Karzai's Conundrum

Afghanistan leader Karzai has threatened to join the Taliban if everybody doesn't get off his back about corruption and voter fraud. Nobody believes him, of course, because even he knows the Taliban would kill him in a New York minute if they get near him.

Karzai is in the very uncomfortable situation of needing all these foreigners in his country in order to have a country at all. There's no question that he needs them to restore order, establish infrastructure, etc. He can't muster the resources on his own to do any of it.

But guess what? We also need him. That's what he's saying with his rants. We do need him. So stop dropping in with demands and thinly veiled insults about integrity. He's getting sick of it. That's all he's saying.

Does Blagojevich Have a Brain Injury?

I honestly can't think of anything else that would explain it.

He's under investigation for corruption, and knowing this, he decides to sell a U.S. Senate appointment. Oh, on the phone. Let's not forget that one.

But how would a brain injury explain his wife? And his aides?

I am having a hard time imagining how any one person could be so reckless. Or arrogant. Or crazy. But all of them? Together?

You mean that none of them said "Wait a minute. Aren't we under investigation right now? Maybe this isn't a great idea." But none of them did. So they are all going to prison.

I've heard the Nazi movement in Germany described as mass mental illness. This might be another example of it.

It's Time for Yet Another Bailout In Near Future

Mine. Where's my billions of dollars to adjust for my ill-timed home improvements?

Seriously, let's go after all the money these corporate thieves have taken, and then all the rest of their money, too. It can go to the people whose 401K money is gone.

The Politics of Ronald McDonald Land - by Justin Benedict

I have been having trouble getting to sleep thinking of the world of McDonaldland. Do you ever think that the Hamburglar may have begun his crime spree because of his apparent cleft palate, or whatever it is that causes him to babble unintelligbly as he runs about in that freaky Spy Vs. Spy knockoff with the bumblebee shirt?

My vague memory of the Hamburglar was that he was unstoppable from stealing hamburgers because the head cop in town was this freak-show with a Big Mac for a head and a constable's outfit. The constable got his job, apparently through a relative, the burger-headed Mayor McCheese which, though giving great credit for employment for the obviously disabled, creates great questions about gubernatorial corruption in McDonaldland.

Why wasn't RONALD elected mayor of McDonaldland? Perhaps he was like the, um, ruling feudal lord or something. Or, maybe it's because he liked spending so much time singing and dancing.

It was distressing in McDonaldland that although hamburgers were bought and sold (and stolen by the Hamburglar) they were initially grown in fields, and were actually alive little burgers, that perhaps screamed "Don't pick me! Don't slaughter me! I want to grow up to get a nepotism job in government!"

The Grimace's role in McDonaldland was also confusing, though I imagine he was what the Elephant Man would have been like on speed.

And what about those little dancing mop head things?

I don't understand the horror of children's television. It is just too much for me. Little dancing mop heads, screaming little fields of hamburgers, and these were just the commercials.

McDonaldland was debatably some sort of nuclear reactor thingie gone bad, but what about wherever it was that H.R. Pufinstuf lived? Do you remember the horrible ordeal that the English kid that played the Artful Dodger on "Oliver" went through, dude?

He wound up on the Island with a talking flute in his pocket...(Though I can imagine the flute being helpful when he was on a date "Kiss her now, Jimmy")

Witchie-Poo was always chasing Jimmy and the talking Flute and then Jimmy was assisted by good old H.R., who had a big yellow head that made one think of a Six Million Dollar Lemon.

Then of course, there was Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and the teenage airheaded version of Jody Davis from "Family Affair." Guess his living situation with Uncle Bill and his jocker Mister French just wasn't gory enough...remember, Buffy O.D'd and Cissie ended up making horrible furniture commercials!

During periods of unemployment, I occasionally check out kids TV today...so much of it is milder, and there's always a message of some sort. I was watching "SpongeBob Squarepants" and he had a paper due, perhaps from Davy Jones's Locker University, and of course, Spongebob was stalling.

Do I know why an underwater cleaning utensil was taking academic courses? No, and it didn't matter. There was a wonderful message about getting your homework done on time. "Dexter's Laboratory" for some reason makes me wonder about the childhood of Karl Rove, and "Bob the Builder" builds on, with or without funding from Fannie Mae.

"My Little Pony" has NOTHING to do with gay S&M rituals, and yeah, modern TV's great.

But did our generation ever outgrow the horrible schlock handed to us from Seals & Crofts & Hanna-Barbera? The prehistoric suburbia of "The Flintstones",for instance, ruined me for any interest in natural history.

Even now, I wonder sometimes if there was a sympathetic (or nearsighted) mouse doing a quick sketch inside of a camera as it was in Fred's shooter, perhaps I wouldn't look as fat as I do when I'm photographed with one of those little disposable jobs from CVS.

"The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" are hard evidence that our generation just couldn't make the healthy transition to adult shows like "Inside Washington." Yes, a mumbling Charles Krauthammer just isn't any competition for Peter whatshisname's talking dog.

Prince Bandar's Wild Ride

So Prince Bandar shows up at a bank and wants $2 million cash for "traveling expenses." The bank refused. Imagine being asked to scrape up $2 million in cash out of the bank's vault. Do they even have that much laying around at one time? He spends $17 million refurbishing one of his palaces.

"He is quoted in a recent biography saying that he personally flew $10m in a suitcase to Rome and gave it to a priest at the Vatican Bank, in order to covertly fund the Christian Democrats against the Communists in the 1983 Italian elections." See The Guardian article by clicking on the title to this post.

So why the scandal? Sure, the guy's a bit weird, but who cares? A British company, BAE, got a contract to build military weapons for Saudi Arabia. Apparently, as part of the deal, they have been sending $30 million to a bank account in the U.S. every quarter for at least 10 years as a bribe to the Saudi princes making the deal. Can you even imagine getting that kind of money EVERY THREE MONTHS? Bribing foreign officials has only just become illegal in Britain. And Tony Blair shut down the investigation because of "national security" reasons.

There's a lot of jobs in Britain being funded by Saudi military purchases. So they don't want to scratch too deeply on something silly like bribery.