...or is life more fun if you only read the comics?

Time may be marching on but minutia can be a stabilizing force.

I heard someone suggest that Sarah Palin thinks the Arab Spring is a soap that makes you smell like a camel.

Dominique Strauss Kahn has proposed a novel defense in his sexual assault case. DSK postulates that if the hotel employee in question didn't want to have sex, why did she show up dressed as a maid?

Because nature (and apparently cable TV) abhors a vacuum, the Oxygen Channel has decided to fill one vacuum with another. Ten PM Tuesday night saw the premiere of "The World According To Paris". The show stars the girl you can't get enough of because you've already had more than enough: Paris Hilton. Imagine a glorious hour watching a woman with the IQ of an arugula plant deciding what shoes go with a DUI. Or perhaps we will see Paris agonizing over which STD to share with her latest Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now. Seriously, anyone interested in this would enjoy the Nature Channel's "50 Things to do With Leeches" or "Survivor - Escape the Organ Harvesters".

The Washington Redskins have been ordered to provide captioning for all songs played during games so as not to discriminate against deaf fans. This exercise in politically stupid will no doubt enhance the experience of football about as much as reading the dialogue of a porn film to a blind person. If DC judges want to do something useful, make Dan Snider change the racist name of his club.

New Yorkers, who now practically have to walk over the George Washington Bridge to grab a smoke, will soon have a new law to "protect" them. The state legislature has passed a law declaring whiffle ball, tag and horseshoes "nonpassive recreational activities with significant risk of injuries". In a related story, staff at New York Medical Center will now be required to pack all newborn children in Styrofoam immediately after delivery.

Also, the city council of Thornton, Colo. has banned barber poles as a distraction to motorists. To this one can only utter two words... Times Square.

Also, goldfish racing in Tacoma, Wash. has been suspended after a complaint from animal rights activists. Allegations of goldfish doping, race fixing and concerns for the fish once their racing days were done played a part in the decision. There was also concern about the frequent drowning of the tiny jockey forced into the dangerous job of riding the goldfish.

A Michigan craft brewer has been denied the right to market its "Raging Bitch" beer in the state.
A spokesman for the company expressed dismay over the ruling indicating that the state liquor authority has previously approved "Darkie Dark Porter" and "Chinks Piss-Yellow Lager". A state representative said "We had to draw the line somewhere".

An Indiana woman is suing Carnival Cruise Lines because she got seasick on one of their cruises. There being no oceans in Indiana, Doris Beard was understandably misled by Carnival's magazine ad campaign in which the ships aren't actually moving. In a related story we have learned that Mr. Peanut has died from an anaphylactic reaction to some unnamed food product.

A New York man was escorted from a Southwest Airlines flight for exclaiming in an overly loud voice "What's taking so f--king long?".A spokeswoman for Southwest was adament in defense of the airline's policy about disruptive passengers. "Some a--holes have no f--king manners" said Thelma Prigg, Vice President for Passenger Experience. "Next time he can take the f--king bus".

...or are the Republican contenders joining the presidential dance with all the enthusiasm of geeks at the prom?

OK here's the plot: Several reluctant characters from totally different backgrounds and social classes are, by a quirk of fate, thrown together to either survive as a group or perish as individuals. Is this the story of:

1) Lord of the Flies

2) Lost

3) Survivor - Bayonne

4) Gilligan's Island

5) The Republican Presidential campaign, Class of 2012

Yes I know, 4 & 5 are the same answer.

The Republican candidates for President in 2012 have thusfar divided themselves into two camps. On one side we have those familiar retreads from 2008: Huckabee, Romney, Palin, Paul, Gingrich. Everything you need to know about their ability to engender excitement into the GOP cause can be summed up in two words: John McCain. This gang of also-rans proved to be about as exciting as Topeka on a Tuesday night. Why anyone thinks that four additional years of campaigning on Fox News has done anything to pump air into their personalities is fascinating. Constant exposure over all this time has only served to reinforce to Republicans that they made the right choice in 2008. Four years of Monday morning quarterbacking and armchair generalship has made the likes of Palin and Gingrich appear petty and small (and making Newt's head appear small is no mean feat).

On the other bench we have the new faces, the untried ideologues of the conservative movement who have managed to get themselves elected to local offices or made a name for themselves in the business community. Pawlenty, Daniels, Christie, Cain, Trump, Bachmann, Santorum and God knows who else. Not all are declared candidates but don't kid yourself. Every one of them is waiting/praying for the Party to tap them on the shoulder and beg them to "save us from the devil Obama". All of these candidates may benefit or suffer from the "send in the quarterback on the bench" syndrome. Everybody wants to see a fresh face. Hell, that's how Barack beat Hillary and Grandpa John. This team of rivals is so screwed up that the only adult in the room is the pizza guy, Herman Cain, and until a week ago no one outside of Atlanta had ever heard of him. (Cain is an interesting character. He's bootstraps all the way and has already waged a successful campaign against cancer.)

In the meantime, candidates continue to dribble into the fray. As of today, Newt Gingrich has joined the party. It took a while for Gingrich to enter the contest because he had to haul his cumbersome reputation all the way from Georgia. Honestly, Gingrich has more baggage that an airport carousel at Christmas. His ex-wives have actually formed a political action committee. And, have you seen Mrs. Gingrich #3? A helmet-headed, aging beauty queen with the stage presence of a ficus. Seriously, she makes Laura Bush and Cindy McCain look like Abbott and Costello. (OK I'm done!)

