SOME OLD BUSINESS, SOME NEW BUSINESS

Template has been changed because of some Floppers complaints that it was hard to read. No argument from Kelso. He's not much of an esthete.

The Battle Of New Orleans has really taken away most of Kelso's desire to rip Selena Roberts apart. Let's wrap this up in a bow. The Tissue Of Lies, ever PC, needed someone to replace Claire Smith and decided that Selena Roberts was the perfect doppelganger. Bad choice. If you are a woman who reads her, Ms. Roberts is patronizing you and not taking you seriously as a sports fan. If you are a man who reads her, only God can save you. Kelso's suggestion if the Tissue needs an African-American sports columnist, the best choices are to see what Clifton Brown can do with the big canvas or better still to bring Michael Holley down from the Boston Globe.

Having been on the West Coast the past eight days, Kelso had the treat of reading the Los Angeles Times each day and, boy, what a difference! Those folks actually write the news, in great detail, with no Bush-supporting agenda whatsoever. It's a large corporation and presumably they have business before the Republican government, too, but for some strange reason their reporters are allowed to cover stories, not cover Bush's ass.

Kelso has also come home to find that the public ain't buying what the adminsitration is peddling on New Orleans and has come to the sensible realization that these Bush administration cunts ought to rot in pieces. Wow. Kelso always suspected White America had a heart in there somewhere and it's nice to see on display.

Kelso is sorry to see that the administration has chosen to brazen this out rather than deal with it. The Superdome has become something akin to El Estadio Nacional in San Salvador, but you can pretty much expect Bush to give a press conference in which he is flanked by Fisher Berry, Air Force football coach, plus an Air Force drum and bugle corps, decrying the NCAA's decision to ban the pre-game Christian prayer in favor of a moment of silence. Kelso expects Bush to take no questions on New Orleans, Iraq, Afghanistan, or anything else of note, but will certainly call out the NCAA for "weakening the resolve our brave Airmen with all of this 'so-called political correctness....the constitution guarantees 'freedom of religion, not freedom FROM religion, and to do this during wartime is a great blow to the moral of our magnificent Air Force." Simple Scotty The Fag will continue to brush off any criticism as Democratic efforts at partisan political gain. No shit, Sherlock, but you fucks called the tune, now pay the piper.

Kelso lived in Los Angeles during the riot of 1992 and in lower Manhattan during 9/11 and he is finding it much harder to get his head around what's happening in New Orleans than either of those other events. So, what do we have here? Just for the sake of meanness (in both senses of the word) they cut the FEMA budget, denied requests to strengthen the levee system, and had failed to assemble 50,000 National Guard plus EMT workers plus extra food, medicine and arrange evacuation for everyone once Katrina had hit Miami and it was clear that the Gulf Coast was in big, big trouble. All of these measures would have cost the value of a rounding error of a rounding error of the amount Halliburton has stolen from "the war on tirrir" in Iraq.

News flash: Bush has earmarked $51 billion for aid to the Gulf Coast. MoDo has suggested in the Tissue that the work will be a no bid contract to Halliburton. Jesus Christ, she might just be right.

Here's Kelso's advice. Get your shit together Bush, because you will have civil war in this country in 9-12 months if these poor souls aren't taken care of on the Gulf Coast. In all fairness to Bush, however, Senators Landrieu and Vitter have been completely absent, Landrieu because she's a chickenshit member of the DLC and Vitter because he's a member of the Bush Crime Family. Kelso's hat is off, however, to Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco.

Kelso read yesterday's Tissue Of Lies and found every national news item nothing more than pure Bush propaganda, with, of course, Adam Nagourney leading the way. Kelso has a question for you, Adam. Where the fuck did you get your politics, boy? Because when the giant shitstorm comes down, this is what's going to happen. You are going to be in your gym working on your lats and pecs and ten or so of those "superpredators" the geniuses Bennett, DiIulio, Wilson, Giuliani, et al, warned about for all the wrong reasons, are going to come into the gym spraying. Remember to duck, bitch. Kelso and his family will be long gone, or if they fuck up and don't get out in time, will be on the barricades with every other "average" American putting shit to rights.

Now, on to William Rehnquist. Once again, as the Bush Administration seems intent on brazening this out, why not eliminate the middle man and nominate Hitler's Ashes for the Rehnquist seat?

And on the the Democrats...Kelso was playing 5-10 NL HE in Las Vegas and offered the opinion that maybe taking +106 with the Democratic Party in 2008 might not be such a bad bet given how President Cheney and Charlie McCarthy have bollixed things up so badly. The general consensus around the table was that it was a smart bet. Now, by Kelso's reckoning, the table broke out about 4 Democratic, 4 Apolitical and 2 Republican (bad sample because poker players tend to be a very tolerant lot). Kelso played his own Devil's Advocate and said to the fellows, "the problem with the bet is that Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee." A young fellow, a third-generation Anglo-Mexican American seated immediately to Kelso's left at table started it off by saying in that lilting voice that West Coast folks will be hip to "Hillary's a bitch, yo." And around the table it went. The unanimous consensus was that Hillary was indeed a bitch and that if the Democrats are to take advantage of Bush's errors, they are going to to have TO STAND FOR SOMETHING MEANINGFUL. Now, if Hillary can't get liberal poker players' votes, how is she going to get a single American man to vote for her?

This leads into a discussion of, perhaps, the Democrats last, best hope, Howard Dean. If Kelso were Dean, he would take Hillary aside and say "I don't like you; I don't like your politics; I don't like what you're doing to my party; and I don't like the way you used Lieberman and Gephardt to fuck with my campaign and ultimately with Kerry's. So, this is how it's going to play out. I can't endorse anybody, but I'm sending the indies like Moveon and George Soros Warner and Edwards's way. Money talks and bullshit walks. If you can out-raise them, I congratulate you, but you get nothing from me and if you don't get Bubba's tongue out of Bush's ass yesterday, I WILL hurt you bad. Stay a New York Senator as long as you like but if you fuck this up for my party, you are not going to be a New York Senator as of 2012 and I'm a little tempted to put up a serious challenger to you in the primary in 2006, so fucking watch it. Next piece of bullshit I hear out of you in support of the wars, the death penalty, gun control or 'Judeo-Christian values', you're fucked." Kelso figures Dean is about the only Democratic figure with the power to do that. Do it, Howard. But a little more tactfully, yes?

Finally, a sports note and a cultural one. Has everyone gotten hip to Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners yet? This is new to Kelso. He has never seen a 19 year-old pitch like this in the major leagues. If the kid stays heathy, the sky's the limit. Also, does everyone realize the Eminem is the Walt Whitman of our generation, but we're all to caught up into the moment and all the celebrity bullshit and gossip to realize it?

Kelso's Nuts Love you all, especially the Redondo Beach dude with a shaved head who -- even after losing a very tough hand to Kelso -- came to Kelso's aid by leaving the table, going to his car (this is not a short walk, btw) and getting Kelso two Lortabs for Kelso's aching lower back, allowing Kelso to play a few more hours. All he asked of Kelso was that K post his big blind. An extremely nice gesture which Kelso hopes to repay double some day. Whoever you are, Godspeed and many Pocket A's before we meet again.