2005 Nerds of the Herd

The 2005 Nerds of the Herd are:


1) Michael Brown
2) Tom Cruise
3) Scooter Libby/Karl Rove
4) Jack-FM
5)  80's trivia losers at Shelley's
6) Aruba police department
7) Lynne Stewart
8) Terrell Owens
9) Rafael Palmero
10) Roger Toussaint

1) I could fill a phone book with names of people to blame for what happened in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina. The dishonorable mention list could make up the top 10 Nerds list. You can
start with President Bush who put a bunch of incompetents in charge, and work your way
down. Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff dropped the ball, as did Louisiana Governor
Katherine Blanco. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had no solid evacuation plan, New Orleans
police Chief Eddie Compass watched as the Superdome turned into the OK corral. Former
first lady Barbara Bush still as out of touch as she was in the early 90's, said that the people
housed in the Astrodome "were having it better than they normally do." Partially because of
her husband and son's domestic policies, sadly, she was right.
     But it was the head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, who blundered the
most. And with Hurricaine Katrina the big story of the year, former FEMA head Michael
Brown captures the Weekly Mail Nerd of the Herd Award for 2005.
    "Brownie, you're doing a great job." President Bush said as he first stepped foot in New
Orleans days after the levies broke. Maybe it was a pep talk. Maybe it was wishful thinking.
What it definitely was not was the truth. Brownie was doing an awful job.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency - a former independent agency that became
part of         the new Department of Homeland Security in March 2003 - is tasked with
responding to, planning          for, recovering from and mitigating against disasters."

Lets examine the above definition of FEMA, taken from its own website, and apply it to what
happened in New Orleans back in September.

Tasked with responding to disasters-- I'm assuming this means as soon as possible and not
four or five days later, as FEMA did in New Orleans.

Tasked with recovering from-- The master plan was to move the refugees from one
outdated sports venue, the Superdome, to another one, the Houston Astrodome. It actually
kind of worked out, despite Barbara Bush making it sound like Club Med.

But what happened to PLANNING FOR? Planning for? Even the most mediocre weathermen
were predicting that Katrina would be a category 5 hurricane, so it stands to reason that
when a city is protected by levies that experts said could only withstand a category 3 storm,
it may be time to,oh I don't know Evacuate the city? Should that not have been FEMA's job?
To get in there and get those people out before the storm hit?
      Instead, they waited, the storm hit, the levies broke, and the results were people
stranded on the roofs of their houses and those were the lucky ones. Others died, and then
there were the ones standed in the Superdome. Maybe its a stretch to say that all of this
could have been avoided if FEMA had done its job. But even if half of them could have
gotten out, it was better than what happened, which was a whole lot of nothing.
     And that falls on the head of FEMA. And I could have given Brownie the benefit of the
doubt, except that instead of being a man and taking responsibility, he blamed everyone else
but himself. What a guy.
        You all know that there is nothing that burns my ass more than people who constantly
rag on America. But what happened after that hurricane was a national disgrace. Give all the
blame you want to President Bush, he deserves it. But the man he put in charge of FEMA
deserves it more.


2) Some of my favorite movies have been Tom Cruise movies. Born on the Fourth of July, A
Few Good Men, Risky Business. He's actually not a bad actor.
      But in 2005, we've learned just what a jerk Cruise is. Most of comes from his beliefs in
the wacko religion Scientology. And don't tell me I'm being religiously intolerant either.
Scientology isn't a religion, its a cult.
        Amongst Cruise's beliefs are that there is no such thing as postpartum depression and
that ritalin does more damage than good. Ritalin may be over prescribed but in many cases it
has helped kids to focus. His attitude on postpartum is disturbing, especially when he goes
after poor Brooke Shields, who had her struggles with postpartum, and was gutsy enough to
come out and describe it, only to have this a-hole tell her its all in her head.
        But the worst sin this guy committed was corrupting young hottie Katie Holmes. This
poor thing has no idea what the hell she is getting into. She's already converted from
Catholicism to Scientology, and has already gotten herself knocked up by Cruise, who
celebrated by buying them their own sonogram machine. Cruise has denied saying that he
expects Holmes to give birth quietly, but that another supposed Scientology belief.
       Cruise announced to the world that he had Holmes were an item by jumping up and
down on Oprah Winfrey's couch and screaming "I love this woman!" I hope I don't sound
arrogant saying this, but from where I'm sitting it looks like an over the hill psycho trying to
recapture his youth. It looks like an obsessive infatuation.
What it doesn't look like is love.
       
