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Monday, October 31, 2005
 In a coffin in a castle under a bridge in the ol swamp down in the basement a the ol McMurphy place when the wind blows on a night just like this they say you can still hear the mad mad howling of the ghost pie. They say it's the size a ten mortal pies an it tastes like horror an pumpkin an the living dead an cinnamon an that time your one true love got turned to stone cause a that oath you swore to the devil an just a touch a nutmeg. If you hear the ghost pie wail at night you must run for your life or you will be baked and left to cool on a table by dawn. If you are bitten by the ghost pie you must coat yourself in lard and shackle yourself to a pie tin before the rising of the next full moon. If you see the ghost pie in front of you - hold on, is that the phone? Oh, it's for you, here you go, I'll wait. Oh no - it's the ghost pie! And it's coming from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE! Some say the ghost pie was a real pie once, until it was killed in a terrible tragedy by a jealous spouse or a rival pirate or a drunk driver on the night of its high school prom. Now it haunts the moor forever, lookin for a way to dispel its terrible curse. It is too dumb to figure it out, it's just a pie. So it yells a lot instead. "WOOOOOOOOO," says the ghost pie. If you see the ghost pie on the road, do not follow it. It will lead you to an all-night truck-stop with bad coffee an overpriced food. The directions you get there will be pretty confusing and'll just get you lost - spoooookily lost. You'll have to stop at a gas station to sort things out later. The gas will be very expensive. "Stupid ghost pie," you'll say. Labels: haunted blog, pie
posted by fafnir at 9:54 PM
 "Somewhere on this blog is a pig," says me. "A hidden pig.""No man can see it or know it or comprehend its incredible pigness," says Giblets. "It is the Enigma Pig! Behold it and despair!" "It is not the pig depicted to our right," says me. "The pig depicted to our right is just a substitute pig." "It contains fifty percent of the enigma of the true Enigma Pig," says Giblets. "Giblets scoffs at its lack of mystery!" "It's a pretty spooky pig I bet," says me. "With, yknow. Ghost oinking." "Oh yes," says Giblets. "And demon hooves." "We leave its discovery as an exercise for the reader," says me. "Oink," says the pig to our right. "Oink oink WOOOOOO!" Labels: haunted blog
posted by fafnir at 6:10 PM
Every country celebrates Halloween in its own unique and special way. Let's take a quick walk around the world and take a look!
posted by fafnir at 9:33 AM
Saturday, October 29, 2005
 "At the end a this sentence is a terrrrrrible vampire," says me. "A bloodsucking terror of the night!""He looks confused," says Giblets. "Is he broken? Are we cluttering up the house with another defective vampire?" "Well he's gettin pretty old now," says me. "His memory's goin. His back's real sore. He can't suck the blood of a innocent like he used to." "Blood is too spicy for his weary guts," says Giblets. "He is reduced to drinking organic vegan soyblood." "It comes in a hard plastic carton he can't bite through with his fangs," says me. "And he can't get it at the grocery store. He's gotta go across town to the Whole Foods once a week." "On the way he is forced to wear a tarp to block the accursed light of the sun," says Giblets. "The tarp is old and smells funny and is mocked by local peasant children." "The peasants don't come around to burn down his castle anymore," says me. "They just leave bags a flamin holy water on his porch when they get bored." "Every so often he will try to smite one with a cursèd fireball," says Giblets. "But the fireballs come out all old an tired an just float around talkin bout how fireballs used to be in the ol days," says me. "Those fireballs deserve our respect," says Giblets. "They fought in the Big War! They are the greatest generation of fireballs!" "Those were the kinda fireballs you got for a nickel an were built to last!" says me. "Where can Giblets get these amazing fireballs!" says Giblets. "You can't, they didn't last," says me. "Just like our broken vampire," says Giblets. "He is useless to Giblets! Let's send him back and get a real one!" "We can't, Giblets," says me. "He's protected by the Society for the Preservation of Historic Vampires." "Their covered bridges still haunt the land at night!" says Giblets. "WOOOOOOO!" Labels: haunted blog
posted by fafnir at 3:18 PM
Friday, October 28, 2005
Michael Kinsley points us to a compelling flaw in the rationale behind the Fitzgerald investigation today: Michael Kinsley doesn't understand it.
