GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

by Mags


The good news is that Cheney feels the love. (He's seen here at a fund-raiser in Topeka with Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun.)

The bad news is that he's going to need a lot of Viagra to express it. You know Cheney, always the romantic--GFY (Go F*ck Yourself).

(Let us be very clear, this item refers to the supposed love the Veep is claimed to be finding out in the Heartland, and not to the child mentioned in the article. Although I can't help but ask, what is that all about? I would call a social worker. Just saying.)


The good or bad news (depending on your vantage point) is that Ken Lay's conviction has been vacated. Lucky for Mrs. Lay. Sort of. Word has it the judge had no choice, since Mr. Lay had not had a chance to appeal before his untimely demise. (Untimely for those looking to recover damages from his fortune, that is. Perhaps fortuitous for the Lays, all things considered.) But a lengthy process will be undertaken by government and other lawyers to continue actions to prove fraud. (I wonder if one day we will see photos of Mr. Lay relaxing by the beach in some South American locale. Nah . . . )

The just plain bad news is the same as it has always been: Enron investors and employees will continue to get the shaft.


The bad news is that the Torture Bill (officially the Military Commissions Act of 2006) has been signed.

There is no good news here. The even worse news is that Bush is beginning his campaign to criminalize dissent. You can read the whole transcript of his address here.

The American people are their government, Mr. Bush. You are simply hired by us to do a job. It is not Al Qaeda that has turned the tide of public opinion, Mr. Bush. It is your ineptitude and your lies.


This news article says that Tony Blair is thinking of prohibiting the wearing of the veil by Muslim women. If anyone thinks it's OK to outlaw that public display of religion, I wonder if they would also consider it acceptable to ban Christian women from wearing their crosses (or bearing them either).

Good news or bad news? You decide. But the dominant culture will always be tempted to outlaw what it can't understand.


The good news is that George has a plan for Iraq!

The bad news is that it is a super-secret plan. He is only sharing it with idiots. Of course, according to George yesterday, it's the same plan he's always had. Even though people around him say he is altering the plan, he keeps saying it's the same plan. Gives one whiplash.


Speaking of secret plans, they're what Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos is most famous for, including a secret plan for creating jobs. In the state with the worst unemployment numbers in the nation, this might qualify as good news--except that DeVos seems to consider Michigan voters such bad security risks that he can't reveal his plans until after the election.

The bad news is that if these plans are so secret, it must be because they're not worth a damn. Believe me, if any of these jackasses had anything good to say, they would have broadcast it on FOX News 24/7.


The bad news is that Rickie Santorum thinks he is Frodo. He told the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States." If you don't have any idea what he's talking about, you've got a lot of company.

The good news is, Rickie is way down in the polls. Crazy is only playing well in CT. What can I say?


The bad news is that we can't figure out who comes out looking worse in the Mark Foley mess--the GOP or the clergy.

The good news is that we knew they were both hypocrites to start with. This is just very public proof.


This week's ironic news is that the U.S. is building a wall to keep Mexican immigrants out. The really ironic news is that former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is laughing his ass off about it, publicly recalling then-President Ronald Reagan "standing in Berlin and saying, 'This wall should be torn down.'" It seems safe to say that Mr. Reagan is rolling over in his grave.

God, you can't make shit like this up!


Hey, here's good news: We finally have proof that birds of a feather do indeed flock together, with President Bush hitting the campaign trail in behalf of Virginia Sen. George Felix Allen, the "Macaca" man, and of Pennsylvania Rep. Don Sherwood, the alleged mistress-choker.

The bad news is: blech and, to repeat, ew-w-w!


The good news is the SNAFU--or FUBAR, depending upon your fondness for acronyms that contain the F-word--in which the U.S. can't figure out if North Korea's Kim Jong Il is or isn't sorry for the nuclear tests his country ran. (We all know that love means never having to say you're sorry.) Seems Condi has been dispatched to make sure Americans are confused about the issue, so George can look all presidential and keep us tense and afraid.

I suppose this is once again all bad news; I was just joking about any of it being good. Once again, we are kept in the dark, but it's understandable, since our own government doesn't have a frigging clue either. No one could have predicted that they would fly airplanes into the towers. No one could have predicted the levees would not hold. Lying bastards.


The good news is that George Bush yesterday felt that Iraq was important enough to meet with his generals for a whole 90 minutes.

The bad news is that his attention span is about 60 seconds.


Author's note: Well, we are still blogging for one more week. With George making noises about dissent, the weeks ahead may get very interesting.

Maybe we all need to safeguard ourselves by having an investigation of ourselves on file somewhere--a file that proves we're innocent of any collusion with the enemy. I mean, haven't we come to the point where we must prove our innocence instead of someone proving our guilt? It is my best idea for those in the forefront of the struggle to get the truth out.

And that, friends, is the bad news.