We ain’t got enough trouble in the world right now, here comes a swine flu epidemic. No … a pandemic. Pan is worse than epi when you’re using it with demic. Something like a hundred people’s already dead in Mexico from swine flu and now it’s moved into the States and has other parts of the world nervous as well. Are these swine protesting the swine tax? Are they expressing offense that the green freaks are blaming them for global warming, just cause a pig likes to fart with impunity? What does a pig care about farting? It’s a pig. Thing lives in slop, eats slop, ruts in the mud all day … what do you think a pig’s gonna do, he has to fart? “Uh, excuse me, won’t you … them old corn cobs and rotten apple pits I ate ain’t sitting too well. I feel I must pass a little gas. I think I will go over behind the barn there and fart into a jar so as not to offend anyone or upset the balance of nature.” Don’t see it happening. Oink, fart. Oink, fart. It’s the circle of life.

I don’t generally like starting the column off talking about pigs, or especially pig farts, but that’s just the way things shook out this week. I don’t want anyone to think I’m cracking on the pigs, though, cause I’m not. I love a pig. Bacon and eggs, honey baked ham, BLTs, bacon cheeseburgers, sausage links, sausage patties … the list goes on. To be a filthy, disgusting porcine mud wallower, a pig is as good to eat as pretty much anything. I’ll sure eat me some pig, given half a chance. But anyway, I’ll move on now to another topic … one that’s not too far removed from pig farts, but another topic nonetheless: politics.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center reveals that Dick Cheney was a more popular vice president than Joe Biden. Which should come as no surprise to anyone. Shark attacks are more popular than Joe Biden. Swine flu is more popular than Joe Biden. Being shot in the face by Dick Cheney is more popular than Joe Biden.

You know, every time a Democrat tried to criticize President Bush, the Republicans threw Bill Clinton up at em. Now, every time a Republican criticizes President Obama, the Democrats throw Bush up. Payback is a bee, huh? But that’s what passes for political debate in this country. I guess after the 2012 election, the Republicans will throw Obama up at the Democrats whenever they criticize President Palin.

Hah! Wouldn’t that smoke em? President Sarah Palin. Buddy, that would sure smoke em.

According to a quarterly report from the U.S. Inspector General’s office, that $700 billion in TARP money floating around the hallowed halls of Congress is at great risk of being stolen. But not to worry … it is being closely guarded by Obama’s posse of tax cheats, inside traders, fibbers and sneak thieves. I’m sure nobody’ll take any of it.

Okay, except for pickled pig’s feet. I ain’t eating me no pickled pig’s feet. True, I’ve never actually tried a pickled pig’s foot, but it’s one of those things I don’t feel the need to try before saying I don’t like it. As a rule I don’t like to eat nothing that’s a foot. I don’t know of any feet except for the pickled pig that we’d eat their feet anyway. What? Chickens? We don’t eat chicken feet, we eat chicken legs. Well, some people do, I don’t, I eat the white meat. Anyway, chickens don’t even have feet, they have talons and nobody in their right mind is going to eat a dern talon. Course, I would have said the same thing about eating a monkey’s brain right out of its skull, too, but that’s a delicacy in some parts of the world. Not in Georgia where I was raised, of course. But in some other parts of the world somebody gets to eat a monkey’s brain out of its skull, that’s as good to them as beans and cornbread is to me. Just goes to show, huh?

What? What does that go to show? Well, I don’t know … it goes to show that one man’s monkey brains is another man’s beans and cornbread. That’s what it goes to show.

Rafiq Qureshi, the father of Rubina Aligirl, the little nine?year?old girl who starred in the hit movie “Slumdog Millionaire,” tried to sell her for $300,000. I’ll tell you this for free, somebody offers me that kinda money for one of my kids? Ring it up, that’s a sale.

Scientists are now blaming global warming on fat people. They say a fat person cranks out a ton more CO2 gas every year than a thin person. Say fat people gas is melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing the rain forests. And by “scientists,” I mean two anorexic grad students at Berkeley, cause only a freakin greeny is going to buy that.

More wonderful irony from the wacky world of science ~ research now suggests that nicotine chewing gum, lozenges and inhalers cause cancer. This just goes to show, you might as well enjoy your vices, my friend, cause you’ll never make it out of here alive anyway.

I still don’t buy the whole water-boarding as torture thing. Is it torture to saw off a guy’s head with a scimitar somebody sharpened with a rock? Is that better or worse than water-boarding? I’d be more afraid of one of my mother’s belt whipping’s than I’d be of water-boarding.

