SemiConscious Dot Org

The Rapture Is Nigh, Reason #805,412:

Hummer-scented cologne.

Circling the drain, people. Circling the drain.

My Prosecutor gave to Me An Indictment of Scooter Libby. On the Second Day of Fitzmas…..?

Yeah, it’s a mixed bag. I know, we’re all disappointed that we won’t be seeing Turdblossom’s head on a stake in time for Halloween. However, it appears that this isn’t the end of the investigation, and now the question becomes: what will Scooter do? His indictment places his boss, Cheney, squarely in the crosshairs. Will Scooter fall on his sword, Liddy-style, to protect the administration? Or will he sing like a canary to avoid jail time?

My hunch is the latter. After all, Bush has publicly promised to fire anyone from his administration who had anything to do with Plamegate. (Granted, promises from a congenital liar like DubYa are virtually worthless, but it would be hard for even him to go back on this one.) And once Scooter is cut loose, what reason would he have to keep quiet?

(UPDATE: Scooter has resigned following the indictment. That takes care of the “will he be fired?” question. The “Will he sing if he’s facing jail time?” question, however, remains to be answered.)

For that reason, my further hunch is that we will soon start to see a whole lot of “Libby is a Loose Cannon”-type articles suddenly spewing from the stinking mouth of the Right Wing Noise Machine. Considering the fate of every current or former administration member who has ever had the audacity to criticize it, this strategy makes perfect sense. They don’t know what Libby will say, so a “pre-emptive sliming” of his character is the logical next move.

Indications are that, at this point, Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to extend the grand jury’s timeframe or empanel a new jury, which suggests he has bigger people in his sights than Scooter Libby…and he’d damned well better, because the future of our democracy is at stake. This investigation can’t end with a Chief of Staff. The Bush administration cannot be allowed to get away with inventing reasons to go to war and jeopardizing national security in order to exact petty political revenge on those who attempt to call their bluff, and have only a few minor beaurocrats face charges as a result. To date, not one person in this administration has been held responsible for their appalling record of lies, corruption, and sheer, mind-boggling incompetence and stupidity.

Enough is enough.

Hi, kids! The world sure is a big, confusing place, isn’t it? Grownups do lots of strange things that we don’t understand, don’t they? For instance, maybe your mommy and daddy were talking about that story in the news; you know, the one about the man who wants to send some of the President’s friends to jail. You probably heard big words like “special prosecutor” and “yellowcake” and “undercover CIA agent” and “treason.” What does all that stuff mean, anyway? It’s so hard for a kid to understand!

But not to worry! Some nice people have taken this confusing story and put it into simple language with lots of pictures, so that even kids and Republicans can make sense of it! You can read it on the website, or you can even get this neat version that prints up! It tells all about nice Mrs. Wilson, who was doing secret stuff to protect us from Bad Guys, and the Scary Mad People in the White House who tattle-tailed on her and put her and everyone she knew in danger, just to get back at some people they didn’t like. And you can read all about nice Mr. Fitzgerald, who is trying to put all the Scary Mad People in jail where they belong, so they can’t hurt the rest of us ever again.

There is one bad thing, though. We said this story is simple enough that kids and Republicans can understand it, but we might have spoken too soon. Most kids are way smarter than most Republicans. Plus, even when we make this story simple for Republicans to understand, they like to stick their fingers in their ears and go “La la la la la la, I can’t hear you!” This is what we call lying to yourself, and it’s something Republicans are really, really good at. In fact, it may be the only thing they’re better at than lying to other people!

“Und zen ze old ladieez are thrown into ze fjord….”

Belichick is my Shepherd. I shall not Lose. He Leadeth my Team to many, many Superbowls. He Maketh me to Win on all my Bets. He Tradeth Away the Crappy Players, That they might not Cost the Team Victories. Surely Wins will follow my Team all the Days of my Life, And the Lombardi Trophy shall Dwell in Foxboro Forever. - Belichick’s Prayer

With my Three Time Superbowl Champion New England Patriots enjoying a badly-needed bye week, the football-watching options today were rather meager. However, a quick perusal of the schedule informed me that the local NFL entry, a plucky little team apparently known as the “Seahawks,” would be hosting the Dallas Cowboys, who are currently led by coach Bill Parcells and QB Drew Bledsoe, both of whom formerly toiled for the Patriots. “What the hell?” I figured. “I’ve got nothing else to do.” And so, watch the game I did.

Wow, did I ever learn the error of my ways. After an excruciating 59 minutes of football in which both teams tried their absolute damnedest to give the game away, I found myself subjected to a 10-10 tie. The Cowboys had the ball with a scant 14 seconds left, well out of field goal range and out of timeouts. “Great,” I thought to myself, “we’re headed for overtime. Just what I want; another 15 minutes of this torture.”

Silly me. I had failed to figure in the Bledsoe Factor.

In the same situation, approximately 31 out of 32 starting QB’s in the NFL would drop to one knee and run out the clock, taking their chances in overtime…but not our boy Drew. No, he decides to throw the ball. And anyone who has followed his career can guess what happens next: the ball flies directly to a Seattle defender, who returns the interception down the sideline into field goal range, whereupon the Seahawks kick the game winner on the final play of the game.

