• On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney visitedPortland in an attempt to raise funds for his and other localRepublicans’ campaigns and in hope of securing Oregon’s sevenelectoral votes. The $1000-a-plate dinner gathered over $400,000from the 350 participants in attendance. Private photo sessionswith Cheney were also offered for $1,000 a pop, while for a cool$500 on top of that, the surly veep would eat a live bat oncamera.
• Monday evening, the Democratic NationalConvention got off to a “positive” start in Boston, as formerPresidents Carter and Clinton and former Vice President Gore waxednostalgic about the boom of the Clinton years, back when the restof the world respected the United States. In an effort to harnessthis surge of positively charged nostalgia, the Johns have decidedto refocus their campaign efforts away from the platform of the”Two Americas” towards their new campaign slogan, “Blowjobs notbombs.”
• In their July 26 issue, New Yorker magazinereported that the U.S. Armed Forces have extended their healthbenefits to include plastic surgery to “anyone in a uniform” aswell as their immediate families. The elective surgeries, performedby army surgeons in training, will include liposuction, face-liftsand breast augmentation, although patients will have to supplytheir own implants. There is no limit to how many surgeries onepatient may undergo. The Department of Defense is hoping that theseallotments will lift morale among troops, whom are putting theirlives firmly on the line every day to create “The New Face ofIraq.”
• Following its release last Thursday, thissummer’s runaway blockbuster “The 9/11 Commission Report” has beenflying off the shelves at Barnes and Nobles around the country,topping the bestseller lists. It is the first freegovernment-issued public document, sold at $10, to rival thesuccess of Harry Potter since the release of “The Starr Report” in1998. When asked about the success of the 567 page monumental work,President Bush said from his Crawford, Texas, ranch, “You know, Ihaven’t read it yet. 567 pages? Whew, I’ll wait for the CliffNotes. And anyway, from what I have heard it’s not that importantof a work, anyhow.”
• Oregon’s cheesiest governor yet, TedKulongoski, took time out of his busy schedule to proclaim Friday,July 30, “Tillamook Cheese Day,” in honor of the Oregon dairycooperative’s 95th anniversary. This just goes to show you that youdon’t need sharp leadership in a state that has sharp cheddar.
shiv (shiv) n. [Romany chiv,blade; later Prison Slang] a knife, esp. one used as a weapon, orformed by the sharpening of a spoon.
shank (shank) n. 1. a projectionor wire loop on some buttons that which they are sewn to fabric. 2.[Prison Slang] a knife, esp. one formed by the sharpening of aspoon.