The Great Toyota-GM Canoe Race

http://rense.com/general84/canoe.htm

Toyota and GM decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River.

Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

BUT on the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So American management hired a consulting company referred to them by the US Government and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

The consultants advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized into 3 steering supervisors, 1 area steering superintendents, 1 publicity manager, 1 HR diversity coordinator, 1 union rep, and a rower.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the “Rowing Team Quality First Program”, with a lunch and a free company pen for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and performance-tied bonuses but that decision was held up in committee.

BUT the next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment.

The money from all sales and all forecasted moneys saved from further competition was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was out-sourced to India.

The End.

Satire: “REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP”

From the Big Picture blog.

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

Palin Family Values Cartoon

Edited 9/11/08:

I’m sorry I didn’t include a link to the original source of this cartoon, The Cagel Post.

Humor: The McCain Card

From Dump Mccain.com

Mock him all you’d like…but that POW Card got him an amazing upgrade in the wife department: Younger, healthier & Dirty-Filthy-Sexy Rich with unlimited access to beer and pills.

His old pick up line: “Hey baby, I know some stress positions that will blow your mind”…worked like a charm. As a matter of fact, the DRILL HERE/DRILL NOW slogan was born that night. So, who’s laughing now?…Suckerz.

Just a few games of Naughty Prisoner/Dominatrix Prison Guard later…

Eight Mansions- $100 million dollars
Swanky non-elitist shoes- $500.00
Sympathy date/adultery – Priceless

Don’t hate the player, hate the game…
Better yet, get your own POW Card at any participating McCain Election Center in the Greater Baghdad area.

(No need to ACT NOW!: Supplies are unlimited and this offer may expire in 100 years. Ability to crash 4 multi-million dollar military aircraft due to pilot error will be verified. Valid record of moral leadership and/or decency not required.)

Re: The George W. Bush Sewage Plant

Kinda insulting for the sewage plant.

Source: Dan Savage, The Stranger.

The question really isn’t “Why didn’t we think of this,” Jen, but “Why don’t we do this too?”

Every time I pass through George H. W. Bush airport in Houston, Texas, or the Reagan National in D.C., this thought runs through my head: One day I’m gonna fly into George W. Bush International Airport and my head is going to explode. The right is aggressive about getting shit named after their ex-presidents—anyone flown into William J. Clinton International Airport lately? or James Carter International?—and the left isn’t. It’s part of their Great Man/Dear Leader/crypto-fascist schtick.

Anyway, you can bet your ass that when Mr. 23% is out of office—oh, blessed day—right-wing sycophants will set about memorializing W by naming airports, highways, federal buildings, flower pots, and children after him. This name-shit-after-W campaign will organized and aggressive and it will have two primary goals: Make right-wingers feel better about voting the moron into office in the first place (exonerating themselves, really, for the damage he’s done to this country) and confuse future generations of voters about just how universally loathed this president was.

So naming naming sewage treatment plants—or other suitably disgusting facilities—after the bastard seems like a great idea to me. The campaign to name shit after W once he’s out of office will be political; a political campaign to name sewage plants after him before he gets out of office is just good defense. And it is not, as some in the comments would have it, a waste of time and effort. Humor has its place at the ballot box. If gathering signatures to memorialize W in this way gets people involved, and if the chance to name a sewage treatment plant after W brings more people to the polls (or their mailboxes) come November, then it’s all to to the good.

So: What shall we name after the bastard?

Cool David Dees Illustration

See more at: http://www.deesillustration.com/Pics1.htm

NEW ‘SCARF’ PROPOSED FOR DUNKIN’ DONUTS’ AD

Source: Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ spokeswoman Rachael Ray got herself in trouble with certain segments of the blogging community for wearing what appears to be a keffiyeh in an ad for iced coffee. With the help of resident Atlantic design genius Jason Treat, I propose the following costume change to help Ray avoid any future Middle East-related wardrobe malfunctions:

Of course, this will lead to a boycott of Dunkin’ Donuts across large sections of the Muslim world, but, on the other hand, Jews eat a lot of doughnuts.

AIPAC Announces Annual Treachery Fest Agenda

By Liberal White Boy, a self-loathing Christian.

“Over half of your Congressional Representatives will be there with feedbags on.”

LOL.

Mark Morford: 10 great ways to blow your tax rebate

Another great article by Mark.

Here’s the bad news: Your little recession-deflecting tax rebate? No rebate at all. Not even close.

It’s more like this: You’ve been continuously mugged and beaten and robbed blind for the past seven years straight, and as you lay there on the cold, hard economic ground, bleeding and gasping and wondering what the hell happened to your vacation time and your health care plan and your mortgage payment, your attackers scoff and leer and toss a couple of bloodstained nickels on your pulverized face and mutter, here sucker, have some bus fare, and then they cackle and stomp away with all your loot and dignity and hope, back to the White House from whence they came.

What, too harsh? Not really. It’s a lovely feeling, made even more sweetly ironic by the fact that Congress will likely soon shove through another $108 billion in war funds like a giant gallstone through our collective fiscal urethra. Right there, that’s about 500 bucks for each and every adult human in America, baristas and Baptists and NASCAR fans alike.

