Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

A followup on the old War on Christmas:

…those who pride themselves on being good Christians might realize that the Christmas tree is pagan in origin, and that the Bible criticizes the practice: “For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not” — Jeremiah 10:3-4.

Holy shit! As someone who takes the Bible literally (I mean, everything in there is The Word!) this is a revelation. Add this to the list of rigid stances that must be taken! No Christmas trees, no gays, no women in high places! Good thing we have a moral guide, or our society just may go right to shit! Happy Holidaze, everybody!

The War on Christmas, that is! (We call it “Xmas” here at The Booze Cab offices! No we don’t, we call it “Godless Giftdom and Gomorrah!”) Ah, we kid, we kid…

But really, I thought the Dems had taken over. I thought liberal activist judges would have taken care of this problem by now! Don’t tell me O’Reilly is wrong! Don’t tell me (insert random right-wing nutjob here) is wrong about this! The Christ will be taken out of the Mas, by God! I know it worked last year, didn’t it? Christmas was defeated in the Great War of ’05 quite handily from what I recall. One reason for that victory: no cut and run! Another: high troop levels! Or was it Poop levels?

Oh, I should stop then… That is a great scene though, isn’t it? I wish I could have caught it at night, I bet the neon nativity palm trees would have lit up the Florida night sky and given little Baby Jesus an unearthly glow. Little magical tiny neon Baby Jesus…

My fellow Metblogger and Freedom Fighter Nikkos has dropped a couple of tips in the jar this week for the burgeoning but beleaguered staff here at The Booze Cabinet, so go and check out his blog My Friends Call Me Nikkos! It’s been a long and difficult week, pretending to pore over reports and say shit about them, not to mention all that other stuff we can’t talk about due to classifications and national security. It’s hard work. It’s tough work. It’s a long haul, it’s a difficult road. But I intend to stay the course — I mean, not cut and run, but also not continue — I will do the same thing but in different ways is what I’m trying to say. Nurse! Cocktail, please!

Danny king of the Yoohoo (refreshing chocolate milk-like beverage),

I’ve tried your product and it’s only made me more thirsty. This egg cream of which you speak of contains no egg and is not good for my 6am workout. I will never meet another girl you set me up with at Coney Island, never! Let’s never speak of the Far Rockaway incident again.

Are you sad about the election results? I certainly am. Sad that this didn’t happen years ago! What took everybody so long to wake up? There’s enough to go around. I apologize, but due to some “inpolite instigations” I now carry a patent/copyright lawyer around with me to advise me. There have been some “infringements” in the past. I think it best to form a LLC and go back to living under to viaduct until people (aka “concerned parties”) forget.

When I get into office, I am going to make two things mandatory. Hammond organ (the real deal, no Suzuki replicas, the real thing, and the steel guitar). Must have. A bar operating without a steel guitar? I’m gonna have to shut you boys down until you can come up with the correct equipment.

So is this the beginning of a new era? I’d like to think so, but I don’t want to get too excited. I miss the Clinton years. Jimmy Carter did many great things too. He still is. This coming from someone who could die from a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. He tried to do good things as soon as he got into office. That pissed a lot of the “good old boys” off and they ganged up and screwed him. It was water in California. Billions of taxpayers dollars were being spent unnecessarily. It was the good old boys circuit, the army corps of engineers were [censored] with members of congress. Build this damn and I’ll give 30,000 people a job for three years, then you can give me a nice “handshake” once we’ve sealed the deal. It had been going on for almost 100 years. He tried to stop it and the machine screwed him. This was months into his presidency. Consult Marc Reisner for details. I think that’s the author. Well the book is Cadillac Desert. I have to admit I didn’t read the book, I saw the 5 hour mini series. (Or do I?).