People, it’s water.

Anyway, so what if there is a massive terror strike on our shores? Look at the upside … al Qaeda gets rid of 30, 40 million Americans with a nuke, that just means shorter lines at the movies, dudn’t it? Less traffic at rush hour? More jobs, greater opportunity for illegal aliens. Hey, I’m a glass-half-full kinda guy. Even if the water in that glass is radioactive.

And I Quote: “No people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.” ~ the late Dean Acheson, statesman and secretary of state under Harry Truman

Okay, there is one foot I’ll eat, and that’s a foot-long cheese dog, hold the monkey brains.

by Kenneth Balog

Back when I was young and foolish yet, I joined some Aussie troops, singing what they considered was their National Anthem. Now, close on to 53 years later, I suddenly remember snatches of the lyrics to “Waltzing Matilda” that we sang beside a campfire in a mountain ravine, during a freezing night, during the Korean War.

Actually, it wasn’t a campfire because there was no camp– it were a burning truck that was keeping us warm — but, the Aussies did have some tea and the billy to boil it in. I had no taste for tea back then, however, I did have a flask of Walker’s Deluxe, which made the tea go down and stay down. The night turned chummy and the Aussies sang …

Once a jolly swagman camped beside a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited ’til his billy boiled,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.

“Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”
And he sang as he watched and waited ’til his billy boiled,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

Down came a jumbuck to drink from that old billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.

“Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
“Where’s that jolly jumbuck you’ve got in your tucker bag?
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

“Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.
“Where’s that jolly jumbuck you’ve got in your tucker bag?
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong,
“You’ll never catch me alive,” said he.
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.
“Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda.
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.
“Oh, You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

It is strange, how things from the past sometimes hop right into your mind and stir up the ghosts. As far as dragging up my memories of “Waltzing Matilda,” I have no idea what triggered my mind to do so — but here I am, throating the words and mangling the tune, no better than I did in the long ago. And that old tune is one that takes over and pushes modern music, or whatever it is called, right off the scene. That is okay with me.

Now if I could just figure out why I am singing maybe I could lay the ghosts down once more and occupy my mind with something more relaxing.

Aaaaah, I am getting a glimmer of sense. That swagman reminds me of the city mayor, who is outwardly jolly; however, has plunked himself down on land out there in the county beside a creek where he intends to construct a pointless airport. While camped there, he and the council that supports his inane ideas have spotted a fat sheep and have crammed it into their bag of political skull-duggery. Some citizens have finally tumbled to the agenda of the swagman and have confronted him — he does the honorable thing and drowns himself in the creek from which he haunts anyone who passes the scene.

There — all solved and laid to rest. A fitting end to a local problem. Ha, I wish it were that easy. We certainly don’t need a new airport — we don’t need a swagman either. Anyway, maybe if more folks learned the lyrics to “Waltzing Matilda” and applied them to local machinations, better things would happen in Bradley County and the city of Cleveland, Tennessee.

Maybe I can get that J. Michael fellow to blow the notes of Matilda through his mouth harp. Low and mournful like, with a touch of contralto. I would appreciate that.

I was a little surprised at the derision and scorn the media showed to the hundreds of “tea party” tax protests held across the country last week. Then I remembered, oh yeah, they’re the media. They were having a field day with the term “tea bagging.” For the naive among you ~ and for those without benefit of journalism’s sophisticated wit ~ “tea bagging” is a term applied to a perverse sexual type act. Not many people know that. I, myself, who know many things, did not even know that. Until the media’s snide, snickering double entendres started piling up and I Googled it. Nice job, media. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

And the ones who weren’t behind an anchor’s desk engaging in the sophomoric banter that passes for news reporting in the age of Obama, were out at the tea parties heckling the people they were supposed to be reporting on (hello, Susan Roesgen of CNN). Of course, this bizarre behavior just begs the question ~ how is it that Anderson Cooper and David Gergen and Rachel Maddow and David Shuster (Hey, Shuster, who’s writing your material? Al Franken?) and all the rest of the frat boys, how is it they’re so well-versed in the act of tea bagging? I guess it’s an acquired taste among certain hip young neojournalists.

Testy
Enough
Already

Testy. I can double entendre, too.

Speaking of the decline and fall of Jefferson’s free press, Katie Couric received the Walter Cronkite journalism award this week for her interview with Sarah Palin. That is like right out of Nostradamus or something. That right there sent a thrill up my leg. If that ain’t portending the end of the world, then our portender is broke.

