October 2001
Copyright © 2001 by drlimerick.com. All Rights Reserved.
1-Oct-01
More shady maneuvers with Bush's official papers
Dubya's gubernatorial papers
Disappeared like the dew's final vapors;
Abruptly one day
They were trucked away;
Just one more Bush family caper.
The Bushies have now undertaken
To hide papers of Cheney, Bush, Reagan;
A pattern emerges,
Of preventing researches
Into Bush family ways of lawmakin'.
1-Oct-01
FAA banned Rushdie on September 3
The decree of the Mullahs on Rushdie,
Is, when caught by good Moslems, he must die:
Why did our FAA
Keep him grounded that day-- Do they shield a mole or a trustee?
2-Oct-01
Clinton's Supreme Court bar membership withdrawn
That Bill was disbarred was routine,
His fate was shared by seventeen:
Once disbarred at home
Your fate up is sewn;
You can't be a lawyer Supreme.
But you have to congratulate Rehnquist
For his deftness in doing the knife twist;
It should have been simple,
And caused 'nary a ripple
But he made sure that everyone witnessed.
Besides, who would hire Bill Clinton
With the lineup that's currently sittin'?
He's guaranteed five
Who would surely contrive
A nay, legalistically written.
3-Oct-01
Powell admits the evidence against bin-Laden isn't good enough for court
Powell says that the evidence gotten
Is circumstantial regarding bin-Laden;
Not enough for a court
But ample support
For a milit'ry adventure post-modern.
3-Oct-01
Rumsfeld: U.S. has evidence, but needs intelligence
Says Rumsfeld, Sure, we've got the goods
On bin-Laden and all of his hoods;
We won't make it public --
But, while we're on the subject,
Please share some info, if you would.
3-Oct-01
Scalia Jr.'s prospects for Labor post are in doubt
Scalia, Eugene's said to savor
The number-three job there at Labor;
So, who has a clue
As to who's number two?*
Did he slip in with some kind of waiver?
* Cameron Findlay, law clerk for Justice Antonin Anthony Scalia, 1988-89
3-Oct-01
Condit may run for re-election after all
Now that there's news that is real
The off chance that time will reveal
Bad stuff about Condit
Bores the news correspondents,
So we'll still have our Oaf-ish-al Heel.
3-Oct-01
Rumor: Consortium recount spiked for showing Gore won big
There are rumors afloat, by the way
The Con-sor-ti-um Recount's big day
Was stifled by flacks,
Not by terror attacks;
Cause it showed Gore had won all the way.
3-Oct-01
Katherine Harris announces Congressional bid
The importance of being united
As we struggle with hate unrequited;
Is lost on Ms. Harris
Who seems unembarrassed
As a symbol of why we're divided.
4-Oct-01
Courts: OK to sue Reno over Elian; RICO OK for pro-lifers
Jan Reno was doing her job
And had to contend with a mob;
A couple were bruised
And naturally sued
The A.G. for the sending the cops.
But listen -- you'll hear the faint cheers;
Pro-lifers may be racketeers
They aimed a small riot
At abortionists' clients
Screaming insults and threats in their ears.
So a counterclaim for Ms. Reno
Is that under the aegis of RICO
The Miami Relatives
Owe her correlative
Relief for their slanders Latino.
5-Oct-01
Sharon chastised for comparing Bush to Chamberlain
Sharon's getting lost in the cellar
As we focus on catching one fella;
He should be in no hurry
The time he should worry
Is when Bush gets a natty umbrella.
5-Oct-01
Bonds gets #71, #72; Henderson breaks Cobb's runs record
After all of the pain and the tension
From playing in another dimension
The sports gods have spoken
The record's been broken --
And no one was paying attention.
6-Oct-01
Bush's universal economic remedy threatens bipartisan spirit
George thinks that the polls give immunity
And enable him to, with impunity
Cut taxes again
Sans political pain --
He may learn that he's shattered the unity.
7-Oct-01
U.S., Britain bomb Kabul
The trouble with hitting them back
In retaliatory attacks
Is if they think they must
Bring the battle to us
We'll be feeling their pain to the max.
8-Oct-01
Rush Limbaugh going deaf
I suppose I should be sympathetic
A deaf radio star'd be pathetic;
But surveying the damage
Good government ravaged
I feel furious, nausea, headache.
8-Oct-01
Building, co-worker show traces of anthrax
There's somethin' a-happenin' here
What it is ain't exact-a-ly clear;
Two cases of anthrax
Have silenced the laugh tracks
As we quietly stifle our fear.
9-Oct-01
Rumsfeld releases photos, says AF can fly around the clock
Our pilots, aggressive and zealous
Make all other services jealous;
We applaud them, and yet
We shouldn't forget
We know just what they choose to tell us.
