22 August 2003

Flood the Zone Fridays

Well – it’s been fun taking a little time off to spend with my baby. Thanks to all for the wonderful wishes sent her way! I've been, um, having a frelling wonderful time relaxing for a bit.

But it looks like things might be heating up again. The Rush Limbaugh transcription project has been malingering long enough. It feels like it’s time to get back into the zone over there soon. And there is excitement and more infotainment than you can shake a stick at coming on your horizon in the near future, gang. It’s almost time to let another cat out of the bag.

And almost time for me to get my order of chickenhawk cards – so I can hand them out to all my Blogathon contestant winners, and a few of my fellow bloggers.

Yes, it has been quite an interesting summer here at the Funny Farm. We begin another regular feature over here with our first letter to the editor in conjunction with Not Geniuses and the rest of the Fashionable Left Bank of BlogistanTM who are engaged in our first Flood the Zone Friday. A toast of the frosty mug from us to the rest of you!

Now, here’s my first contribution, about the Fiscal Irresponsibility of the Current Administration:


It has come to my attention that the mainstream media has glossed over and/or ignored the fiscal irresponsibility of the current administration. You should be informing your readers about a number of facts concerning the fiscal disaster currently in progress:

The current budget deficit (which does not include the costs of the war in Iraq) is by far the largest in the history of this country, and among the top 5 in percentage of GDP as well.

The 'Tax Cuts' which are the sole responsibility of the Republican House, the Republican Senate, and the Republican Administration, have not done anything to help the situation. A side effect of this piece of fiscal irresponsibility has been to rob the federal government of the ability to help ease the financial distress of individual states. Which are themselves going through unprecedented fiscal crises' of their own.

Unemployment rates have also gone to heights not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930's. The United States has lost almost 70,000 jobs during every month of the current administration. When you also hear that the U.S. Republican Party has outsourced their fund raising campaign to a foreign country, this drain on our nation's economy becomes particularly galling. How can the party that claims to be concerned with it’s constituents' woes hand over their jobs to foreigners?

You should devote more of your resources towards bringing vital information of this nature to the people. Isn't that what responsible journalism is all about?

Regards,

(: Tom :)
The Funny Farm


BTW, that is a pseudonym, and not the signature on the letter. If it appears in any of the papers I sent it to, you will have a chance to find out my real name. Next time, I’ll try and post my letter a little earlier in the day, so as to provide a little more inspiration when it is needed. And I do hope to get better at this. Some others seem to be quite prolific and inspirational from our perspective.

Speaking of which - I would love to feature Marc Parkel’s letters to the editor, but I see that he is doing it himself on his blog right now. So I suppose I should point out that he is now over in the Links Zone twice, once for his main site, and once for his blog. I suggest you visit there from time to time. You never know what you might find!

And there's some new Brew and some new CrimQuips and a new Mad Kane parody and Atrios is a fantastic source of information as always and all is well with the world! I'm so happy sometimes, I can't even stand myself...

Random guerilla blogging from various undisclosed locations in the North American Midwest may take place in the near future. Come here for the blog updates, but stay until you've worked your way through the links zone. You'll be glad you did!

20 August 2003

Happy Birthday to my Baby

I just wanted to let you know – my significant other celebrates her 29th birthday (again!) today. So I will be away from the Fashionable Left Bank of BlogistanTM for a while.

Don over at Blah3 also celebrated a birthday yesterday, and my ma and my sis are going to be a year older in the coming week as well. So I’d like to extend the birthday congrats to all of them, too.

And, yes, I’m still wading through the Fair and Balanced excellence from last Friday. I like the way The Mighty (Fair and Balanced) Pen shows us all that O’Really?’s hypocrisy gets in the way of calling Al Franken a hypocrite.

(Irony Alert! Irony Alert! Irony Al- smash! 'I thought I fixed that already...')

Sorta like the way O’Really? said (paraphrased by the Funny Farm) : ‘You can see that this idiot has to resort to calling names in order to make his point. He’s a Vicious – with a capital V – person. And he shouldn’t have spoken for an extra hundred minutes – you shut up, you’ve had your turn!’

18 August 2003

Day Seven Hundred

Did you ever think we would be able to say that, after the greatest attack on American soil in our lifetimes (so far) , it would take this long to find one man? Especially if you had the resources of the government of the United States of America, and a highly motivated populace, at your disposal.

But, if instead of an elected (cough) politician, you had a pinhead who has the audacity to take a third month long siesta while the new Rome burns, well, then... you’d be waiting for **day 730** – the second anniversary of the snipe bin Laden hunt.

I'm still wading through the Fair and Balanced stuff, but I wanted to make mention of SKB's and uggabugga’s cartoons (and the rest of their Fairly Well Balanced Friday offerings), and the creative ratcheting up of the quality content I've seen so far. It appears a fun time was had by many!

So it could very well be Fair and Balanced Week at the Funny Farm. Stay tuned for furthur development...

17 August 2003

Fairly Unbalanced Coverage is Everywhere!

It appears that there are close to six hundred Fair and Balanced breakouts on the web.

I think I have a few places to check out. I’ll be back in a while...

Fairly Unbalanced Coverage Update: Having experienced the joys of many of the contenders for the coveted Armpit of Ontario title over the years, I read this story (after laughing at this poem) with great interest. Then I see that the Armpit of America is sponsored by Old Spice. And links and links and links to them from the armpit of America’s webpage. And, really, how cheesy is that?

So I feel kind of glad to point out the lovely garden locations of Wawa, and Wallaceburg, Ontario. Some might be aware of their claims to be Ontario's Armpit (or others claims that they are the armpits of Ontario. Amd others might not feel convinced that Wallaceburg still qualifies. Because, these days, Wallaceburg has been swallowed up by the 'municipality' of Chatham-Kent. So Ontarians everywhere have to find another contestant for the title (co-title? I think there needs to be two 'winners' for this supreme 'honor'). Nominations would be welcome. Or even some reasons that Wawa should not be considered one of the Armpits of Ontario (if you can think of any).

And we wonders, oh yes we wonders, where oh where is the other armpit of America?