin' it with lobbyists
  

• Candy Corn
  

• Prostate exams
  

• Bette Midler
  

• The smell of burning hair
  

• According to Jim
  

• Professional wrasslin'
  

  
  

**The phone calls we made were to a phone sex line. The telehooker with whom we repeatedly spoke- a lovely young lady who goes by the pseudonym "Ann Coulter"- was surprisingly, almost creepily full of information on Mr. DeLay. So we owe a big debt of gratitude to you, Miss "Coulter."

"Cheap Joke of the Day" for 9/8/05

The fox has entered the henhouse.

True story:

Discussing the government's response to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday, President Bush announced that he will personally oversee an investigation into what went wrong and why.

Also, as mentioned in the most recent "Cheap Joke of the Day" here on your Catchpenny, Bush said that Vice President Dick "Where the Hell have I been for the last two weeks? Are we sure they haven't replaced me with someone else who looks kinda like me, just like what happened to 'Becky' on Roseanne?" Cheney will go to the Gulf Coast on Thursday as part of the effort to see if the government is doing all that it can.

"Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people," said Bush.

-----

This is actually really exciting news. Why? Because presumably, this means that from this point forward, anyone who plans and commits a homicide in this country will thereafter be allowed to investigate that homicide themselves.

I'm also hoping it means that I will personally be permitted to be judge and jury for my own income tax evasion, which I have planned for next April.

"Cheap Joke of the Day" for 9/6/05

"Specious Inquisition" for 9/6/05

We all have to make sacrifices, no matter what the President says (or doesn't say).

Remember that crap about a "kinder, gentler nation"?

I realize that we're about a day behind on this one, but for those who haven't seen it, this is an actual, honest-to-Murgatroid quote from former First Lady Barbara Bush, talking about the Katrina victims who have been transported to Houston:

"Almost everyone I’ve talked to wants to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed with the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckles)--this is working very well for them."

In a related story, The Catchpenny has learned that Mrs. Bush was seriously injured Tuesday evening when a passing airliner's nose cone became entangled in her left nostril.

A reminder that life goes on...

Amid the turmoil along the Gulf Coast and the debates reignited by the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, we discovered this item buried in today's news wires:

Bush declares ‘end of major combat operations’ in The Great Galactic War

“My fellow Americans, the Zebulonians have been defeated.”

With that statement, President George W. Bush announced the conclusion of the first and most dangerous stage of The United States’ armed occupation of Zebulon IV, the third moon of the planet Quarzax in the Alpha Centauri system.

Bush, dressed in a “Tinri Bor,” the traditional Zebulonian garb of victory, appeared Friday as a hologram on the deck of the American starcruiser, the U.S.S. Han Solo as it sat in hard dock on the rim of Saturn’s ninth ring. The address was broadcast to all reaches of space, including Earth via CNN and Al-Jazeera, and Zebulon IV via MSNBC, where Zebulonian native son Lester Holt is an interstellar sensation.

In his twenty-minute presentation, standing before an enormous banner reading “Kolmder Vrincinet” (the Zebulonian phrase for “enormous banner”), Bush praised the American starfighter squadrons for their collective valor, especially the Fourth Interstellar Division, of whom ten pilots were lost to crashes and to the Ensth, a poisonous space eel guarding the Ileneph Asteroid Field near Zebulon IV.

Bush cautioned that while Americans may be rejoicing at the news that many of their loved ones are on their way home, and celebrating the fall of Zebulonian tyrant and alleged terrorist mastermind Vifrilor Hussein (no relation), there still remains some considerable, though far less dangerous, work ahead.

“The clashes may be over between the valiant Americans and the treacherous Zebulonians, who I am confident are planning no further counterstrikes of insurgencies or gee, I don’t know, waiting to ambush our soldiers at every turn,” Bush said. “But our task is not totally completioned. In the coming months, America will call on our closest allies, including the British, the Kryptonians, and Halliburton, to aid in the process of rebuilding Zebulon IV and making it safe for democracy. Within six months, we will turn governing authority over to an appointed body of good, freedom-loving Zebulonians. We are confident that nothing- least of all photos of nude Zebulonian detainees in compromising positions- will threaten our progress or timeline.”

