Fair And Balanced

With everything going on this past week, needless to say, I fell behind in the stuff I usually do, well I finally got around to reading last weeks Dave Barry's weekly column, aptly called:Wilma, Rita, Katrina: No matter how you stack it up, 2005 blew This years is particularly hilarious as he makes fun of politicians, politics and basically everything of significance that happend last year. I want to highlight a few excerpts:

Politics

Of course not all the alarming stories from 2005 involved women. Some of them involved men, and at least one of those men was named ''Scooter.'' I'll be honest: I don't really know who ''Scooter'' is, or what he allegedly did. He's involved in one of those Washington-D.C.-style scandals that are very, very important, but way too complicated for regular non-Beltway humans to comprehend. You try to read a Scooter story, and next thing you know, you're emerging from a coma weeks later with spiders nesting in your ears. But whatever Scooter allegedly did, it was bad. We know this because pretty much all the news this year was bad.

. . . when President George W. Bush is sworn in for a second term, pledging in his inauguration speech that, over the next four years, he will continue, to the best of his ability, trying to pronounce big words. In a strongly worded rebuttal, the Democratic leadership points out that, when you get right down to it, there IS no Democratic leadership.

. . . President Bush, in a decisive response to sharply rising gasoline prices, delivers a major speech proposing that Americans switch to nuclear-powered cars. In a strongly worded rebuttal, angry congressional Democrats state that, because of a scheduling mix-up, they missed the president's speech, but whatever he said, they totally disagree with it, and if they once voted in favor of it, they did so only because the president lied to them.

In other Washington news, the U.S. Senate approves the appointment of John Negroponte to become the nation's first intelligence czar. His immediate task is to locate his office, which, according to a dossier compiled by the CIA, FBI, NSA and military intelligence, is, quote, ''probably somewhere in the United States or Belgium.''

Also heating up in November is the debate over Iraq, with even Vice President Dick Cheney joining in, fueling rumors that he is still alive. President Bush makes a series of strong speeches, stating that while he ''will not impugn the patriotism'' of those who oppose his administration's policies, they are ''traitor scum.'' This outrages congressional Democrats, who respond with a two-pronged strategy of (1) demanding that the troops be brought home, and (2) voting overwhelmingly against a resolution to bring the troops home.

And he has some other funny relevent quotes on other things...

In sports, Lance Armstrong rides down the Champs-Elysées, raising his arms in a triumphant gesture, which causes the French army to surrender instantly. No, sorry; that was a cheap shot. One unit held out for nearly an hour.

On the social front, Prince Charles gets formally engaged to Camilla Parker Bowles. The British public responds with sincere and heartfelt wishes that the happy couple will not reproduce.

In sports, the Super Bowl is held for the first time in Jacksonville. Defying critics who mocked it as a backwater hick town, Jacksonville manages to host a fine event, marred only by the 143 spectators killed or wounded during the halftime raccoon shoot.

In economic news, financially troubled Delta Airlines announces that it will no longer offer pillows on its flights, because passengers keep eating them. But the economy gets a boost when the jobless rate plummets, as hundreds of thousands of unemployed cable-TV legal experts are hired to comment on the trial of Michael Jackson. Jackson is charged with 10 counts of being a space-alien freakadelic weirdo. Everybody agrees this will be very difficult to prove in California.

n a related story, a California jury finds that actor Robert Blake did not kill his wife. The jury also rules that John Wilkes Booth had nothing to do with the Lincoln assassination, and that bears do not poop in the woods. In other celebrity legal news, Martha Stewart is released from prison. The next morning, in a chilling coincidence, all of the witnesses who testified against Martha wake up and discover, to their utter horror, that their sheets no longer match their pillowcases.

This column had me in tears, I recommend reading it because it is funny regardless if your a Democrat or Republican. He skewers everyone regardless of his own personal politics which is the way comedians should be. Al Franken should take lessons...and I leave you with his parting message

So, OK, we're doomed. But look at the upside: If humanity becomes extinct, there's a chance that Paris Hilton will, too. So put on your party hat, raise your champagne glass, and join with me in this festive toast: Happy New Year!