tmp_f59497a75d8ceb820dc0aeddc2b436a0_SyoNZl.fixed.tidied

by Regolith (mobi)

  “Bush’s Plunder’n’Blunder foreign policy is so retarded it needs a special bus. I’ve seen guys who sucked before, and I’ve seen guys who really blow, but I’ve never seen a guy who can suck and blow at the same time. Foreigners haven’t hated America this much since we gave the world disco. He attacked the only country of the Axis of Evil without nukes. Iraq was so dangerous we conquered it in three weeks. Bush couldn’t conquer New Orleans in three weeks. They are either as dumb as they seem, or Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld constitute an Axis of Drivel. Some wars are unpopular; the rest are victorious.

  “The GOP is so unpopular that they are thinking of changing their name to the Dixie Chicks. So many Republicans are living in a state of denial that they’re gonna quality for their own senator. Our soldiers in Iraq are taking more hits than Rush Limbaugh after his maid scores big. Why have American casualties increased every year of Bush’s presidency? Because Bush never plans farther than his next vacation.

  “Bush can’t find any shame or decency, much less Osama bin Forgotten. Bush says he isn’t worried about Osama bin Laden – just like FDR didn’t worry about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, or the emperor of Japan. If I failed to catch the guy who murdered 2749 Americans, I’d make up crap, too. Bush let the only foreigner to attack continental America in two centuries get away – but not before helping Osama’s family escape the next day. The only ones not shocked that Bush isn’t doing more to capture Osama is the bin Laden family, who have invested in W’s companies since 1986. Talk about a Family Plan – Osama, a diabetic with an economics degree, has over fifty siblings, yet Bush still cannot reach out and touch him.

  “If Saddam had any WMD, he would have used them when we invaded. If Bush had any brains, he would have used them when we invaded. It’s hard for Bush to win hearts and minds since he has neither. A rock exudes greater self-reflection. Bush bragged to the Australian president that he was kicking ass in Iraq. Bush kick ass? Bush couldn’t beat the crap out of a dirty diaper. Bush seems to believe that Iraq will be free for only as long as he occupies it, and democratic for only as long as he tells them what to do. Those dead-enders are so far in their last throes that Bush can only briefly visit unannounced at night, while the Wipe-Israel-Off-The-Map Iranian leader can drive around in an open jeep before thousands of cheering Iraqis.

  “The irony? Bush majored in history while the president of Iran has a doctorate in traffic management.

  “We’ll stand down as they stand up? Republicans are one cliché away from their own sitcom. The only certainty in Iraq is that Bush will leave the mess for his successor to fix. Like Clinton, Bush won’t stop until he has shot his wad. Bush must love anal given how often he fucks up other people’s shit.

  “In Iraq, you are a coward if you leave and a fool if you stay. Watching Bush and Cheney wage war is like watching a tragic sequel to ‘Dumb and Dumber.’ A dumb president negates smart bombs. Never before Iraq have so few spent so much so fast for so long for so little. It turns out that the opposite of progress isn’t Congress, it’s this administration. After spending so many years repeating what doesn’t work, W figures it’s never too late to start procrastinating. Americans are bleeding in Iraq like the Treasury. The bottom line doesn’t get much lower. Bush wants to spread freedom and democracy so badly that he does not care how many ragheads he must kill to do it. Bush believes it’s not a sin to kill Muslims since they are going to Hell anyway.

  And, with Bush’s help, soon.

  “Bush has become so politically radioactive that the UN is sending WMD inspectors. If Bush wanted to sexually humiliate 26 million people who detested him, he could have saved money by invading New England. Waging war to establish peace is like raping women to instill virginity. Bush apparently is not trying to turn Iraq into America; he is trying to turn America into Iraq. Bush says he doesn’t believe in nation-building – and it shows. There are a thousand ways to tell the world to fuck off, and Bush is racing to say them all. Bush’s heart may be in the right place; it’s too bad his head is so far up his ass.

