Happy Friday! Vacation Repeat! Good Times!
Comments (0) March 10, 2006
This week a political grudge match was avoided when Dubai announced it would not be taking over control of several US ports and would instead be turing that authority over to an American “entity.” That entity? Halliburton. Who says nice guys have to finish last?
Okay, it’s not really Halliburton that’s getting the ports contract. But they could if they wanted to, now that we all know one of Dick Cheney’s negotiating tactics.
After Dubai’s announcement, President Bush expressed his disappointment in the deal’s failure. I think. Who can understand him?
The biggest loser in the whole ports fiasco? Is it President Bush? Sure, I could see how you’d think that, seeing as how his approval rating is plunging toward the margin of error and all that, but he’s not the biggest loser in all this. The biggest loser is the first opponent to the deal – New York Senator Chuck Schumer, because the deal got cancelled just as he was building up a big head of steam on camera. There goes his reality show deal.
Another big loser in all this? Hillary Clinton, because while she was slamming the deal on TV, husband Bill Clinton was apparently advising Dubai behind the scenes. Which is very similar to how the Clinton’s have operated in the past, with one not knowing what the other was doing. The only difference is that in the past, it was usually Bill doing the slamming.
In other news, NASA said this week that it’s discovered evidence of the existence of a geyser larger than Yellowstone’s Old Faithful on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. The existence of a geyser opens the possibility of life in the solar system, because once you find a tourist attraction, can tourists be far behind?
This week Sports Illustrated published excerpts from a book alleging that baseball star Barry Bonds used compounds such as steroids, insulin, and female fertility drugs to improve his performance over the past 8 years. Upon arriving in training camp Bonds denied the allegations, but had to cut his press conference short when he began ovulating.
The movie Crash won the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards last week in what some were calling the biggest upset ever. Now really, since Crash was one of the 5 nominees, was it really the biggest upset ever? If The Dukes of Hazzard had won, that would’ve been the biggest upset ever, since not only was it not nominated, but apparently if anyone admitted to even seeing it, they weren’t allowed to submit their Oscar ballot.
And speaking of them Dukes, have you seen the new Pizza Hut commercial with Jessica Simpson and Miss Piggy? I’m always amazed when they manage to get a completely artificial character to interact with real people. And they do a pretty good job with Miss Piggy too.
UN officials monitoring the spread of bird flu said this week that the deadly virus could reach the United States by mid-year, which means you all had better hurry and have your last McNugget while there’s just one way it could kill you.
Any of you folks reading this who live in New York have no doubt seen and read lots of coverage on the woman who disappeared from outside of a Soho bar, only to turn up raped and murdered in a field near Kennedy Airport. The NYPD is conducting an intense investigation into the tragic case, but apparently its work is being hampered by the media. Not the reporters trying to report the case, though. No, it’s being hampered by the writers of CSI:NY, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, who are all trying to get another ripped from the headlines episode on the air in time for May sweeps.
I hear the writers for the new Law & Order show Conviction were also planning to tag along, but then they realized there’s no way their show is still on the air by May, so they stayed home and worked on their resumes instead.
In sports news, the NFL owners and players have a new collective bargaining agreement in place after some tense negotiations and two deadline extensions. With the new agreement in place, the salary cap is increased, higher profile teams share revenue with lower profile teams, and John Madden will only be allowed to mention the word “turducken” twice per season. So everybody wins.
In other sports news, the World Baseball Classic continues. Apparently. Not that you can find anyone willing to admit they’ve watched it.
This week software giant Microsoft unveiled its latest product – the UMPC, or ultra-mobile PC – that plays videos, music, and games, and also runs standard Windows programs, comes with a can opener and corkscrew, can core a apple, and can also be used as a dessert topping or a floor wax. Microsoft expects sales of the UMPC to exceed all analysts’ expectations. Or else.
I don’t know about wherever you’re living, but here in New York City Springtime made a sudden appearance today. How do I know? It’s simple, I just took a look at…
Tgreen’s Top Ten Signs of Springtime in New York:
10. Sightings of misplaced $1000 bills as Mayor Bloomberg begins Spring cleaning of his wallet
9. Senator Hillary Clinton has invisible electro-fence installed around Bill’s office building
8. Rev. Al Sharpton stops wearing thermal sweat suit at rallies
7. Steinbrenner starts showing up on the back page of the papers again
6. New York Islander players start reserving tee times for April
5. Homeless people strip down to 7 layers of winter coats
4. Trump puts winter ego into storage, has summer ego flown up from Florida for refurbishment
3. All work comes to a standstill as office resources are put to work on everyone’s NCAA brackets
2. Commuters stop grumbling about having to travel in the cold, start grumbling about having to work when it’s nice out
1. Tgreen does this same damn Top Ten list
And that’s all we have time for this week. Stay tuned next week for either some St. Patrick’s Day humor, or stay tuned in two weeks for the big excuse why there was no St. Patrick’s Day humor. Ooh, the anticipation.
T “a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce” green
Themocracy