Dowbrigade

Faced
with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit
the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has
started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

A Washington source said: "The sad fact is that
he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught
him – but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the
capital. He’s been in a pressure cooker for months.

from the
National Enquirer

Finally, some good news out of the White House!
George has needed to get out of the damn light for twenty years now,
and having
him rediscover the dark side of American politics at this stage of the
game is about the only hope we have of being saved from the Holy Rollers
and Radical Evangelicals. Perhaps he’ll start channeling Richard Nixon
or John Kennedy, who could reportedly drink like house painters. Hell,
even Ronnie Reagan liked a beer or a bottle of California red, at least
until Nancy cut him off for good.

We are sure the White House physicians could write
George something for the stress. We hear der Furher’s personal physician
Theo
Morell had quite a bit of success with a combination of morphine, pharmaceutical
cocaine and methamphetamine, and that Merck still has the formula. It
worked for old Adolf, and there was a guy who knew what stress was all
about!

With that, and a bit of female companionship to
help him relax after a hard half-day at the office, our fearless leader
might
attain more human dimensions, and really get in touch with the silent
majority of the people he reputedly represents. We are a nation of addicts
– drunkards and druggies, sex fiends and adrenaline junkies, gambling
addicts and fitness fanatics.

It’s about time we had a President we can relate to.
It was getting stale having a Saint in the Oval Office.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho weatherman
says Japan’s Yakuza mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator
to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge itself for the Hiroshima
atom bomb attack — and that this technology will soon be wielded again
to hit another U.S. city.

Meteorologist Scott Stevens, a nine-year veteran of KPVI-TV in Pocatello,
said he was struggling to forecast weather patterns starting in 1998 when
he discovered the theory on the Internet. It’s now detailed on Stevens’
Web site, www.weatherwars.info, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported.

from AP

Scott Stevens Web site Weather
Wars (also source of photo of "Cloud Holes")

Steven’s theory seems to involve giant planes
with no pilots roaming the sky over the U.S at night. Instead of a mere
vapor trail, they are filling the sky with unknown chemicals designed to
darken the earth. They call it Project Cloverleaf.

Stevens is among several people to offer alternative
theories for Hurricane Katrina,
says a little-known oversight in physical laws makes it possible to create
and control storms — especially if you’re armed with the Cold War-era
weapon said to have been made by the Russians in 1976. Stevens became convinced
of the existence of the Russian device when he observed an unusual Montana
cold front in 2004.

"The Soviets boasted of their geoengineering capabilities;
these impressive accomplishments must be taken at face value simply because
we are observing weather events that simply have never occurred before,
never!" Stevens wrote on his Web site.

"The evidence of these
weapons at work found within the clouds overhead is simply unmistakable.
These patterns and odd geometric shapes seen in our skies, each and every
day, are clear and present evidence that our weather has been stolen from
us, only to be used by those whose designs for humanity are rarely in alignment
with that of the common man."

"I just got sick to my stomach because these clouds were unnatural and that
meant they had (the machine) on all the time," Stevens said.

Well, yes, Scott, it doesn’t work if you don’t leave the
machine on all the time. Keep watching the sky, and soon you will be able
to understand the messages written in the patterns and odd geometric shapes,
which are actually a dialect of Klingon…

SEATTLE (Reuters) – A U.S. doctor has
sued a Seattle-area newspaper for defamation after it reported he posed
as his twin, a gynecologist, to have sex with his brother’s patients.

Dennis Momah said the King County Journal defamed him in 2003 when it published
an article that said: "Two twin brothers were taking turns having
sex with patients on a regular basis without the patients’ knowledge that
they were two different people."

Momah, who filed the lawsuit in King County Superior Court this week, also
sued Harish Bharti, an attorney quoted in the paper who represents six
female patients of Charles Momah, Dennis Momah’s twin and a gynecologist.

Charles Momah is being sued by some of his former patients, who say that
he switched places with Dennis, giving him access to his gynecological
patients.