  “What do Republicans call Muslim suicide bombers who kill other Muslims? A two-fer. Some people borrow trouble; Republicans lend it with interest. At $12 billion a month, Republicans can’t even kill Muslims cost-effectively. In Iraq, those who make their constitution subservient to their religion are called Muslims. In America they’re called Republicans.

  “Bush’s date with destiny stood him up. Free elections in liberated Iraq took place only with the help of 200,000 heavily armed foreigners -- just the way our Founding Fathers intended. Millions of Shiites are happy that Bush got rid of Saddam Hussein. They live, however, in Iran. The Shiites writing the Iraqi Constitution have finally come up with a new name for Iraq. They’re gonna call it ‘western Iran’.

  “Bush has so much oil in his veins that he doesn’t mind all of the blood on his hands. He mistakes prejudices with convictions. When you pull foreign policy out of your ass, naturally it’s gonna be shitty. Peace in Iraq is taking longer than a Bush vacation.

  “American troops in Iraq are cleaning sewers, guarding pipelines, and directing traffic – all the things covered in boot camp. It’s nice to see the world’s most expensive military execute its core competencies. No wonder we’re paying half a trillion a year for our military. Bush believes America wins regardless of which Iranian-backed religious fundamentalist controls the government. In Iraq, Halliburton got a $32 billion gold mine while taxpayers got the shaft. Bush thinks adding 20,000 more troops four years too late resulted in clear progress, as opposed to, say, paying billions to the Sunni insurgents to stop killing us. I usually don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence, but it explains Bush so well. The only goal that Bush met in Iraq was regime change. After Bush invaded, Democrats swept Republicans from government.

  “Bush is so determined to create peace in the Middle East that he seems willing to kill everyone there to achieve it. Bush believes that anyone who isn’t a reborn Christians is going to Hell, so why not speed up their trip and trigger the Rapture at the same time? Bush’s perversion of Christianity makes him as indifferent to killing Muslims as Hitler was to killing Jews. Bush may not be the anti-Christ, but Christ would be anti-Bush.

  “There is an old saying that boat owners enjoy just two happy days -- the day they buy their boat, and the day they sell it. That is what the war in Iraq will be like.

  “This administration has more flaws than Microsoft Windows. The Bush White House is like a bad horror movie – every stupid action, no matter how predictable the consequences, is painstakingly acted out, with frequent screaming and lots of bloodshed. If you thought the original was bad, then you know the sequel sucks. The White House is getting so little done that people are starting to confuse it with Congress. The Bush White House has enough moral cripples to hold their own Special Olympics. Who knew the Keystone Cops were all Republican? America deserves an apology from this sorry administration.

  “With great power comes great responsibility – unless you’re Republican. Were you aware that your values aren’t good enough? That’s why the GOP wants to replace yours with theirs. Thank God small-town Republicans are not as morally depraved as big-city Democrats. The Democratic Party may be full of mice, but the Republican Party is run by dirty rats. How can Republicans honestly be against government? Politicians being anti-government is like teachers hating education, doctors slandering medicine, and cops hostile to laws.

  “The voter always wins – unless Republicans get their way. Republicans can only stay in power if they make reasonable ideas sound radical and make radical ideas sound reasonable. Why have Republican presidential candidates averaged less than 10% of the black vote over the last 50 years? Because the only time Republicans talk to black voters is when they challenge them at the polls. Republicans call their party ‘GOP’ because ‘KKK’ was already taken. No wonder only 11% of Republicans are non-white, compared to 27% of independents and 36% of Democrats.

  “Ameri
can justice should be blind, but Republicans prefer her deaf and mute. Republicans love deficits like Bill Clinton loves sex. Republicans believe all life is precious, unless it’s foreign, non-Christian, or brown-skinned. Republicans backed off privatizing Social Security so fast that they were practically moon-walking. The Republican future is so bleak that their only support is coming from Gothic fans. If Republicans keep churning out the same lame slogans, they won’t be spinning, they’ll be spamming. Why are Republicans in such pain? Because the truth hurts.