 3) Way back in 2003 when the whole sordid tale broke, I tried to follow what was going on
with the CIA agent leak case. To be honest, I still don't understand it.
Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent whose husband, Joe Wilson, went over to Niger
in 2003 to investigate whether or no Saddam Hussein was trying to buy yellowcake which
was needed to build nuclear bombs. (Is it just me, or does yellowcake sound very non
threatening?)
     Wilson came back and said that the yellowcake story was bogus. And the theory goes
that because he was discrediting Bush's main reason for going to war, Scooter Libby Dick
Cheney's Chief of Staff, and Bush's guru Karl Rove, leaked Plame's name to the press.
    Now because of all this, New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent time in the slammer,
Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper nearly did the same, and syndicated columnist Bob
Novak probably should have.
    The next person who may be on their way up the creek is Scooter Libby. Special counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald, recommended Libby be indicted, and while he made no such claim for
Rove, he didn't rule it out. How the mighty have fallen. In 2004, Rove was considered one of
the most powerful men in the country. Now he's sweating out a possible trip to the slammer.


4) On the surface, it should be celebrated. A radio station that mixes it up, doesn't play the
same 20 songs over and over again. One minute you're going Up to the Spirit in the Sky, the
next you're Down with OPP. It's the only station where Pink Floyd may Wish you were Here,
while Scandal is saying Goodbye to You.
    And the fact that there are no DJ's trying to be funny seem to make it all the more
enjoyable. So why would I put this radio station on my list of losers this year?
    Well for starters, they did what K-Rock and a couple other sations have done more
recently. That is, damn the format, fire all the station employees, and switch things up with
little to no notice. And while many DJ's on New York radio are schmucks, there were 2
stations with some exceptions. Q104.3 is one of them. CBS-FM was the other.
    There were guys on that station that weren't just part of NY radio, they WERE NY radio.
Harry Harrison, Bill Brown, Cousin Brucie, these guys were a walking encyclopedia of rock
and roll knowledge. More importantly, there were people who listened to them for years, and
others, like myself, who grew to respect them for what they contributed to music.
    You may think that I'm blowing this out of proportion, and you may be right. But these
guys deserved a better fate than the one they got. And to be replaced by some unfunny
smart ass voice over, that's just a disgrace.

5) Now just because you were at Shelley's on May 21, 2005 doesn't make you a loser, nor
does it make you a loser if you couldn't beat me, Steve and Katie at 80's music trivia that
night. But if you were one of the morons who was chanting "Wild Bill S-cks", well then
congratulations, you made it to the list. And as for your lack of music knowledge, well don't
take it out on me. Look at it this way, you at least won something this year. A spot on a list
surrounded by a bunch of losers as big as you are.

6) Natalee Holloway was a high school senior with big dreams just like any other high school
senior. Her class, which must have been super wealthy, took a trip to Aruba in May. On May
30th, Natalee was enjoying her last night on the town, partying with some of the locals. That
was the last anyone heard from her.
     We can debate the wisdom of letting your 18 year old go off to Aruba, we can question
why she was left on her own well past midnight with 3 total strangers. None of that means
anything when the island's police department a) can't find the missing girl and b) can't find
enough evidence to keep the main suspects in her disappearance in custody. Deepak Kalpoe,
21, his brother Satish, 18, and their friend Joran Van Der Sloot, 17, were the last 3 guys she
was seen with.  These 3 clowns have changed their story so much, they obviously know
something about what happened to her.
        But the cops down there, instead of getting to the bottom of all this, have let these
guys back out of jail and instead are blaming Natalee's poor mom, Beth Holloway Twitty, for
their lack of success. They say she's interfering and whats worse, hurting Aruba's booming
tourism business. Heaven forbid!
        Ms. Twitty is nothing more that a mother looking desperately for her daughter. To
have the Aruba police, obviously a bunch of bumbling buffoons, criticizing her is
unconscionable.