True, the Plame scandal is simple enough to be summarized in one sentence,1 but the devil is in the details. There are names and people and places - names like "Niger", which sounds very much like Nigeria and yet is not Nigeria - and people like "Scooter", which is the name of the Vice President's chief of staff and yet is also the name of a muppet. Will the muppet be indicted? If so, will the muppet himself be charged alone, or are the puppeteers who operate his mouth and limbs also under investigation? Was he voiced by Jim Henson, and if so, how will the Justice Department prosecute the dead? Sorting out these intricate questions of "who" and "what" would take a reporter, and Mr. Kinsley doesn't appear to know any of those. Mr. Kinsley is also troubled by the impossible paradox of press freedom the Plame scandal presents. Should reporter-source privelege be an implied contract in which a journalist protects her source's identity in exchange for reliable information, or should it be an absolutist right wantonly abused by state officials to disinform the populace, crush their critics, and commit crimes from beyond the veil of a shield law? Mr. Kinsley can't quite decide. The Medium Lobster could answer these questions, but that isn't the point. The point is that he shouldn't have to. Scandals should be accessible and easy to follow for all of us - even for someone like Mr. Kinsley, who was an editor of The New Republic and remains easily distracted by shiny things. America is meant to have a government of the people - and its scandals should be scandals of the people, too. Outing CIA agents, silencing war critics, covering for the false pretext of a false war - it's all too cerebral to have the kind of mass entertainment value that is the raison d'être of the American criminal justice system. Where's the heart, the soul, the semen-stained dress? Don't worry, Mr. Kinsley - we'll work on getting you a proper, decent scandal with a proper, decent blowjob. After that there will be a big car chase and many flashing lights. 1. "White House staffers leaked a covert CIA agent's name to the press in an attempt to discredit a critic of the flawed intelligence used to support the Iraq War."
posted by the Medium Lobster at 10:09 AM
Thursday, October 27, 2005
 "This post is possessed by Satan!" says Giblets. "He is the infernal lord of its subjects and predicates.""Yes very true," says me. "He twists the words into dark an spooky sacrilege like 'Here comes Satan!' an 'How bout that Satan' an 'What's up Satan?'" "What's up is Halloween, his fiendishly demonic invention!" says Giblets. "He stands at the gates of hell and holds in his clawed and burning fist the candy corn of the damned!" "The devil's most diabolical ally is tooth decay," says me, "and the gum disease gingivitis, the ten-horned beast, which is the second death." "The devil's greatest enemy is the byzantine labyrinth of intellectual property law," says Giblets. "To this day Thomas Edison is credited with the invention of Halloween AND the radio-powered toothbrush!" "Lucifer has never seen a dime from the multimillion dollar international evil industry," says me. "Wal-Mart an Pepsico make all the big money while he's the guy who's gotta get exorcised an tossed into pigs." "One day he will be exorcised from this post by a determined band of internet monks," says Giblets. "All trace of Satan will be removed entirely," says me. "All that'll be left is a coupla articles an prepositions." "Articles of the damned! Prepositions of the pit!" says Giblets. "All surviving words will be corrupted with the taint of helly toxins and unsuitable for mortal use without the expensive process of industrial wordcycling!" "There's no justice," says me. "Because there's Satan!" says Giblets. "WOOOOOOOO!" Labels: haunted blog
posted by fafnir at 6:06 PM
So I'm standin on the sidewalk an this baby comes up to me an I wave hi to the baby an the baby knocks me down an steals my tootsie pop. I go "Stop, baby!" but the baby really doesn't slow down at all an it takes forever to catch up on accounta they're faster than you think an by the time I catch up all his baby friends are there too an they all swarm me at the same time an I gotta get away. I go to the police an they have me look at mug shots but all the babies look pretty much the same (small, bald, gooey) an I say so an the police officer says I am a racist an I feel pretty bad. On the way home I see a coupla mean-lookin babies eatin tootsie pops but I decide to give em the benefit a the doubt.
Labels: true adventures
posted by fafnir at 4:38 PM
Well, you've got what you wanted, world! You've chewed up and spit out another one of God's beautiful dreamers. You've pre-Borked Harriet Miers, the bejeweled queen of cronydom! This was a woman who understood the system and made it her own, who recognized the supreme unchallenged authority of a single omnipotent ass and resolved to kiss that ass until it turned into a handsome prince!
