We here in the Political Crow’s Nest at Jose el Retardo are far from being members of the Rudy Giuliani fan club, but we must send him sympathy as he deals with the Asshole Cardinal Egan.

Rumor has it that the Cardinal is getting on Rudy’s case for receiving the Eucharist (known as communion to laymen like you and me) during the recent Big Bad Pope-A-Dope visit. It seems that in 2000, when Egan became the head of the Archdiocese of New York, he made Rudy promise to never take communion again because of Rudy’s abortion beliefs (read more about it here).

You must be joking. Lest we all forget, Egan got into hot water back in 2003 for concealing the names of a bunch of child-molesting priests. He’s been found on lists for being one of the most complicit Cardinals in the whole cover-up of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. So which one of these men has it in for kids? It seems bizarre that Egan would want children born just to sit back and let them be traumatized by the very men he has ordered them to respect.

Giuliani is far from an angel. He made it difficult for kids in New York City to get decent education or healthcare during his term as Mayor. However, at least you can say this for him: he didn’t aid in their molestation. He didn’t have to. We have Cardinal Egan for that.

Thank you, Cardinal Egan, for being such an ass-biting jerk. You make my job easy.

A young man working in the mail room of the Jose el Retardo offices asked me today if I had ever witnessed the comic prowess of The Whitest Kids U’Know, a fairly recent addition to the overabundance of sketch comedy groups that litter the history books with their corpses. I said I had heard of them, but have not watched them, and even had not heard great things about them. He said, “Forget what you’ve heard, they rock.” Cool. So you know, I like funny things—maybe I’ll find something new to lighten up my days.

These cats, I’m sorry to say, are not funny. I’m not sure what they are at all, as a matter of fact. The sketch I saw was more bizarrely sad commentary than anything else, but the acting is pretty over the top and poor—off the mark completely if the goal is stylization. And it just wasn’t funny. Take a look:

It only makes me pine for the Kids in the Hall, those legendary Canadians whose esoteric comedy has still to be matched in pure oddness even after being gone from the airwaves for like 15 years. Come back, Kids. Please. Here’s one of my favorites, The Beard:

Good readers, I don’t know what to tell you. Earth Day has passed. It is gone. Did you celebrate? What present did you give to your great, blue mother? If you have yet to make a decision, fear not. Common etiquette states you have at least six months to give this magnificent bitch that special gift she truly deserves. And we in the Ideas Bureau at Jose el Retardo are here to help you become the best tenant on the global block.

I know what you think you should do: Green up. Recycle. Take the Hummer to the crusher and buy the Prius. Mesh grocery bags. Purchase corporate carbon credits. Do all the things that our friendly celebrity monarchy tells us we must do in order to sleep soundly this evening.

But is all this do-gooder status maintenance really in the best interest of our home planet? Many would argue that the solution isn’t as simple as a couple of million people making a change in their ‘carbon footprint.” Even if we here in America started to give a shit about climate change and greenhouse gasses as early as tomorrow—and we won’t; check out this article from last month’s Science Daily—we would, as a nation, have little effect on the actions of developing nations like China and India, neither of whom give the slightest crap about what you or I think regarding anything. But even setting this “stinkin’ thinkin’” aside, read this blurb by noted environmentalist Patrick Michaels from a 2004 article on climate change on the PBS website:

So here’s the real answer: We can do very, very little about human-induced climate change. If every nation on earth that signed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which reduces emissions in most developed countries roughly 6 percent below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012, the amount of “saved” warming by 2050 is a mere 0.07 degrees Celsius. Because human-induced warming is a linear (constant-rate) phenomenon, that works out to 0.14 degrees Celsius in a century. Consider that the normal year-to-year variability is about 0.15 degrees Celsius, and you must conclude that we couldn’t even find the “signal” of our attempt to slow warming within the year-to-year “noise.”

