The Daily Grill

Beware The Non-Super Bowls

City officials in Miami are begging locals to stagger their bathroom breaks during the Super Bowl because extra flushing at halftime might dump too much of a load on area sewers. Thanks to all the beer which will be consumed, I think people will definitely be staggering on their way to the can. As to the extra load, however, they should point the blame at all that spicy Cuban food.

Order Up

White House Resident Bush has issued an Executive Order which now corrals his office as the centerpoint for any governmental policies that come out in regards to public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy. Seems simple on the face of it, except that now that information that might be a dire warning about anything from global warming to an invasion from outer space has to scrutinized, sifted and sanitized by the same crowd that wanted to hide domestic spying, torture and unlawful imprisonment. Isn't it high time the Legislative and Judicial branches of government put the Executive Order privilege on a short leash?

Warmongers In The Making

The word is that European governments are resisting demands from White House Resident Bush and his crew to stop exporting to Iran as well as block transactions and freeze assets of some Iranian companies, all in an attempt to tighten the screws to get Iran to back off of their nuclear development. I wish they'd comply -- it sure beats going to war...and if that happens you just know those same governments would then just sit back and watch as we kick Iran's ass.

The Long Way Around

A scientist in North Carolina has developed a method for putting caffeine in donuts, equal to the punch you'd get from one or two cups of coffee. He's looking to make a fortune from this "breakthrough". I don't have the heart to tell the egghead that people have already been doing this for years -- it's called "dunking".

Running For The Exits

General Zebari of the Iraqi army has said that they will have enough equipment and strength to allow most U.S. troops to withdraw by 2008. Which, conveniently enough, is when White House Resident Bush will be vacating his premises.

Looking Up His Old Address

The NYTimes has a fun online tool up following White House Resident Bush's State Of The Union addy from last night. You can type in a word and it quickly shows you how many times that word occurred in each of his SOTU speeches. For instance, he used the word "economy" 23 times in last year's speech, but only 8 this year. In his first speech back in '01, Bush said the words "terror", "terrorist" and "terrorists" just three times, one apiece. Since then he's used them collectively a total of 286 times. Interestingly enough, he has never, in any of the 7 addresses, uttered the words "yummy", "taxidermist" or "slurp".

Fly The Paranoid Skies

Australian traveler Allen Jasson was yanked off of a Qantas flight from Oz to London because he would not take off a T-shirt with a picture of President Bush and the slogan "World's #1 Terrorist." Qantas says "comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated." The statement says that includes T-shirts.
It's all reminiscent of the case of Lorrie Heasley of Woodland, WA, who was tossed off a Southwest Airlines flight in Reno back in 2005 for refusing to remove her t-shirt, which bore images of Bush, Cheney and Secretary of State Rice, along with the words "Meet The F**kers" (The "**" are placeholders for the letters "c" and "u", not necessarily in that order...)
I would say that if this brand of "short-shirted censorship" is allowed to continue, the terrorists are well on their way of having us right where they want us -- shirtless, shivering and scared. In order to fight against this, I encourage you to click on the various images in this item, which will whisk you immediately to The Daily Grill Online Junk, where you can stock up on big ol' cottony doses of democracy.

Next Time Fly Cry Baby Airlines

Aargh. Enough of catering to bratty kids! Kudos to the AirTran crew that booted a 3-year-old whiny little girl and her parents off a flight from Florida to Boston when the rugrat wouldn't get into her seat, put her seatbelt on and shut up. The parents, of course, were outraged that the world refused to stop and worship their angel child when the airline, instead, honored their commitment to the 112 other passengers to get them to their destination on time. I'm only sorry to hear the airline gave the family back their airfare and offered them free tickets to anywhere AirTran flies. The Kulesza family declined the freebies and declared they'd never fly the airline again. Good riddance to annoying parents, I say. And I promise that, given the opportunity to fly AirTran myself, I'll do it three times to make up for their "loss". An airline REALLY on the ball would bar kids entirely for business travelers and they'd make up their losses for the past decade in a matter of months.

Big Ticket Ride

America is truly the land of opportunity, allowing each and every citizen the dream of one day becoming president -- as long as they have really, really, really deep pockets. Michael Toner, chairman of the Federal Election Commission, estimates that just to sit at the table in the upcoming 2008 World Series of Jokers, the buy-in is a minimum of $100 million. The campaign for the presidency is expected to be the longest and most expensive in history, with the top two best players at the table expected to plunk down about $500 million apiece. And on election night they'll both be going all in.

Keeping The Numbers Up

White House Resident Bush delivers his second-to-last State of The Union address tonight and it should be quite a show. Sending more troops into a war nobody wants, lobbying for a health care program that calls for getting money from hospitals and acknowledging global warning just a few years too late to be useful -- I suggest he opens with a joke. On top of all the good news is the latest CBS/NYTimes poll which shows Dubya is down to a 28% job approval rating. Only two worse than that in history: Jimmy Carter hit a low of 26% and, just before he was tossed out of office, Richard Nixon bottomed out at a 24% approval rating. Which just goes to show that no matter how badly the top dog is mishandling the gig, roughly a quarter of the country is still okay with it.

Click on the phodoodle to check out the festoonery!