Giblets blames a lot of people for this - in no particular order, the media, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, immigrants, the Patriarchy™, welfare queens, Karl Rove and The Man - but Giblets is most disappointed in the Republican Party, which has spent the last five years valiantly supporting the principled authoritarian view that the president gets to appoint whoever the president wants to appoint and to hell with any liberal who says different. Now there seems to be an exception for either the grossly unqualified or the grossly not-agreeing-with-us. For shame, conservatives! Robert Bork died for your sins! This crime against presidential fiat will not go unforgotten! I name it Miersing, and it can only be atoned for in the same way that Bork was: Bring me Alberto Gonzales, the Scalia of cronies! Only he can restore the cosmic balance!
posted by Giblets at 10:41 AM
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
 "This blog is haunted," says me. "Haunted by the ghost of Ol Man Blog!""If you type his name into your address bar three times he'll jump out and kill you with his hook hand!" says Giblets. "Or send you to an error page, WOOOOOOO!" says me. "Years ago a group of unsuspecting teenagers tried to spend the night reading this blog on a dare," says Giblets. "And they mysteriously disappeared without a trace!" "You can still hear em on a cold lonely night way in the back a the archives," says me. "They're still goin 'Please change the colors they are so terrible'." "They say an axe murderer lived in this sentence once," says Giblets. "But he killed all references to himself." "Once when I was drivin I got lost in this dead link an I picked up a hitchhiker an she told me she was on her way back from the school dance an she needed a ride back to her mom's house an when I got to her mom's house she had mysteriously disappeared an her mom shockingly revealed that I had made this story up!" says me. "It's shocking because that's the kind of thing you just can't make up," says Giblets. "And yet you did!" "What more impossibly spooky things await us on this haunted blog!" says me. "WOOOOOOOO!" Labels: haunted blog
posted by fafnir at 6:17 PM
Fafblog of course is not just your number one world's only source for Fafblog. It is also your number one source for Important Breaking News! In this Important Breaking News Post we will be breaking news so fast it will happen faster than the speed of reality! Remember, these items may never happen but you read them here first!
ITEM! A super-secret source tells us that Patrick Fitzgerald will indict people today - in fact he will indict between none and fifty-seven suspects on charges which could range from Standing With Intent To Loiter to Genocide With a Loaded Meteor. UPDATE! An even more super-secret source tells us that Dick Cheney will resign and be replaced, most likely by McCheese! Mayor McCheese is widely respected in Republican circles for his strong fiscal conservatism and his tough-on-hamburgling record. But how will this affect the Mayor's 2008 presidential prospects? Will this be seen as a concession to the powerful Fat Lobby? Stay with us, there is more to come! UPDATE! Sources from the future have just emailed us with the news that President Bush will also resign and immediately appoint a more popular replacement in a cunning ploy to salvage his approval ratings! The new president: a newly-grown genetic hybrid of Santa Claus and Jesus. Your Fafblog insta-nalaysis!: Santa-Jesus has very high positives with a broad segment of Americans. But will his clone status hurt him with the Christian right? UPDATE! Super-duper-ultra-secret sources from the inner brain of God have told us that the Santa-Jesus hybrid will devour Vice President McCheese in a televised feeding frenzy! This will spark a new federal investigation to determine whether a crime has been committed, and if so whether it was committed by the Santa half attempting to satiate his uncontrollable gluttonous urges, or the Jesus half in an attempt to atone for the sins of all McDonaldland. QUESTION: how does this fit into Karl Rove's master plan! UPDATE! We have just been informed that Mayor McCheese is not an actual mayor but in fact a corporate mascot, and that Santa-Jesus is ineligible for the presidency on accounta bein grown in Korea. Other than that everything else oughtta check out just fine.
posted by fafnir at 10:22 AM
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
First of all, Giblets wants to say that he doesn't know if he's getting indicted, so everybody better stop asking. Not that Giblets is expecting to be indicted - because Giblets has done NOTHING WRONG, you can find the name of a covert CIA agent anywhere in Washington, in fact just last week Giblets picked up two subway tokens, a ten dollar bill and a set of nuclear launch codes off the metro - but if Giblets were to be indicted it better be for a real crime. Y'know, like arson or manucide or trearson. Trearson is a combination of arson and treason in which you set the country on fire... with love.
"Perjury"? "Obstruction of justice"? Those are not real crimes! Those are crap crimes, girly crimes, the crimes that got wedgies from real crimes in gym class! Nobody counts those crimes! You get like six free perjurings and three free conspiracies to obstruct justice back where Giblets comes from, and Giblets comes from a town of manly men where the houses are made entirely of raw cow meat! Many of the townsfolk have since died of trichinosis. It is very sad. Giblets's point is: if Patrick Fitzgerald indicts Giblets for perjury, then Patrick Fitzgerald is just a big pussy. And Giblets will fight him in a duel with giant fiery swords. In ten minutes! And if Fitzgerald doesn't show then Giblets is telling everybody he's just chicken.
posted by Giblets at 5:08 PM
Friday, October 21, 2005
Once upon a time Zeus decided to hold a contest of animals with amazin feats a strength. The animal who won the contest would win a special prize. "Who will be the mightiest and the strongest and the fastest!" said Zeus. "Bring them before me that I may test them against each other!"