The United States invaded Zebulon IV in mid-August after repeated attempts to convince the Zebulonians to increase production and exportation to America of dicarbonite crystals, which provide power to Area 51 and to Dick Cheney.

"The Specious Inquisitions" for 9/5/05

Know who I'd nominate? A puppy.

Who's going to turn down a cute little puppy?

Not me.

Or what about chocolate cake?

Have you ever rejected a dish of delicious chocolate cake?

I haven't.

So, geniuses. Who would you nominate?

"Cheap Joke of the Day" for 9/5/05

We have a sponsor!

This is very exciting. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine that The Catchpenny would become a source of income; we assumed it would always be merely a source of crushing embarrassment.

Turns out it's both!

We'll try to have one sponsor per week. And if you're thinking about advertising with us, don't worry; we don't care what you're selling. If you give us money, we'll give you access. After all, isn't that the American way?

Thanks to this week's sponsor:

Federal Emergency Something Something

So if this Federal Agency is not going to effectively Manage Emergencies, we have to ask:

What does "FEMA" actually stand for?

• We'll start with the most obvious:
  Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency
  

• Federal Emergency Mulling Administration
  

• Funds Egregiously MisAppropriated
  

• Fuck Every Miserable American
  

• Families Entirely Mistreated, Abandoned
  

• Foreign Enemies Made Aware
  

• Feeble Entity of Miscreant Assholes
  

• Fumbles, Errors, Mistakes, Arrogance
  

• Failures Evidence of Marked Anti-Americanism
  

• Floods and Earthquakes are Mere Annoyances
  

• Fundraisers Entitled to Major Appointments
  

• Feigned Enthusiasm Masking Animus
  

Any I'm forgetting? Flames Engulf My Anger?

How about Fairly Elected My Ass?

Someone please tell me this isn't really happening in this country.

(You would be lying if you told me that, of course, but that doesn't matter anymore. Even the President lies. A lot. And his lies kill people. A lot of people. But to be fair, it's not like he's lying about getting a hummer from an intern. So, ya know. There's that.)


Dear Mr. President,

Forgive my language, but how the fuck does FEMA Director Michael Brown still have his job? Even if he never faces criminal charges for manslaughter (which he should), he should at the very least be fired. NOW. We already know he's going to Hell whenever he dies, but he should have to pay in this life as well...

And now to you, dear readers,

You may have seen this, but these words are from Aaron Broussard, President of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, speaking with Tim Russert on this morning's Meet the Press:

We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. … Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we’ve got to start with some new leadership. It’s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.

...

Three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA, we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. When we got there with our trucks, FEMA says don’t give you the fuel. Yesterday — yesterday — FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines.

...

The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For god’s sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.

"Specious Inquisition" for 9/4/05

How will you remember William Rehnquist?

For my part, I'll never forget one cool Saturday evening in May 1998 when Billy Rehnq called me up and asked what I was doing.

"Nuthin'," I said.

"Can I come over?" he asked. He sounded upset. "I need to talk. Nothing major, just girl stuff."

And so he did, and we sat up until the wee hours of Sunday morning talking about times old and new. We did each other's hair, ate Ben & Jerry's (I had "Chubby Hubby" while Billy- of course- had a pint of "Writ of Macadamia"), and gave each other quizzes from my stockpile of Cosmopolitan back issues. It was a night I'll never forget, less because of the fun Billy and I had than for the heartbreak that came later when he stopped taking my calls and even acknowledging my existence. I never got the chance to ask him why. Guess I'll have to wait till we're both in heaven. Or wherever he went.

But what about your memories of Mr. "I'm too busy to call back, but for the last time, I am not your 'Snoogle-wookums'"? That's the subject of today's "Specious Inquisition."

Actual "Cheap Joke of the Day" for 9/4/05

This would be a "Cheap Joke of the Day"...