Hey, wasn’t that a movie?  Even so, we are sure another
is in the works…..

from Reuters

NEW YORK — An interfaith group released
a new textbook yesterday aimed at teaching public high school students
about the Bible while avoiding legal and religious disputes.

The nonprofit Bible Literacy Project of Fairfax, Va., spent five years
and $2 million developing ”The Bible and Its Influence."

The textbook, introduced during a Washington news conference, won initial
endorsements from specialists in literature, religion, and church-state
law.

So, if the 100-minute
Bible still has too much God
in it for your taste, you can try this completely Religion-free Bible Book,
which appearantly explains and describes the Bible without advocating actually
believing in any of it. A tricky task for the textbook Talleyrands.

We certainly hope if this questionable text ever actually
reaches the classroom, that it is taught in a unit that gives equal time
to the Torah, the Quoran, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

from the Boston Globe

Sometimes
the Dowbrigade feels stumped for subjects to Blog on. It’s not that your
faithful correspondent lacks
for ideas, rants or motivation.  Rather, it is that so many fecund
fields are off-limits to our free-ranging interest.

We cannot blog about our place of full-time employment,
after an unfortunate incident last semester in which only our wicked wit
saved us from untimely termination. We had been observing a self-imposed
ban on blogging about our current class or individual students for years,
which has since been broadened to include anything even tangentially related
to the Institution that Cannot be Named.

We cannot blog about our part-time, consulting clients
either, as they have indicated a willingness to cancel our contracts if
their organizations are in any way associated with the Dowbrigade.  This
may be because many of their clients are government agencies.

We cannot blog about the intimate details of our married
life, as we know Norma Yvonne reads the Dowbrigade, and its a bad idea
to share a bed with one of your expository subjects. We cannot blog about
our very interesting brothers and sister, since some of them have sensitive
government jobs and, after all, we really want to be invited to Thanksgiving
Dinner at Grandma’s.

We cannot blog about drugs, except in the most clinical
and impersonal terms, on advice from our attorney. For the same reason, we
cannot blog about a number of our previous adventures and activities, at
least until the statute of limitations expires.  And for some actions,
there is no statute of limitations.

We cannot blog about sex, in any meaningful or anecdotal
way. See above reference to Norma Yvonne.

In fact, we cannot blog about women, since if experience
has taught us anything, it is that we understand less than nothing about the opposite
sex. That is, much of what we thought we understood about them has been proven disastrously wrong.

That pretty much leaves politics, sports and our cats.
Even there, we have to be careful.  If we wrote what we really think
about the political situation in this country, we would undoubtedly be
institutionalized, assassinated or exiled.

We are reduced to meta-blogging like this, and reprinting
amusing minutiae and telling details from the media pool in which we tread
water,
waiting for good fortune or bad to deliver us from this literary purgatory.

DAMASCUS,
Syria, Sept. 21 – In the last year or so, Barbie dolls have all but disappeared
from the shelves of many toy stores in the Middle East. In their place,
there is Fulla, a dark-eyed doll with, as her creator puts it, "Muslim
values."

The special line of Fulla licensed clothing for girls, left, is also very
popular. Fulla was introduced in November 2003 and has quickly become a
best seller.

Fulla roughly shares Barbie’s size and proportions, but steps out of her
shiny pink box wearing a black abaya and matching head scarf. She is named
after a type of jasmine that grows in the Levant, and although she has
an extensive and beautiful wardrobe (sold separately, of course), Fulla
is usually displayed wearing her modest "outdoor fashion."

from the New York Times

DAMASCUS,
Syria, Sept. 21 – In the last year or so, Barbie dolls have all but disappeared
from the shelves of many toy stores in the Middle East. In their place,
there is Fulla, a dark-eyed doll with, as her creator puts it, "Muslim
values."

The special line of Fulla licensed clothing for girls, left, is also very
popular. Fulla was introduced in November 2003 and has quickly become a
best seller.