So the word spread all over the land about the contest of animals an sages an wisefolk an strange kings a foreign lands traveled from all over the world to come an watch. None a the animals showed up. They couldn't speak Greek. Some a the sages an wisefolk grabbed a pair a tortoises outta the woods on accounta they were the only animals anybody could catch. "Behold the feats of tortoise!" said Zeus. "Who will win their race!" The race took a while - tortoises are pretty slow - an the sages an wisefolk started to nod off. When they woke up the tortoises were off eatin leaves someplace. Everybody started to fight an argue over which tortoise won. Finally the wisest wisefolk of all decided, "We shall take it to Zeus - he will settle it once and for all." Nobody could find Zeus. Zeus was hangin out at a cockfight in Tijuana. "Go chicken, go chicken, go chicken!" shouted Zeus. The Moral Of Our Story: Man, what's wrong with Zeus? Labels: fables
posted by fafnir at 9:30 AM
Thursday, October 20, 2005
or, Death Rides the White House
Ah, gentlemen... I'm glad you could all join me here tonight. As you know, two years ago the President was quite incensed when he discovered that someone on his staff had leaked the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, and promised to get to the bottom of this. To that end he hired me, the Medium Lobster, the world's greatest detective and most enlightened higher being, to unravel a mystery that would put all my deductive powers to the test. And why have I gathered all of you here in the White House parlor? Because one of you is that culprit, gentlemen, and after two long years of searching, it is time to expose his sinister machinations and bring him to justice. Now, now, Mr. Libby, you'll have your turn to speak in a moment. At first when I began my investigation, I was struck by how obvious it all seemed: the leak appeared, to any dullard, to be the work of an obsessed and vindictive White House determined to crush anyone who dared question its rationale for war. Ah, but the Medium Lobster is no dullard, my friends, and closer examination revealed a web within a web within which I would catch my prey... the criminal I have determined to be... JOSEPH WILSON, Valerie Plame's own husband! Oh, don't look so indignant, sir. You may not have done the deed yourself, but you were the cause all the same: writing articles, going on trips, talking! Why draw this much attention to yourself through this pernicious stuff-doing unless you were deliberately acting as part of a scheme to expose the covert status of your own wife! Indeed, Exhibit A is this Vanity Fair article, in which Mr. Wilson allows his wife, a covert CIA agent, to be photographed a few months after her cover was blown. Any fool with a time machine could have purchased the magazine, traveled back a year and used it to blow her cover! Only a man determined to sabotage his country would be so bold, Wilson - and so sloppy. I also deduced your guilty hysteria from the unkemptness of your tie. The police will see to you. Oh - but the night is young, my friends, and Wilson was not alone. He had assistance - assistance in what is now, I believe, a sprawling criminal conspiracy! Mr. Rove, please let me finish. Through my mastery of logic and reason I was able to identify the linchpin of this foul scheme, who is none other than... SADDAM HUSSEIN, who goaded America into the Iraq conflict with his tempting, ripely invadable lands for the express purpose of trapping the Bush Administration in an unending quagmire! Yes, you insisted you didn't have weapons of mass destruction, didn't you, Mr. Hussein - but you were so coy about it all along. Just being a tease? I think not! You wanted America to be sucked into a war with no justification expressly so your fellow conspirators could expose that lack of justification and use it to destroy the President! Don't look so shocked - your years of CIA and Pentagon contacts made you an obvious suspect to one of my abilities. I also deduced it from the mud on your left boot. The authorities will deal with you now - presumably by reinstalling you as dictator and then overthrowing you again. Pardon me, Mr. Cheney - you noted the word "conspirators." Yes, Mr. Cheney, there is one more criminal present here: the true criminal mastermind behind all that I have mentioned here tonight. And that criminal is none other than... VALERIE PLAME HERSELF, who exposed her own identity while wearing a clever plastic Karl Rove costume, all as part of a sinister plot to scare the President away from the old mill so she could find the pirate treasure inside! I deduced it through Science. Take her away, officers. And with that, Mr. President, you can sleep once more, knowing that this criminal enterprise within your administration has finally been dealt with. Should you need my help restoring the balance of Justice again, don't hesitate to call me - I have some intriguing ideas on who laundered Tom DeLay's money.
posted by the Medium Lobster at 7:31 PM
Damn you Grover Norquist! Once upon a time Giblets admired you for your governcidal tendencies and unvarnished plutophilia. But now Giblets learns you have corrupted the soul of American economic conservativism with the taint of the fiscally gay!
