William K. Wolfrum

Former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington has decided to share with the world his otherworldly adventure. Symington has admitted he saw the infamous “Phoenix Lights.”

“I’m a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies,” Symington said. “It was bigger than anything that I’ve ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people. I don’t know why people would ridicule it.”

After being harshly ridiculed, Symington added that “It just felt otherworldly. In your gut, you could just tell it was otherworldly.”

Still, while many feel Symington’s claim is otherworldly, many feel his belief that he saw a UFO is much more valid than Arizona Sen. John McCain’s admission that some have seen peaceful streets in Baghdad that they could stroll down, or McCain’s actual belief he could become U.S. President some day.

“Claiming to see a UFO is just nuts,” said one political commentator. “Claiming you can saunter down a Baghdad street is a sign you’ve totally lost touch with reality.”

–WKW

A Blogger has proposed that Texas legislators offering women considering abortion cash to not have abortion be offered $500 to abort themselves.

William K. Wolfrum, who added the offer is also good for conservative radio talk show hosts, said Friday the money might persuade the legislators to make the world a better place.

Wolfrum said there were far too many Texas conservatives running around mucking up the U.S.

“If this incentive would give pause and end the existence of even 5 percent of these conservatives, perhaps we wouldn’t have lost so many Americans and helped in the slaughter of so many Iraqi civilians,” Wolfrum said. “And really, it would make the great state of Texas much more livable.”

–WKW

Rush Limbaugh, having not gotten in to trouble for smuggling penis-enhancing drugs to sex tourist locations or blatantly mocking the handicapped in more than a week, has now decided to let the vast majority of Americans know that he thinks they’re a bunch of idiots.

“USA Today’s got a poll: ‘Do you think something’s wrong about the firing of eight US attorneys?’” said Limbaugh. “72 percent said yes. 72 percent of the American people, a bunch of blithering idiots who have no idea what they’re talking about, but yet they voted, so these polls matter.”

Soon after Limbaugh made these comments, Arnold Schwarzenegger and 72 percent of the nation shrugged and wondered why they should give a crap about what an adulterous, drug addicted, neocon water boy says, anyway.

–WKW

Rudy Giuliani, who believes strongly in marriage and family - provided things don’t get too tough in the marriage and the family is politically beneficial to him - told Barbara Walters that he’d allow his wife to sit in on Cabinet meetings if he were elected U.S. President.

“If she wanted to. If they were relevant to something that she was interested in. I mean that would be something that I’d be very, very comfortable with.”

It wasn’t immediately apparent which of his three wives Giuliani was speaking of, but rumor has it he was speaking of his third, and most current wife, Judith, who he’s had a stellar, three-year marriage with, and counting.

“None of us, at least I don’t think any of us, have perfect lives,” Giuliani said. “I can say very credibly to people, ‘Judge me by my public performance. Whatever mistakes I’ve made in my personal life, I made. I’m sorry for them.’ ”

While Giuliani said his wife would have full run of the White House should the former New York mayor be elected, reports are circulating that estranged children Andrew and Caroline will likely be deported to somewhere in Cuba until his term expires.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards could not be reached for comment, as a spokesman said he was busy “doing it” with his wife of 30 years, Elizabeth.

–WKW

Playing a friendly game of cards with a group of Brazilians not long ago, my partner chastised me for not protecting my cards well enough and allowing my opponent to see them. The insinuation being that it was a given my opponents would try to see my cards, and it was my fault, not my opponents lack of card-playing ethics.

My partner’s reasoning was sound for one simple reason - Brazilians are notorious cheaters.

A perfect example of that was displayed in the 2002 World Cup, when Brazil - the eventual champions - was playing a group match against Turkey. Surrendering a corner kick, a player for Turkey booted the ball overly hard at Brazilian striker Rivaldo, hitting him in the thigh.

Rivaldo dramatically fell to the ground clutching his head as if he’d taken a shotgun blast to the face. The Turkish player was expelled.

In Brazil, this type of cheating is to be expected. In a land where 99 percent of those in congress are millionaires - with the vast majority earning their wealth after being elected - doing whatever it takes to succeed is the norm, ethics be damned.

Travel North to the United States in 2007, and it’s no surprise that the man chasing the most cherished record in Major League Baseball - Hank Aaron’s mark of 755 career home runs - is widely regarded as a cheat of proportions rivaling his muscle-bound cranium.

While one must assume innocence until proven guilty, it takes but the slightest bit of common sense to see that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds used illegal drugs in order to advance his baseball career. Evidence both circumstantial and concrete point to Bonds using illegal steroids to bolster his body.

Bonds, of course denies this, however, and will take the field in 2007 with 734 home runs - some 240 of them after the age of 37, and after displaying a completely revamped, muscle-bound body.

Is it any surprise, however, that the outrage over Bonds’ obvious rule breaking has been somewhat muted? In years past, professional athletes have been taken to task for such illegal dalliances. These days, it has become nearly an accepted byproduct of the game, and therefore of society.

Let there be no doubt that this grudging acceptance of cheaters has, like Brazil, come from the top down. As Glenn Greenwald so accurately points out in his Salon article “Lying to Congress has become a Republican principle, literally”, cheating and lying about cheating has become an integral part of the GOP platform, and has been for nearly two eons.

“Illegal behavior — in the form of, among other things, continuous and deliberate deceit of the Congress — is pervasive at the highest levels of the Bush Justice Department and it has plainly become a central part of the Republican ethos,” writes Greenwald.