I diverge, (some say that’s what I do best). Is it really a new era? Or is it just a bunch of stalemates? The Democrats won. They control the house (Democrats in the house say oh yeah…) and the senate, but by a small margin. Is this a Jesse Ventura deal? The two sides don’t agree, so there is no majority and nothing gets done. I hope not. Let’s just let the majority make the laws and Martina McBride can sing every Friday night. I like that plan. If Martina is busy, we can hear from Penelope Cruz on what it’s like to have brown eyes and speak Spanish, yes I like that. If anyone is against this be awake from 4:03-4:07am next Tuesday. If you weren’t, then you’re for it. Enough said.

Either your with me or you against me, and you don’t want to be against me,

Andrew

The Iraq Study Group has released its findings after reviewing the lesser known “Booze Cabinet Report,” and boy, are we embarrassed. Our humble report, which was meticulously compiled over the years 2002-2006 by our core research team, helped to inform the Iraq Study Group through many a night and it shows. Hell no, we haven’t read the whole thing, we barely got past the dedications and table of contents, but we get the gist of it. Let’s just say, we’re flattered.

The Booze Cabinet, which longtime readers have come to know, love, and semi-respect as an astute observer of world events, came to the conclusion many many years (and deaths) ago that the Iraq War is a failure, that diplomacy is a Good Thing, and that change is long overdue. It is way past the time to leave this war, to withdraw and go home. The Iraq Study Group, in its wisdom, agrees whole-heartedly. Well, let’s throw a party.

We would normally be bouyed by the fact that this bipartisan group has finally reached conclusions that have, to our eyes, long been obvious, but unfortunately the champagne bottles remain corked tonight. The truth is, our report was completed long ago, before the election of 2004. You didn’t read it? No wonder. Sadly, any semi-conscious buffoon could have come to the same conclusions as we, or they did. Once again, No One Saw Any Of This Coming?!? Shit, we’ve been stoned drunk since Bush lost in 2000, what the hell is everyone else on?

The good news? Bush said he would take the report “very seriously!”

And what really insults us now is seeing 41′s geezer cronies finally lay some truth on the smaller (shrinking) Bush now, when it is too goddamn late. There is no clean way out of this. The main reason for this is, it was a Bad Idea from the get-go. But when you have nationalistic theme songs and cool graphics for war on the television and cheerleaders embedded in fantasy camps reporting tales from the front, well, no one wants to hear that. No one wants to hear that, whoa, wait a minute, are you sure about this? I mean, first of all, do you have your facts right? And, is this necessary? Right now? Any plan for…after?

This is about war, you know, where people actually die.

The answer to every one of those questions was “no,” and Jim Baker and his sobbing pal Bush 41 could have told you that a long time ago. “We know Saddam Hussein has used weapons on the Kurds.” How do we know? We supplied them, in 1988, when things were still chummy between Iraq and Washington, D.C.! But you know what? No one wants to hear that stuff. Not when the drums of war are marching and revenge for 9/11 remains unquenched in Afghanistan. “But Iraq didn’t — ” Never mind, shut your mouth.

Ah, well, we’ve been through all of this before. It’s boring, it’s over, it’s done. There is no exit from Iraq. Just as there is no “War on Terror.” It doesn’t exist. See, The Booze Cabinet has been working on a new report. We’ve drunk ourselves blind (to the sound of old T.Rex) and I don’t want to leak the contents, but…it’s all a green screen, an orange alert, a purple haze. The War on Terror? Take off your shoes and walk on through.

Remember that one? Back in 2002? Oh yeah, the big firefight at O’Hare Airport that yielded the valuable prisoner of war named Jose Padilla. Shit, that was one for the books! We came under some heavy fire but when the smoke cleared I planted an American flag right at the United check-in and wiped the sweat and dirt from my forehead. Smoked a cig and gave props to Jesus. Had a Billy Goat cheeseburger and dug in for another sleepless night at the baggage carousel.