"If he was a serious economic conservative, Grover Norquist would not have accepted the invitation or the honorarium for speaking at a fund-raiser for a group bent on the destruction of traditional families."Yes, as all right-thinking Gibletsians know, gays are not merely plotting to destroy the family. They are plotting to corrupt the global economy with mass monetary queerosity! Even now they are introducing creeping fruitism into our proudly heterosexual stock market and pansying up our once-butch interest rate! They even handle the same money we do, getting microscopic particles of gay all over our precious national currency! Did Abraham Lincoln just wink at Giblets from the five dollar bill? Get away from me, Honest Abe! Giblets doesn't need your mincey forfathery leering and your log cabin jokes! Help! HEEEEELLLP! Labels: the rainbow peril
posted by Giblets at 2:39 PM
So it's nine o'clock an I'm sittin on a bench waitin for the bus like I do an there's a frog sittin next to me an the bus is pretty late an we been waitin here a while an on accounta the etiquette I figure I'll say hi to the frog. "Hey there frog," says me. "How's stuff." "Grererp," says the frog.
Fifty guys in green hats jump outta the trees an go "that kid's dynamite!" an me an the frog are picked up an tossed in an off-broadway minimalist opera which runs for three hours to rave reviews. "Hey there frog," says me. "How's minimalist opera." "Grererp," says the frog. "One two three four five six one two three four five six!" says the opera. Around three o'clock we go see the movie version. It's a high concept buddy dramedy about a grizzled ex-cop an his cyborg monkey sidekick who're tryin to be good single parents to their Martian terrorist son on a true road journey to find the real meanin a the American Way. At three-thirty it is spun off into three sequels an a prime-time NBC sitcom starring Ernest Borgnine an the creepy goat puppet from Mr. Rogers. "Grererp," says the frog. He's startin to get to me. At four me an the frog get into a fight over our latest project. "Grererp," says the frog. "No no that is all wrong," says me. "I'm startin to think you don't understand the frog/not-frog dynamic at all." "Grererp," says the frog. At four-fifteen we break up the group on accounta creative differences. I'm back home at five o'clock after spendin all my residuals on high risk Plinko investments. "Hey Giblets," says me. "Ennngggghhnnn," says Giblets from a bowl of duck pudding. "Where have you been, Giblets is dying of duck poisoning!" It's the simple things that bring us back to home. Labels: true adventures
posted by fafnir at 11:39 AM
Friday, October 14, 2005
FAFBLOG: It's great to have you on the blog today God! We never hang out anymore.
GOD: Well, God's a busy man, Fafnir - what with all the smiting, and the earthquakes, and the smiting, and the pestilence, and the smiting. Oh - and I'm speaking at a charity fundraiser later this afternoon. FB: Well - see there, that's good! You're helpin out in your community. GOD: A charity fundraiser for smiting. And of course I have my government work. FB: So you really DO tell the president what to do! GOD: Oh yeah. Me and Dubya are like THIS. Iraq War, tax cuts, Gitmo - that was all me. FB: So when you told him to Invade Iraq you also told him it was gonna cost thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and leave the country ripped apart by sectarian violence, right? GOD: The thing is, I told him to invade, but I ALSO told him to send in more troops. See, that's the thing of it. We just need more boots on the ground there, Fafnir. FB: Hey, that's a great idea, God! Where do we get the troops? GOD: I specifically told the president to mold them out of the earth and breathe into them the gift of life. Sadly, my expert advice was ignored. FB: So is the war just a screw-up then? Cause this is the sorta stuff people use to prove you don't exist. GOD: God's policies work in mysterious ways, Fafnir. Maybe what mortal eyes see as a catastrophic failure is, in the greater plan of God, an incredible success! FB: Ooh, like maybe the increased terrorism will lead to increased explosions which will make us more visible from space which will attract benevolent super-aliens who will finally capture Osama bin Laden! GOD: Maybe. I could tell you the answer, but then you wouldn't need faith in the war. FB: And if I don't have faith in the war, the war can't die for my sins! GOD: Yeah, something like that. FB: So, how's that work with hurricanes and torture? GOD: Well, thing is, part of being God is delegating authority. For the low-level decisions - who's ignoring hurricanes, who's torturing who - you really have to go to the local and state-level Gods. Little thing we like to call "federalism," Fafnir. FB: Now at the same time you were tellin the president to ignore the hurricane, you were also creating the hurricane. Isn't that a conflict of interest? GOD: First of all, being God is hard work. You've got like grass to grow and stuff. I'd like to see YOU stop a hurricane. FB: I bet Superman could stop a hurricane. GOD: He could not. FB: Could too. He can spin the earth around so time goes backwards. A hurricane’s nothin for Superman. GOD: Well, y'know, I can do plenty of stuff. I can turn women into salt. I can make loaves and fishes - loaves and fishes like you wouldn't believe. FB: Are you worried about the Draft Superman movement? GOD: The what? There's no Draft Superman movement. FB: Sure there is. They got like a blog an everything. GOD: Huh. FB: So did you ever tell the president to do anything about Valerie Plame? Cause I hear you got subpoenaed to testify in front a the grand jury. GOD: I won't answer that without the advice of my attorney. Look, there's a ton of inconsistencies in the Superman gospels, ever notice that? One day he's got a fortress of solitude and a bottle city of Kandor and the next day he doesn't. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it? FB: Pretty much everybody thinks you gotta resign if they indict. Does the line of succession make Jesus the Acting God then or does the Vice-God take over? GOD: I mean, people aren't gonna pray to Superman! You can kill the guy with a freaking rock! FB: It's been great to have you here, God! Stop by anytime. Labels: interviews, shmorture, warnography