Do you see? Your “economic stimulus” check is meaningless, an empty gesture, a trifling crumb of recompense after robbing you blind via insane gas prices, infrastructure meltdowns, massive failed wars that aren’t really wars. Thanks for the bogus check, Dubya, now where can I buy a sliver of our missing national dignity? Oh, that’s right.

So then. Here are your bloody nickels, America. Think of it as a “recession whippit,” because trust me, its quickie high won’t last long. What will you do with it? Pay off the porn bill? Hit the Vegas strip? Stock up on water and freeze-dried meats and a nice Bowie knife in preparation for the apocalypse? Not bad, not bad. Of course, you could also spend it on:

• One share of Google. Hey, it’s the most powerful company on Earth. It belches up bits of Microsoft after an organic tofu and wakame salad lunch in its massive world-class floating cafeteria in the sky. Why not buy a tiny crumb of the company that already owns a large piece of you and everything you do and play with and think about and log into every single day? Sort of like buying back a tiny, digitized, bitmapped, rebranded, YouTubed, Street Viewed piece of your own exhausted soul. Neat!
• Four tanks of gas for the Escalade. What, you’re still driving that giant Saudi-blessed beast? Still loving yourself some big clunky Range Rover? Good for you (and good luck trying to trade it in). But I’m guessing even you few remaining SUV lovers out there feel a bit of a twinge now when the gas pump tips well over $100 to fill your massive tank as your tax refund merely flows straight back to Bush’s cronies in Big Oil in a giant feedback loop of joyful patriotic all-American pain.
• A copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, three bottles of Stoli Vanilla, large hammer. Mmm, the Great American Fantasy, playing the role of a macho Eastern European thug antihero who lives in the seedy underworld of Hellhole City, all broken glass and bad skin and silicone boob jobs and grunged-out everything, killing and stealing and blood splattering and fire, all part of a new and rather insane blockbuster game which employs an astonishing, hyperrealistic animation engine that makes the character’s movements so frighteningly lifelike, when you beat down that whore or shoot that cop in the face with an Uzi you can actually feel his facial bones pulverize as his body slams into the pavement and Death itself hovers just over your PS3, eager to go multiplayer on your ass.Gaming tips: Slam two shots of vanilla Stoli between levels and strike self in head with hammer every time you murder a rival sociopathic thug, to acknowledge/symbolize the death of yet another hunk of any lingering compassion and/or love you may feel in this life. Dude! You’re never getting laid! Cool!
• IPod Touch, new Portishead album, bottle of absinthe. Because nothing says modern American irony than listening to the most beautifully bleak and gorgeously despondent album of the year on the most sleek high-tech consumer gadget currently made, all while slowly lowering your brain cells down into the black cavelike dungeon of bittersweet anise-flavored bliss. Or maybe that’s just me.
• Three excellent meals at upscale sushi restaurant, attempting with each and every bite not to be painfully reminded of the depleted fish stocks and mercury poisoning and how just about every single game fish on the menu is overfished or horribly endangered or dying out or full of tiny little plastic pellets from the Pacific garbage patch. Oh well. At least the sake is still safe to drink, right? I mean, except for the potential global rice shortage? And the rioting?
• Spiffy new Flip Video camera, copy of iMovie, small vial of unchecked insanity. Dash through airport security waving a small pink Swiss Army knife and screaming “Behold my tiny one-inch pocketknife scissors of terror! I also have large metal nipple rings!” Film wacky reaction from Homeland Security agents. Have spouse upload videos to YouTube. Use remaining portion of tax refund for attorney fees/hospital bills.
• Ticket to latest Judd Apatow flick, one dozen homemade pot brownies, never-used (but still active) gym membership from 1998. Chortle at the wondrous fantasyland of these mindless inverse RomComs, how most every male is a flabby wise-cracking doofus stoner loser who still manages to somehow get the sweet hottie girl because he’s such a loveable stoner doofus and she’s apparently just not all that bright. Reserve a small amount of money for 10-pack of XXL wifebeater logo T-shirts from CollegeHumor.com and a Black Jesus bobblehead for your cubicle because you’re all, like, meta-ironic, and stuff.
• Ten-day silent meditation course/retreat. Do you love that recent study that essentially proves, yet again, what monks and gurus and yogis and wise ones have known for roughly 1 billion years? It’s this: Meditation can actually make you more compassionate, can induce states of empathy, can calm the turgid roil and boil of the Grand Theft Auto IV that is you and your badass 1998 Honda Civic and your cube-farm life. It’s a breakthrough! Or, you know, not.Goes well with all the other studies from years past, proving how meditation boosts brain activity, helps focus attention, improves sleep, relieves stress, licks your heart, and helps you realize organized religion is absolutely silly and inane and dangerous because, hey look, close your eyes and breathe deeply and there’s the divine, right there, floating just on front of your third eye like a free bonus hooker from Level 9 of GTA-IV! Awesome! BYOZP, SFOS. (Bring Your own Zazen Pillow, Secret Flask of Scotch.)
• Party supplies for the massive bonfire/cleansing ritual we shall have at the beach on 01-20-09. I mean, obviously.

Cartoon of the day