THE FLUB-A-DUB AWARD

Repeat winners

November. Man, this month went by in a hurry. November 16 brought our first snow and cold temperatures. Gee, isn’t life just great.

Thanksgiving. I like Thanksgiving. I like any holiday that features food. I think there should be at least ten other holidays where the main object is to eat enough to make yourself so miserable that you can’t do anything but sit on the couch and watch football.

The snow wasn’t the only thing flying in November. The Flubs were everywhere. I’m still wondering why everyone in the world wants to open a shopping center in Galesburg? Maybe the unemployment checks are higher than I think. I can’t believe some of the stores being talked about. Menard's, Best Buy, Pier I Imports, Kohl's. I tell you, I can’t wait. To hell with the people at Lincolnshire. I didn’t hear them complaining about the shopping center proposed on Seminary Street. In fact, I think the whole works should go over to Lincolnshire. The Lincolnshire Shopping Centre. And I’m still thinking about opening up a hip-boot manufacturing centre across the street at the old Jack's building, cause the bull just continues to get deeper and deeper.

And how about that FEMA? You talk about efficiency. I’ve heard of about a dozen contractors who have made millions of dollars already. Trailers sold that are still sitting in parking lots; $2500 dollar tarps put on roofs; $100 an hour labor charges; and shysters buying up property for less than a quarter of the market value. Now they are about to kick people out of their temporary housing, which has probably been a major ripoff by the motel chains. It is said that there are groups of people living on cruise ships. Hopefully, that is just some of the lore developing. The incompetence shown by FEMA is probably going to reach biblical proportions. This fiasco will be way beyond Flubbing. It will be gargantuan.

Alas, November’s Flub once again goes to President Bush and VP Cheney. Here are two guys with such inflated egos that they can’t distinguish reality from their make-believe kingdoms. Bush loudly, and as usual, with five-word sentences, defends himself and his administration, after being caught in outright lies about his reason for attacking Iraq, who, as it turns out, had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction. This appears to be some Karl Rove strategy: Just yell loud enough that you are being wronged by liberals, and your right-wing friends will blindly rally to support you. Then he rushes off to China and scolds them for not being more like Taiwan. There’s a smooth diplomatic move. Of course, they just laugh and tell him to go away, which more and more of the world seems to be catching onto. And VP Cheney scolds Democrats for attempting to spoil his world conquest campaign. He calls war critics “dishonest” and “reprehensible.” I’m not surprised he knows such words, I suspect he’s heard them often enough. This guy is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, and more evil than The Exorcist. He is clearly the ringleader in the Bush administration's push to use torture as a weapon against terrorists. Giving these boobs The Flub-A-Dub Award is the least I can do. They deserve to be branded the world's most notorious terrorists. If this is the type of leadership we are to get in the new millennium, we’re screwed.