Of all the many Bledsoe Brain Farts I’ve witnessed over the years (many of which cost the Patriots games) this is the most inexplicable one I’ve ever seen. Seriously, what in hell was he thinking??? And if Parcells was the one who called a pass play in the situation, what in hell was he thinking? Parcells should know better than anyone what happens when you let Drew Bledsoe throw the ball with the game on the line. It’s a recipe for disaster.

As the winning field goal sailed through the uprights, I once again gave fervent thanks for that fateful day in the fall of 2001, when Bledsoe approached Pats coach Bill Belichick and said “I’m ready to start again, coach,” and Belichick said “Um, yeah, not so much.”

Yea, all praise be to Belichick. Amen.

On Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of catching a Dropkick Murphys gig at the Showbox. Since I have, in the past, expounded at length on why this band is so goddamn awesome, I’ll spare you more of my blather.

Wait, no I won’t. This band is goddamn awesome.

I will admit to a passing fear, before the show, that the Dropkicks would be subjected to “The Seattle Treatment” – ie, that all the energy would be sucked out of the building by the torpor of an all-black-attired, shoegazing crowd of too-hip-for-thou latte-sucking twits. Luckily, that was not the case. In fact, judging by the percentage of Red Sox hats, Bruins jerseys, and Southie accents in the crowd, there were no actual Seattleites present at all, which was of course a huge relief. Go slink off to your cafe and continue pretending Death Cab For Cutie is good music, you vacuous weenies. The real folks are here to listen to some rock and roll.

Anyway, all the elements that make for a Dropkicks show were on full display: raw, 900 mph punk anthems accompanied by mandolins, bagpipes and whistles; a generous helping of punked-up Irish folk tunes and protest anthems mixed in with the originals; and a raucous, beer-swilling crowd that sang along at the tops of their lungs to every word of every song.

The party atmosphere of the show did turn somber once, when the band broke into a slowed-down version of “The Fields of Athenry,” which they dedicated to Sgt. Andrew Farrar, a fan of the band who was killed in Iraq. However, lest anyone assume their support of the troops also implies support for the government that sent them to war, the lyrics to several other songs in the set list should serve to clear up that misconception.

I could go on and on, but I’ll just wrap up with the sincere admonition to go see this band if you get the chance. It won’t change the world, and it won’t make the Bush administration shrivel up in a ball and disappear,* but for a few hours at least, you can forget your troubles and shout til the rafters shake.

(*Of course, if another Irishman has his way, most of that gang of liars, thugs and killers will soon be marched off in handcuffs, anyway.)

That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy.

– The Call of Cthulhu

We all knew it was only a matter of time until Cthulhu rose from His ancient sleep at the bottom of the ocean and began His conquest of mankind. I’m sure there were many among you who hoped this wretched day would never come, but you can kiss that hope goodbye. Last month, in the remote waters of the north Pacific, scientists took the first-ever photograph of the risen Cthulhu. Look into the face of your doom!

Note that, from this angle, you cannot see mighty Cthulhu’s glowing red eyes, huge, flapping bat wings, or monstrous, razor-sharp claws. Nonetheless, it is He. The Great Old Ones have arisen, and will soon make all of humanity into a hearty breakfast. When your soul is screaming forever as you slowly digest in great Cthulhu’s stomach, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Remember:

Jesus Saves, Allah Protects, and Cthulhu Thinks You’d Make a Nice Sandwich.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

These are trying times for Dear Leader.

His approval ratings are dropping through the floor.

The howling lynchmob has tightened the noose around Saint Karl, his most trusted political advisor.

His most powerful congressional ally might soon be headed to prison.

His handpicked Supreme Court nominee ( whom we know to be qualified, despite her total lack of judicial experience or a track record, because he says she is) is being savaged – by his own party.

His party is openly defying him in other ways – such as passing laws that offer the unpatriotic assertion that the US should not be involved in torturing people.

The Nattering Nabobs are harping on his eminently generous nature in awarding government jobs, offering up the ludicrous notion that some of his friends might be dangerously unqualified.

His government, which suffered a few, minor, harmless glitches in its efforts to provide hurricane relief, is now heroically scrambling to catch up to the threat of worldwide flu pandemic.

His entirely understandable mistrust of all those damn godless egghead scientists, and their repeated warnings about looming environmental and climate disaster, is being called into question.

His Holy War, whose eminently worthwhile nature more than justified the few small fibs required to convince the public of its necessity, seems to be growing more unpopular by the day among people who insist on looking at minor fripperies like military and civilian deaths and monstrous military budgets, rather than at the Big Picture.

In short, the public, who once gave him an overwhelming landslide mandate to continue as God’s Representative on Earth, seems to be turning to the traitorous notion that he is the Worst. President. Ever.

The crucial question, when we hit minor bumps in the road such as those described above, is as always: how do we distract people from Dear Leader’s troubles and thus rebuild their faith in his infallible leadership?

Hey, how about a Terror Alert?