Saturday, November 27, 2010

May America Live Long and Prosper

I’ll file a more complete report later on MO and BO (and “Bo- Bo’s” [ poor little Bo, he hates that nickname!]) Thanksgiving and interview with Baba Wawa. Butt here’s a quick summary of the ABC special:

ht_p112310ps-1389_101124_ssh Brown: it’s the new black. Baba didn’t get the memo.

 

bw_tg_special Baba and Big Guy bow to Bo-Bo (!)

We’re proud we rammed Obamacare up your butts. We’ve stabilized the economy with our Porkulus plan and the economy is growing, if you know how to count the Washington way.

Big Guy’s looking forward to being a partner with Cuba, once they “turn the corner” – unclear what that means since they’ve already taken every left hand turn there is to turn. Maybe he was talking about us. Unclear, I’ll try to get clarification.

BO would be upset if terrorists blew up a bunch of people in the air and he couldn’t tell the American people that “we X-rayed your privates in order to prevent it” - which of course it didn’t, if he had to tell them that. Butt at least he can say we did everything possible. Or something.

And he still prays everyday, ending every Grace before dinner with the Vulcan salute, “Live Long and Prosper.” No, wait, that’s not it: “we hope we live long and strong." Same same: it’s both a greeting and farewell.

232x356

Also, Big Guy said he doesn’t waste his time thinking about Sarah Palin, as he spends all his time being the best president he can possibly be (no one doubts that).

Oh, and don’t worry about Big Guy’s fat lip: occupational hazard.

fat lip Big Guy suffered a split lip when he caught an elbow being the best president he can possibly be.

He just took an elbow during his daily devotional. It was not, as previously reported, the hand of God.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Let Us Give Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to all my MOLs, MODs. MYLs and FOMs ! I know what your thinking - it must be really hard to be thankful around here. But actually that’s only the case for the Mr. and Mrs.

Thanksgiving2

The rest of us have many reasons to be thankful, we’ve just learned not to express them too openly.

And so on this National day of Thanksgiving, I’m taking the day off to celebrate with my extended family. We like to get together when ever possible; it’s always a highly reflective gathering. This year we’ll also be ruminating about the election. Of course, like most families, we’ll have family members on both sides of the looking glass, hurling barbs at each other. Fortunately, with this clan, it stops at verbal barbs as anything else could have shattering results which is sure to ruin the day.

I don’t think Lady M will miss me, what with all the pies and stuffin’. She usually avoids me for several days afterwards anyway.

So I’ve got the day off, I’ve got a ticket to fly, and I’m hoping I won’t have to have one of those back scatting scans, because I’m sure it will screw up my nano-reflectors. But Bruno says not to worry, it’s worth it if it makes us safer.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We’ve all got much to be grateful for, once again.

rockwell-thanksgiving Norman Rockwell does Thanksgiving right

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Our New Assistant Meets the Turkey

Today Big Guy’s issuing a proclamation that pardons a turkey. No, not North Korea, although they’ll be getting off with a harsh warning too.   Butt I’m talking about a real turkey. He’s currently being held hostage on the roof of the W Hotel here in D.C.

turkey pardon

It’s a presidential tradition to pardon the old Tom in time for the morning news cycle the day before Thanksgiving. At least I assume we’re pardoning him. Big Guy isn’t 100% on board with the policy, instead favoring Comprehensive Proclamation Reform for all turkeys, not just this one,fortunate, white one.

All I know for sure is that the whole thing is a charade. We pardoned the turkey last year too, butt what showed up on the groaning board the next day? That’s right, turkey. With extra drumsticks. So I’m just a little skeptical of Presidential Proclamations.

Meanwhile, on the administrative front, we’re working on bolstering our Big White staff, since so many people are leaving to spend more time with their families this holiday season. Here’s our latest “get:” a new East Wing special “assistant” for both BO and MO.

She’s Kristina Schake - democratic consultant par excellent. She’s from California, founded her own political consulting firm and used to be Maria Shriver’s assistant. So she’s got that going for her. 

schake   kori

Kristina, left, Kori, right.

Strangely, her big sis, Kori, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institute and an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy. She was also deputy director for policy planning in the state department under GWB- and director for Defense Strategy on the National Security Council for 41! She must be a much older sister.