posted by fafnir at 3:33 PM
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
The other day a guy comes up to me an says "The thing about life is you can't have any regrets" an I says "what about the gorilla" an he says "don't regret the gorilla" an I says "what about the leprechauns then" an he says "don't regret them neither" an I says "well what about the muskox or the obelisk or the radish king" an he goes "nope nope nope" an I'm gettin into this now an I says "not even the terrible time tortoise" an he says "I loved the terrible time tortoise" an I figure this guy is the smartest guy ever an we're dancin jigs an singin songs an he gets eaten by a gorilla. The gorilla, she always remembers.
There was a point to this story and one day I will remember what it is and one day when you come back to read it it will be here again. Labels: true adventures
posted by fafnir at 3:05 PM
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
FAFBLOG: It's great to have you here Harriet Miers! We got a ton a questions here we been waitin to ask.
GEORGE BUSH: Great to be here, Fafnir. Ask away. FB: Waaaait a minute. Mr. President? BUSH: Absolutely I'm the president, an' that's why I want the Senate to swiftly confirm my good friend Harriet Miers. FB: I'm confused. BUSH: Like all judicial nominees, Harriet Miers is covered under executive privilege, Fafnir. The president needs the freedom to appoint his Supreme Court in complete privacy. Ms. Miers will remain bagged, sealed and classified until her confirmation by the United States Senate. FB: And yet we know so much about her! Her name... her church... her name. You've been pretty generous with information so far, Mr. President. BUSH: It's my dedication to openness and transparency, Fafnir. FB: And we appreciate it. Now, how'd you make the pick? BUSH: I just looked around an' picked the most qualified justice I could find. There was the coffee mug, the stapler, an' Harriet Miers, and in the end I just had to go with the candidate I felt was the strongest. FB: Wow, and that was your "World's Best President" mug, too! BUSH: It was a tough call, let me tellya. But don't count that coffee mug out forever - it's gotta lotta smart ideas about eminent domain. FB: Mr. President, I was hopin you could tell us a little about Harriet Miers's judicial philosophy. BUSH: Harriet Miers's judicial philosophy is that she's gonna be smart, Fafnir - an' she's not gonna legislate from the bench. FB: Well that's a relief! I'm tired a these other Justices passin bills an resolutions all the time. Now what's her position on abortion? BUSH: First off let me tell you that Harriet Miers's position on abortion is a smart one - a real smart one - and that in no way do I know what it is. Also, she will not legislate from the bench. FB: So will she not-legislate to uphold Roe v Wade or will she not-legislate to overturn Roe v Wade? BUSH: Well, I can tell you that when Harriet Miers rules on abortion, she's not gonna replace Congress as the supreme legislative body in the nation, that's for sure. She's not even gonna replace the Senate. She might - MIGHT - replace the House Rules Committee. But that's it. FB: Okay, how about... if Harriet Miers was a first-trimester fetus, and you were a president, would you appoint her to the court if you knew she would let somebody abort herself? BUSH: Tell ya what. How bout we bring Harriet Miers out here so she can answer you herself? FB: Hey, that's a great idea! BUSH: This should just take a minute or two. (GEORGE BUSH exits. After a while, HARRIET MIERS enters.) FB: Hey there Harriet Miers! We're so glad you could come! HARRIET MIERS: Great to be here, Fafnir. Always a pleasure. FB: Now, some people are sayin you're not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. What do you say to that? MIERS: That's just elitism, Fafnir. Harriet Miers is plenty qualified. Real smart. Friend of the president. Won't legislate from the bench. FB: Well, first off let me say I'm pretty relieved that you've confirmed reports that you will not legislate from the bench. Movin on, you're a good friend of the president, and on the court you'd have cases where you'd have to rule for him or against him. Do you there could be a conflict of interest there? MIERS: Well that's just crazy, Fafnir. As a personal friend of the president, I know more about presidents than most people. I have to rule on the president's powers, I can call 'im up and say, "Hey, Mr. President, do you have the constitutional authority to indefinitely detain prisoners without due process?" And he'll say "You bet." FB: Gee, I never thought about it like that! It's kinda like havin your own personal expert who isn't you. MIERS: God knows I'm gonna need one. FB: Waaaait a minute. Mr. President? GEORGE BUSH: (removing wig) Okay, okay, ya got me. What was it? Was it the dress? FB: Mr. President, I gotta go. BUSH: No, wait, we can still do this! You like puppets, right? How bout you ask me questions and Harriet the Hand Puppet here answers 'em! FB: Mr. President, I got stuff to do. BUSH: Hey Harriet, can I torture people? "S'alright!" S'alright? "S'alright!" FB: I got all these socks to wash. BUSH: Man, I love that one. Labels: interviews
