Don't do it

Don't cuss

Casino de Paree

Backstage

1947 Cardinals

Hiatus

The editerribles and editolerables and all the beagletorials are headed out for a cultural research project. This space will unlikely carry any political or social commentary over a couple of weeks.

In its place, Kultral Notes will feature an artwork every day or so -- consistent with our new year's commitment to readers.

Question mark and the delerious

Dick Army patiently explains to David Gregory that people are angry not because of what Obama has done but because of what he might do in their worst nightmares.

One morning, Americans will wake up with G-men repelling out of black helicopters, grinding jackboot mud into your living room carpet, confiscating your guns and computers, denying your granny the operation she needs, forcing you to take Mexican drugs, watch soccer on television and listen to New Age music while they rummage through your drawers looking for something to hock to pay off the national debt, all the while preventing you from praying to Jesus for succor.

This is a debate? Delusional freaks dream up phantasms in the basement in the middle of the night, phone them into Glib Bleech, and pretty soon it's , "Well, heh, heh, we all better wake up and start overturning this democratically elected government by any means necessary and replace it with a strongman who knows how to get things done -- but would have the sense not to do anything -- or we won't have any freedom left..."

On secession

Nowadays, the most patriotic thing a good American living in the Texas can do is yammer on about secession. Released into the custody of the airwaves, Tom DeLie says it's a simple matter of enforcing the 1845 treat, subdivide into five states and would force the Senate to throw Texas out. One-two-three lickity split, all nice and legal like.

Some of us are old enough to remember when the Republigaggle's aspirational brand was "We are the only adults in the room." Now the brand is crybaby. One need not look further than Geo Bilious Will's snit's that bluejeans only make it harder to tell who is in your economic quintile. Even the grown ups have lost their grip.

So Texans want out? They want to establish the Republic of Texas, perhaps the last true Christian nation with a true free market economy where carry and conceal is a responsibility, not a right. They might start out in the hole a little, having to reconcile everything in Texas that currently belongs to United States like land, border patrol agents, office supplies, the F-22s at Lackland, etc. But, hey, the new constitution is already half written by Phil Gramm, Dick Army, and Tom DeLie.

They can build a wall around the whole state, er, Republic, er, Republican State of Texas.

(Insistently contributed by a Dupont Circle policy manufacturer who once saw Dallas from a distance and said, "What is that?")

Are you smarter than a monkey?

Find out for sure.

Edible books

Utah readers will take special delight in the winner of the 2009 Seattle Edible Books competition -- Goodnight, Moon Pie.

You do not have to go through all 400 photos, but some of us did twice.

Get some today

Reader feedbag

A correspondent a hair too close to the Agricultural Station avers irrationally that he and other PG boys "know the score," and speculates that "the monkey" is the real artist. First, for the record, "the monkey" is six Sulawesi crested macaques who have chosen this route, having struck out as playwrights, because what the hell else is there to do?

A flusterated editor stops short of accusing Googlecorp of barring her submission. This space is well-known for having all kinds of doubts about the platform's quirkiness regarding some topics. We will go further and wonder exactly what is Adm. Poindexter's relationship with Googledyne Industries?

We will promote only those items of interest we choose to promote, no more no less.

It's hard to be shocked anymore, but...

1) Rash Lameblow says that Obama doesn't want another terrorist attack right now because it would interfere in his tax and spend plans....

2) Lameblow says "they" believe that because Obama is the Messiah we won't get hit...(No, because we switched off the magic W anti-terrorist ray that protected us for 7 1/4 years).

Rash is on 3 hours a day or something, and the Beagletarians managed to listen to 1:03 seconds since National Rash Lameblow Day a-and get mad twice before getting to the stoopidity of mocking torture as a face slap.

I'm sure you remember this interview with Sham Ham-ity and Robert Kennedy Jr.

HANNITY: Wait a minute, right here I have it in the book, you talk about Spain, Germany and Italy reacting to the economic crises.

Robert KENNEDY Jr.: Sure.

HANNITY: And then you say: "These governments use provocation of terrorist attacks, continual wars, invocations of patriotism and homeland security to privatize the commons, tame the press, muzzle criticism by opponents, turn the government over to corporate control.