You remember that chimpanzee in Connecticut that went berserk and ate the next door neighbor woman’s face off? The chimpanzee had been agitated all day and shortly before the attack his owner had given him a nice cup o’ tea to help him relax. Tea’s having an odd effect on people, huh?

Ladies and gentlemen, the Marie Antoinette Let Them Eat Cake Award goes to Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Thousands of people were left homeless after a devastating earthquake tore through the country. Berlusconi offered this advice: “They should see it like a weekend of camping.” Silvio, pisano, have some cake.

And a nice cup o’ tea.

The White House said the tea party protests were off?base because Obama is cutting taxes for 95 percent of the American people. In a related story, the White House said that from now on the expression “cutting taxes” will be known to mean, “raising taxes.”

The Department of Homeland Security has issued warnings to law enforcement agencies across the country of potential terror activity from … well, from pretty much everyone who don’t have a 666 in their forehead.

Oprah’s Book of the Month selection is Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. That is the book (you will remember) that Hugo Chavez pawned off on Obama while they were smoozing down south recently. It is an “historical tract attacking the imperialist exploitation of Latin America” (i.e., the nasty ol’ USA) and Chavez wanted to rub our nose in it. Between him and Oprah, it is now a best-seller. Okay, fine, but you know, Hugo … you speak Spanish, not Venezuelan. You want to blame them five centuries of continental pillage on somebody, try Spain. Which is where the U.S. came from, too, now that I think about it. What was my point?

Speaking of Spain, they wanted to bring criminal charges against the Bush administration for his torture policies. Is that irony? Remember the Spanish Inquisition? The rack, the knee splitter, burning at the stake, thumb screws, swallowing broken glass, nails in the head, that was torture. Compared to the Inquisition, waterboarding is like swimming in the ocean when the waves are a little big. That’s not torture, it’s a weekend in Orlando.

And I Quote: “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better, including my own country.” ~ Obama in Turkey last week, blowing smoke up Islam’s burka

I don’t know about shaping the world for the better, but so many of the most vocal Muslims are pretty much exactly the way they were back in some?aught thousand B.C. Same clothes, same head wraps. I know they have cars and cell phones and such, but I see them all the time on the news riding camels, climbing over rocks just like they must have done for centuries. Beheading over there seems to be as popular today as it was when Salome met John the Baptist. The ones that don’t want to kill every Jew on the planet want to … oh, wait a minute, there aren’t any who don’t want to kill every Jew on the planet. But I’m just saying, I don’t know about shaping the world for the better when extreme Islam is responsible for over 90 percent of the world’s violence. I don’t care what you say, that’s de-volution. I mean, I know y’all love you some Muslims, but dang.

Mighty Barack wouldn’t speak at Georgetown University until they covered up the word “IHS,” which is engraved on a gable over the podium. That word is Greek for “Jesus” and you can find it written a lot higher up than a Georgetown University gable. Are you going to contend with that name, Barack?

by Kenneth Balog
The Texas Trouble Maker

Obama, the darling of the left, hasn’t been in office long enough to know the intricacies of our Republican form of government, so I allow him much leeway in that regard; and, considering that he is surrounded by some really awful people, I allow him even more wiggle room.

However, when it comes to basic American behavior, I don’t cut him any slack at all. Particularly when it comes to something as drastically wrong as his bowing before a fourth rate king. No, don’t tell me that he didn’t bow. He did, and the sons of Islam regard it as a great victory in their quest to bring America to its knees. Bow now, kneel later! For someone who ought to have a built-in aversion to bowing before another person, Obama done goofed.

And speaking of bowing, what was the significance of the one-gun salute he received while in England? One gun? Isn’t that equivalent to a raspberry?

Then there was that statement he made about how in the past, America has been arrogant. Which side is he on?

Well, I can set all that aside because Obama doesn’t know better.

What I can’t set aside is the constant rumor that he isn’t even American. I sure wish someone would set the record straight on that issue. Was he born in the United States or was he born in Africa like his reportedly step grandmother claims?

I’d like someone to clear this up so I can spend some time on my tax situation.

This past Friday was Good Friday. But then, most Fridays are. Eagle flies on Friday, you know, and Saturday I go out to play. Sunday I go to church, get down on my knees and pray …

But I’m glad to see we’re getting more in touch with the real meaning of Easter in this country. All that stuff with Jesus is just too depressing … not to mention straining credibility. Now, thanks to secular humanisticism, we can all reflect on the true meaning of Easter … that is, how the Easter bunny died so Cadbury could live. That’s easier on the conscience and we can all still wear the nice spring outfits to church. Yeah cause you don’t have to be afraid of church so much anymore, either, it’s like Baskin-Robbins now, with all the flavors. Like jelly beans. Like colored eggs at Easter.

