The Presidential Turkey in flight...
...the only living case of a Turkey being a Lame Duck...

WHAT THE HELL'S HE DOING IN PERU? Prezzident George Bush has flown to Peru, and I'm not kidding. Would I Lie? On my own blog? Well, not right now. So, WHY is he going THERE? What would be accomplished by him going there? I have no idea, and I'm pretty sure neither does HE. Why did he go there? Because he CAN. And it's probably a good place to hide out as his administration slowly evaporates away into the endless enigmatic ocean of Political Infamy. I wonder if us, as taxpayers, could somehow subdivide the cost of this excursion and translate it into a how-much-each-of-us-is-paying-for-it sort of thing, and then we could all write off that amount as a sort-of Charity contribution for the Prezzident. Although, there's something in it for us; we don't have to See or Hear Prezzident Bush while he's gone. Although, George Bush going to Peru makes about as much sense as Michael Dukakis riding in a Tank.


As God is my witness, there is such a thing...This is an Australian BUSH TURKEY. Gobble gobble...
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DUMMY UP, SARAH: Remember, that's what Archie Bunker always told his wife, Edith, to do? If Sarah Palin is trying to rehabilitate her image, now that she's Stuck Back In Alaska, she's going about it all wrong. Last Night, I became aware of a video of Former-and never-will-be-again Vice Prezzidential Candidate, Sarah Palin (rhymes with 'Failin') at a Turkey Ranch, officially Pardoning A Turkey. Turkey? Doesn't that mean, in a metaphorical sense, that if Sarah partakes of the traditional Thanksgiving meal, she'll be a cannibal? (you know, as in Turkey...) Clips of her being interviewed have appeared time and time again, with a sort of 'splotch' in the right-hand corner of the screen. Behind that splotch IS AN ACTUAL TURKEY GETTING KILLED, while she's rambling on and on about, "oh that doggoned media; they'll probably find something to speculate regarding this dumb thing I'm doing", yadda yadda yadda. And, honest, she actually described her appearance at the Turkey Ranch as "FUN", while the guy in the background hoisted a LIVE TURKEY into one of those cone-things that lops off its head. You can't make this stuff UP! (I have just seen an un-splotched clip of this; if it weren't so tragic, it would be HILARIOUS.)

Good ol' Sarah Palin, running off at the mouth about pardoning a Turkey, while hundreds of Other Turkeys behind her will soon adorn Thanksgiving Day platters all across Alaska. You know, Alaska, that state that you can see Russia from. Theoretically. Anyway, Sarah's gonna have some time on her hands, now that she's back in Alaska and probably will Never Have Any Kind Of National Platform Ever Again. What's she gonna do to while away the hours being governor? Well, next summer, she could perhaps sight-in her rifle and get ready for the upcoming hunting season...


Excuse me while I crawl off into the corner; I'm going to go have a nightmare right now...

I'm so sorry for exposing you to this image. What could I have been thinking? Well, it's better to burn out than to fade away, Neil Young once sang; in keeping with that, if I'm gonna Go Down Blogging, I might as well Go Out In Flames. A true case of pictorial Blogger-cide...
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GAS PRICES ARE DOWN; NOW WHAT? Gas down here on the Southern Oregon Coast, one of the most isolated areas in the country, is now down to $2.01 a gallon. Gas prices are down across the nation, too. Oh, yeah, and the Wall Street Bail-out's been done, touted, and lauded. In spite of all these positive things, THINGS AREN'T GETTING ANY BETTER. Read the business pages of the newspaper; please buy a copy so the newspaper doesn't go bankrupt! On those business pages, company after company after company, announcing layoffs after layoffs after layoffs. The crazy thing about gas prices, though, is that while they can drop like a rock (and have done so), the country still Will Not get better Anytime Soon. Those laid-off will continue to be laid-off. A talking head on MSNBC boiled it down for me: The bail-out money that went to Wall Street has not trickled down to Main Street as the bail-out evidently originally intended. So, nothing new has happened. And the economy has Not Yet Been Helped. Meanwhile, our Prezzident is in Peru and our heartless Vice Prezzident is probably hiding out in an underground bunker somewhere, with a team of heart surgeons standing by...


A tankful of gasoline costs more George Washingtons than it used to...

