Free money and sex
Loved how the Medicare bill got rammed through. It's an awesome bill! Just terrific! You'll see... in 2006 when it's supposed to be enacted. Why is it going to take so long? Because when the public sees that the bill was created by the drug and insurance companies and the Republicans basically are throwing away taxpayers' money, people are going to get pissed off. But what do the politicians care? It's not their money and by then, GW will be halfway through another term.

By the way, whatever happened to fiscal conservatism? Here's a huge entitlement that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars -- where's the money coming from? I've always felt it was a mistake to put a former cokehead in charge of the country's credit card, but what do I know.

Oh, one more thing: how about those family values on Neil Bush? People used to rag on Roger Clinton but he looks like Ghandi compared to this Bush brother. Not only was Neil taking huge consulting fees from all these overseas interests for doing nothing (that's how you define success if you're a Bush), he also slept with a bunch of women while he was in Asia. He said he didn't think they were prostitutes; they just knocked on his hotel room door late at night and the women had sex with him. That happens all the time -- on late night Cinemax!

Neil emphasizes that he never paid the the women. Of course, his hosts might have. And he was married at the time. I'm sure Rush will say it was Clinton's fault because he lowered the bar of morality so much that Neil figured why not. Maybe this is what GW was talking about earlier this year in his big speech about the scourge that is the international sex trade.

Is that throw-up on your shoulder?
When you don't have kids, you really don't care much about people who do. Not that you don't wish them well or want to see their baby pictures, but in reality, you rarely ever think of parents and their travails. I know I didn't.

Now that I have a five month old son, no one cares about the fact that my son is teething. I don't blame them. When my friends who are new parents used to tell me (a) they didn't get any sleep the night before, (b) their kid was sick, or (c) their newborn threw up on everything, I secretly chuckled. 'Sucker!' I thought. Like I said, I didn't care.

Now I care. I'm up with my son early, even though it's my wife who does most of the work. God bless her. I bet Anthony Quinn didn't get up early with his kids when he was a new father in his 80's. Not that I'm that old, but sometimes I feel it. Did I tell you my kid was teething?

Rocking with the oldies
I took a bus to New Hampshire yesterday for a Democratic presidential candidate forum sponsored by the AARP. The bus I was on was filled with seniors from Rhode Island, most of whom it seemed were undecided about which candidate to vote for. It was a fun drive and I got to meet some very nice older folks. When we got there, we tried to look around in the lobby, but this retired dude who was one of the ushers got extremely nervous and ushered us into the auditorium, sternly warning us that there was no walking around. Holy elementary school! Maybe if I get a hall pass from Howard Dean I can walk around.

Most of the candidate's lit into the AARP for supporting the Medicare prescription drug plan currently under consideration. (It's a big giveaway to HMO's and pharmaceutical companies.) When the candidates criticized AARP, the crowd -- made up of AARP members -- cheered them for their remarks. By the way, the guy who is currently head of the AARP once wrote a forward to a book by Newt Gingrich. Oh, that explains it.

Near the end of the forum, this lady came and sat in our row. Dressed all in red, she croaked like a bullfrog each time one of the candidates started to talk. Then she would tsk-tsk whatever they said. Finally, another lady in our row asked her which candidate she supported and she said, "President Bush." On the way out, we tried to figure out what she was doing there. I figure she was there for the free bag lunch.

Hot dog horrors
Since my friend Melanie was grossed out by the Fig Newton story from last week, I thought I would share another gross food story. After church yesterday, my wife and I got hot weiners for lunch. If you're not from New England, hot weiners are covered with onions, mustard, and a mystery meat sauce I believe to be hamburger. I got three "all the way" and an order of fries. First, let me give you some background. Today, I will eat virtually anything, but when I was a kid, I had a terrible appetite. For a while, I would only eat mustard sandwiches, sardines, and grape juice. But now, I'll eat anything.

After I ate the first dog, I started to get a queasy feeling. Sometimes when you get hot weiners, there is a certain rubbery texture to the skin of the dog that makes it kind of snap back when you bite it. I started to eat the second one. Snap! Snap! Burp! Snap! Retch! That's when I wrapped up the rest of the dogs and threw them away. I think if I had eaten the rest of them, I would have barfed. And if you think three hot weiners "all the way" are gross going down, you should see them when they're coming from the other direction.

Can we be honest?
I saw Michael Moore on C-Span last night being interviewed about his new book. He gave some very interesting and honest answers to the interviewer Brian Lamb. It prompted me to ask my wife if she thought it was possible for a politician to give multi-layered, thought provoking answers like those Moore gave. She doubted it was and even commented that giving answers that were less than black-and-white was one of the problems Wesley Clark was having. How simple are we as a society that we refuse to listen to answers that are beyond the standard good guy-bad guy rhetoric?

