Day: August 16, 2005

Florida Seeks to Distance Itself from United States of America

Buck Banks

According to an article in today’s Miami Herald, the state of Florida sees its marketing slogan as a handicap in today’s hostile geopolitical atmosphere. Visit Florida, the state agency tasked with attracting big-butted Midwesterners and obnoxious French Cabadians to the Sunshine State, is considering dropping the “USA” from its current slogan, “FLA USA” (pronounced flawza). The reason? Guilt by geographical association.

The tourism industry is concerned that the “USA” part associates the peninsular playground with a name brand whose value in the world ain’t what it used to be, since, as recent polls have shown, most of the world hates the United States (or, more accurately, George Bush and his band of merry henchmen and the mayhem they have wrought).

William Talbert III, president of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, noted that President Bush had appointed long-time aide Karen Hughes to boost the country’s image in the Arab world.

”Even the president is aware our image isn’t the best in some corners of the world,” Talbert said. “The Florida brand is extraordinarily strong.”

While most involved in the complex process of selecting a new state slogan are leaning toward “Visit Florida,” Gov, Jeb Bush told WLRN Radio in Miami he thinks the phrase might be too simple.

Never ones to miss an opportunity to put in our 6 cents’ worth of creativity. and knowing what a bunch of boobs are working on this in Tallahassee, the editorial staff of Pensito Review offers these alternatives:

Visit Florida — It’s Not Really the United States, Really
Visit Florida — Uncle Jebby Says ‘Ya’ll Come On Down!’
Visit Florida — Some of Our Beaches Aren’t Contaminated with Fecal Coliform and Enteric Bacteria
Visit Florida — Yo Habla Espanol!
Visit Florida — Republica de los Plátanos
Visit Florida — Alta Cuba!
Visit Florida — It’s Not Necessarily the USA
Visit Florida — Baja America!
Visit Florida — Baja Canada!
Visit Florida — Bring Money!
Visit Florida — Because 15 Million Ohioans, Canadians and New Jerseyites Can’t All Be Wrong
Visit Florida — Where the West Nile Seems Closer
Visit Florida — It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Stupidity
Visit Florida — It’s Not Just for Hurricanes Anymore
Visit Florida in 2006 – Jeb’s Term Will Be Over
Visit Florida — Sun, Fun and a Ton of Republicans Trying to Stop It

Wingnut Mows Down rows of Crosses Commemorating War Dead

Jon Ponder

Yellow Dog Blog:

I’m sorry to report that a conservative scumbag configured his Texas pickup truck to do maximum damage and leveled most of the memorial crosses that Cindy Sheehan and her companions set up outside the Bush ranch in Crawford.

So much for their hypocritical, support-the-troops credo.

Thankfully, police have arrested the man, Larry Northern, 59, of Waco and charged him with criminal mischief. Sadly, there’s no criminal charge for being an ignorant cracker.

Lott vs. Frist Offers No One to Root for

Jon Ponder
What Lott said was absolutely true. The United States would have been been much better off if Thurmond had been president instead of Republican Dwight Eisenhower – if you define the “United States” as “white males,” as Republicans do.

Boy, it’s a hard to pick someone to root for in this fight. In his new autobiography, “I Am a Lying Snake, and I Know It,”* former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Lynching) has shellacked the current Majority Leader, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Medical Industry) for back-stabbing him after Lott fatally wounded himself by wishing out loud that the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South Hypocrisy) and his pro-lynching Dixiecrat party had won the presidency in 1948.

After Lott’s fall from grace, Frist – who has admitted killing kittens for fun – was given Lott’s job by the White House, after a pro-forma vote by the GOP Bush-lickers in the Senate.

In his memoir, Lott describes his laudatory comments about a would-be Thurmond presidency as “innocent and thoughtless” and blames the media for reporting his remarks. He has a point. After all, what he said was absolutely true. The United States would have been been much better off if Thurmond had been president instead of Republican Dwight Eisenhower – if you define the “United States” as “white males,” as Republicans do.

In the book, Lott reportedly blames his conservatism on liberal professors at Yale who apparently tried to make him feel guilty about his racism – but instead made him devote his life to preserving white supremacy.

Lott most recently made headlines by joining the Senate’s Pro-Lynching Caucus – handful of Southern senators who refused to sign onto a resolution expressing regret for the Senate’s refusal to outlaw lynching in the 1960’s and before.

*Okay, obviously, that’s not the real title. It’s “Does My Hair Look Real?”

Bolton Visited Judith Miller in Jail

Jon Ponder

In the latest update to her Judy File, Arianna Huffington reports that New York Times reporter – and volunteer White House stenographer – Judith Miller has received a visit from the ill-tempered U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations:

According to a trusted Judy File source, [Ambassador John] Bolton recently took time out of his busy schedule to pay a jailhouse visit to Judy.

No word on what they talked about…

[Maybe] they just talked about old times, when Bolton was reportedly a regular source for Miller’s WMD and national security reports.

Just two potential Plamegate sources shooting the breeze.

For anyone who doesn’t find this jailhouse get-together highly UN-usual, please give me the name of the journalist who, in or out of jail, would get a visit from John Bolton. Other than Bob Novak.

Haters Beware: Gays Packing Pink Pistols

Buck Banks

From today’s Miami Herald:

In response to escalating hate-crime violence against gays and transgendered individuals in Florida, Broward County resident Keith Jackson is planning to start a chapter of Pink Pistols, a nationwide organization of gays who pack heat to beat hate. The Pink Pistols have more than 7,000 members in the U.S. and British Columbia.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement statistics, in 2003, 55 hate crimes were committed against homosexuals and transgendered people in Florida — the largest proportion of hate crimes ever attributed to sexual orientation, as opposed to other hate crime categories.

”I love this one, because the bullets just fly out and you don’t have to reload,” [Jackson] said, ejecting a clip from a nickel-plated .45-caliber semiautomatic Smith & Wesson. And if some redneck decides he’s going to harass or harm me, he’ll be thinking twice about it pretty quickly.”

”A lot of gay people want to feel protected, but when I first tell them about the Pistols, they laugh hysterically for five minutes,” Jackson said. ‘When I ask them, `Why haven’t you considered getting a gun?’ they just say, ‘Well, because I’m gay!’ ”

”It’s a ridiculous stereotype,” he said. “That we’re too queeny or that guns scare us. I don’t have to be straight to have good aim.”

”Hopefully, you never have to shoot anyone,” said Jackson. ”We’re not about violence or vigilantism. Gay people are constantly aware that they are extra vulnerable. So having something like this” — he fingers the Smith & Wesson — “is just a confidence booster.”

Note to intolerant morons: The next gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered individual you harass may be armed and dangerous.