News Roundup for 2/26/09

Dubya the Clown

-Headline of the day-
"Bush charging $150,000 and private jet travel for speeches."

Golly, sounds rough. You might've heard that George W. Bush plans on making "ridiculous" amounts of money as a hired speaker. In this economy -- or any for George -- $150,000 definitely qualifies. He only got $400k per year as president and we were getting ripped off at that price.

If you want to hire him, you also have to pony up either a first-class seat or a private jet to get a slice of The Decider's brilliance. Local gigs get a discount; if you're in Dallas it's $100,000. Cheap!

What'll Bush talk about at these gigs? Well, if you're going by the bio at his agency, the topic of discussion is how great George W. Bush was.

So, 150 grand and a private jet will get Dubya to come tell you how awesome he was as president.

I think I'll just go ahead and hire the regular clown for the next birthday party. (Think Progress)


-Fun with racism-
The mayor of Los Alamitos, California has apologized for sending an email attachment to a local businesswoman and community volunteer. "I was horrified when I read that e-mail," said Keyanus Price. "What I'm concerned about is how can this person send an e-mail out like this and think it is OK?"

Mayor Dean Grose sent the following image with the header "No Easter Egg Hunt This Year":



"Hey, that's not nice at all," Price wrote back. "Not all black people like watermelon… you should know better than that." Grose was clueless.

"The way things are today, you gotta laugh every now and then," he responded. "I wanna see the coloring contests."

OK, I don't get that one.

I guess no one else did either. In his apology, Grose said he wasn't sending it as the mayor, but as a private individual. So he stops being a total prick when he's on the clock?

He might consider never punching out. (Orange County Register)


-Dumbass quote of the day-
Here's Rush Limbaugh from his radio show yesterday; "People who don’t believe in God believe in Obama. Agnostics, athiests... believe me, a planeload of athiests on a jet on the way to Hawaii... and three of the four engines go out, the athiests start praying to who? God, not the ocean to save them. So everybody believes in God at some point, but not until they face their mortality. Everybody does. They have some God."

As an atheist, I call BS on that one and use it as an excuse to repeat a joke.

An atheist and a priest are on a plane when it starts losing altitude. The masks come down out of the ceiling, everything's bouncing around -- it's pretty clear they're going to crash.

The priest looks at the atheist and says it's time to pray. The atheist says he doesn't believe in God.

"Wouldn't the wisest thing you could do here be to hedge your bets?" the priest asks. "If you're right and no being can help you, then you've lost nothing."

"However, if you're wrong and this being exists, then you have everything to gain," he goes on. "Go ahead son, call on this being for help."

The atheist nods and yells, "Save me Superman! Save me!"

I guess Rush never heard that one. (MicCheckRadio.org)