  “Not all Republican leaders are dangerous, ideological extremists. Some are secretly gay. If it weren’t for gay prostitutes and teenage male congressional pages, Republicans wouldn’t have any satisfying sex. Republicans have apparently traded the Big Tent for the Big Closet. Republicans believe that sex is only bad if you enjoy it. Republicans believe that politics is only dirty if you do it right. Republicans are against sex unless it screws minorities. The GOP is full of dicks, and I’m not talking about Nixon and Cheney. They believe that gay marriage is bad, but an orgy of special interest is okay. Republicans are owned by so many lobbyists that everyone in D.C. looks like they’re about to get laid, while everyone else looks like they’re about to get screwed.

  “Most Republican leaders are not monsters. Most Republican leaders are cruel, corrupt, secretive, unaccountable, lying, greedy, selfish, power-hungry, self-righteous sanctimonious hypocrites. The rest of them are monsters. There is a rift within the party of Lincoln between those who want to screw all of the people some of the time, and those who want to screw some of the people all of the time. With plummeting approval numbers, Republicans act like their reality check is about to bounce.

  “Jesus says the meek will inherit the Earth, which rules out Republicans. Imposing rigid reactionary Southern values upon the rest of the country leaves them no time for anything else, like winning wars and rebuilding American cities. Republican pollution-promotion policies have heated up so much global warming that minorities, veterans, and the poor flock to DC just to get the cold shoulder. And remember: no one pissed off Jesus more than hypocrites. Good thing those fiscally responsible, small-government, limited-spending, get-government-out-of-our-lives, humble foreign policy makers are living up to their principles.

  “Republicans complain that immorality keeps them on their toes, but I suspect the kinky bastards secretly enjoy it. Republicans hate dirty sex but love dirty money. Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff alone conned American Indians out of $80 million. Republicans don’t like porn – unless acted out by naked Iraqi men on dog leashes. Republicans sure are prude when they are not sexually humiliating naked civilians. It’s no coincidence that Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay looks like a big, fat Hitler without the mustache.

  “Republicans represent traditional American family values, like the young should abandon the old, the healthy should abandon the sick, and the rich should abandon the poor. The Bible says that you can either serve God or Mammon -- Republicans serve Mammon. How do you know Republicans are near-sighted? Because they can’t see any middle ground. Truth, shame, decency – Osama bin Forgotten is not the only thing Republicans cannot find. Republicans are against cloning because their candidates are already exact copies. Deficits are a Republican aphrodisiac – what else can explain their excitement in bankrupting the country? My dog must be a Republican: he’s always barking up the wrong tree, pretending to be tough, and peeing on my property.”

  16

  Jackson couldn’t believe that Cooper was fucking with him like this, yet knew he had to tread carefully.

  “I am not really building spaceships. My father just wanted to get more accurate details on how much they would cost. It’s really just an academic thing at this point.”

  Which was two truths followed by one big lie.

  “But why, Henry? I know you. You don’t do things without a reason. And anything that costs $100 billion must be worth a hell of a lot more than that. What billion-dollar business are you cooking up?”

  Ah, money. Cooper was obsessed with money, since he himself had none. Born poor, raised poor, like Nixon he was permanently scarred by poverty. Like George Bernard Shaw, he believed that lack of money was the root of all evil. Cooper had always seemed envious of his ability to make money. Maybe he was embarrassed that his investment manager wife supported him in the rich lifestyle he wanted to deserve. Well, hell, that’s why he married her. His father-in-law owned a bank.

  “Dan, you ungrateful fuck, I’m making you and your campaign millions. Your wife she has been shorting everything she can get her broker’s hands on. I cut you in on the action and you pay me back by shutting me out.”