On another front we have the almost but not quite campaign of Mitch Daniels current Governor of Indiana. Daniels has several things going for him. For one, he doesn't have a gig on Fox so, nobody knows him (always a plus in GOP politics). He is the grandson of Syrian immigrants so he can neutralize the Middle Eastern connection that worked so well for President Obama in 2008. Also he's a bright guy who ran North American operations for Eli Lily. So why has this dynamo of the Republican heartland not declared decisively that he is ready to carry the presidential banner for his party? Actually, he's waiting for permission from his wife. That's right boys and girls, the party of "bring it on" leadership, of "shoot first ask questions later" toughguys will be led by a man who needs his wife's OK before leaving the house. "Honey, is it OK if I run for President? I promise I'll be home for supper." It's a good thing Newt didn't have to ask his wives. The campaign would be over before the votes could be tabulated.

...or does good news flush out as many morons as bad?

Osama, we hardly knew ya.

or

There once was a fiend named Osama

Who for years had caused nothing but trauma

He eluded George Bush

In the wild Hindu Kusch

'Til encountering the Balls of Obama.


But I digress.

The new definition of a nanosecond is the time between a significant news event and the time that the hand-wringers, self-serving asshats and nullifiers attempt to spin the facts to suit their agenda. To wit: the highly trained and deeply motivated men of the Navy Seals terminated the disagreeable life of Osama "are those helicopters outside" Bin Laden last weekend. No loss there. As the facts of their mission are released, one thing appears clear. The President of The United States sent the Seals to Pakistan for one reason and it wasn't to score some good weed. The President's instructions were very clear, don't bring back any tee shirts, STD's or bearded terrorists. There isn't much sad singing over the loss a man considered the very face of evil. (That title now passes to Dick Cheney.)

However, now that the cheering has died down, America has returned to focusing on the issues of the day like: Snookie's weight loss, the Capitals folding in another Stanley Cup bid and whether Donald Trump will ever recover from the pounding he received at the White House Correspondence Dinner. (Seriously, if you haven't watched Seth Meyers and President Obama crush Trump, watch it on YouTube. It's the best!) Predictably, like stink follows a garbage truck, a stream of scolds have emerged to fill the news void and urinate on our campfire.

First out of the gate is a steaming pile of Bushies who immediately began crowing that torturing prisoners at Gitmo was the direct cause of Bin Laden's death. Really? Most notable among these failed armchair warriors was John Yoo who took to the Wall Street Journal today to pontificate about how his policies put a bullet in Bin Laden's eye. The actual quote was " Sunday's success also vindicates the Bush Administration whose intelligence architecture marked a path to Bin Laden's door." That must have been some circuitous trail considering that, in seven years, the Bush team produced squadouch. For the record: since Gitmo opened in 2001, no intelligence officer, no torturer, no administration official of any rank has ever testified that waterboarding ever produced one scrap of actionable intelligence. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded so many times he grew gills and we never got a thing. We stopped waterboarding in 2005. All enhanced interrogation techniques stopped by 2007. It has been four years since then. How much useful information could these guys have? Face it! The Bush Administration had six years to torture the bejeezes out of the prisoners at Gitmo and other rendition sites and still couldn't find their ass with both hands. By the way...the closest John Yoo ever got to a weapon was playing World of Warcraft on his x-Box.

Mr. Yoo then has the temerity to suggest that the Obama administration took the easy way out by killing Bin Laden rather than "wade through the difficult questions raised by (his) detention". He also suggests that capturing Bin Laden would have been an intelligence bonanza. I imagine that Mr. Yoo would have encouraged the President to broadcast the waterboarding of Bin Laden on C-SPAN. John Yoo is a reprehensible turd whose advice to the White House was wrong both legally and morally. The less we hear from him, the better.

But John Yoo wasn't the only precinct heard from. There are reports of "Muslim leaders and scholars" who have concerns about the handling of the body of Osama Bin Laden. These would be the same "Muslim leaders and scholars" who were silent after 9-11 and who lost their voices as Americans were burned in Mogadishu. No offense boys but TFB. I suspect that the officers aboard the aircraft carrier transporting Bin Laden to his fish food reward had their hands full ensuring that the sailors didn't piss all over the body. Let's hear the "leaders and scholars" remind their flocks that Bin Laden was a murderer and, in death, got a lot better than he deserved.

Then we have Rashard Mendenhall whose tweets on the death of Osama Bin Laden have reinforced the idea that some technology should be left in the hands of adults. Mr. Mendenhall makes his living in the intellectually stimulating world of professional football. His thoughts (we'll call them that) remind all of us that we rarely seek the wisdom of the universe in Pittsburgh's Heinz Field on Sunday afternoons in the fall. Rashard's musings on death and skyscraper demolition bespeak one too many encounters with opponents' helmets. If Barack Obama agrees not to try out for running back for the Steelers perhaps Mr. Mendenhall will agree not to make Amercian war policy.

But our final shout-out goes to The Morning Star Institute, a Native American advocacy group. Apparently the group is taking exception to the use of "Geronimo" as the code word for the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden. This sentiment was echoed by Loretta Tuell of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Loretta went so far at to opine that the use of Native American icons like Geronimo can be "devastating" to young Indians. No doubt "banzai" would have produced an equally pained reaction from the Japanese community. Political correctness has a place and no one group can decide what offends another, nevertheless, it appears unlikely that the Navy Seals who stormed the Bin Laden compound intended to equate Geronimo with Bin Laden. Considering the current colloquial nature of our language, yelling "O'Mally" or "Corleone" would not have conveyed the same message. They might have considered "dude" but again, no pazzaz.

Our apology to any and all Native Americans who might have been offended. The Pentagon has promised to be more sensitive when next we kill an interenational terrorist. Perhaps "Hitler" will work. Advanced apologies to the German American Bund.

This just in...the US will not release the photos of the perforated OBL. Hear! Hear! The American government doesn't need to be providing bulletin board material for every crazy-ass jihaddist in the world. If people want to see a bearded body shot in the eye, rent Season VI of CSI.