Prez to PM: Thanx for Not Being Cruel

President George W. Bush is taking Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Graceland today aboard Air Force One. The President is rewarding one of his most stalwart allies in the war in Iraq as Koizumi makes his last official visit to Washington as prime minister. The two dignitaries will be given a personal tour by Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie,and his former wife, Priscilla. The President intends to also give the Japanese PM a jukebox filled with Elvis hits as he bids a fond farewell to one of the few world leaders who didn't view him with Suspicious Minds.

Snake Alert

No, I'm not talking about pols but the real kind. As most of you know, I have had an overabundance of outside cats. However, lately, I've noticed a decimation of the number of ones that feed atop my back porch. Initially, I thought that they might have been feasting on field mice in adjacent corn fields. However, I have heard twice the telltale sounds of a rattler: I tend to think that one or more have preyed on the curious felines. Please be extra careful outside and caution the children to be extra observant as they play in these halcyon days of summer.

Barbara Disses Star

Even though I've never watched an episode of the View, I must say that they are dishing up quite a bit of delicious fun. As some (or all) of you may know, Star Jones has been of late a controversial co-host of the View run by her co-host Barbara Walters. The very week Star was verbally slapped by erstwhile Queen of Nice Rosie O'Donnell (who accused Star of using gastric bypass surgery to achieve her incredible weight loss), Rosie was hired at the behest of Walters. Yesterday Star apprised the audience that she was leaving the show when Barbara and the network had intended to do so at the end of the week. Barbara claimed that she was betrayed by Starr, barred Starr from today's show and future shows, and said that she and her co-hosts would have backed any version that Star conjured up to save face. Star denied that her whilom mentor had her back as Barbara had claimed and revealed that her contract was not renewed.

Grassley: Tax Da Pimps & Hoes

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has decided to expand sin taxes to include pimps and their prostitutes. Now that cigs & alcohol are bringing in much needed revenue to support health and education to our states, Grassley has discovered prostitution as an additional source. Maybe, he'll expand it to include the income of drug traffickers next. Then our federal and state governments can avail themselves of the underground economy that remains largely untaxed: they will have a vested interest in protecting and encouraging the vices of taxpayers. Light up a cig and have a drink for the kids: they need the tax money. Before long, you'll need to have a lady of the night to cut the deficit if Grassley has his way. Maybe, in the future, the government will want you to toke for 'em, too.

Cf. http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/27/pimp.tax.

Back in the Blogosphere!

Guys & gals, it's good to finally be back! After having my internal modem fried by a freak outage, I got some new software and hardware which have allowed me to return. Of course, there may be some that wish that this Luddite was back in the hinterlands. C'est la vie!

CBS Gives Rather Evil Eye

Dan Rather, CBS veteran of 44 years, was bid adieu yesterday long before his contract was set to expire in November as CBS News President Sean McManus said, "Basically, there wasn't a situation that we could come up with where there was enough meaningful work for Dan to do at CBS News that made sense for both him and us: I had to make the decision of what to do in that situation, and that was the decision that I came up with." "You never expect for someone who's been the face of the network for so long to just be given an office which is essentially a closet . . . and then not to be given air time and then to have it be leaked to the press that he's being booted: it's jarring" added Ken Auletta, New Yorker critic. Today CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves concluded, "I'm sorry it ended the way it did." Unlike the time Rather infamously walked off the air in a snit after CBS preempted his opening of CBS Evening News in favor of coverage of the US Open, very few noticed (or even seemed to care) when he sang his lonesome swan song.

Cf. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13436656 and http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13348523.

East Meets West at Graceland

Elvis Presley, who never toured abroad, never realized that he would bring the Orient and the Occident together. When President George W. Bush hosts Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi June 30, Bush will tour Presley's home Graceland with Elvis' most famous Asian fan Koizumi. Kozumi is an avid Elvis afficionado: the Prime Minister, who personally picked his twenty-five fave Elvis songs for a  limited edition charity CD of 200,000 copies eagerly snapped up by fans, serenaded the President at his birthday bash with "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" last year and proudly notes that he shares the same Janury 8th birthday with Presley. Elvis, You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog but we still Love You Tender. :-)