Padilla was a shady character, for sure; he had to be guilty of something. Exactly what, well, we weren’t sure, but after fitting him with disorienting night goggles and making him stand for days on end, we were sure to get answers. Solitary confinement, torture, and sleep deprivation — you know, good old American interrogation — nothing seemed to work. This son of a bitch wasn’t going down easy, but if this battle taught me anything it’s to not take the enemy for granted.

On the positive side, we certainly broke the man. His mental state is now such that he won’t be engaging in any evil-doing, even if he does go free eventually. But that’s war, man. That’s how it’s got to be. If we lost O’Hare, the what next? Midway? Oh, don’t get me started on the Battle of Midway!

On seeing these photos and reading the story, many Americans will likely ask, how can it be that an American citizen with due-process rights under our Constitution, a citizen who has not been found guilty of the allegations against him by a constitutionally sanctioned authority, was subjected to such treatment? What if he’s innocent?

- The Swamp, Chicago Tribune

Padilla, by the way, was not captured on a “battlefield.” He was detained in Chicago. He has a U.S. passport. This could happen to any American anywhere this president decides to call an “enemy combatant.” To be kept in the dark in solitary and treated the way Padilla has been treated without charges being brought … until four years later. It’s unconscionable.

- Andrew Sullivan

Padilla appears to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to adequately help prepare his defense … “he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body” when the subject of his detention comes up.

- Chicago Tribune

One man is responsible for this. And he is president of the United States. I am told I am hysterical to be angry about this. But my anger gets deeper the more we know. I simply do not understand why the anger and sense of disgrace is not more widely felt.

- Andrew Sullivan

Of course, there is another way to look at Charlie Rangel’s idea. I present to you now, another episode of…Letters From Andrew (merely a snippet from the latest email):

Danny,

Let’s talk about the other Chucker. Charles Rangel. I like what he’s doing. It’s all sarcastic. It’s got to be. He has a good point. If this country wants to dominate the world we need a draft. No exceptions for sons or daughters of congressmen etc. Yep, we gonna take Korea (North and South(why not South?)), Iran and anybody else who has oil. Oh, I’m sorry. Resources. It’s not just oil, it could be platinum, coal, gold, diamonds, fresh water, copper, or the “likes”. Basically anything people want enough to pay for. At this point I’m ready to move to Mexico and be the friendly shopkeeper who fixes sewing machines, bicycles, eyeglasses, and other assorted necessities. Of course I’d have to help Miguel on the Gnome desktop. Reluctantly. I’m a FreeBSD guy. If I have to get involved in a desktop it’s got to be KDE. Gots to do some kind of computer thing when you’re in Mexico. Or do you? When surrounded by women that look like that, you might just forget all about computers. Let me put this in terms of long brown hair, long, long, straight brown hair, long, long brown braided hair. Gorgeous eyes. What’s a computer? I’m melting south of the border. Don’t send for help, I like it this way.

At this point I have to admit that I have a “paragraph problem”. If I had an English teacher watching over my shoulder, I’d be in trouble. Trouble for the “flow and design”. As far as I’m concerned, that’s an engineering problem, and of no concern to (or is it with) the English teacher over my “said shoulder”.

What if English majors hijacked Fermilab? What would it be like? Would they be more concerned with not ending sentences with prepositions? These things should be considered.

At this point in time I highly recommend you not eating those mayonnaise sandwiches that were left over from you 4th of July picnic. I know you froze them after labor day, but they had probably already gone by then. Besides, who the hell eats mayonnaise sandwiches but you and anybody wanting to be polite to you.

Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got some dioxin’s ass to kick,

Andrew

An interesting thought from the Rev. Andrew Greeley regarding the folly of a military draft:

Veterans of military service usually weigh in on this issue by announcing that the military “made a man out of me.” What kind of man, I wonder, has to brag that military brutality was essential to his manhood? Will it make a woman out of his daughter?

I recall having to sign up for the Selective Service when I turned 18 “just in case.” What a load of crap. A draft would not have made a man out of me. It would have made me a Canadian.