... if it didn't make me angry enough to trash the Catchpenny offices with a softball bat in one hand and Calista Flockhart in the other.

Rest In Peace, William Rehnquist...

...because peace is pretty much the last thing the rest of us will have- to say nothing of resting in it- for the foreseeable future.

Not to be crass, but Jesus. Anything else?

Forget I asked; I don't want to know.

"6 and 12" for 9/3/05

We’ve all seen the Katrina coverage, so let’s get right to it…

Other than "Hang in there,"

6 expressions of comfort/encouragement offered by President George W. Bush to the victims of Hurricane Katrina…

• "Sucks to be you, huh?"
• "We must save Social Security now, and I have a plan to do it; and if y’all aren’t too busy right now, I’d like to tell ya ‘bout it."

• "Holy crap, y’all should see the big screen TV I just got installed at the ranch. I’m tellin’ ya, this baby’s a 67-incher with HDTV and the whole shootin’ match. It’s amazin’; you can see everything on it, and the picture is friggin’ beautiful. In fact, last week I was watchin’ Waterworld on this sucker, and it was unreal. Great movie, by the way."

• "Do y’all always keep your dead neighbors just lyin’ in the street like this?"

• "I know just the thing to cheer you folks right up; the America Supports You Freedom Walk on September 11. Y’all should come on up to Washington for it; Clint Black’s gonna be playin’ a concert, and he rules. Am I right? Poor people like country music, don’t ya?"

• "So how ‘bout them Saints?"

  
  
  

…And 12 reasons Bush has given for the much-reported delays in getting government assistance to the Gulf Coast.

• Bush had to send away for a map of the United States from National Geographic magazine, and then study that map to make sure that these so-called "Louisiana" and "Mississippi" and "Alabama" places were real, and not concoctions of the liberal media.

• The government could not do anything without Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and as Katrina was coming ashore, Chertoff was having a delicate plastic surgery procedure performed on his face; a process known in medical circles as "Severe Emergency Re-Eviling."

• "I didn’t fricking feel like it," said Bush. "Okay? What am I, in charge now or something? Jesus."

• Hurricane wiped out New Orleans rather than such paler-hued towns as: Greenwich, Connecticut; Wichita, Kansas; or Lower Melanin, Georgia.

• "It’s simple," said Bush. "Responding promptly and effectively to Hurricane Katrina is exactly what the storm would have expected us to do. If we’re going to fight these hurricanes properly, we must not be predictable in our movements. By not doing anything at all, I am certain that we confused Katrina into submission. After all, Katrina’s not around anymore, is she? See? We have emerged victorious. Mission accomplished.

  "Just think how bad the situation would be now if we had actually done something a week ago. You think about it, because I certainly don’t want to."

• Why didn’t Bush leave the comfort of his Crawford, Texas ranch as Katrina was bearing down on the coastline? Two words (well, one word and one number): Madden 2006.

• "I was busy dealing with Hurricanes Jenna and Barbara," Bush said, gesturing with his hands. "Glug glug, you know what I mean? Slurpy slurpy? Pukey pukey? You think cleaning up New Orleans is gonna be bad? Try dealing with these two gin-soaked cupcakes."

• "Look," he said. "I was on vacation for a long time. There’s a lotta shit you gotta patch up after a month off, like holes in the ranch house walls or my deviated septum. This crap takes time to patch up, to heal. I’m not that dude from The Crow or, you know, Patch Adams."

• Everybody was busy visiting Vice President Cheney at his undisclosed location. The well-wishers- including Bush, Chertoff, and FEMA Director Michael Brown, among many others- were said to have left flowers with Cheney, who was reportedly looking a little "stony" and "buried in a cemetery" during their visit.

• Bush, Chertoff, Brown, and others were working hard last week to figure out how they would publicly defend their lack of leadership and action, and so therefore simply had no time to actually exhibit leadership and take action.

• While in Crawford last weekend, Bush said that he kept meaning to catch "Local on the 8’s" on the Weather Channel, but that every time he flipped back to it, he discovered that he had just missed it. "It was annoying," he said, "but what are ya gonna do? I tried."