He goes on to say that nothing can be effectively changed until we shift completely away from fossil-fuel based energy, and that just costs too much money, people. It takes limitless ingenuity that the oil companies would do anything to prevent. And it would mean making too many sacrifices. What would we store our food in? Make toys out of? Listen to music from? What would we make our dance clothing from? How would we make our bicycle helmets? What would we insulate our super-efficient households with? How do we keep the lights on? Or the refrigerators? Do you like elastic? What else would hold up your undergarments? From what would you make cell phones? Carpet? Buckets? Remember, we aren’t talking about the fear of running out of oil—if that was it, we could very easily use those oil-shitting organisms that Craig Venter is building (click here to read about it)—we are talking about the temperature of the earth. And to halt the warm-up, it’s so complicated as to be impossible.

And that isn’t really going to help mother earth. I say that this task—helping her—is really much simpler than we had previously supposed.

One could argue that humans are the worst thing to happen to this planet since the surface cooled. It won’t be healed until we are gone, and the faster the better. Rip the Band-Aid off, right? Global warming isn’t killing the planet, it’s killing HUMANS (and leading up to the release of tons and tons of methane gas into the atmosphere, where it will wait for ignition by lightening and then explode like hundreds of nuclear bombs) and the faster we’re gone, the faster the earth can get on with the methodical task of cleaning up after us.

So lighten up, America! Just keep doing what you’re doing! Buy those SUVs! Eat pounds and pounds of meat! Spray your deodorant in the air like ya just don’t care! If we keep it up, we can really go out in style, turn the whole planet into something magical and tropical for ourselves (mmmm…I can taste the pina coladas and the margaritas already, yum yum), and for our children, and maybe even our children’s children, and then after that, does it really matter that much?

In review: the best gift we can give the earth is to die, so let’s go out with a bang.

The end.

Like everyone else out there, I have a MySpace page that I check on about once every 1 to 5 months. I occasionally get a friend invite, usually from porn websites or call girl services, but other than that, there’s nothing to really DO on MySpace. Not that I’ve found, anyway.

But there are the music pages. And this I find to be MySpace’s strong point. This is why it’s valid. This is the only valuable aspect. And it’s incredibly worrying to think it might be bought by the big label asshole jerkwads.

But until this happens, there are literally thousands of bands to be found on MySpace Music, some that are super famous, the vast majority are complete nobodies, and everything in between. I received a friend request from one of the latter the other day, a band that goes by the clever moniker “ATTACK ON URANUS.” Well, this is perfect, I thought. I’ve wanted to spend more time on MySpace Music so that I could find some horrible musical groups to pummel with my misplaced anger and aggression, and it would appear that these groups may just come to me, instead. How easy!

Much to my chagrin, ATTACK ON URANUS did not hopelessly suck. In fact, they turned out to be a pretty solid thrash punk outfit out of Missouri with a hell of a lot of energy and much to offer to headbangers everywhere. No, they aren’t the next Megadeath or Anthrax, but with member names like Smooth Cock Sailor and Bet Your Balls it’s Neill Smith, can you really go wrong? Hell, I might even accept these cats’ invite to become friends.

But don’t worry, fans of Retardo, I am not giving up my search to find a band to bash.

It always blows my mind when I hear someone from a lower income bracket sympathize with anybody from the Richie Rich set. What is there to feel sorry about? Have no doubts: the lives of these people are full of wine, women, and song. They wake up in the morning to a squadron of sexy chamber maids in low-cut blouses ready to wash them thoroughly with warm bath sponges and gentle suds; cleansing their palette with chilled champagne and feeding them ripe strawberries; dressing them carefully in the finest wool blends and silks. Then, the Lord Fancybottoms of the world receive their perfectly creased Wall Street Journals parked expertly next to their steaming hot cup of Hacienda La Esmeralda coffee—hand ground by immigrants and brewed to perfection inside of a flawlessly polished French press. And then it’s off to work! where they spend much of their time “cultivating relationships” at some damned English sporting event or on the back nine of the most “exclusive” country clubs while some poor slob of a loading dock worker back at corporate headquarters is peeling dead rats off of glue traps and making stew out of them for the kids squealing hungrily back at the shack. Later, Prince Softskin will eat lobster salad and roast duck off of silver platters, sipping cognac, wearing satin slippers, and so on, and so on…

I hate them. I wish I was one of them.