In that vein, somebody said he was gonna have a mansion in Glory one day made out of gold and jasper and cattle on a thousand hills. If it’s Heaven, I’ll be satisfied with a van down by the river. I have no illusions about my own holiness, I think we’re all just barely saved, but it’s not about who we are … it’s about who He is. So yes, I will go out on a limb and say I am as God made me.

Now can I get an amen up in here? Yeah, y’all better start praying … it ain’t but the end of the world out there.

Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers gave a speech at Auburn this past week where he referred to Nancy Pelosi as being “crazy” and “mean as a snake.” Meanwhile, the Crazy People Defamation League and the National Association for the Advancement of Snakes is demanding an apology.

That reminds me, I’m late with my dues to the CPDL.

The U.S. kicked in fifty grand to help in emergency aid to Italy after an earthquake killed over a hundred people and injured 1,500 more and destroyed historic buildings dating back to medieval times. Gave em fifty grand. In today’s money that’s, like, a dime. We blow a couple mill studying worm farts and funding underwear museums, and we can’t squeeze out but fifty grand to help some poor Italian’s been trapped under the rubble of a building for three days? I’ll tell you what that is … that’s some of them lowered expectations that’s becoming all the rage.

Rep. Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee, said he counted seventeen socialists in the House. I said, Look again, Spencer, I think you missed a few. Badabing!

Obama’s back from his Spring Apology Tour and I caught him in a big fat lie. Everybody in the world saw him bow before that Muslim king in Saudi Arabia. Didn’t bow to the Queen of England, but bowed before the king of the country that gave us 9/11. Then lied about it! Said he didn’t bow. First, said he was picking up a pen he dropped, then said he was shaking hands with a short guy. Lied, when the truth would have been just as easy. That right there is some of those chickens coming home to roost. Remember Rev. Wright’s chickens coming home to roost? Now Barack’s chickens are coming home, too.

But the late and little lamented “media” won’t bother you with images of a lying Obama because they believe if you believe Obama isn’t a liar, then he won’t be. That’s why it’s just so much easier to write about the new first dog instead. He’s a Portuguese water dog and his name is Bo and if you will just watch him romp with the girls and tinkle on the sofa you won’t see the world in general, and America in particular, crumbling around your ears. Focus, people. Listen to me … focus.

Also, when he was in Austria, Obama admitted he doesn’t speak Austrian. Which worked out good because neither do Austrians. They speak German. And you know ol’ Barack was laughing when Hillary got tripped up with the Russian word. That’s karma right there, that’s what that is.

I got a bone to pick with somebody. First of all … this Islamic group that’s high-jacking all the ships off the coast of Somalia? I don’t like people calling them pirates. Pirates are Arr avast there, matey. They have peg legs and hooks instead of hands, wear eye patches and parrots sit on their shoulders. Pirates fly the Jolly Roger high o’re a Slope’s topsail with 14 cannons round yarrr with the yo ho ho and the high seas and the rum. Sure, they were degenerates and alcoholics and murderers, but we like pirates. They’re cool. These Islamic so-called pirates are, like four, five guys in a rubber dingy. Okay, they got guns. Couldn’t a trading company, after it’s had its ships highjacked a couple dozen freakin times and paid out millions in ransom … couldn’t they maybe get a gun, too? Maybe shoot a hole in the rubber dingy and watch the pirates sink? I’m asking, wouldn’t that be easier and less expensive?

Second of all, regarding that same Somali “pirate” situation … the Obama posse said they don’t know what to do there because they “aren’t certain of (the pirates’) intentions.” I think I can help? Uh … Obama posse people, the pirates’ intentions is to high-jack ships for huge ransoms. They’ve been doing it on a regular basis for two years now. Made something like a hundred million dollars in cash last year doing it. So, best guess? I’d say that’s their intentions.

But when has Barack Obama or any of his posse ever listened to me.

The editors of the New York Times now say that saving the floundering newspaper from bankruptcy is as vital to the world as saving Darfur. That’s kind of silly. How can you equate starving African refugees to a venerable American icon like the Gray Lady? I don’t see no starving African refugees getting the news out to us 24?7, notwithstanding a slight leftwing bias. And when has a starving African refugee produced a Sunday crossword as consistently challenging as the Times? Uh, how about never?