7) One of the great things about America is that no matter how big a scumbag you are,
you're entitled to a defense. Whether you steal a pack of Bubblicious from your local candy
store, or you try to blow up the World Trade Center, you have the right to have an attorney
defend you. The fact that Lynne Stewart defended Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for his role in
the 1993 World Trade Center bombing doesn't land her on this list.
     But she lands here because she also passed messages to some of the Sheik's followers,
especially to those who wished to do us harm. And all because she was one of these people
who think that the United States is the root of all evil. She stepped way over the line here.
Legal counsel is one thing, aiding and abetting terrorists, that's a whole other ballgame.
        She has a loyal following of supporters too. Some are just zealots like herself. Others I
believe don't realize what she does. They look at her as someone who is simply criticizing US
policies. This is simply not the case. What she is doing is far worse. She is cavorting with evil.
And for that, she will probably spend the rest of her life behind bars. Good riddance.

8) When we look back on the 2005 NFL Season, which player will be remembered the most?
Peyton Manning? Tom Brady (as much as I hate to say it?) Maybe even Eli Manning? Maybe,
but I'm afraid not.
I'm afraid 2005 will be remembered as the year of TO.
      It started with his remarkable performance in the Super Bowl on February 6, 2005, but
it went downhill from there. He criticized Donovan McNabb, held out of training camp,
criticized coach Andy Reid, walked out of training camp. Criticized the Eagles in general, and
got himself suspended from the team. in other words, he was the most talked about player
mostly for all the off the field stuff that happened.

9) Another wonderful thing about this country is that you can lie your ass off and even if you
get caught, you can usually weasel your way out of it. It becomes so much harder though
when, as you are lying, you point and jab your figure forward. Bill Clinton did that in 1998
when he told us he "did not have sexual relations with that woman." I believe had he he kept
his hands down he wouldn't have gotten in as much trouble. Instead he pointed his finger at
the entire nation. He ended up getting impeached. (Though not convicted)
    Fast forward 7 years and we have Baltimore Oriole Rafael Palmero, testifying before
Congress, insisting that he did not ever use steroids. I spent most of that day March 17,
getting hammered at various St Patricks Day functions, but at the time, Palmero looked like
the most believeable of the group testifying.
Mark McGwire said he didn't want to talk about the past, Sammy Sosa said he couldn't speak
English, and Jose Canseco took the fifth. Only Palmero directly answered the questions.
    Only as we later found out, he answered it wrong. He didn't tell the truth. He tested
positive for roids in August. Whats worse, when he testified, he started jabbing his finger at
Congress.
Dude, if you're gonna do that, you better be clean.
       They started talking about bringing him up on perjury charges and taking away his
baseball records. None of that will happen, but he may as well kiss the Hall of Fame goodbye
now. And it's as much because of his finger pointing as his steroid use.

10) It's the holiday season, tourists pouring in from all over the world. It's the last couple of weeks before
many people take their holiday vacations. For me, it was a week before I was to get married. What a time
for the transit workers to go on strike.
       But strike they did. And the man who caused it all was Roger Toussaint, the head of the TWU. For
three days, he brought the city to a standstill, causing people to have to walk miles to get to work. The
same blue collar people that Toussaint was supposedly trying to help, were actually the ones getting
screwed.
       Now did the union have some legitimate beefs? Sure. And yes, they should be entitled to a pay
raise. But to demand that they not have to pay a penny towars their health benefits and retirement is
absurd, especially when almost every other worker has to do just that.
       And I'm no fan of the MTA, they might be the biggest crooks going. Both the Toussaint and MTA
head Peter Kalikow are lying weasals not to be trusted. But the union was asking for alot. Only the
natural resilency of New York City kept everything from going insane.


PAST NERDS

2004- Lynndie England
2003-Toni Smith
2002-Martha Stewart
2001-Osama Bin Laden