Rush to judgment

Phillipe & Jorge have been absorbing all the news about Rush Limbaugh, our favorite right-wing radio personality. He’s our favorite because he’s such a blatant hypocrite and sophist that he ends up bolstering the very liberal arguments he decries. Here’s what makes Rush so beloved at Casa Diablo: he makes an off-the-wall commentary about how Donovan McNabb is "overrated" because the "liberal" sports media (we’ve got a search party looking for them, by the way) want an effective black quarterback so badly.

We’re having trouble finding who in the "liberal" sports media has been inflating McNabb’s reputation. Seems that he’s been criticized when he hasn’t performed well, just like most professional athletes. Rush’s "observations" about McNabb and the media had virtually nothing to do with football, and nothing to do with reality. It was just Limbaugh making right-wing commentary and doing it in his usual style — i.e., making it up sans benefit of evidence.

Here’s the best part: if there was ever a case of someone getting a gig because of the color of their skin, it would be Rush’s good buddy, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Does anyone, anywhere think that George H.W. "P. Daddy" Bush wasn’t crossing his fingers behind his back when he told that media, with a straight face, that Thomas was the "most qualified person" for the bench? He wasn’t even the most qualified black person, just a convenient and compliant black right-winger. But will Rush acknowledge this? Of course not, because he’s a world-class hypocrite.

We wonder if Rush’s well-documented views on punishing drug users should also apply to him. For all intents and purposes, the amount of OxyContin that he was reputedly taking (something that has not been substantiated) approaches a 10-bag-a-day heroin habit. Make no mistake about it — OxyContin is in the opiate family and heroin is, perhaps, the most accurate comparison.

Your superior correspondents certainly hope that Rush will get the treatment he needs and not have the treatment he espouses. Thanks for the memories, Rush. You’re doing a fine job exposing the American right wing for what it is.

TROUBLED BRIDGE OVER WATERS

During choir practice the other day, our law-abiding friend B.C. had an interesting thought. What would happen to the old Jamestown Bridge, the rusting Erector Set construction that continues to be an eyesore in the lower Bay, should an earthquake (like the one that hit North Kingstown on October 6) strike with more impact?

As many divers are aware, the pylons that supposedly support the bridge don’t even meet in various places, meaning that the span is doing the equivalent of standing on one leg. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. Phillipe and Jorge have previously suggested adding another Rhode Island lottery game, having Ocean State residents guess the time and date when the bridge will topple, either through its own decayed foundation, a broken-loose barge, or, say, a minor earthquake. Needless to say, the bridge will fall directly into the new span, of course, life being as it is.

Although the Coast Guard has ordered the bridge taken down because it is a navigational hazard, the geniuses at the Department of Transportation have not moved up their plans to destroy it sometime next year. Meanwhile, along with other Bay lovers who see this as a catastrophe in the making, P&J will be waiting with baited (sic) breath.

BUSH TO MILITARY: SCREW YOU

It’s disgusting enough that President Dubya has lied about giving more support to the country’s policemen and firefighters — particularly those heroes that "went in" in New York City. Now, he has tried to cut education funding for the children of our troops in Iraq. As the Web site www.misleader.org — whose "daily mis-lead" is dedicated to exposing Boy George’s daily diet of lies and mis-truths — explains, "At the same time the president lauded the ‘great courage’ of the soldiers he sent to Iraq, he requested major cuts in the Impact Aid program that provides funds for the schooling of the [hundreds of thousands of] children of military families. Bush tried to take $172 million from Impact Aid and shortchange its funding by $583 million under the No Child Left Behind Act. The cutbacks would have directly affected children of troops currently deployed in Iraq."

Fortunately, for the kids of people who have been yanked out of their daily lives and sent to the shooting gallery that is now Iraq (as Georgie barks, "Bring ’em on," while hiding under his desk in his flight suit with the sock in the crotch) the House of Representatives came to the rescue, adding $223 million to Impact Aid. The report implies that Dubya doesn’t have the balls to try to veto the bill, thankfully for America’s military families.