10-Oct-01
DoD to take over vaccine production; contractor 96% behind schedule
Even Goppers are starting to hector
Contractors in the Private Sector;
Their market hypnosis
Cured by diagnosis
Of un-received Anthrax Protector.
10-Oct-01
Nancy Pelosi elected House Democratic Whip
The House GOP and Ken Starr
Published porn about babe with cigar;
The Dems' contribution
To this institution
Features babe with a whip as the star.
10-Oct-01
Akerlof, Stiglitz, Spence win 2001 Economics Nobel
Akerlof, Stiglitz and Spence
Show that laissez-faire rules make no sense;
Info asymmetric
Makes markets imperfect
In ways free markets can't circumvent.
11-Oct-01
CIA: bin-Laden owns Taliban through large contributions
Those Talibans sure must be rotten
To take so much cash from bin-Laden
We'll teach good government!
Why, our President
Would never -- oh, oops, I'd forgotten.
11-Oct-01
FBI has reason to believe terrorists will strike soon
The experts in our FBI
Say bad guys may once again try
To do us some hurt,
So be on the alert --
And thank God for the FBI's spy.
Who would have dared to predict
That they'd try on us harm to inflict?
For the next several days
We must all watch our ways
And be glad our Intelligence clicked.
I sure would never have guessed
That people with vengeance obsessed
Might try to fight back
And counterattack
To see that we share their distress.
The FBI didn't take long
To figure out how to seem strong;
The warning issued
Hardly is news,
But they've acted, and cannot be wrong.
11-Oct-01
This year's Tickle Me Elmo is also Tickle Me Lotto
If you buy a Tickle Me Elmo
For your little girl or young fellow
Hope he doesn't get lost
Or broken or tossed
Or stuffed full of syrup and Jello.
On the ninth new day of the new year
Listen to Elmo to hear
To your great elation
"Congratulations!!"
A word that will recharge your cheer.
If you do hear that word on that day
You'll get prizes worth $300K
Thanks to Fisher-Price
Who installed the surprise
For one single Elmo to say.
Excitement and fun without stopping
Await this year's holiday shopping;
For Tickle-Me Elmo
Kick shins and throw elbows
And prepare for a search 'til you're dropping.
12-Oct-01
NYT: Bush may cease fire if Taliban surrenders bin-Laden
With a backdrop of bombing and anthrax
Bush said, "Let's get down to brass tacks;
We'll stop when we've gotten
Our hands on bin-Laden
And they've marked down the capital gains tax."
14-Oct-01
NYT: Afghan war may redeem CNN
A Middle East war once again
Gives sustenance to CNN;
They'll find a new Blitzer
To send grainy pictures
Of bombs from the receiving end.
It may be unkindness to mention,
This may be their chance at redemption:
From some of their recent
Actions indecent
Done just for the Nielsens' attention.
Afraid that the bimbos at Fox
Soon would be cleaning its clocks
They placed their bets on
A. Brown and P. Zahn
And on fluff stuff instead of hard knocks.
Walter I., in D.C., said, "Please try us!
We'll go for an overt Right bias;
We'll keep it quite simple,
And hire Rush Limbaugh --
While to Goppers give groveling pious."
But suddenly hard news is in,
And they think that the way they can win
Is defy the Joint Chiefs
And inspire belief
While the others just spew White House spin.
14-Oct-01
Anti-anxiety prescriptions on the rise
When the dangers are many and real,
If anxiety's not what you feel
You should call on your shrink
Or give up strong drink
'Til your rational fears are revealed.
'Though our lives are confused and chaotic
Prescriptions of pills semiotic
Should be much reduced
So the labs can produce
Vaccines and/or antibiotics.
15-Oct-01
Daschle the latest to receive anthrax letter
bin-Laden can't think he'll prevail
Delivering anthrax by mail;
He'll soon pull the trigger
On something much bigger,
And meantime we wait to exhale.
15-Oct-01
Smallpox vaccine dangerously scarce
Vaccines were invented by Jenner
Who used mild cowpox to render
His patients protection
From smallpox infection
With the crude methods of an inventor.
So why, if there's plenty of cowpox,
Can't we use Jenner's method to outfox
The terrorist plot?
Hygienic it's not,
But it sure beats a six-foot long out-box.
16-Oct-01
Bush "Doctrine" weakening coalition, alienating allies
Says Bush's "Doctrine" in full execution
"If you're not a part of the solution,
You're part of the problem,"
As he struggles with cobblin'
Mixed agendas into coalition.
This "Doctrine" (coined by Eldridge Cleaver),
Rang fierce in initial war fever,
But that dichotomy
Very soon ought to be
Cast off as an underachiever.
Though our allies may try as they might
They can't see just black and the white;
The spectrum of gray
That they see means that they
May balk when the time appears right.