"'It's always a simple matter to drag people along,' noted Hitler's sidekick Herman Goering, whether it's a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. And it works the same in any country," is what you say.

Then you go on to say — you're talking about fascism and Nazism — the White House has clearly grasped this lesson.

That is disgraceful to make that comparison.

KENNEDY: Well, you know, Sean...

HANNITY: Nazism and fascism? That we're using the tactics of fascists and Nazis? That's what you're saying about your president? You can't disagree without being that obnoxious?

Some Libertonians call Sham on his hypocrisy.

Cal Thomas warns of impending doom

There are stories that Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump have threatened to abandon New York over higher taxes.

Oh dear. Where would New York be without blowhards like Limbaugh and Trump? It is clear, that Obama and Paterson should be careful or Rush and the Donald might leave Manhattan and move someplace where the taxes won't kill them. May we suggest Somalia?

PSA -- Don't do this

You may think it is funny to have a small primate pull the ribbon out of your hair, but just be prepared to have that same cute, furry animal to pull your hair out after the camera's gone dark.

Speaking of heroes at sea

It's hard to beat Charles Duke who single-handedly held 22 surly rumrunners at bay for nine hours in the pilot house of the Greypoint one long night in 1927.

Can't stand the secular schools? Tired of paying high priced tuition?

After second consideration

Yeah, sure, it must be so tiring cheating off Scalia's paper, fretting over the nobility accorded grievances like free speech, right to assembly, petition the government, religious exercise, etc. Tiring, tiring, tiring...nope, nope, nice try, next time, nope, nope, nope....

Is the darling of the conservatives really the same guy that thinks the Bill of Rights is just somebody's over-the-top gripe list?

Is the darling of the conservatives really the guy who thinks we should have a Bill of Obligations to go with it? Does Clarence have a draft in his desk drawer?

We hope Michelle Malkin and others asserting their so-called fundamental right to teabag selected members of Congress aren't hiding behind Clarence's robes, because it sounds like they're just a whiny bunch rights-ists who need to go back and study their Bill of Obligations to the government.

Need a Michael Jackson jacket?

There are some real bargains here.

Too many rights make Supreme Court Justice tired

“Today there is much focus on our rights,” Justice Clarence Thomas said. “Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.”

“I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances,” he said. “Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?”

We may reliquish this blog altogether and turn it over to

Monkeys in the News

A low-hanging palm was all gorilla Yakini needed to escape his enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo and go walkabout before staff recaptured him with a bunch of bananas and a tranquilliser dart.

Are you convinced of the need for Trankmymonkey.com, now?

The bigger picture

Some may think that Trankmymonkey.com is only about corraling errant simians, but let us not lose sight of its vital work in art derestoration. More and more, the market for actual antiques puts it out of the reach of anyone who didn't already own the oil rights for half of Nebraska before things went bad. Using primitive tools and methods unfathomable by human minds, our well-sedated primates can make a 1978 knock-off come across 1798 to all but the most discriminating.

The score?

Measured response - 1
Charging in as the talk show toughs said we should've - 0

An overlong disquisition on connotations

The Beagleterribles and Beagletolerables debate long and hard about whether one item or another is suitable. Today, a modified "Simpson's rule" was proposed by a policy manufacturer, i.e. "if the kids don't understand it, then it's not dirty." This is different from the coarse, crass and base tastelessness jammed down kids' media receptacles 24 hours a day, so unlax.

The issue is the dramatic irony behind some number of enthusiastic Americans who are promoting, encouraging, and participating in teabagging. Not since passels of five-year-olds turned around from watching the 700 Club and asked, "Mommy, what is oral sex?," have so many Americans turned to the dictionary to try to get out of a semantic jam.

Sometimes, the dictionary can be less than helpful. Wikipedia even more unhelpful. How about a straight answer? Pardon the expression. If you were sitting Hampden, you might see John Waters leering over his latte, pegging you as a certified hayseed.

Collectively, the entire Beagle board has no idea what irrumatio is. Don't wanna know really. Also fututio and pedicatio. As Lenny Bruce said, "It's clean to you, schmuck, but it's dirty to the Latins."

So go ahead, middle or whichever part, fringe America, go ahead, Michelle Malkin, and encourage every good, red-blooded American to go teabag their members of Congress, if that is the political or sociological or sexual statement they want to make.

