"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld toured a medical facility at New Orleans' international airport on Sunday. He spoke and shook hands with military and rescue officials but walked right by a dozen refugees lying on stretchers just feet away from him, most of them extremely sick or handicapped."

In other news, Condi Rice went shopping at Farragamo in New York this last week. She had security forcibly remove a woman who recognized her and had the balls to ask Condi why she was shopping for shoes when there was a major US crisis in full swing.

And The Monkey Fuhrer, before doing fuck-all to help the citizens of New Orleans, went to San Diego for a high-buck political fundraiser.

The director of FEMA, a Monkey Fuhrer political appointment whose previous emergency management experience was running an Arabian Horse association (a job which he apparently couldn't handle), said his agency didn't know about the situation at the Superdome until Thursday. Yes, Thursday. (In case you were hiding in a bunker all week, images and very detailed descriptions of the conditions at the Superdome were available 24/7 on cable TV and the Internet since at least Tuesday).

Oh, and the Monkey Fuhrer said on national TV something along the lines of, "I don't think anyone ever foresaw the levees failing". This after his adminstration cut by around 90% the budget to improve those very same levees... because a bevy of engineers and other civil planners were concerned that they were hopelessly out of date and might fail.

Meanwhile, even hardcore administration apologists like Fox News have been asking, "Where the fuck was the national response to this emergency?"

Oh, and I've now seen three or four quotes from National Guardsmen who've said in essence, "shit, most of our guys are in Iraq."

Jesus Fucking Christ.

What does it take for people in this country to realize that the fuckwits in charge have a self-serving agenda that has basically NOTHING to do with the well-being and protection of the citizens of the country? It's not like Republicans corner the market on self-serving politicians. But for fuck's sake this is so far over the top, I have a hard time comprehending the magnitude of how fucked this country has become.

Just when I thought I'd gotten over being ashamed to be an American after the last election...

So:

- Mark Twain

Chili, 1997-2005

My best friend. I'm grateful to have known him, and grateful that in the end I could be by his side. I will miss him more than I can ever express.

To be a little more specific, sometimes the bear eats creativity, and sometimes he eats motivation. Occasionally the bear makes himself a little smorgasbord that includes both creativity and motivation, with a side of general well-being.

Lately the bear has been well-fed. In fact, he's gotten downright corpulent. I’m hoping he’s had his fill for now and is going to look elsewhere for sources of nourishment. When he turns his back to leave, I plan to eat him.

I'm trying to remember why I live here, but I think that part of my brain has melted.

If you've ever wondered what a Tater Tot goes through while it's baking in your oven, a day like this in Phoenix is a good way to gain a new appreciation.

There’s a bottle of water on a little stand, with plastic cups next to it. Attached to the bottle of water is a note. The note indicates the price ($4.00), and includes the following missive:

“This bottle of natural spring water is provided as a service for our guests. A charge will be billed to your room if consumed.”

So – let me get this straight. They’ve provided a bottle of water, but they expect me to consume the room?

I suppose these pillows would be pretty filling. But the lampshades look a bit chewy. Maybe I’ll just eat the plastic bottle around the water, and leave the water itself alone.

Apparently I'm not alone in feeling that at times, UPS stands for "Useless Pieces of Shit".

That said, I don't have anything against the employees of UPS. In fact, I was once one of them. Yup, an official Teamster and everything. During my college days UPS used to hire extra help around the holiday season, and the pay was much better than one could get at almost any other job - around $8 an hour back when minimum was I think $3.05. I got the job apparently because of my sarcastic but semi-amusing comment on the application that they should hire me "because I look great in brown".

In any event, it turned out to be the toughest job I ever had. Wake up at 3am, get to work by 4am, and immediately start unloading semi trailers stacked floor to ceiling, front to back with packages of varying sizes and weights. Now mind you, this was before UPS had a 70-pound limit on packages, so some of these bastards were big and heavy.

As if that weren't enough, they had a drill sergeant-type guy who would walk from trailer to trailer (there was a row of maybe 20 of them unloading simultaneously) and yell words of, um, "encouragement" to the guy in each trailer. If I remember correctly, the goal was to unload a trailer completely in about 20 minutes.

I remember that the first day I got back from that job, I was incapable of doing anything other than laying flat on my back and groaning in pain for the rest of the day.

I didn't last long at that job, but I felt somewhat vindicated later when I ran into a fellow former Teamster, who was an ex-marine and very stocky. He did survive the job through the season but admitted it was the most difficult thing he'd ever done, and nearly didn't make it.

I have respect for anyone who can work as hard as I've seen some UPS people work, and I'm sure there are a lot of UPS employees who don't screw things up on a regular basis. But still, you have to wonder just how they manage to do things like this...

Brainwashed's Canonical Guide To Weird Band Names