Little sis, on the other hand, made a left hand turn and made her mark as the Director of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Summit on Obesity and the communications director for First 5 California, a group that helps with health, nutrition and education issues for the state’s children. That’s almost as good as a Community Organizer! So she’s a natural fit for Big White.

Boy, I bet the Schake holiday get-togethers are interesting.

Lady M had this to say about the arrival of the new East Wing Assistant:

“Kristina has done extensive work throughout her career on child nutrition and community health issues, and that, paired with her experience as part of a military family, will bring invaluable insight to our work on childhood obesity and our efforts to support military families.”

Fortunately our expert in child nutrition and community health isn’t starting until after Thanksgiving, so we won’t have to argue about the sweet potato casserole with all those yummy little marshmallows.

But let’s be clear: she’s not really the one we’ve been waiting for. That would be our new Executive Czar, that Newsweak has determined we need:

"The issue is not Obama, it's the office....Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency?"

and

"Among a handful of presidential historians Newsweek contacted for this story, there was a general consensus that the modern presidency may have become too bloated."

There is a lot around here that is bloated- and I’m not talking about Lady M’s waistline – but the “modern presidency” isn’t one of them. The usual suspects include government size, bureaucracy gone wild, the national debt, and our opinions of ourselves.

bookends The smartest president ever, and the little-eyed fashion icon

It’s odd though. No one ever said that the “Presidency” was too big when GWB was here. Back then it was all “GWB is a war monger, a bad CEO, and an idiot who hates black people.”

Butt I guess things have gotten a lot more complicated since then.

golf_Obama_plays_97cd

Honestly, if you don’t have time to shoot a few hoops, and play a few rounds of golf with the boyz, what’s the point of being President?

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Obama’$ New Green Lobby: Vegetable$

 FireShot-_4 Mo wore her extra-furry eyelash extensions to bat at the kids, because kids love furry little things.

Lady M was  back to her grueling schedule yesterday, when her Let’s Move promotional tour moved to Florida. MO, in honor of both her “eat more fruits and vegetables” campaign and the state fruit, dressed as a giant orange.

yeah he's thrilled …and I do mean giant.

MO had BO sign a memorandum for her back in February that established a national task force on childhood obesity. The task force will get up to $1 billion in federal funds a year over the next ten in order to figure out what to do about this HUGE problem. And we intend to spend every last cent of it. That’s why we need more.

And that’s why Lady M is cheezed at Congress: they’re not 

"do(in’) their part," referring to the stalled child nutrition bill that aims to improve school lunches and expand feeding programs [ed. “feeding programs?” Is it just me or does that sound a little more like animal husbandry than childhood nutrition?] for low-income students. Anti-hunger groups and more than 100 Democrats protested the use of food stamp dollars to pay for it.

So Lady M showed up at the Miami grade school in Little Havana to show the kids how good fruit and veggies can be:

The first lady chatted with students of the predominantly Latino school in small groups, showing them how to dice scallions to add flavor and explaining that yellow squash doesn't have much taste, but it's still tasty mixed with other vegetables.

The kids were having none of it:

FireShot-  FireShot-_1 broccoli! green onions! and yellow squash! MMM, MMM, MMM

FireShot-_2

Good idea – get grade school kids to eat green onions. That’s a natural. And telling them that they should eat yellow squash because it “doesn't have much taste, but it's still tasty mixed with other vegetables?” Right. That’s a closer. The only other “vegetables” that will make it taste good are cheese and bacon.

Butt odds are good the only “cheese” that will be allowed in USDA approved lunch rooms will be made from tofu, which “doesn’t have much taste” either:

The proposed new nutrition standards call for using leaner meats and whole wheat buns in school lunchrooms and stocking vending machines with less candy and fewer high-calorie drinks.

Congressional passage of the bill would be only the first step. Decisions on what kinds of foods could be sold - and what ingredients might be limited - would be left to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Things are about to get really ugly in lunch rooms around the country.

For those of you who accurately spotted a repeat showing of this bright suit from last summer, here is the evidence. MO originally wore it to speak to employees at the Department of Labor when she was doing her “Name that Government Bureaucracy” tour.

june straining at the seams

From June to November: the weight of our first historic second year in office settles in. Mostly around the hips, thighs and caboose.

