June 19-25, 2008
editorial@boulderweekly.com

Europeans look forward to less Bush
George W in a league of his own

It seems George W, during his last months in office, has taken to a bit of regret. Not for cutting back the budgets of several domestic programs to fund his big-boy war, or for dragging America’s name through the international mud with his imperialist, screw-you attitude. No, his regret is for his rhetoric, not his actions.

During a recent interview with The Times UK, Bush stated that he was saddened over the fact that his choice of words would leave behind a legacy of a man who “wanted war.” “Bring them on” and “dead or alive” are phrases that, Bush said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace.”
Well, no fucking shit!

The thing is, Mr. Bush, if you want to be remembered as “a man of peace” — the idea is so silly that we’re peeing our pants here — we suggest that you act like one. As crazy as this may sound, causing the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians by going to extremes to promote your war on terror is unlikely to generate the comparisons to Gandhi and Mother Theresa that you apparently desire. Think of petty tyrants like Napoleon or Genghis Khan instead — except they at least had brains and the courage to go to battle themselves.

A war by any other name is equally as appalling, and no last-minute repentance is going to save you from being remembered for as long as America stands as a national disgrace and the worst president to ever sit in the Oval Office.

Huff and puff and solve 9-across!
Americans have a fascination with making random, slightly toxic items addictively huffable. Children can be smelled miles away toting around their plastic, Chinese-made Strawberry Shortcake and Lemon Meringue scented dolls. “New Car Smell” has become a marketable scent, even though its exhilarating fragrance is a nothing more than a mass off-gassing of residual solvents and chemicals from the fabric and plastic holding the vehicle together. They even make scented markers and Sharpees that can leave your nose ink-stained purple after smelling the grape aromas on the Dry Erase board at work. (Trust us on this one.)

And now the Colorado Lottery has joined in to help distract our noses from freshly Xeroxed paper and gasoline pumps. Get a whiff of this: Our state’s lottery system announced June 16 that it would begin selling scratch and sniff tickets. These perfumed gambling aids will be available in three varieties: Crossword Bouquet, Chocolate Crossword and Coffee Crossword. Finally, our race against the odds for quick cash has been combined with our inherent desire to huff that weird flakey crap we scratch off with dirty pennies! Take a deep breath, people. Your new addiction has arrived.

Your best friend is dead… NOT!
Last month, police officers visited the students of El Camino High School to break the terrible news that several of their classmates had died in a drunk driving accident. The students of El Camino were understandably distraught. Many broke down in tears. Some became hysterical.

However, their sadness turned to anger several hours later when school officials announced that it was all a hoax. That’s right — it was a big, fat lie constructed by the school to send a message. The message presumably being: Don’t ever trust your teachers, because they’re sadistic bastards who will fuck with your heads.

Guidance Counselor Lori Tauber defended the school’s actions, saying, “[The students] were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized. That’s how they get the message.”

Tauber has a good point. How else do you expect an educational facility to teach its students except through Machiavellian head games? In the future, El Camino High plans to restructure its entire curriculum based on this method. Chemistry teachers will throw boric acid on students to demonstrate what happens when you ignore laboratory safety procedures, and lunch ladies will stuff chicken bones in the corn dogs in order to give the kids a chance to practice the Heimlich maneuver. Janitors will set up bear traps to teach kids not to run in the hall, and the principal will just go around slapping people who look mischievous.

Of course, if the faculty at El Camino thinks this is all a little extreme, they can always fake another student death to teach us a lesson.

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