The world’s most wanted man and the world’s most unwanted man
were scurrying for cover in August. The world’s most wanted man,
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, left his stronghold in Tripoli,
fulminating threats and forgetting his tooth brush, to hole in a
secure place under a rug in the desert. Meanwhile his daughter,
Aisha, gave birth to her fourth child on August 30 in Algeria. As
for the world’s most unwanted man, President Barack Obama, he left
his safe house on Martha’s Vineyard to show up on the evening of
August 27 at a chaired meeting of the littleknown National Response
Coordination Center (NRCC), where he presented himself to the
American people as the Weather President and commanded the
inclement elements to heal. It was his answer to events that took
place during the extraordinary week of August 21. The week began
with a rare East Coast earthquake, which measured 5.8 on the
Richter scale near Washington and left cracks in the Washington
monument, and continued with a hurricane roaring up the East Coast
August 26 with 115 mph winds and rain. As this magazine has warned
many times before, it is long since time to get Mother Nature
before she gets us. The Weather President indeed! On August 30 he
ambushed the Republicans by asking to appear before a joint session
of Congress on September 7 to unveil his jobs plan and — who
knows? — display some tomatoes from Mrs. Obama’s garden. Within
hours he had to back down and accept the Republicans’ invitation
for the next day, opening day for the National Football League. Our
President’s puniness continues to shrink.
In Santa Cruz, California, what had been thitherto thought to be
a very old barbecue site is now being claimed as a 6,000-year-old
burial ground belonging to some long defunct American Indian tribe.
Having discovered what they say is a partial skull or mandible of
an ancient American Indian, protesters want construction halted at
the California housing development that would have created 32
homes, all with indoor plumbing. Now the protesters want the area
returned to its original sylvan condition. “All Cemeteries Are
Sacred,” read one protestor’s sign, and “No Bulldozers On Sacred
Ground,” read another. Well, a barbecue pit is a pretty sacred
thing too, and there were never any disgusting low-down protesters
mulling about when the dump was just a barbecue pit. Lock those
protesters up, and throw away the key. Progress marches on! In
Rockhampton, Australia, investigators remain stumped as to how a
simple portable toilet, complete with toilet paper and graffiti,
could suddenly be weaponized at an antipodean air base and blow an
unsuspecting occupant sky high. The turbulence occurred when a
member of the Australian Air Force availed himself to the
facilities, and kaboom. All hell broke loose. Presumably the Aussie
lit a cigarette, igniting methane gas, which had accumulated in the
belly of the beast. Yet there was no “No Smoking” sign posted, and
where else is one to get a smoke nowadays? In sports news, former
NBA great Mr. Javaris Crittenton has been charged with murder after
an August 19 drive-by shooting, and the St. Louis Cardinals ace
outfielder, Matt Holliday, had to leave a game with the Los Angeles
Dodgers when a moth entered his right ear and could not be
extricated.
Economic growth continues but at an anemic pace — good news for
the Europhile, President Barack Obama, but not so good for die-hard
capitalists in the hard-pressed private sector. On August 26 the
Commerce Department adjusted GDP growth for the second quarter down
from 1.3 percent to 1 percent, and the University of Michigan
consumer confidence index recorded the glummest level of consumer
sentiment since November 2008 — and we all know what happened in
November 2008: The brightest candidate since Mr. Millard Fillmore
was elected president of these United States. Still there is some
auspicious news. Health experts at Columbia University’s Mailman
School of Public Health predicted that half of all American men and
women will be obese by 2030 if current trends continue. On the
other hand, by 2030 the Mailman will probably be superannuated, and
a country filled with Grover Clevelands, William Howard Tafts, and
Chris Christies might be a very welcome sight even to health nuts.
A New York Judge dismissed sexual-assault charges against the
dropdead-beautiful ex-IMF chief, Mr. Dominique Strauss- Kahn. Now
that sex-crazed maniac is free to resume his political career,
running for the presidency of France and any cutie who happens to
cross his lumbering path. His alleged victim, Miss Nafissatou
Diallo, formerly a ravishing chambermaid at New York’s Sofitil
Hotel, is free to become a spokeswoman for the National
Organization for Woman, speaking on college campuses or at the
local rape crisis center, or possibly replacing Miss Barbara
Walters on The View, ABC’s public affairs program.
There is an opening at al Qaeda’s number 2 position. The opening
came when a CIA drone struck Mr. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman as he
apparently tried to flick an insect from his person. Mr. Rahman was
killed August 22 in scenic Waziristan, in the tribal northwest
region of Pakistan, where he presided over the remnants of al
Qaeda, knocking off local children’s lemonade stands and stealing
hubcaps. Al Qaeda has fallen on hard times since SEAL Team Six
turned its leader, the Rev. Osama bin Laden, into a large facsimile
of Swiss cheese. In Plymouth, England, Mr. Ryan Goodwin was given a
suspended sentence for throwing his girl friend Sarah Symons’s
championship hamster out the window of a public-housing apartment
where they apparently lived in an illicit sexual relationship.
Moreover, Mr. Goodwin has a $110 per week marijuana habit and
collects state benefits of $1,200 per month. District Judge Paul
Farmer barred Mr. Ryan from owning animals for seven long years,
even small insects. Said the judge, “If you hadbeen sent to prison
today you could have no complaint. What you did was disgraceful.”
Though possibly Mr. Ryan thought the hamster could fly. After all,
a weekly intake of $110 worth of cannabis do can wonders for the
imagination. Mr. Arturas Zuokas, the get-tough mayor of Vilnius,
Lithuania, has been filmed driving a huge armored vehicle across
the roof of an illegally parked Mercedes-Benz. Afterward the
no-nonsense mayor was filmed sweeping up glass from the wreckage
and riding off on a bicycle, suggesting he has an ulterior motive.
Is Mr. Zuokas another of those pestiferous bicycle riders?
President Barack Obama’s approval rating slipped to a historic
low of 38 percent, with 55 percent disapproving of him, according
to a Gallup poll. Meanwhile, Governor Rick Perry of Texas entered
the race for the Republican nomination, promptly pulling ahead of
former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. The oldest survivor of
the Bataan Death March, Mr. Albert Brown, died at age 105, and the
art world in Spring Hill, Tennessee, was in turmoil when one of its
masters, Mr. Danny Torroll, was arrested for engaging in sex with a
doll near the Allendale Elementary School. Mr. Torroll, the
celebrated headmaster of the Danny Torroll Skool of Music and Art,
said he was unaware that he was on school grounds and that he
suffers from attention deficit disorder that makes it impossible
for him to resist certain sexual impulses. His doll had holes
drilled into it but was otherwise unharmed. Mr. Torroll is
scheduled to appear in court September 2.
Finally there is more good news for the Obamas. President
Obama’s long-lost uncle, Uncle Omar, has been found. He was
arrested outside the Chicken Bone Saloon in historic Framingham,
Massachusetts, and he is an illegal alien — another first for the
Obamas! Only he comes from Kenya, not outer space.