• And the final reason: Bush admitted Friday that he had no reason to put up a fight against Katrina, as Katrina had never tried to have his father (former president George H. W. Wuntermer) assassinated.

  Said the President: "When there’s no revenge factor, it really takes the fun out of stuff."

"The Specious Inquisition" for 9/3/05

Hey champs. For all of the long hours spent by us here at your Catchpenny brainstorming new story ideas, debating journalistic standards as they relate to our humble publication, and eating Cheetos and wiping the orange crumbs on the arm of the break room sofa, it is not frequent- you might even call it "infrequent"- that a new idea comes along that leaves all of us in the office with heads bowed in hushed awe.

But this new feature is... okay, this isn't one of those spectacular ideas, either. Come to think of it, we've never had an idea like that. In fact, most of what I just wrote is incorrect. We do not do much brainstorming, and we wouldn't know journalistic standards if they kicked us in the 'nads; which actually puts us in pretty good company in the mainstream media nowadays.

Also, we don't eat Cheetos, a fact which makes the presence of orange crumbs on our break room sofa baffling to the point of being disconcerting.

But without further ado, here's the idea...

Your intrepid Catchpenny staff loves people. A lot. We are attached to our common man in much the same way as a growing pile of restraining orders is attached to my desk. So, instead of attempting to begin interviews with people that only ever end with one of our reporters asking the interviewee out on a date, we decided that we would simply take a quick poll every now and again, for the purposes of both gauging the pulse of public opinion and hearing the sounds of our own respective voices, with which each of us is madly in love.

The responses to each of our inquiries will be posted here on your 'Penny as each survey is completed.

So enjoy! It's the inaugural "Specious Inquisition," for September 3, 2005:

What was that about compassion?

Decades and centuries from now, historians will likely look back on President George W. Bush as that guy who lived in the White House for eight years after President Bill Clinton left office and before President Wesley Clark (Russ Feingold? Hillary Clinton? Bueller?) moved in, much as former Senator Strom Thurmond’s lifetime is now viewed as the span of time between the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the 21st Century.

For now, though, President Inept W. Motherfucker is our leader, a figurehead wrapped in low approval ratings wrapped in vacant platitudes wrapped in a tan. As we have mentioned in two recent posts, Bush apologists and others- including Bush himself- have proclaimed that now is not the time to “play politics.”

Who’s playing? Who the fuck is playing?

Questioning this nation’s leadership as to its quality, force, and mere presence is NOT “playing politics.” It is right and it is necessary and it is a fundamental responsibility of the American people to ask where the hell our top officials have been for the last week. The only thing more necessary and patriotic right now is for all of us to send as much aid and offer as much support as possible in the overwhelming face of Katrina’s demoralizing aftermath. From each according to his or her ability and to each person affected by this tragedy, because they are the ones who need the comfort, the assistance; not the gas companies, not the other big businesses and special interests, and sure as shit not anybody directly connected to the weak-ass efforts of this embarrassing administration.

Interspersed among the crushing reports from the Gulf Coast in the last couple of days have been clips and sound bites of local, state, and federal officials offering their gratitude- sometimes in glowing terms- to FEMA and the Homeland Security Department and President Bush and others for the work they are doing to help all those in need. And yes, the rescue workers and people in the trenches are no doubt performing countless heroic deeds as I write this. Those people are deserving of no less praise than were the firefighters and police officers and paramedics and other rescue personnel who gave their time, efforts, and lives on September 11, 2001.

But to President Bush, Vice President Dick “Where the Fuck Am I? Are We Sure I’m Still Alive? Seriously” Cheney, The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and especially Michael Chertoff and the abysmally-performing Homeland Security Department, I offer this message: you deserve no praise. Stop patting yourselves on the backs, you hideous, mind-fuckingly awful excuses for leaders. Protecting this country- all of it- is your job, your elected and appointed duty, and you didn’t fucking do it. Even if you had, okay, fine, we’d all be happy about it, but this is YOUR JOB. My job? I write a blog. My job is to be a smartass and take official government photos hilariously out of context. Your job? Protecting the United States. Your job is slightly- okay, far more important than my job. And clearly, your job is more difficult; after all, you jackasses are making my job unbelievably easy these days.

