Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

We have a beaver here at the apartment complex where I live. He's one of the many things I'll miss, as I'm abandoning him for a more affordable place at the end of this month. He's the laziest S.O.B. you'll ever meet. Last year, he began a dam. He's managed to fell one slender tree, and he's added a few sticks, on the average of one every two or three months. Needless to say, his damn doesn't in any way resemble those in the zoology books.

Perhaps it was this sort of beaver John McCain was thinking of when he added beavers to his list of pork projects:

Many of the items of his top-10 list have turned out to be entirely worthwhile projects, and the list keeps growing.

"How does one manage a beaver?" U.S. Sen. John McCain asked his followers from the Senate floor this week.

McCain's derisive comments -- "$650,000 for beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi," he typed on his Twitter mini-blog -- came as part of his continuing campaign against directed spending, or earmarks, in the federal government.

But he angered workers in North Carolina who say they know full well how to manage beavers: Trap the critters, blow up their dams and let the water flow.

State and federal wildlife officials claim to have saved nearly $5 million last year in potential flood damage to farms, timber lands, roadways and other infrastructure through its Beaver Management Assistance Program -- the same one McCain was making fun of in Washington.

"Maybe you should ask him how much he knows about this and why he picked it out for ridicule," said U.S. Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) "We know why he chose this -- because it sounds funny."

Oh, yeah, hilarious. Ho ho hee hee what a laff riot this is:

McCain knows his misguided whining has "really been a lot of fun," he knows his buddies in the media will run with this, and nothing else matters.

In 2001, a freight train derailed in Pitt County after flooding weakened a rail bed near a beaver dam. Chemicals spilled from 30 rail cars, said Jon Heisterberg, state director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's APHIS wildlife services' division.

Funny how every time McCain goes after a "pork" project, it turns out to be a pretty necessary thing after all, eh? We can save a lot of time and effort here sorting out the good projects from the bad. If McCain Twitters it, then we know it's worth spending money on.

While we're at it, let's see what Bobby Jindal thinks of volcano monitoring after reading this article:

PAHALA, Hawaii - Leafless monkey pod and browning Norfolk pine trees litter Ted Seaman's 3.5 acre nursery in the small town of Pahala on the southern edge of Hawaii's largest island.

His skill as a grower isn't to blame. It's the noxious fumes that have been pouring out of the Kilauea volcano in unprecedented volumes since last spring.

"You can only go so far before you say forget it," said Seaman, who has since taken a job trimming trees. The 53-year-old is currently focused on saving enough money to file for bankruptcy.

Whatcha think, Bobby? Still think they don't need monitoring? Funny how silent he's gone on that subject, innit... you get the sense that maybe he realized he's a ginormous fuckwit and feels a little humiliated about now. But he's a Con. I think they have a mutation that keeps them from feeling things like shame, remorse, or humiliation. There's got to a be parallel mutation that prevents them from recognizing the irony in the 180 degree turns they make. Karl Rove's definitely a mutant. If you've got an irony meter on your desk, it's about to break:

On Fox News this afternoon, Karl Rove insisted that “this crew” in the White House has caused the collapse of the market, faulting the Obama administration for the economic crisis. He blamed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in particular, saying Geithner could not point fingers at the previous administration because he was one of the three people who made the decision to bail out the banks in the first place, with last fall’s TARP.

In fact, Rove declared that only three people made the decision about the bank bailout — and none of them were then-President Bush...

[snip]

Ironically, during the same interview, Rove declared that the Obama administration has “got to start accepting responsibility for the outcome of their decisions” — seconds before suggesting that Bush didn’t even play a role in one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency.

'Scuse me a sec.

Bwah ha ha ha ha ho ho *snort* hee hee my fuck that's rich ha ha *sigh* hee.

They're precious, aren't they?

Nothing can possibly top that - unless it's authoritarian followers declaring they don't need no stinkin' leader:

A consensus opinion floated to the surface -- like another Baby Ruth at the swimming pool -- of the right-wing pundit class: Republicans have no real leadership, and that's a good thing for Republicans.

That was certainly the popular talking point on Fox yesterday. Brit Hume kicked it off:

Hume: The GOP is leaderless, as parties tend to be after an election in which they lost everything. And the truth is, they don't need to be led right now.

... The Republican Party doesn't have a leader right now, and the truth of the matter is, it doesn't need one. If anybody is leading the party, it's Barack Obama, and they are reacting to him.

Do you notice how desperate Hume is for a leader there? He's even putting Obama forward as the leader of the Republicon party, because Obama is authoritative and leading these assclowns around by their great big red noses. They're so desperate for someone to follow that, even in the midst of trying to play the rebels, they have to follow someone's lead.

Here's another beautiful thing:

Former officials of the Bush administration have had a notoriously hard time finding work. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that “only 25% to 30% of ex-Bush officials seeking full-time jobs have succeeded.” The New York Times reports today that one of the down on his luck Bushies is top Cheney aide David Addington:

David S. Addington, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was a forceful voice in internal legal debates, is also said to still be looking for work. The former Pentagon general counsel William Haynes II had been nominated by Mr. Bush for an appeals court judgeship, but was blocked because of his role in detention policies.

I hate to celebrate someone else's unemployment, but I do have to say I'm pleased that these incompetent, immoral, and torture-loving fucknuggets can't find work. If we can't prosecute 'em, at least we can stick 'em behind a cash register at Wally World.

Only, of course, they won't even get hired for there. Overqualified, I believe.