WEDNESDAY JULY 23
George Bush gave a group of Texas Republicans the lowdown on the country's housing-market mess and really bad economy last week, describing Wall Street investors as having been drunk and saying that the problems won't go away until they get rid of their hangovers. The private speech was caught on cameraphone and then published on YouTube, where viewers could also watch Bush make jokes about how he and Laura are helping Texas' housing problems by purchasing a home in Dallas. Analysts have largely described the inappropriate humor and drinking metaphors as common customs in Texas, where Bush was reported during his 2004 reelection campaign to have said that John Kerry's view on gay marriage was like drinking cosmopolitans and wearing your wife's underwear.
THURSDAY JULY 24
In a rare example of a Democrat actually getting over on Republicans, Gov. Ted Strickland today appointed a Republican member of the Ohio House to a newly-created position in his administration. With State Rep. Jim Raussen (R-Springdale) taking the job as Strickland's insurance guy, Republicans have one less qualified candidate to win one of the four seats the Dems need for a majority. Some Ohio Republicans promptly declared horseshit on the move, calling Strickland's bipartisanship/manipulation "pathetic and outrageous." With a strong Democratic candidate running for Raussen's open seat (Air Force veteran; not an elitist), Ohio liberals are already looking forward to allowing illegal Mexicans to go to school for free and making children stop believing in God and become gay.
FRIDAY JULY 25
We at WWE! have been grabbing Cincinnati Enquirer newspapers off the racks all week to follow the ongoing special coverage called "Gas Price Secrets Revealed," a series of stories on what gasoline is and why it costs what it does. Day 5 was the affirmation of a commonly accepted and easily proven trend: Gas costs more near freeways.
An analysis of 716 local gas stations determined that the prices indeed followed the general rules of cause and effect, the cause being thousands of cars on the freeway and the effect being the need for more gas than rural gas stations. The Enquirer then confronted two local gas station owners about charging 1 1/2 cents more than gas stations a mile off the freeway, and one owner near the airport said: "It done cost more than a penny ta drive a mile, ya dumbass."
SATURDAY JULY 26
A semi-official Iranian news agency reported today that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his boys have come up with 6,000 centrifuges, which is twice as many uranium-enriching machines as everyone thought they had. The announcement made the U.S. look like dicks because we just sent a diplomat to negotiate between Iran and the countries who fear it, essentially recognizing the homosexual-free nation as having at least a degree of power. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Ahmadinejad of not taking the peace talks seriously and said if Iran wants to spend all its time trying to build stuff we invented it should start with the internal combustion engine and work up to building its own haircutting machines.
SUNDAY JULY 27
Many Senators with R's next to their name are fearing the worst during November's election, and that would be losing so many seats that they can't even waste Congress' time if they disagree with a measure or bill. The Louisville Courier-Journal reported today that if Republicans lose nine more Senate seats this year — they currently trail 49-51 — they'll lose the ability to filibuster and in doing so will lose one of the hallmarks of American democracy: the ability to speak endlessly about whatever they want just to obstruct the process. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell downplayed the worst-case scenario, saying that filibusters haven't been cool since Strom Thurmond filibustered the Civil Rights Act for 24 hours by talking about baseball.
MONDAY JULY 28
The AP went a little far in its mocking of Sen. John McCain's medical history today when it described him as "wearing a baseball cap as he usually does when in the sun to protect his fair complexion." The war hero and reportedly short-tempered Senator, who had just gotten a little piece of his face cut off as part of his quarterly dermatologist checkup, played it cool, telling a crowd in California that even people who aren't old or really white should stay out of the sun. The Barack Obama campaign was quick to capitalize on McCain's sketchy health coverage, as the Democratic candidate visited an orthopedic doctor so everyone would know he was playing basketball over the weekend.
TUESDAY JULY 29
Tired of fast food restaurants making their citizens round, officials in South Los Angeles are going to ban new fast food restaurants for an entire year. The Los Angeles Times today reported that because 30 percent of its citizens are overweight, South L.A. hopes to attract sit-down restaurants and fresh markets to the area instead. The Times noted that just 19 percent of metropolitan L.A. is fat and only 14 percent of the rich people on the west side could be considered obese, though sociologists have noted that in addition to more dining options rich people also have the health advantages of cosmetic surgery and superficiality.