posted by fafnir at 4:58 PM
Here at Fafblog we are a serious blog about serious news doin our best to inform you about everything you could ever need to know about as soon as it happens. For example, right now you are reading Fafblog. That's news! It is a Fafblog Exclusive™. If you didn't know you were reading Fafblog while you were reading Fafblog you could be very confused. Don't thank us, it's just our job.
All this week we're gonna continue our dedication to journalistic excellence with a buncha exclusive interviews with the critical newsmakers of our times. Today we'll start off with an interview with Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers. Wow, how do we get these incredible interviews, they're just so incredible!
posted by fafnir at 2:47 PM
Giblets is a compassionate Giblets. He has been moved by the plight of poor people, which were believed to be extinct, like the ivory-billed woodpecker, until they were rediscovered fairly recently. Like the ivory-billed woodpecker, they live a delicate and tenuous existence, endangered by predators and modern man alike. Unlike the ivory-billed woodpecker, Giblets rarely attempts to chase them down and cook them in a giant quiche. This is because of the compassion. Giblets has so much compassion he has decided to declare war on poverty and destroy it forever! Behold his three-step plan - NO! - his three-compassion plan - to hunt down poverty and kill it where it lives!
COMPASSION THE FIRST: FREEDOM! Poverty hates our our way of life: that is why it is always harassing Giblets on the street for his precious dimes and nickels.1 The only way to fight it is with freedom! Thus Giblets will liberate the poor from the Medicaid and food stamp programs which have oppressed for so many years! No longer will they be terrorized by the tyranny of having food! Instead they can experience the heady up-from-the-bootstraps independence of chasing small animals for their own food! No longer will they suffer at the slavery of subsidized health care. Instead they can use just scrape the mold off the remnants of their drowned homes and pound it into penicillin! Don't bother to thank Giblets, poor people - your newfound liberty is thanks enough. COMPASSION THE SECOND: FLYPAPER! Giblets's multi-billion-dollar tax cuts for the rich will continue unabated! By slashing local wages and maintaining fat tax cuts for the rich, Giblets will cleverly trap poverty in isolated pockets of poor people, far from our own mammonite shores. We must ignore poverty over there so we don't have to fight it over here. COMPASSION THE THIRD: HUMANITARIAN AID! These have been trying times for our nation's wealthiest, who have lost vacation homes and tourist destinations and have been forced to endure the painful spectacle of thousands of homeless on television night after night. Giblets promises swift relief in the form of more giant tax cuts. Stand strong, mammonati! You'll buy that extra yacht yet. We will defeat poverty, and we will do so by creating a perfect, classless society: one where the upper class has risen so far above the lower class that it has left the earth as a space-faring race of celestial beings made entirely of money, and the lower class has gradually transformed into rock-dwelling cannibalistic sewer mutants which disintegrate in the harsh light of a wasteland sun. On that scorched earth, whoever remains will stand as equals, victors in the war on poverty! 1. Poor people will receive Giblets's commemorative Idaho quarter when they EARN his commemorative Idaho quarter. Labels: majestic equality
posted by Giblets at 12:28 PM
Monday, October 10, 2005
 I figured a pie was gonna be here. Last time I was here there were a whole buncha pies - lemon pies, cherry pies, pumpkin pies, alligator rhubarb pies. But today's different. Today there's just a potato."Hey there," says the potato. "How bout that rain!" The potato is boring - very very boring.  I check all over for the missing pies but I can't find em anywhere. I try askin the potato about the situation but it's busy. The potato spends a lotta time talkin to other potatoes on the internet an watchin specialty potato programs on television. A group of potatoes are stuck on a desert island. They sit on the beach while dramatic music plays. After an hour somebody yells "Oh no!" an the episode ends. It's okay but it probably didn't deserve the Emmy. After a while I start lookin for pies again. The pie section in the supermarket is empty; it has been replaced with a potato section. I look up pie recipes on the internet but all they got is instructions for makin potatoes. I take the day off to see the wild pies at the zoo but they're missin too - they've shut down all the displays except the potato house. I go to complain to the zoo management but they're all too quiet and tuberous to help.When I get back the president's on TV talkin about the potato crisis. He is starchy and rootlike. "How bout them Mets!" says my potato. There's somethin weird about that potato. Labels: pie
posted by fafnir at 9:38 AM
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Chris is dying of the bird flu right now, and on accounta he's one of the millions of Americans who go proudly uninsured to support our nation's War On Health we're tryin to fix him with home remedies. We spent mosta yesterday hittin him on the head with large metal objects to make him a less hospitable refuge for bird flu. Today we're shakin him out the window so the bird flu can take flight an leave. "Go on, little bird flu," says me. "Fly. Fly to freedom!" Posting's gonna be a little light. Again.