Lady M is pleased to announce that her “A Salad Bar in Every Lunchroom” program is supported by – in addition to the SEIU – the following organizations: the National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance (a sub-organization of PBH – Produce for Better Health – a non-profit 501(c)(3) industry lobby group), United Fresh Produce Association Foundation (a non-profit 501(c)(3) industry lobby group) and Food, Family, Farming (F3) Foundation - isn’t that 4 F’s? – (also a non-profit 501(c)(3) lobby group whose “mission” is to “work toward changing the food system in America from a chemically dependent/resource depleting agricultural model to an ecologically sound sustainable one.”) So, as proud tax payers, not only do you get to pay for Lady M’s school nutrition program once it’s been rammed through Congress – you get to pay for the lobbyists getting it rammed through Congress too!

Butt don’t forget: It’s all about the children!

FireShot-_3I said, EAT YOUR DAMN VEGETABLES!

Monday, November 22, 2010

MO’s Green Initiative: Grazing on the Grass

It it’s the Monday before Thanksgiving, it must be time for Lady M to announce an initiative that involves fat kids’ behinds. And right on cue with the rest of the turkeys debuting today, we’re scheduled to launch “The Great Salad Bar Initiative” This of course follows our previous initiatives of “Let’s Move” and “An Organic Garden in Every Plot” – the vegan version of the Hoover era’s prosperity pledge:

chix Just breathe in slowly, it won’t hurt. And remember, you’re covered by Obamacare now.

Now we’re bringing out the big guns to fight childhood obesity:  first up, none other than Iron Chef extraordinaire: Molto Mario!

 mario fashion

A survivor of childhood obesity himself, Molto wants to help out in any small way he can. For starters, he inked an article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. And while he didn’t mention Lady M and the Great Salad Bar Initiative (GSBI) by name, we know what he was angling at.

First he warned us about meat:

Industrial livestock farms are polluting and inhumane, and they account for much of the pathogenic bacteria, like salmonella, that end up in our meat and poultry (and even our leafy greens). They also sustain notoriously bad working conditions for the people that labor in them.

Then about fish:

I believe that Americans can learn to eat fish responsibly, sparing some of the more endangered species like Atlantic cod and grouper, just as fishermen can learn to accept seasonal quotas as a way to preserve jobs and income for generations to come.

All of which was just a warm up for the ultimate attack target – sugary beverages!

If Americans, especially younger Americans, keep drinking soda at the rate of 1,000 calories a day, we will continue to pay the price in higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Well folks, what does that leave us with? That’s right! Organic arugula! And Salad Bars!

Now don’t get me wrong – Mario has some of the handsomest restaurants in the country:

enoteca_bar Enoteca Bar, Las Vegas

And he makes one of the finest cacio e pepe outside of Italy:

mario's cacio

And he shares Lady M’s  unique sense of stylin’:

IRON_CHEF_MO-CROPPED_thumb[1] Lady M and Food TV chefs before the organic garden throw down

foodmario_batali_thumb Stylin’ with wiener casings: another thing MO and Mario have in common.

alg_michelle_obama-split

So don’t get me wrong, normally I’m a big fan of Molto’s.

Butt, after you read his article, I think you’ll agree with me that anyone pontificating that:

The issues surrounding food are not all black and white, good or bad. We must embrace moderation, from big business to the small producer, from steak to tofu

belongs behind the stove, not a keyboard. Sheeze, shut up and cook, already! (which reminds me: I still haven’t heard from Megyn Kelly and Professor William A. Jacobson regarding my suit against Dr. Laura Ingraham) Honestly, how many more amateur philosophers of food ecology do we need in this country anyway?

I do agree with him about one thing though, we should return corn to the status of “vegetable” instead of high fructose corn syrup and ethanol:

But farmers don't plant corn because they love corn syrup, or because they prefer seeing their crop used to fill the tank of an SUV with biofuel rather than to feed people in the developing world. They do it because it's how they can make money.

Thanks to government subsidies. Butt that’s for another day.

Today, we’re just celebrating the Joy of Arugula. Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Honorary Members of the Preach What You Eat club:

mo_mario_crocs_final_copy_thumb[4]

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Trips and Falls

Well, it wasn’t exactly rock-star treatment like in the good old days, but  at least the EU and NATO Summits weren’t a complete dis-off. In fact the Big White is characterizing it as a "full embrace" of Big Guy’s international agenda. I’d give it a B+

what Big Guy flashes the international NATO hand signal

Sure, they had a little fun at Big Guy’s expense over the big black beast. No, not Lady M, the Limo. Butt overall, the Summit was a huge success:

butt everything seems smallSee? I even brought my POTUS seal. Why does it look so small?