Are you following this?

The U.S. captain being held by pirates off Somalia appeared to be unharmed Friday after his unsuccessful attempt to escape.

The standoff between the pirates, in a lifeboat with Capt. Richard Phillips is ongoing. The destroyer USS Bainbridge and frigate USS Halliburton, were in the vicinity of the lifeboat. Phillips jumped overboard in an attempt to swim to the Bainbridge, but was recaptured.

Did you know we had a frigate named Halliburton? Is it owned by Halliburton or leased to US by them?

Bureaucratic notes

The Office of Naval Intelligence hosted the Horn of Africa Piracy Conference in Maryland this week, a gathering of 300 American and foreign government officials, academic experts, and shipping industry representatives.

In other monkey news

Mojo the chimp, born March 8, will be on view for the first time by yesterday or possibly next Wednesday, in Jackson, Mississippi. If you're by there, stop in.

Monkeys in the News

The Oregon Health & Science University captured the last of nine monkeys that escaped from Hillsboro Primate Research Center.

A brown lemur that escaped from the Ramat Gan Safari in Tel Aviv was also recaptured Sunday.

The Daveiss County Sheriff's Department responded to a report of a loose chimp running angry down the highway outside Winston, Missouri. The chimp opened the patrol car door and grabbed the leg of a deputy, who shot it dead.

Dog story sidebar

In the process, they found a puppy mill with 100 to 200 dogs at the chimp owners' home. When they came back, there were only 13 live dogs, nine dead dogs, and three other primates. They jailed everybody in sight.

Modest proposals

Instead of having Planned Parenthood distribute condoms in schools, they ought to get the NRA to pass out revolvers. It would save more lives. -- Ann C(*)lter

...the duped Americans, who have become socialists without realizing it, are working together to secretly spread more socialism and replace the entire capitalist system. Obama's actions should frighten all of us into opposing the administration’s plans with every fiber of our still free beings. -- Cal Thomas

By any other name would smell

A high-powered lobbyist who figgers, fiddles, finagles, finesses, or -- when necessary -- fricassees policies on a regular basis scoffed in a tassel-shoe wearing, two-fisted handshaking, hail fellow well met way at the Beagletown Bugle, and, by extension, the 1,000 or so faithful who come to find news and information not generally available from other sources and also news before it happens. And those who fall in by accident.

In the practiced way that lobbyists have of taking a winged tip half step back, he demisemihemiquavered and said he meant that the name and only the name was funny.

Among a variety of options formerly and formally under consideration:

The Kitsap Sun
The Lapasas Dispatch Record
The Lawton Constitution
The Twinkletown Trolly

Beagletown Bugle was clearly chosen by a wide margin among those options not subject to potential copyright infringements, according to the strict standards the readership has come to expect.

Ask Dr. Hin?

Q: Do you think I should invest my money, or just burn it in a pile?

A: It's never helpful to take an attitude.

Q: I'm serious, does it make any difference? Should I piss it away in a casino or go for something secure like savings and loans? What? Treasury Bonds? Glenn Bleech says there won't even be a United States next year, and the Chinese are getting nervous, too. Right? What should I do?

A: Plant a victory garden.

Q: What?

A: Look into the high protein, low fat legumes.

Incentivizing circulation

In case you haven't been to the grocery recently

Headlines verbatim! Guaranteed stolen.

Gratuitious Elvis placement

Readership analysis reveals that incidental pictures of Elvis singing in church enhance reader interest by 1.3 indicator points and enthusiasm 2.9 indicator points, adjusting for regional and sociological cultural referents.

Impersonator notes

According to a D.C. barrister, everyone is trying to get in on the Obama craze in Turkey, or bankers are crowding out all the other qualified bad actors in Istanbul, or perhaps she said barista, anyway, showing the enduring value of resourcefulness not subsidized by government largesse and stick-to-it-iveness necessary in these troubling times.

Glad somebody did it

After a short conference, all of the Beagletolerables are embarrassed that we didn't know who Archie Green, the great folklorist, shipwright, and collector of longshoremen songs, was until he died.

Reader feedbag

A College Park sociologist says, "If that's the kind of stuff that get banned from the bugle you need to hire a new editor," faulting a lack of Beagletorrential judgment in having the cartoon, Ultimatum, on the Banned from the Beagle site.