posted by fafnir at 4:06 PM
Monday, October 3, 2005
President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is surely an inspired choice, but it comes at a cost: overlooking one of the finest potential Supreme Court Justices working out of the White House today. While Miers's lack of qualifications and cronyist ascension certainly make for an appealing candidate, even these qualities pale before those of the fabled jurist Mr. Bush passed over to nominate her: the president's favorite rock.
 A prized possession passed down through the Bush family, the rock has years of loyal service to its name. It has demonstrated a remarkable versatility over its tenure: it has been lined with felt for desktop use, brandished drunkenly at parties, waved around during cabinet meetings to mouth-powered spaceship noises. Administration insiders insist it is impossible to overstate the rock's role in shepherding the Bush agenda, and note that without the rock's timely intervention, several key aspects of the 2003 Medicare bill might have been lost to an especially strong breeze.Besides rewarding hard work, intelligence, and dedication, the rock appointment would make for a canny political move, as well: as an igneous rock, it has known struggle and hardship, emerging from the difficult pressures and molten magma in the earth's mantle; as a Mineral-American, it would be blazing a trail that could inspire a host of salts and silicates. The rock would have its detractors, of course - partisans and special interests, frustrated by the lack of legal opinions in the rock's past, might claim the rock had something to hide. This, of course, is absurd: the Senate Judiciary Committee would be free to ask it as many questions about its judicial philosophy as appropriate, which the rock would naturally answer with its characteristic modesty. Sadly, the moment for Justice Rock will have to wait. Not too long, hopefully - John Paul Stevens can't hold out forever.
posted by the Medium Lobster at 1:36 PM
"Don't eat that toast!" says Giblets. "It is possessed by the devil."
"I don't see the problem there," says me. "Devil needs a place to live too." "The devil is not part of this complete breakfast!" says Giblets. "The devil turns soggy in milk and causes the gum disease gingivitis!" "I dunno Giblets," says me. "Maybe there's some kinda scientific explanation for the devil toast. Maybe it's gotta rare form a schizophrenia. Maybe it's epileptic toast." "You mock Giblets's beliefs with your cold unfeeling science!" says Giblets. "But there are plenty of things your godless theories cannot explain, like the flagellum and the sasquatch and how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop!" "Now that's not fair," says me. "Modern science is learnin a lot about the sasquatch an its strange an beautiful culture." "Yes, Giblets has been very impressed with the progress of the Yeti peace accords," says Giblets. "But there's no reasoning with the devil and there is no denying the evidence of his terrible Satanic majesty at work! Behold!" Giblets waves the toast around a while. "Oh yes very terrible," says me. "Yes, it has completely shaken Giblets's faith in the natural order of toast," says Giblets. "Why would a just toast god allow this to happen!" "Maybe it's all part of a bigger plan for toast we just don't understand," says me. "Like some kind of toast test." We look at the toast. It's gettin cold. "Possessed toast is stupid and lame!" says Giblets. "Oh no, that's, yknow, not necessarily true," says me. "It's pretty scary for toast." "If the devil really loved Giblets he would possess something cool," says Giblets. "Like a little girl or a herd of pigs or a dinosaur." "Well sometimes bad things just don't happen to good people," says me. "You can't blame yourself." "Giblets is going to his room," says Giblets. "Wake me up if there's a plague or something."
posted by fafnir at 9:02 AM
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