File under "You heard it here first." With the GOP convention slated for New York City in 2004, don’t be surprised to see pansy-ass Poppy’s Boy suddenly give a huge cash payoff to the Big Apple’s police and firefighters, encouraging them to swoon over him as they did when he visited Ground Zero with his bullhorn. It will be sad day if the true heroes of September 11 fall for that ploy, succumbing to the false charms of Dubya and neo-con, non-combatant war enthusiasts like Rummy, Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, and Queen Lotsateetha Rice.

Sleep tight, National Guard members.

BUSYBODIES

The quote of the week — if not the story of the week — involves a break-in at the Lighthouse Inn bar in Galilee.

After employees arriving in the morning noticed a broken window, and glass shards of broken beer and alcohol bottles in the pool, hot tub and patio, they made a bigger discovery: "They also found a naked man and naked woman in the sauna getting busy," Narragansett police lieutenant Gerald Driscoll told Urinal reporter Megan Matteucci, who, we assume, blushed considerably.

While it sounds like a typical night of revelry at Casa Diablo, we are pleased to note that the gentleman involved did still love her in the morning.

IS THAT A NOKIA IN YOUR POCKET?

Ms. Polly sends along the following recent news clip from CNET News:

Report: Cell phone explodes in trousers

Nokia said Tuesday that it’s investigating two recent reports of its cell phones "exploding" and causing injuries.

Reports indicated how, last Thursday, a supermarket employee in the Netherlands burned his legs when a Nokia handheld exploded in his pants pocket, according to Juliette Oolders of the Dutch consumer group Consumentenbond. Oolders said she believes the phone was one of Nokia’s newer models, but could not be more specific. In August, a 33-year-old Dutch woman was injured when her Nokia phone exploded in her hands.

A Nokia representative said the company is investigating both incidents but would not comment further.

Looks like Nokia actually does have a more interesting call signal than simply a vibrating phone.

A RUM TALE

Could there be anything more gratifying than warmongering egomaniac Donald Rumsfeld getting bitch-slapped by, of all people, national security adviser Queen Lotsateetha Rice? The queen, despite being totally incompetent and over her coiffed head, will be taking charge of the rebuilding of Iraq (honk!). Boy, those sons and daughters of the desert must be immensely relieved that Can’t-do Condee is finally in charge.

Rummy got so apoplectic that he contradicted himself about whether he’d been briefed about the shake-up that left him standing in left field with his thumb up his freckle. And he actually yelled at a German journalist, "I said I don’t know. Isn’t that clear? You don’t understand English?"

Well, we might advise Rummy, like that great orator Pat Buchanan, that his best speeches always sounded better in the original German.

PRESIDENTIAL REALITY CHECKS

An Associated Press report from September 22 quoted President George W. Bush as saying that he doesn’t regularly read newspaper stories, because he found them riddled with "opinions." The president’s preferred method of keeping abreast of the news? "The best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world."

Yes, the POTUS actually said this with a straight face, and why not? Your superior correspondents know that if we want to get the unvarnished truth about something — particularly a hard truth that may contain some implicit criticism of P&J — we don’t check with such blatantly biased individuals like our editors. Nor do we run things by other professional news people because, by definition, they have a liberal bias.

No, P&J can always get the real story from Lars the houseboy since he is completely dependent on our largesse for his livelihood, so he knows that your superior correspondents demand the awful truth, no matter how bleak. Yeah, that’s the way the world works.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

Could Californians have gotten any better just desserts than having Arnold Skullhead and his wife, Maria Skullhead, as governor and first lady? Boy, sometimes, it’s worth getting up in the morning.

On a related note, Hitler was an Austrian.

GETTING HEADLINES

Further proof of the media’s liberal bias appeared in a barely coded headline that recently ran in the Other Paper’s Metro section. A story by Neil Shea, purportedly about a closing of the BJ’s Wholesale Club, had this for a topper: "Officials fear loss of BJ’s would harm economy." As any good Republican can tell, this is just a clever way of showing how the economy has gone south ever since Bill and paramour Monica Blew-him-sky vacated the Oval Office.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

Certainly not the obit headline we’d want our mother to have (this appeared in the New York Times on October 14):

"Shirley Glass, 67, Expert on Infidelity, Is Dead"

No mention of a cuckolded husband with a smoking gun, but we imagine there were more than a few gentlemen at the funeral.

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