Month: October 2006

The GOP plans to blame miscues in governing the country on Bush 41 if the tactic of blaming Bill Clinton fails.

Who is to blame for the current crisis with North Korea? If you believe the Republican robo-talking points, it’s Bill Clinton. In fact, Bill Clinton seems to be the easiest target on which to shift blame when something is amiss in the U.S. Who started the War Between the States? Bill Clinton. Who caused the Hindenburg Disaster? Bill Clinton. Who caused the Great Chicago Fire? Bill Clinton. Who did Monica Lewinsky … oh, that really was Bill Clinton.

It is somewhat astounding that the GOP would use as a scapegoat for virtually any failure the U.S. faces a president who has not been in office for more than six years. It’s like the smug Bush “W” bumper sticker that says: “Get over it!” Perhaps people should keep in mind that what has occurred in relation to our country since 2000 took place under Bush’s “watch.” So get over it.

The hard core, right-wing gab machines are among the most prolific users of Bill Clinton — the excuse. I refer to Limberger, Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Bill O’Reilly and the others who have made their fortunes in the Clinton-bashing business.

Interestingly enough, it seems some of the right-wing radio twits have begun to criticize Gee Dubya for some of our problems. I’m sure if a solid Democratic majority comes to power this year and after the next presidential election, one might see a lot more right-wing talking asses join the bandwagon. After all, you got to follow the money, right?

Are Americans smart enough to realize they have been played like a worn-out fiddle by the GOP for some time now? One can only hope. But then again, Americans elected Bush and the Republican majority now in Congress. Maybe voters have learned their lessons. But we shall see.

It is downright amazing to where a wandering mind may lead. If you are on the Internets, your mind can take to just about anywhere or anything. For instance: I thought about novelty songs. This led to a list of the top 10 novelty songs. I didn’t necessarily agree with the list in that these songs were worthy of the top 10. So I found another list of the 100 greatest novelty songs.

Now it is very difficult to think about this list of the 100 greatest novelty songs without thinking about the songs themselves. “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haa,” by Napoleon XIV is at the top of that list and I also disagree that it should top the list. But it definitely is a novelty song. I remember once when I lived in Longview, Texas, a radio station in that area played this song over and over for something like 24 hours straight. I suppose that qualifies as a bonafide radio stunt but it didn’t particularly inspire me to listen to the station for more than half of the song.

Next my mind veered off course like a drunken ship’s captain onto the subject of radio stunts in general. About.com has a decent list of radio stunts. I read awhile ago about one of the jokes on that list. It involved the co-host of a Spanish-language morning show in Miami calling Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, pretending to be Cuban President, Fidel Castro. That’s definitely funnier than the old “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” prank. Okay, if you don’t get the reference, it has to do with Prince Albert tobacco that was packaged in a tin. It may still be, I have no idea nor do I care to look it up on the Web because I have wasted way too much time today. Back to the Prince Albert prank, a kid would call up a grocery store and ask if they had Prince Albert in a can. If the store employee answered in the affirmative, the prankster would say: “Well you better let him out.” A lot of wasted words there for little effect. And I almost forgot the point to all of this.

Thoughts about radio stunts next plunged my wandering mind down a mountainside to my final tangent. That tangent was the best radio stunt ever which was not real. I refer to the classic “Thanksgiving Turkey Drop” on “WKRP in Cincinnati.” I found a clip of it on You Tube and for some reason I am not able to post it to my blog, but if you click this you should be able to watch the snippet.

My mind is tuckered out from all that wandering so I shall call it a blog day. I wonder where the expression “tuckered out” came from …

Somehow, I initially posted the wrong story on the item about the wayward bra. But since I have tried to, at least tangentially, keep track of the Vivi the missing show dog story I figured that this story might provide some hope for Vivi’s well-being.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. A 17-year-old girl took off her bra while riding in a car with a friend. Then she decides to fly the undie item like Old Glory on the car antenna — with disastrous results.

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail has a message board on each car that continuously flashes news, announcements, weather and so forth. This morning while taking the Ledbetter train to the VA Hospital, I noticed a few messages referred to several events taking place on Labor Day. I had to stop and think for a few seconds. Labor Day? I thought that was last month. Of course, it was last month.

Now I figured that some kind of programming error was made and thought nothing about it. A little while later, I glanced up at the message board and just caught the tail end of ” … Governor Jeb Bush has ordered an evacuation for the Florida Keys.” Wow, I thought, a hurricane is finally going to hit the mainland after a eerily quiet storm season.

For a minute or so after seeing that message, I wondered whether we were going to start having one storm right after another once one headed for the mainland. While waiting for my laboratory appointment at the hospital, I watched CNN for news about the hurricane. But the only news about Florida on the TV was about the horrific find of four bodies along a highway. Nowhere was news to be found concerning the hurricane.

When I got home I finally checked the National Weather Service’s Tropical Prediction Center Web site to find some information about the hurricane. I found out there is not even a tropical storm in the Atlantic, much less a hurricane.

All I could figure out about the message board was that somehow it was programmed for the wrong month and the wrong year. It was either that or I was stuck in a time warp. I suppose the sign miscue could be much worse, like a message aboard a Canadian train saying the prime minister eats babies. If I had seen that message I would still be confused this time next week.