Deedle deedle dee

Wubba wubba wubba.

-- That's about all I hear whenever W talks anymore. Nothing he says makes a lick of sense. Their actions however, speak louder than any focus-grouped words. Spending $50 million dollars on an inauguration and 10 (ten!) balls while the military is looking at high school band camp chocolate sales with envy? You don't need a flight-suit-to-English dictionary for that one.

Contest results:

We went around on this, but I had to go with an entry that had a surprising (though undoubtedly unintentional) bit of nostalgia for me.

Don't worry Doug-bot help is at hand, because for only two thousand dollars I will fix you up with a lobotomy and a shotgun. Book now and receive a stylish trucker cap to hide any scars, still not convinced? Just read the testimonies taken from two previously sane Americans after they had the treatment:

I voted for George W Bush because the Democrats spent all their time attacking the President, and not telling the country how they would do anything different. Bush has turned the recession into a growing economy, and is keeping us safe from terrorism. That's worth my vote any day.
Joe Brassard, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

I voted for Bush because he is an honourable man who makes decisions based on principles, not polls and a man who can be taken at his word. Unfortunately, this seems to be a rarity among politicians.
Cathy Jones, Bayonet Point, Florida

So don't delay have your brain removed today.

Tom Smith, you are a winner! Our mail robot will be e-mailing you shortly.

But why would any robot have nostalgia for lobotomies, you ask? Well, let this giant robot tell you a story...

It was seventh grade, and I was a young robot in programming class. Our teacher, Mr. Daniel, was instructing us on the history of computers using an AppleBASIC program he'd written for the Apple ][. This program asked a series of questions and gave a response based on how many you got right.

My two passions as a child were LEGO and computers, and so after finishing the test I started poking through the source code. One value caught my eye--the message for what would happen if you got less than 3 of 20 correct. It urged you to study harder.

What's the fun of looking at code unless you change something to see if it works? I edited that phrase. The new version?

You need help because you're a moron.

I saved the changes and returned the disk to its holder. (Ah, 5 1/4" floppies, how we miss you so.)

The next class, Mr. Daniel is slowly turning an exacto knife in his hands, talking about what a frontal lobotomy is, what it does, and how if anybody ever did a thing like he'd done the last class, he'd get one right across the forehead. (The girl right after me in that class did, in fact, get my message right off the bat.)

So a fun story as the clock winds down on the Bush presidency. We're in a new Gilded Age, only without the drinking and jazz.