Back to gas prices: it's actually nice being able to buy half a tank for "only" $20 bucks; but the recent skyrocketing of Gas Prices had a benefit, too, for, all of a sudden, there were Less of those Huge Monolithic Overbearing and Very, Very Heavy Dodge Ram pickup trucks on the road, along with Less Ram-Pickup-Imitations made by Chevy and Ford and whoever else. out there on the road. I have a theory: The bigger of a vehicle you drive, the more boorish, overbearing and intolerant of Other Motorists you're likely to be. I heartily applaud the American Public for leaving their gas-guzzlers at home. And now that gas prices have Gone Back Down, the economy's so shot that hopefully no one else will wanna mortgage themselves to a Ram-tuff-type pickup Anytime soon.

So people are wondering, all of a sudden, why Detroit's automakers are having such a problem? Because they churned out pickups bigger than bulldozers, knowing all the while that the Gas Market was Highly Volatile, and liable to fall victim to Skyrocketing Gas Prices at Any Moment. Hey, money made it into the shareholders' pockets. The Real Rub is that sales of Big Pickups are down, and even tho gas prices are low enough so that you won't have to mortgage your house to fill up the tank of one of those Stegosaurus-sized pickups, all of a sudden a sense of thrift has barged its way into the American Public's spending habits, and they're trying to Save Money, and probably one of the ways they'll do that is to buy no-frills, smaller vehicles, you know, the kind that use less gas. Or, they might just keep the old 'beater' vehicles they're presently driving, providing Detroit with Even Less Money. That would be the old 'we can't afford a new vehicle' strategy. In terms of fuel economy, it'll be Really Funny if next year's Dodge Ram Pickup is the size of, say, a Volkswagen Beetle. The de-evolution of a Dodge Ram Pickup Truck, coming to a dealer near you soon.
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IT'S ALL IN MY HEAD: I've been having dizziness problems for the last year. The Flu I was afflicted so badly with in September '07 has evidently done some damage. I'd long thought that, and it was confirmed by My New Physical Therapist. After putting me through various physical paces, she thinks the innards of mine Ears are infected, affected, defected, and all sorts of Mean and Ugly things. I have balance trouble, and am a bit shaky on my feet. I told her I've had these symptoms for so long that I felt like I was exaggerating when I was trying to indicate how 'off-kilter' I've felt. This dizziness does curtail what I can do. I've come close to falling down in public places a couple of times. I have to walk slowly. If I walk for an extended distance, I need a Walking Stick. I won't use a Cane, for that would mean That I Am Old. But a Walking Stick is j-u-s-t fine. Anyway, the Nurse said that I actually Was Inflicted, that "it's not all in my head". That's when I told her, "Well, it (the dizziness) actually Is." I've been waiting for the dizziness to go away and it never does. But with treatment, hopefully I can get back to at least Mildly Abnormal. So, In My Honor (or what's left of it after this post), I Dedicate The Following Song To Me:


A little bit of Rock Trivia...Tommy Roe actually appeared onstage during a Beatles' early tour of England. So now you know.
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THE SHOWS MUST GO ON: Two of my favorite MSNBC Talking Heads are Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. They both sound so intelligent; wow, they sure have a way with words; their scripts gracefully balance disgust, humor, candor, political idiocy and incredulousness in a remarkably intelligent way; I've always been a fan of intelligence, something that I hope to possess some day. But here's the deal: At various times over the last two weeks, Keith and Rachel have been GONE, doing whatever richly-paid Talking Heads do when they're not broadcasting. And yet the shows go on. Right now, David Schuster, who reminds me of a deer caught in the headlights, is yammering away as a substitute on Keith's program, 'cos Keith ain't on tonight. And, the script still sounds crafty, cunning, nifty, and extremely Smartly Written. So I must ask...

Do Any of these Talking Heads have any sort of talent, or can you just plug in anyone behind the desk and have 'em read the Teleprompter, the script of which has evidently been churned out by Some Generic MSNBC writer who's paid to think of Intelligent things. And perhaps you could then put the Average High School Janitor behind the desk, and he'd sound like, oh, perhaps Eric Sevareid or Walter Cronkite. All he's gotta do, after all, is read the teleprompter. Meantime, I've just found out that Keith will be COOKING WITH MARTHA STEWART on Monday. Oh my gawd, the World Is Ending, isn't it? Flaming Liberal Keith Olbermann, who decried the criminality of the soon-to-be-gone Repubblican administration, COOKING with Martha Stewart, who is probably Republican and most definitely a Criminal who's done her time.


So, can anyone be a Talking Head on MSNBC?
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I'll close with this thought: Prezzident Bush went to Peru for God Knows What Purpose. Maybe it would be more appropriate if he'd gone to Argentina to hide out. That's where all the other Bad Leaders From So Long Ago went to seek sanctuary. Turkeys, all of them...