As much as living in a nation with an out-of-control budget deficit helps create a citizenship of debtors, having the top levels of government so blatantly cheat has helped create a nation of cheaters. Because while trickle-down economics has been a resounding failure, trickle-down dishonesty has taken root, with the sporting world being the perfect example of ethics tossed aside.

Because in the end, this win-at-all-costs, stay-on-top attitude permeates all levels of American society, helping to create citizens who now know that they had better keep their cards well hidden, for fear of who’s peaking.

–WKW

Note the above map. Note the fucking oceans.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 took place in part because U.S. leaders chose to ignore a threat to national security.

The oceans did not fail us.

Ocean deniers

“The terrorists will follow us home if we leave.”

– President George W. Bush

“We leave Iraq without finishing the job, they’ll follow us here

– Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

“If we leave, they’ll follow us here. It’s as simple as that.”

– Rep. John Boehner

“Cannot give Iraq to the terrorists or they’ll follow us here.”

– Mike McGavick

“We leave this place, chaos in the region, and they’ll follow us home.”

– Sen. John McCain

“We have to go where they are, or they’ll follow us home.”

– Sen. Jim Inhofe

“We’re fighting the terrorists overseas so we don’t have to fight them on our streets.”

– President George W. Bush

–WKW

(Note: I’d long meant to tackle John Dean’s recounting of Watergate, “Blind Ambition” and have recently started reading it. I will be giving short recaps of the book over the following weeks.)

Blind Ambition

Chapter Five: Containment

Synopsis: John Dean proudly struts about the White House, as his power grows and he begins to get more face time with Nixon. The President himself holds a ballsy press conference and talks of the Watergate scandal, “What really hurts in matters of this sort is not the fact that they occur. What really hurts is you try to cover it up. Meanwhile, Dean and friends spend copious amounts of time trying to cover it up. Dean continues to stay ahead of the game by getting advanced info from the FBI’s investigation. Nixon vows revenge against all who have wronged him. Fred Fielding takes over as the new bag man whose job it is to deliver payola to those that committed the crime. The first indictments for the break-in are handed down. Upon his re-election, Nixon fires all political appointees, save a scant few. And by “upon his re-election” he does it the actual night of the election. Dean marries Maureen Biner.

Fast fact: G.Gordon Liddy later wrote a book “Silent Coup”, claiming the whole Watergate affair was about Dean trying to protect Biner from information that would have linked her to a call-girl operation, and that Dean masterminded it all and Nixon and the rest were but naive rubes. The book’s publisher settled with Dean in 1997, following a libel suit. Liddy is still generally considered a psycho.

Money Quote: “‘Sure Bob,’ I replied, swallowing hard. I was astounded. They’re really going to do it, I was thinking - take control of the whole executive branch and pull the strings.” — Dean, after Haldeman told him the administration planned to fire every political appointee and replace them with pro-Nixonies after the election.

Previous:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

–WKW

Sure, maybe this is nitpicky of an organization that has proven itself to despise every last bit of journalistic ethics, but it’s the sort of thing that bugs me.

You see, when you once had a working relationship with someone, and then after they leave you write news stories about them, you MUST mention that in the news story. Even as a small blurb at the bottom. But you HAVE to do it, or it appears you are hiding something, even in a story reporting that the man has cancer. Having a link to his bio doesn’t cut it.

Because in this story: “White House Spokesman Tony Snow Has Cancer Again” you’d never guess that Snow worked for Fox News for nearly a decade.

“We Report, you Decide” just doesn’t work if you don’t actually report as you’re supposed to. But that’s just journalistic ethics is all. Once you’ve accepted having your on-camera hairdos repeatedly lie to your viewers, little stuff like this is obviously meaningless.

As it should be, I suppose. The RNC doesn’t worry much about journalistic integrity either.

–WKW

This was a must to post. It seems John McCain is pro-theft and pro-gay marriage now:

From Newsvine:

John McCain’s people commandeered my world-renowned MySpace design template and did a few things wrong:

1. They did not credit me for the template, even though the template explicitly requested credit.

2. They used my own unmodified imagery, specifically for the “Contacting John McCain” table.

3. As if #2 wasn’t bad enough, the McCain crew is actually pulling their image directly from my server on each page load. So every time someone visits the McCain MySpace page, my bandwidth is being used to deliver part of the page! Bad McCain!

…So, the only thing necessary to effectively commandeer McCain’s page with my own messaging was to simply replace my own sample image on my server with a newly created sample on my server. No server but my own was touched and no laws were broken. The immaculate hack.

Abortion? The Iraq War? Probably too heavy to joke about. Gay marriage seemed like a more of a non-lethal subject to center the prank around.

So with a few minutes in Photoshop and a quick FTP, a new John McCain was born…

So as McCain morphs more and more into a bad impersonation of Bob Dole (”I’ve earned this nomination dammit! Now get off my front lawn!”) Mike Davidson earns nothing but praise. Well played.

–WKW

Proving that cancer doesn’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, Presidential Spokesman Tony Snow has joined Elizabeth Edwards as cancer survivors who have seen the disease return.

Snow had previously battled colon cancer, and now, reportedly cancer has spread to his liver.

Last week Snow had this to say about Elizabeth Edward’s battle with cancer:

“When you see an Elizabeth Edwards saying, ‘I’m going to embrace life and I’m going to move forward,’ that is a wonderful thing.”

We know that Snow will take the same approach, and his positive attitude will make him, along with Edwards, two fantastic allies to those fighting cancer throughout the U.S.

Our best wishes, and appreciation go out to both of them.

–WKW