16-Oct-01
Stephen Hawking: Human survival requires colonizing space
"We're engaged in a frightening race
To get busy and colonize space
'Ere one or more tyros
Uses a killer virus
To wipe all life from the Earth's face."
Uhhhhh, Stephen, isn't it true
If we try what you tell us to do
In light of news recent
The odds are quite decent
We'd bring along some of the loons?
16-Oct-01
RIAA wants permission, indemnity for hacking in pursuit of .mp3s
In its zeal to erase .mp3s
Downloaded or ripped from CDs
The RIAA
Wants a legal OK
To hack into your home PC.
If it works, they'll be indemnified
If they should corrupt your hard drive
And leave privacy shattered
Or lose valuable data --
Of your day in court you're deprived.
18-Oct-01
Who's behind the anthrax attacks?
One by one, all the anthrax reports
Are gradually moving us towards
Retaliation
At terrorist nation --
But what if they aren't imports?
U.S. terrorists have been known
To threaten, as well as condone
Biological action
To seek the subtraction
Of the ethnics they fear and bemoan.
The anthrax was carefully deployed
Aimed at networks, and checkout tabloids,
And Dems on the Hill;
All of whom are wished ill
By militias who want them destroyed.
18-Oct-01
GOP House, Bush leave town; Daschle keeps Senate in session
With all of this talk about cowards,
How does Hastert think that he's empowered
To desert from his post?
I'd have thought he's supposed
To stay on until he's overpowered.
True, Hastert's had moments much prouder,
But actions than words are much louder;
We must look askance
At his lunge at the chance
To lit-er-al-ly take a powder.
19-Oct-01
So far, no sign of bin-Laden
We won't catch Osama bin-Laden
A-sleeping or sonambulah-tin'
He's deep in his lair
Not starving or scared
Because he's all summer been lardin'.
19-Oct-01
NY Post: Congress "WIMPS" for adjourning
Hastert is now saying Daschle
Teed him up for the wimp factor hassle
Denny says he concurred
When Tom gave the word;
It seems the man's House ain't his castle.
20-Oct-01
Clint Black, "Downtown" Julie Brown, Patriots Cheerleaders head for Central Asia
To help our assault forces cope
With their shortage of nookie and dope
We're sending them singers,
Foxy babes and joke-slingers;
Sad to say, we can send them no Hope.
20-Oct-01
Ann Coulter: Add plagiarism to her high crimes and misdemeanors?
If by chance you've attempted to read
Ann's post-World Trade Center screed
You hope that she's sorry
To be split from Rich Lowry
Whose blue pencil she desperately needs.
21-Oct-01
Hatch: Bush's judicial nominees needed quickly to fight terrorism
Hatch says we need Bush's judges
To keep terrorists in our clutches:
According to Orrin
We need more search warrants
And the Gops are dug in without budges.
I suppose that it's true, in a way;
Bush's judges won't waste time of day
Over probable cause --
They'll sign without pause
Cause their justice will brook no delay.
Now I grant that the recent events
And crime-fighting quick and intense
May generate torrents
Of needed search warrants
But there're thousands of judges on bench.
Besides, anti-terrorist measures
Say, "Arrest in haste, charge at leisure;"
There's no role for judges
Or any such drudges
But when Ashcroft says, "Sign," to say, "Yes, Sir."
21-Oct-01
Bayer adamant about blocking generic Cipro
On TV they would say, Bayer works wonders,
But now they're en route to great blunders;
If they demand quid pro
Quo for their Cipro
And shortage results -- there'll be thunder.
22-Oct-01
Bush, Putin poised to tear up ABM treaty
For Russia, it seems a win-win;
We throw missiles into the trash bin
And then waste our cash
On a hopeless task --
Catching missiles before they get in.
22-Oct-01
Paul McCartney headlines star-studded Concert for NYC
Amps were blarin' and cymbals were clashin'--
Paul & Co. played their tunes with great passion;
Paul evened the score
With his old friend George
Who did Bangladesh 'ere it was fashion.
23-Oct-01
Bayer says "Uncle!", agrees to reduce price of Cipro
It says in your old Econ text,
When demand soars, the thing you do next
Is jack up your prices,
Get rich from the crisis --
For the rest of your life you'll be fixed.
Bush says that that text is his psalter
As he prays at the free-market altar;
Yet invisible hands
Can lead to quicksands,
And one's market-faith begins to falter.
23-Oct-01
Anthrax spores found in (off-site) White House mail room
For decades we've all wept and wailed
For things lost or delayed in the mail;
Each dog has its day;
And the mailmen* say,
"We bet Bush is glad we're like snails."
* meant to be gender-neutral
24-Oct-01
Odyssey 2001 orbiting Mars following two 1999 failures
A mix-up 'tween English and metric
Caused one crash after orbit eccentric
The next, three months later
Crashed into Judge Crater,
But so far the third's copasetric.