"We came to Lisbon with a clear task, to revitalize our alliance," he said, explaining that the alliance has resulted in a unified Europe, a strong ally of the United States, and prosperity for the United States, Europe and the world.

whoops wrong seatExcuse me, do you mind if I sit here?

Well if that’s all it took to ensure our prosperity, why didn’t we go two years ago? In addition to prosperity, the NATO alliance:

… reconfirmed "its commitment to defend one another against attack as the cornerstone of Euro-Atlantic security."

Although that’s really the only reason NATO exists in the first place. I guess it’s a good idea to remind everyone from time to time, butt reaffirming your raison d'ĂȘtre isn’t normally considered a “huge success.” By most standards. And let’s not kid ourselves: the EU still thinks that “defending one another” means WE defend THEM. I’m not sure Big Guy understands this yet.

Big Guy used his international stage to send a message to his enemies back home too.

charge running onto the world stage

He told the R-words that Congress needs to pass his and Dimitri’s new START treaty so we can START destroying the rest of our nuclear arsenal immediately. Because Ronald Reagan would have wanted us to. Or something.

He said the treaty to cut the allowed number of U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads by a third is "fundamental to national security." He has often cautioned that no agreement with Moscow would further delay and jeopardize the U.S. ability to inspect Russia's nuclear arsenal.

That’s because he thinks inspections are what Ronnie meant by “trust but verify.” Butt if this is Big Guy’s idea of verification, we better brush up on our “verifying” skills, as it appears we aren’t very good at it.

North Korea showed a visiting American nuclear scientist earlier this month a vast new facility it secretly and rapidly built to enrich uranium, confronting the Obama administration with the prospect that the country is preparing to expand its nuclear arsenal or build a far more powerful type of atomic bomb.

Even more amazing, Seigfried S. Hecker, our visiting nuclear scientist, although “stunned” by the development he saw didn’t even bother to mention it to any of Big Guy’s little people until a few days ago! I guess he was “stunned.”

Anyway, all of this has me wondering if eliminating more of our nukes is such a good idea now that North Korea is apparently re-STARTing all on their own, and Iran is just getting STARTed.

And again, exactly how do we inspect Russian’s nuclear arsenal in order to verify that they are destroying their nuclear warheads? Say they, hypothetically speaking, decide to “strategically relocate” the warheads to North Korea? Or Iran. BO continues:

"If the Senate doesn't act this year after six months, 18 hearings and nearly a thousand questions answered; it would have to start over from scratch in January."

I rather think that was the whole point of the November 2 message, which stunned a lot of people too.

Anyway, I like the whole idea of “trust, but verify” butt Big Guy’s administration hasn’t even figured out how to verify birth certificates yet.  As it stands now, you have to have a lot more inspected and “verified” when you want to get on an airplane than when you want to be president.

tsa-breast-grope

Butt moving on to more important issues, I note that many of you have commented on the horrible wighat Lady M wore when she went to see the hit Broadway play ‘Fela!’ 

FelaAB

To be precise, that’s not a wighat on MO’s head, its a hair fall.  Think of it as the ultimate in hair extensions, only none of the pesky weaving. Are you old enough to remember when falls were last hot, back in the 60’s? Carnegie Street, Twiggy, the Beatles, Jean Shrimpton?  Before complicated hair extensions and weaves there were falls. Much simpler: they just attached to your existing hair with little combs. Like this:

 minifall2 Big, long, straight hair instantly

jean-shrimpton-1Jean Shrimpton in 1966

 

shrimpton_Vogue1967October1-JeanShrimpton and on Vogue in 1967

And you probably thought she was just born with huge hair.

So anyway, it’s not a wighat, OK?  Just a really bad hair fall, improperly installed. Butt we were in a hurry to meet Patti LaBelle.

fela michelle_obama-split

The bottom half of the “fall” wasn’t installed properly either.

fela michelle_obama-split

Both MO and Bo will be focusing on various “nuclear” containment installations over the next few months.