  Gratitude was a core Jackson value because he believed that those who appreciate their blessings continue to be blessed, and those who do not, do not.

  “Ah, shit, Henry. Don’t get started on that again.”

  Cooper was dead tired of Jackson urging him to short stocks. For the last few months Jackson was telling anyone who would listen to short, short, short. Cooper let his wife, the investment banker, handle all that crap. Cooper just couldn’t buy all the doom and gloom that Jackson and his father were selling. As long as the main body missed, we would recover, and everyone but Jackson agreed that the asteroid was not going to crash into us.

  So what the fuck was everyone freaking out about? Not a day passed without another city overwhelmed by food riots. Governors, himself included, were forced to deploy the national guard because too many cops were quitting right when people needed them the most. Unlike cops, soldiers cannot quit. They can run, but not quit.

  Everywhere Cooper looked, it seemed like the world had lost its freakin’ mind. And the Jacksons were the most to blame. Sure, evacuate the coasts, like he did as best as he could in Texas, but get some perspective, people.

  “I’m running for president!” Cooper wanted to scream. “Reporters should report stuff besides the fucking asteroid!”

  Astronomers first saw the Rock pass in front of Mars over a year ago, but it remained just a curiosity outside of the space community because it would not come close to Earth. But its orbit changed dramatically at perigee last September, when it passed closest to the Sun. Although it missed the Sun by 30 million kilometers, that extra heat torched frozen liquids that resulted in massive out-gassing, like explosive mountaintop removal by coal companies. The thrust from these explosions changed its orbit such that it would miss Earth by just several million kilometers. Huge news for the space community. As Gabrielle raced from the Sun, a plume of dust and rock thousands of miles long trailed it, much like millions of miles of gas follow a comet.

  Or, put in layman terms, the Rock farted.

  Using the world’s most powerful laser ranger, Jackson’s father had accurate positional data far sooner than the rest of the world’s astronomers, who had to take positional measurements over many days with radio telescopes, since optical and infrared scopes don’t work Sun-ward. The greater the stakes, the harder it is to reach a consensus because being wrong can be fatal.

  Hence, the professor was the first to conclude that the asteroid “fart” would carpet bomb our stratosphere like Dresden, riddling everything in orbit. Like, say, satellites. But alarming the public would have been irresponsible without other prominent astronomers backing him up, and they all wanted more time. So the director of Spacewatch had to wait for the rest of the space community to catch up.

  But just because he couldn’t warn the public didn’t mean he couldn’t warn his family.

  Few stock analysts appreciate how satellite-dependent the developed world had become. But his son did. Jackson and his wife immediately traveled the world opening accounts at every major and minor brokerage in every market possible, even small regional financial markets like Singapore and Dubai. He pledged everything he owned, which included several multi-billion dollar companies, as collateral to maximize how much leeway they would give him on his margin accounts. Which is why he brought the wife, who nee
ded to sign off on using deed, title, and corporate ownership papers to maximize his leverage.

  They also applied for the biggest possible loan or line of credit from every lender they could find, pledging that very same collateral. Which is illegal since there would be no clear title if he defaulted. Business loans, personal loans -- he didn’t care. He maxed out credit for himself, his family, his companies, and Democratic organizations like the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, and DGA.

  Although he referred to their trip as their “second honeymoon”, he expected to score more than just trim.

  Before they traveled, he formed a hedge fund called The Great Bear where he sent all this cash and through which he would place all of his trades (hedge funds are only taxed at 15%). Naturally he never told those giving him loans that he intended to gamble with their money.

  With tens of billions in his hedge fund account, the Great Bear borrowed the maximum possible from major lenders who were impressed that Jackson could raise so much cash so quickly, never guessing that all the money was his. Ponzi-like, the more borrowed money he poured into his hedge fund, the more loans the hedge fund qualified for. A billionaire securing the loans against everything he owned minimized the risk.