Why am I talking about this? Because I spotted an article today that sited a new report by a couple of smarty pants economists named Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers from the Brookings Institute (a place where smarty pants hang out and study cool things and stuff) which states, basically, that money can in fact buy happiness. To be more exact, it buys the things that can make you happy. Better healthcare, more time to visit friends, and the piece of mind that comes when you don’t worry about spending the night out on the sidewalk. You can see the report in its entirety by clicking here.

So big deal. I think most of us instinctually knew this long before Betsey and Justin decided to make some charts illustrating the numbers (click here to see one). I guess I like it because now I can roll up a copy of this report and keep it handily in my coat pocket so that whenever some wealthy punk-ass saunters up to me in his deer-skin jacket and Moss Lipow sunglasses and tries to bemoan how he has pain like any man, that his tears are just as salty, that all hearts break the same, and how he always wanted to pitch for the Yankees and never got past watching his dreams slowly die right in front of his pampered eyes, I can take out this report and stab him in the throat with it.

Christ. I wish I had a swimming pool.

Yes, I’d love to be rich. I would fucking LOVE it. I would have loved to be born into it and not to have had to work for it. I would love to win the lottery today. And I can guarantee you this: I would never talk to any of you pitiable assholes again.

A visit from the Pope to your homeland is always frightening, and is bound to cause some level of anxiety in all but the most stouthearted of us, but the sense of terror that travels in the papal wake need not take control of your life. Always remember that while he may be a member of the undead, reviled for traveling in shadow to feed off of the precious life-force of the living, his true dark power lies in his ability to cloud your mind with fear, suppressing your ability to take action and wriggle out from under his horrifying, suffocating grasp. This being said, there are ways to fortify your spirit against this oppressive presence. Follow these simple, Jose-tested, common-sense rules, and you should find yourself sleeping more soundly over this trying week:

1. Remember, the Pope cannot enter your home unless you INVITE HIM IN. Seems simple, but don’t forget: it’s important to make sure your entire family has been trained in denying the Pope entry. Even if only ONE person living in your dwelling invites the pope inside through any door, window, or ANY other opening, then the Pope is allowed free entry in and out for eternity. Talk to roommates and visitors as well.

2. Fashion a garlic necklace. The Pope HATES this. Infuse garlic with olive oil and spray it on your outdoor plants and walkways. It helps keep him at a distance, therefore diminishing the chances you’ll need to enact Rule #1. You can also soak in a garlic bath, but this is usually deemed a trifle excessive. The necklace seems to work just fine, and keeps you getting laid.

3. Keep a mirror within handy reach. If you are confused as to whether or not you are dealing with the actual Pope, hold it in front of him. If you can see his reflection, you’re cool. He’s not the real Pope. However, dealing with an impostor can be just as dangerous, as it could be a way of distracting you while the real Pope is sneaking up behind on tip-toe, preparing to pounce; get yourself to a safe place immediately. If you can’t see his reflection in the mirror, well…honestly, if you let him get that close, you’re a goner anyway. If you’ve properly handled Rule #2 it should never come to this.

4. While it’s true that the Pope cannot stand the sun, this is generally dealt with by keeping the old coot constantly lathered in a thick coating of aluminum-based sun block. You will also notice that his handlers keep the “man” dressed in heavy white cloaks and hats at all times. This reflects the sun’s rays harmlessly back into the atmosphere. So with these considerations, it’s crucial to not rely on sunlight to save you.

5. The whole crucifix thing is an utter myth spread by the mealy minions in the Vatican. They WANT you to use it, for the cross is actually a source of much strength for the Pope, and if you produce it while defending yourself or while fleeing, your ass is grass.

6. Wear a priest collar. Not a costume collar, but an authentic clerical collar from your local priest uniform store. They are heavily reinforced, and have been specifically designed to protect the devoted from the Pope’s bottomless hunger.

That’s the short list. Print it out and stick it to the fridge, loyal readers. It’s going to be a long week. Jose out.

