Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Saturday, Sept. 10, 2005 - 8:42 p.m.

Before I get started this evening, let me just mention something to all you homemakers out there who might not have ever cleaned an oven before, especially in this day of self-cleaning superovens. When you buy the heavy duty Easy-Off oven cleaner, with LYE, it will work on either a cold or warm oven. I'm pretty old school, and seein' as the reason I am buying it and buying the stuff with lye, and not the no-fumes wussy version, is because I want the harshness of lye. I want to destroy everything inside the oven that isn't either metal, seal, or porcelain, because the reason I am cleaning my oven is because a mouse took up residence in there while the weather was hot and I wasn't routinely baking, and set up mouse shop, doing all the things mice do. I will let you extrapolate from there and merely say that it is repugnant and vile, so I want the caustic cleaning power of lye AND all the punch I can get out of that can of oven cleaner, so I opened all the windows and doors, got a good crossbreeze going, and preheated the oven to 200 first, just like the label says.

Do not do this.

I do not know why they tell you to do this without also and first clearing you for a heavy duty industrial-strength respirator and a hazmat team which will establish a perimeter around your house and outfit you with the very latest in trench-warfare, mustard-gas-repellent, vulcanized rubber and a nice clear face shield with a little halogen light just above it. You know, like they wear in the movies whenever ebola comes to town or some weird space virus or alien makes landfall and they send a team in to investigate.

Because what they do NOT tell you is that the second the Easy-Off hits the nice, 200 degree metal, a gigantic mushroom cloud of lye-filled chemical steam is going to come billowing out of your oven and wash over your ass.

My throat hurts like hell right about now. It filled my kitchen, my hallway AND my lungs before I could so much as blink, let alone slam the oven door closed. So, in short, I most definitely do NOT recommend using oven cleaner on a warm oven.

No, my friends, I do NOT.

(Ah, if only "Easy-Off" were a metaphor for the rest of this post, but sadly it is not.)

So Mike Brown's resume is padded...wow, color me so surprised.

Not.

Here's my question: who the hell vetted this loser? Because, that person really ought to be strung up by his Achilles tendons and beaten and then tossed out of the country. Say, into China or North Korea, where his or her incompetance can actually *benefit* America.

I'm tired of Michael Chertoff's arrogant crap and outright lies, too. String him up while you're at it.

I've got some views on this whole Karen Hughes thing, too, but I'm going to hold onto them and see if maybe the woman will prove me wrong. I really don't think she will, since no one else in this godforsaken administration has, but I still hold out for hope, ever the eternal optimist. (I am too; shut up.)

My gut reaction is that this country got by for 229 frigging years without needing a government official (Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy) whose sole job is to hand out PSA's to the rest of the world wholly to explain that the US is not as big an asshole as it seems to be, and that we need one now is really messed up. However, if Hughes is actually able to help combat Muslim extremism in the world, then more power to her, and I'll get behind her 100%. Problem is, I fail to see how anyone in the Bush administration is able to do that, since the entire company has heretofore shown an appalling lack of tolerance to anything other than its own very narrow world view and love of money. Not to mention she is yet another (what is that now, the umpteen-millionth) person with no experience or background which prepares her for the post to which she has been appointed. She was, however, a television news person in Dallas-Ft. Worth before joining Team Bush in Austin, and a member of the White House Iraq Group, whose mission was to package and sell the invasion of Iraq to the American public, so I guess she's got a handle on bullshit, spinning of.

Maybe you can't tell Dick Cheney to go fuck himself, but this guy did, and now, thanks to Norm over at onegoodmove, you can share the joy.

While you're there, share in the brutality between White House press reporter David Gregory (whom I more and more love) and Scotty McClellen, surely the most repugnant soulless bastard to ever walk the planet.

I have to say it's fun watching the dogs of the MSM slowly turn on their masters in the White House. They're like starving animals who have been in a small cage for too long while a mean child with a sharp stick has continually jabbed and taunted them, only someone has forgotten to lock up the cage, and they're starting to wriggle out. The kid keeps backing up but doesn't have the sense to get the hell out of the area, because in his arrogance, he doesn't believe the dogs have the guts to attack.

Well guess what, Scotty. Georgie. The dogs are friggin' pissed. I'd run, if I were you.

I'm especially impressed with most of CNN's coverage of the mess down in the Gulf states. I didn't think they had it in them, frankly. Now if we could get the rest of you mealy-mouthed pack to stop quoting "anonymous sources", we could blow this popsicle stand and get our government back. I so long for accountability, I can not tell you.

In closing, I'd just like to say this:

It's all well and good to hold Mike Brown accountable for his ineptitude in dealing with the aftermath of Katrina, but you also have to acknowledge Michael Chertoff's role in the disaster. Chertoff is Director of HomeSec and Brown's boss. Ultimately, the only other person who holds more responsibility than he does for the monumental failures of Katrina is George W. Bush. Both Brown and Chertoff need to be removed from their positions. They both failed spectacularly, and then refused to take responsibility for and address their mistakes, which served to compound the misery and problems.

I'd love it if we could impeach George Bush or have a recall election, too, but I realize that will not happen with a Republican-controlled Congress. I am going to say this now, and probably only ever say it once, because I believe with all my heart that Bill Clinton should have been impeached for lying under oath. That, however, is NOT why he was impeached. He was impeached because he underestimated the rabid enmity with which Republicans viewed him, and then he went and did something stupid and got a blowjob in the Oval office. Had he been a Republican, it never would have gotten as far as it did. You might like to tell yourself it would have and that the whole thing was about lying under oath, and for some of us, it was. In Washington, however, Bill Clinton was impeached because he was hated by the party in control of Congress and then slipped up. He went down under the pack like a wounded deer.

It just sucks that the same "honorable" men who brought down a president for a fucking blowjob are not so deeply offended at the events of the last 2 weeks. That they choose instead to blow off accountability for those in charge by reducing the call for it to yet another sophomoric label. And that instead of acting as men who are supposed to serve the best interests of the people by whom they were elected and whom they are supposed to represent, they will shrug off the events of the last 2 weeks and instead turn a blind eye to the fact that if EVER there was a man incapable of serving this country as president, it is George W. Bush.

Peace out,
Katie

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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008