A Washington, D.C. kingmaker asks cryptically, "Assume you have a can opener...............?" Among the can openers we have are a genuine bottle opener, knife and corkscrew from Haskell's liquor store in Minneapolis and a magnetic church key that was recently acquired as part of a rock star's swag.

In response to a question not asked, a St. Cloud correspondent reports that Bobby Vee still lives there and performs regularly. Further research reveals that Vee (who fired Bob Dylan as his piano player when Bob was Elston Gunn) recently moved to St. Joseph, in the suburbs of St. Cloud.

Our Hangzou correspondent sends this postcard from a lovely spring day on the way to Chang Kai Shek's vacation home.

From the archives

Where does the right have left to go?

Critics of the Obama Administration have been howling in the fervent belief that repetition can overcome logic and evidence. Steadily since at least September, everyone from wack-nuts to former nominees for the Obama Commerce Department have been calling Obama the worst combination of Stalin and Hitler. Charges thus far include:

-- Total government take-over of the means of production.
-- Emergency detention camps operated secretly by FEMA to corral Obama critics.
-- Secret plans to confiscate guns, (computers, Bibles, radio conglomerates, flags, white people, etc.)

As the weeks "progress", and the steady parade of conjecture and horrorshows goes streaming by, and the Army doesn't knock down your door and force you to smoke ganja and grow dreadlocks and have unnatural relations according to the orientation du jour, a lot of that really loses its force.

So when there is no below, how low can you go?

The Manchurian candidate

My, my, it seems like a scant 37 years ago when the staunch "anti-communist" started learning "french" words like "rapprochement" and "detente." And ran around chumming it up with his buddies, Chairman and Leonid, teaching them good ole Amurican words like "friendly takeover" and "leveraged buyout." Telling all his inside boys, the silent majority will never notice the switch. Nyah ahh ahh.

From the Field Guide of Dr. Hin

History corner

When Sen. Phil Gramm (Bi-TX) chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, the joke went around: You have a gun with only two bullets and you're in a room with Saddam Hussein, Mohammar Ghadafy, and Phil Gramm. Who do you shoot? Shoot Phil Gramm twice.

Back on the rocker, far from the clatter of policy battles and ideological cage matches, we muse at that old mot and consider. Damn. Why not?

Phil Gramm made AIG what it is today. He fought for the right of insurers to twaddle away their liabilities and sell go-go-go juice to the hucksters in Petaluma who sold it to their friends and relations. You know, John McCain's leading economic advisor, who would be here, if there were such a thing as justice.

Cold War II

WWI led to WWII, just as Rocky I led to Rocky II-XXVII. Everybody knows we won Cold War I by tricking the Soviets into destabilizing their economy in a pointless arms race and colonial adventuring in Afghanistan. GHWButch took credit, but everyone knows St. Roland Reagan made Gorbachev mess his drawers when he told him to tear down that wall.

Folks never imagined we'd be in Cold War II, and most never imagined we'd lose. But who thought Rocky and Apollo Creed would fight to a draw in Rocky II?

Everybody is saying it's already over, like Newsbleak and Lush Rimblaugh, and they're acting like it's Obama's fault. But who lost Cold War II? Who over-extended the economy letting the Wall Street commissars do their own thing? Who over-extended the government by wiping out a surplus and running up an $8 trillion debt, saying all the time "deficits don't matter."? Who got us involved in colonial adventuring over dubious motives ("He tried to kill my daddy")? Who acted like free trade was the 12th commandment until we're down to our Dr. Denton's and a barrel?

Why they killed Paul Wellstone

Some of the Beagletarians will never get over the feeling they had when Paul Wellstone died that it was no accident. Further research (forwarded by a Dupont Circle policy manufacturer) reveals that it was probably Phil Gramm.

Gramm said, "Glass-Steagall came at a time when the thinking was that the government was the answer. In this era of economic prosperity, we have decided that freedom is the answer."

Paul had a different take: Congress ''seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.''

On this day in history

Richard Nixon signed legislation making cigarette ads illegal on television and radio. April 1, 1970. Take a walk down memory lane.

Also the AMC Gremlin was introduced April 1, 1970.