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Official White House proclamation:

The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Loyalty Day.” This Loyalty Day, and throughout the year, I ask all Americans to join me in reaffirming our allegiance to our Nation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2007, as Loyalty Day. I call upon the people of the United States to participate in this national observance and to display the flag of the United States on Loyalty Day as a symbol of pride in our Nation.

Coming soon: The Three Minute Hate, every night at 6pm on FOX News!

Update for the sake of clarity: No, this stupid idea was not invented by Bush and crew. Given that Congress is controlled by the Democrats, it’s unlikely they would go out of their way to pass laws asking people to be loyal to the President; sorry if I led anyone to believe otherwise.

A (Reagan-loving) social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University ran a study encouraging psychiatric outpatients to vote.

When he went back and analyzed his data, he discovered that there’s a direct statistical correlation between how psychotic a person is, and how likely they are to vote for George W Bush.

In the interests of balance I should say that the reverse inference has yet to be demonstrated statistically, and is merely anecdotally true.

The Observer:

A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population — the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit’s streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.

Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. Amos Lumpkins has work and his children go to school. But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.

Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck – a medical bill or factory closure – away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 (£2.95) an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush’s trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.

[...]

Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life. It also runs counter to the strong anti-government current in modern American politics.

c.f. The Onion, which makes the same point rather more briefly.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Bush played the guitar while New Orleans drowned. And now this:

The good news is—and it’s hard for some to see it now—that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house—he’s lost his entire house— there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.

—George W. Bush, 2005-09-02

I wonder what proportion of the newly homeless poor black population of New Orleans had comprehensive home insurance? The astonishing thing isn’t that Bush would say something so tactless and insensitive; it’s that his PR minders would allow it through into an official White House news release.

There’s more good news for Bush and his buddies though. Guess who the government’s hired for the storm cleanup? Could it be Halliburton? Of course it could.

Oh, and how about using Katrina as an excuse to test some experimental sonic weapons on unruly crowds? Sorted!

In a surprising turn of events, however, even FOX News don’t seem to think they can spin this one as positive for Bush.

• Red Sox win World Series. Twice.
• Debian project releases ‘Sarge’.
• Apple switches to x86. (Get your badge now!)
• Microsoft switches to PowerPC for Xbox, picks Macs as development systems.
• Deep Throat confesses.
• Labour wins third UK General Election in a row.
• Mathew learns to drive car, moves to Texas.

Coming soon:

• Showers of frogs.
• Duke Nukem Forever ships.
• Pope dies, replaced by Dalai Lama.
• Passport replaced by RFID embedded in hand.
• George W. Bush admits mistake, apologizes.

With Ashcroft’s departure, George W. Bush has a chance to make a symbolic gesture towards uniting the nation. Instead, he has chosen Alberto Gonzales as the new Attorney General.

That’s the Alberto Gonzales who wrote the memo urging that the president declare the US exempt from the Geneva Convention, because otherwise US behavior could lead to war crimes prosecutions. If you had any doubt that a vote for the Bush administration would be rewarding those who supported torture, that doubt should now be dispelled.

It was also Gonzales who ignored a subpoena to turn over documents relating to Enron. Not exactly surprising, since he was one of Enron’s corporate lawyers when he worked for Vinson & Elkins.

Gonzales was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Bush in 1999, where he took cash from Halliburton while overhearing a case against them. Surprise, surprise, the case was denied. He also defended the Texas practice of not bothering to alert consulates when foreign nationals were arrested in Texas, stating that international law did not apply to Texas.

Finally, Alberto Gonzales was the guy Bush relied on to summarize the death penalty cases in Texas for him, so he could decide whether to grant clemency or just have ‘em executed. We all know how that turned out.

So, let the healing commence!

One night George W. Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House bed. He awakens to see George Washington standing beside him. Bush looks up and asks, “George, what’s the best thing I can do to help the country?”

”Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did,” Washington advises, then fades away.

The next night, Bush is astir again when he sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moving silently around the bedroom. Bush calls out: “Tom, please! What is the best thing I could do to help the country?”

”Respect the Constitution, as I did,” Jefferson advises, and then dims from sight.

The third night sleep still evades Bush. He sees the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed. Bush lowers his voice and asks, “Franklin, What is the best thing I could do to help the country?”

In that golden voice of his, FDR replies, “Help the less fortunate, just as I did,” and then he disappears.

Bush still isn’t sleeping well the fourth night. He tosses and turns, and suddenly another figure moves out of the shadows. It’s the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. “Abe,” Bush pleads, “what’s the best thing I can do right now to help the country?”

Lincoln pauses, then replies, “Go see a play.”

Al Qaeda endorses George W. Bush for President of the USA. Really.

“That’s the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

—George W. Bush, quoted in Bush at War by Bob Woodward.

CSX Corporation profits, 1998-2001: $934 million.

CSX Corporation tax paid, 1998-2001: -$164 million.

CSX Corporation effective tax rate: -17.5%

CSX Corporation CEO: John W. Snow.

Latest job of John W. Snow: Chosen by George W. Bush to be secretary of the Treasury.

[The title was a late bit of inspiration.]