A robot named Adam is the first machine in history to have discovered a new area of scientific knowledge without any help from humans. Adam formed a hypothesis on the genetics of bakers’ yeast and actually conducted experiments to test the theory. This, of course, is huge in the glamorous, fast?paced world of bakers’ yeast. Not such a big deal anywhere else.

Unless maybe if that robot could come up with a mathematical formula for the perfect pizza.

A retired guy in Detroit is selling coons to help make ends meat. I mean, meet. He’s getting $12 for a whole coon and $10 for a coon hide. Guy leaves the feet intact so his customers won’t think he’s selling rat or cat or any other animal that is exactly like a coon, when you think about it. But I’m all for the enterprising spirit and if folks want to stew up a coon, more power to em. I just didn’t know there were any coons in Detroit. Uh … can I say that?

The recession has finally hit Hollywood. Instead of getting $20 million a picture, some actors are having to accept $15 million. Ooh, times is haaard in Tinseltown. I say times is haaard.

Afghanistan is making progress. They’ve just passed a new law making it legal for a man to have sex with his wife against her will. Article 132 of that new law reads, “As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night.” Every fourth night. Boy, that’s more action than most married men see in any country. Anyway, that new law isn’t quite Taliban justice yet, but they’re getting there.

DC’s come up with a good way to cut the budget. Washington mayor Adrian Fenty wants to release 80 percent of their criminals back out on the street. Or, ideally, get 80 per cent of DC’s middle class to house them in their guest rooms.

What? How about bailouts for the poor? Already have that. What do you think food stamps and welfare checks are? At the last count, one in every 10 Americans received food stamps ~ over 32 million people, a new record. The average welfare bailout in January was $112.82 per person. Don’t know what it is now.

Reporters who dialed in for a Hillary Clinton conference call this week, got a porno site instead. A woman’s voice answered the phone and cooed, “Do you have any hidden desires? If you feel like getting nasty, then you came to the right place.” At first, reporters assumed they had dialed Bill Clinton’s number by mistake, but the fingernails-down-the-blackboard cackle at the end of the message made it clear the voice actually belonged to Hillary. I guess girl friend’s just tryin to work down that campaign debt.

… wooo, shudder … Hillary and hidden desires in the same breath? Gave me the shivers there for a minute.

Actually, that story is kinda revealing or ironic or symbolic or something. You remember back in ’07, Bush also accidentally gave out the wrong number to the press. The difference is Bush’s wrong number connected to an organization offering information about Christian education. Clinton’s wrong number connected to a phone sex line. I dunno. Is that irony?

Obama banned the expression “war on terror.” From now on it will be called “an inconvenient truth.” Or, as Michelle might say, for the first time in my adult life, I am embarrassed to be an American.

Mighty Barack was out in the world again last week doing his thang, but O my Lord at the entourage on the man. It was huge. It was something like 500 toadies and 24 Range Rovers, like that big mob of technicians and cranes and helicopters on the Verizon commercial. I didn’t know if that was Obama or Beyonce, all those people. I thought it was the cast and crew of Riverdance, I didn’t know. Maybe those are the new jobs Pelosi said would be created. But Obama and them’s just not that polished, really. You remember those gifts to the foreign dignitaries … Gordon Brown’s DVDs that wouldn’t play and that stupid red button gag gift Hillary gave to the Russian guy, had the wrong Russian word on it. This trip, mighty Barack gave the Queen of England an iPod. Course, the Queen gave him a signed portrait of herself, so we’ll call that one a draw.

I guess we’re lucky Obama didn’t think to give her back the original 13 colonies. Surprised Jimmy Carter didn’t think of it. And no, to my knowledge there is no truth to the rumor that Obama gave French president Nicolas Sarkozy a box of wine made in Tennessee.

While Hillary was lobbying to support Palestine, Obama was over in Europe mesmerizing the masses with flowery visions of a peaceful post?nuclear world where weapons of mass destruction would be a thing of the past. I thought Captain Kirk was going to beam down and invite us into the Federation of Planets. Of course, there’s always a buzz kill. In this case, his name is Kim Jong?il and he fired a nuclear warhead four thousand miles out across the Pacific Rim, just to show the world he can.

Yeah, ol’ Kim, man. He was gonna shoot that thing off come hell or high water. When Japan threatened to blow it out of the sky, the word from Pyongyang was that if they tried, there would be a “fiery bolt of retaliatory lightning.” And Japan knows a thing or two about fiery bolts of retaliatory lightning. I’m just grateful we have an inexperienced product of the Detroit machine and his posse of inside traders and tax cheats running the country. Helps me sleep better.

Gosh, I’m so negative.