SAINI SUNPURA, India (JeR) — On March 11^th, sources informed the Jose el Retardo International Desk that an infant with two adorable faces was born to a dirt-poor family on a northern India farm 25 miles east of New Delhi. Apparently, this development has raised many eyebrows—as well as hopes—in the halls of the United States’ legislative branches, spawning many rumors of a dawning golden age in American politics.

The father of this tiny miracle, 23 year old Vinod Singh, has said that he believes this precious angel, named Lali, is the reincarnation of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga, reportedly a rather bitchy divine spirit with lots of arms and a trio of peepers. As it happens, doctors believe differently, and say little Lali is suffering from an extraordinarily rare deformity known as craniofacial duplication. However, the town remains adamant, and throngs of visitors keep pouring in, hoping to lay eyes on the deity incarnate. The father remains fantastically upbeat, stating, “”My daughter is fine—like any other child.”

Back in Washington DC, members of both houses of Congress are looking at the matter from a slightly different angle, albeit just as optimistically. “Hey, this fucking kid’s got one head and two fucking faces,” raves representative Todd Akin of Missouri, “From a politician’s standpoint, you can’t beat it with a stick!”

Speaking strictly under the conditions of confidentiality, Representative Chip Pickering of Mississippi’s view was more illuminating, and brings into sharp relief an idea commonly shared here in the capital: “Think about it. Most politicians spend their entire lives practicing the art of merely speaking out of both sides of their mouths. Very few ever get around to truly perfecting being two-faced. If this child could be brought over here and taught our ways…I mean, could you imagine what might have happened if a true patriot like Strom Thurmond or Trent Lott had been given such a gift from God?” When asked what he thought of the reports from Saini Hospital’s director, Sabir Ali, claiming that dear Lali “…drinks milk from her two mouths and opens and shuts all the four eyes at one time,” Pickering grabbed his head with both hands and exclaimed, “Oh my Christ, we’ve got to get this girl over here. Whatever the cost.”

Chuck Schumer, the New York Senator, was demure regarding the prospects of bringing the bi-facial child to the states, however he did surmise, “I wouldn’t doubt if the White House is already way ahead of all of us on this one. I mean, just recently my office was asked to reach out to Madonna’s handlers regarding her ability to take on more mothering duties—and let me be clear that I’m only speculating here—but it doesn’t take a genius to do the math.” When asked what he thought it might mean to Lali’s parents to have the girl stripped from their modest shack so that she could be bathed in the glow of celebrity and raised under the strict conventions of American public service, Schumer was apathetic. “Eh, you know, what can you do?” he shrugged, “The good of the many, right? I mean, you have to admit, she’d make a hell of a cabinet member.”

Back in India, the politicians there had more immediate concerns. Saini village Chief Daulat Ram is working to convince the Indian Government to provide funds to build a Durga temple in the town, and is asking for assistance to be given to the Singh’s for the care of their little sensation.

When told of the plans for the shrine, a source close to President Bush scoffed. “A temple to WHO? Look, I’m sure if we tell President Patil over there that we’ve got a whole slew of phone jockey jobs to send her way, you know, she’s gonna give us the kid. Please. They’d trade their own mothers over there for a pint of clean water.” When pressed to say whether this was an admission on the part of the White House to attempt to claim the girl, the source ruffled. “Look, we’re just talking here, right? Don’t go walking around saying shit like that, okay, cause you’re just gonna cause problems for everyone. People get hurt over crap like this. Nice people. Nice people like you, and your very nice family.”

Rep Pickering seemed less secretive, possibly because he was speaking anonymously. “Hey, America’s in need. Look at our political landscape. It’s a mess. It’s like you can’t tell a decent lie anymore without everybody getting all pissy and bent out of shape about it. We need a true two-faced ringer. We need a hero. America needs Lali Singh.” Then Pickering sighed, and opening a Fresca, he ruminated, “She’d have to change her name, though. ‘Lali.’ It’s silly. Maybe something like Susan Reed, or Barbara Lewis, or Amanda Hugginkis—something solid like that.”

Mr. Singh presumably does not have a phone, and therefore could not be reached by the offices of Jose el Retardo for a statement.