24-Oct-01
Bush: "I don't have anthrax, but I'm not telling how I know."
Him whose head is best used for a hat-rack,
Stubbornly says, "Me no anthrax,"
Expecting the spores
To yield, of course
Like the Dems when he cut the rich-man tax.
25-Oct-01
Bush visits elementary school
In a speech that George made on TV
To each child, he added a plea;
"If you would be willin'
To help Afghan children
Just send in a dollar to me."
What happened to all of those bills?
Were they sent to help cure Afghans' ills?
Do their return addresses
Load Gop databases,
And the cash load the RNC's tills?
25-Oct-01
Wired: New non-Micro$oft OS called "Lindows" may be ready in a year
If you don't like what Gates makes you pay
Open source codes may yet save the day;
Run apps made for Windows
With the Linux-based "Lindows"
And help Redmond collapse in decay.
25-Oct-01
New Yorker: Beware influenza
What we think of as simply, the flu,
Does what bio-weapons must do;
It's highly contagious
And quickly mutatious
Killing thousands without much ado.
26-Oct-01
Meanwhile, Interior Department continues giveaways to mining corporations
While we are all watching the war
Big Mining demanded yet more
Rewriting of rules
By its puppets and tools
Who know that that's what they're there for!
26-Oct-01
Supreme Court, CIA HQ mail rooms show traces of anthrax
If the goal is to foment confusion
Then I would suggest substitution --
Don't molest CIA;
Hard at work let them stay,
To hinder the search for solutions.
26-Oct-01
Traders may have escaped WTC collapse, absconded with $100 million
Four guys working as money changers
At the moment of maximum danger
They cleaned out the safe,
Then made their escape --
Once again, fact than fiction is stranger.
27-Oct-01
Doxycycline now the preferred anthrax drug for workers
Cipro's cost's upwardly-cycling--
CDC remains ever-obliging,
Says when anthrax infects,
Minimize side-effects;
Give your workers some cheap doxycycline.
27-Oct-01
U.S. losing propaganda war in Middle East
We think our cause just, but we find
That A-rabs must be deaf and blind;
Pyrotechnic performance
Of our high-tech ordnance
Does not attract their hearts and minds.
28-Oct-01
United CEO resigns
I wonder if he was embarrassed
When his comment, United must perish
Was mistakenly heard
To be the true word
When he meant just to keep labor harassed.
28-Oct-01
Bush opposing federalization of airport security
Bush said that what's making him nervous
Bout security as Civil Service
Is the old canard
That it is too hard
To fire folks when they're deservous.
If the jobs are put on career track
On day one they'll likely attract
A good class of workers
Instead of the shirkers,
And other such min'mum wage hacks.
Bush really chose privatization
When he woke to the realization
That the status quo ante
Was all fine and dandy
With his masters in the corporations.
30-Oct-01
West Nile Virus is spreading westward, apparently naturally
Just in case you need something to dread
The West Nile virus has spread;
From New England and Maine
To the midwestern plains
More birds have been discovered, dead.
31-Oct-01
Bush: Terror warning issued to protect U.S. assets
The secret, well known but quite tacit,
Is now out of the bag in full facet;
Bush couldn't care less
About humans' distress
But he'll pull out the stops to save assets.
31-Oct-01
Latest figures show U.S. economy officially en route to recession
We are on the road to recession,
So says the accounting profession;
So as Bush is axing
Corporate taxing
They'll soon demand big wage concessions.
31-Oct-01
Bush demands stimulus legislation by November 30
Bush can't get his hands on bin-Laden,
His war plans appear misbegotten;
Terrorists kill
Almost at will
But from Dems, to guff he just won't cotton.
So again overplaying his hand
He's issued another demand;
He wants stimulus bill
By month end, or he will --
Do what? Congress he can't command.
So for the rest of the month, behind scenes
Where from public eyes he'll be screened
He'll put policy gems
In front of some Dems
To persuade enough his way to lean.
When the Dems have been bribed or coerced,
Legislation combining the worst
Of corporate welfare
And fireworks warfare
Will be signed on December the first.
1-Nov-01
Bush to issue executive order preventing release of Reagan papers
They're defying our examination
With legal prestidigitation
And legerdemain
To deceive us again
When they show us their next depredation.
2-Nov-01
Mueller to public: Please help us find more clues
The FBI's Mueller will rue
The day he said, "What should we do?"
But 'though FBI's lonely
It's hardly the only
Agency without a clue.
2-Nov-01
McCain: Private security not good enough for Capitol, so why is it good enough for airports?
The laissez-faire House GOP
Shows its doubts about enterprise free:
"We, Demos and Gops
Are protected by cops
But ex-cons are sufficient for thee."