Chertoff, for one, should be fired. Now. He leads the Homeland Security Department, not the “Holy Shit, What Do We Do Now?” Department.

Incidentally, the Secretary of “Holy Shit, What Do We Do Now?”, Dr. Franklin Osgood, is reportedly under his bed with his blankie, pissing his pants at this hour. He is doing an outstanding job. Let’s give credit where credit is due.

But let’s get back to President Bush, who actually had the nutsack to say Friday that he was unsatisfied with the swiftness and thoroughness of the federal government’s response to Katrina. (Uh, who’s in charge of the government, Poindexter? Because if it’s Cheney or Rumsfeld or even Andy friggin’ Card, just tell us. We’ll understand. In fact, we were pretty sure it wasn’t you all along.) But of course, President Waffle Iron reversed course later in the day and defended the speed and magnitude of the federal government’s reaction on the Gulf Coast. This coming from a man who had inexplicably managed to build a reputation with Americans as a “straight shooter,” a man who “means what he says.” Like everything else attached to this compassionate construction of a man, that reputation is undeserved, carefully-orchestrated, and a total façade predicated on lies and a genuine disdain for the American people.

W stands for White House, White Man, White Pwiowities. White white white.

But still, we don’t envy George W. Bush, especially in days as desperate and unwieldy as these. After all, we have and must maintain the highest respect for the office of the President of the United States, even if the guy swiveling around in the chair at the desk in that office is about as worthy of the American Presidency as the night manager at your local Kinko’s. But the presidency commands respect, and for a few minutes each day as we watch him smirk and gesticulate his way through a prepared speech or that Holy Grail of his term, the unscripted public comment, even we at The Catchpenny can forget for a moment just how much of a doddering marionette he is and look on him with a hint of deference, even hope.

We want this president to do well, and we want this president to do good. He just hasn’t. To say the very, very least.

And while “touring” the ravaged Gulf Coast Friday (read: cruising over in a helicopter and kissing a couple of foreheads in staged photo ops), President George WTF Bush gave us another reason to pretend we’re Canadian.

He actually, seriously, said this:

We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

We are sorry for the loss of Senator Lott’s house. But he owns two more houses. Also, as far as we know, neither he nor any of his loved ones were killed in the fucking hurricane.

Memo to President Bush: Give Michael Chertoff and FEMA Director Michael Brown their walking papers. And if you will not fire them, then you, George W. Bush, must resign. You should probably resign anyway, but you definitely should if you refuse to fire those two disgraces.

But you would never do that, of course, because that would be sending a bad message to Katrina's victims. That message? "You have been deeply, irrevocably wronged, and I, as the President of the United States, am accountable for those wrongs." Yep, truly a bad message to send.

To Congress: Just for good measure, I want articles of impeachment drawn up and on my desk by Monday. What else does Bush have to do (or not do, in this case) before the "I" word can be seriously discussed?

Oh, right; get a blowjob from an intern. That's what he would have to do.

And to you, dear reader: What say you?

P.S.: We'll get back to the jokes tomorrow; that is, if we're not busy actually filing for Canadian citizenship.

Didn't see this coming.

No Cheap Jokes Today.

Much has already been and much more will no doubt be said about what local, state, and federal authorities could have done to prepare for Hurricane Katrina before the storm made landfall on Monday.

And yes, you could say a lot about, among other issues: a) who diverted funds away from levee construction in Louisiana, largely to help pay for the war in Iraq; and b) whose chosen, lie-based war led directly to 40% of the Louisiana National Guard being overseas right now as conditions worsen and anarchy spreads along the Gulf Coast. (If you're curious, the answers are upside-down at the bottom of this post.)

But right now, we at The Catchpenny would like to take this moment to pretend that we have more than two readers and encourage all (both) of you to donate to the American Red Cross.

Click on their logo to help:

Thanks.