I thought Clark did very well on "Meet The Press" on Sunday. His answers were right on and I still feel he has the best chance to unseat Bush in the general election. I don't know if he can win the primaries but he's still my guy.

Newton's Law
My wife made American Chop Suey last night, but with ground turkey. I ate a couple heaping plates of it with four pieces of bread. Later, that night I had an upset stomach and spent a substantial amount of time in the bathroom. Damn that chop suey! Later, I remembered that I ate about 20 Fig Newtons through the course of the night. Maybe that had something to do with the little attack I had. My apologies to the Chop Suey. Damn you, Fig Newtons!

Hillary killed her boyfriend!
Have you heard the story about Hillary Clinton killing her boyfriend in a car accident in 1963? Turns out she was driving her car through an intersection and just happened to slam into a car coming the other way driven by her boyfriend. Yup, it was totally by chance! Just to reinforce that point: he was driving in a different car.

She smashed into his Jeep, throwing him from the vehicle and breaking his neck. I'm sure it was a big mistake, not like they had a huge fight and she was pissed. Of course, officials in her hometown won't release the full accident report to this day. And the left-wing media won't even touch this one. Add the boyfriend to the list of hundreds killed by the Clintons, maybe right after Vince Foster.

(P.S. All of this is true, except it happened to Laura Bush. Imagine how the right-wing crazies like Rush and Sean would still be spinning this story if Hillary had done it.)

Go young man and thin not
I stole that headline from a column Mike Barnicle wrote for the Boston Globe in the 1980's. I don't feel guilty about stealing it since Barnicle himself was eventually fired for stealing a bunch of stuff for his columns. I spent some time with a local politician yesterday who is as famous for his bad hairpiece as he is for his legislative bombast. The thing on his head resembles the dead squirrel I found on my front step over the weekend. Of course, the king of local pols with a bad piece is former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci. I once got a peek at one of his toupees as it rested at a local salon for a tuneup. Turns out he had a few of them and they were rotated in and out of the salon for occasional fine-tuning. Cianci is now in a federal pen for extortion and some other assorted misdoings. I imagine his hairpieces are just sitting there waiting for him, like a space shuttle looking to hook up with a connecting station on the moon. I'm 37 and my hair is shaved really short. I would never wear a piece but I like to work my way through the scenario that would unfold if I did. In one day, I would go from no hair to a coiffure that would make Stone Phillips jealous. What would people say? "Is there something different about Brett?" No, what they would say is "Holy Guacamole, did you see that thing?" How do you prepare people for the shock, the jolt, of a new you, one with a thick mat of hair so ambitious, so towering, that everyone who comes in contact with it is stunned into silence? The only way it could ever work is if you move somewhere where noone knows you. Then, at least some people might be fooled. "Quite the head of hair on the new guy, huh?" I'm not going to do that. But if one day, you suddenly find I've moved out-of-state with no notice, don't come looking for me. And if you do, just look for the guy with hair like John Edwards.

Itch for Clark
Yesterday, a group of Clark supporters spent about 5 hours on the Route 95 overpass on Smith Street waving signs at oncoming motorists. It was pretty chilly, especially when the wind kicked up. I don't know if I have dry skin or what, but I got really itchy, mostly in my rear and upper thigh regions. So I was there on the overpass scratching myself like a coon dog. That's the way to get someone to vote for your guy -- scratch yourself like a degenerate on a highway overpass.

While we were there, fellow Clark supporter Steve Wend told me he had been doing a little math trying to get his mind around the $87 billion. Here's what he came up: if you spent $1 million a day, it would take almost 240 years to spend $87 billion. Just wanted to share that with all of you who love Bush but think you're a fiscal conservative.

Let the protest letters fly!
I'm sure those conservatives who went bananas about the Reagan mini-series and were successful getting it kicked off CBS have a little energy left. Pick up your crayons, gang, and write to NBC about tonight's Jessica Lynch movie. You love the truth, right? The thought of dishonesty on a television movie angers you even more than the idea of women in the workplace, si? Well, let NBC know you are pissed that the movie they're putting on has nothing to do with reality. Our source? Uhhh, Jessica Lynch herself. She has said she didn't even get off a round, let alone fight and claw until her last breath. When the story came out in April, the information came from "US officials." Now, the Defense Department says it was the media that blew her story up. But it had to be someone in the government who gave them the story. So, my conservative friends, start your writing!