Fulla roughly shares Barbie’s size and proportions, but steps out of her
shiny pink box wearing a black abaya and matching head scarf. She is named
after a type of jasmine that grows in the Levant, and although she has
an extensive and beautiful wardrobe (sold separately, of course), Fulla
is usually displayed wearing her modest "outdoor fashion."

from the New York Times

Poll: Jordan top anti-Jew nation

Jordan leads the Islamic world in its
antipathy for Jews according to a
new poll by the Pew Research Center.

The poll, which surveyed 17,000 people in 17 countries, said 100 percent
of Jordanians viewed Jews unfavorably. The majority of Jordanians are Palestinians,
but the late King Hussein and his son and successor, King Abdullah have
been known for their pro-American stances.

from the World Tribune

Well, apparently not exactly 100%. Seems there’s
this one guy, Abdullah….

Jordan’s king extends hand to Jews

Abdullah, talking to rabbis, lauds common values

By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff | September 22, 2005

WASHINGTON — Convening an unprecedented meeting between a Muslim head
of state and Jewish religious leaders, King Abdullah II of Jordan urged
Jews and Muslims yesterday to ”take bold steps toward mutual forgiveness
and reconciliation" to counteract extremist violence produced by
distortion of religion.

from the Boston Globe

So, what do people in Amman think of their King?
Hero or traitor? Can one courageous man turn back a tide of historical
hatred
and prejudice? The guy deserves the Pulitzer, in the Dowbrigade’s book,
just for trying.

Meanwhile, the country with the most FAVORABLE opinion
of Jews was Holland, although we couldn’t help but notice that Jamaica
was somehow excluded from the study….

Pew Institute Study

(click
to enlarge)

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Remember when gas spiked to $3-plus
a gallon after Hurricane Katrina? By this time next week, that could
seem like the good old days.

Weather and energy experts say that as bad as Hurricane Katrina hit the
nation’s supply of gasoline, Hurricane Rita could be worse.

Katrina damage was focused on offshore oil platforms and ports. Now the
greater risk is to oil-refinery capacity, especially if Rita slams into
Houston, Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas.

"We could be looking at gasoline lines and $4 gas, maybe even $5
gas, if this thing does the worst it could do," said energy analyst
Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover. "This storm is in the wrong place.
And it’s absolutely at the wrong time," said Beutel.

from CNNMoney

LONDON (AFP) – Business folk are used
to reading executive summaries of important documents, and now would-be
Christians are to have the same privilege, in the form of a chopped-down
Bible that can be read in under two hours.

A Church of England vicar was on Wednesday unveiling his self-styled "100-Minute
Bible", an ultra-condensed edition of the Christian holy book which
claims to neatly summarise every teaching from the Creation to the Revelation.

The Reverend Michael Hinton was launching his work at Canterbury Cathedral
in southern England, the headquarters of the Anglican Church.

Publishers the 100-Minute Press say the book has been written for those
who want to know more about Christianity but who do not have the time to
read the original in full.

"This is a book for adults and has been written in a style to encourage
readers to keep turning the pages, but without resorting to any literary
gimmicks," said Len Budd from the publishing firm.

"As the bible itself, the 100-Minute Bible should be a bestseller."

For a week or two, anyway…

from AFP

LONDON (AFP) – Business folk are used
to reading executive summaries of important documents, and now would-be
Christians are to have the same privilege, in the form of a chopped-down
Bible that can be read in under two hours.

A Church of England vicar was on Wednesday unveiling his self-styled "100-Minute
Bible", an ultra-condensed edition of the Christian holy book which
claims to neatly summarise every teaching from the Creation to the Revelation.

The Reverend Michael Hinton was launching his work at Canterbury Cathedral
in southern England, the headquarters of the Anglican Church.

Publishers the 100-Minute Press say the book has been written for those
who want to know more about Christianity but who do not have the time to
read the original in full.

"This is a book for adults and has been written in a style to encourage
readers to keep turning the pages, but without resorting to any literary
gimmicks," said Len Budd from the publishing firm.

"As the bible itself, the 100-Minute Bible should be a bestseller."

For a week or two, anyway…

from AFP