***LIGHT NEWS*** for Friday - a person's GOT to laugh...

Give 'em shelter:
Stones offer $1M

Rolling Stone Mick tells Rolling Stone mag that 'Sweet Neo Con' is a reply to a question we asked him during the election.

People kid Mick Jagger about being flinty, but the rock god and his fellow Stones are peeling off $1 million to help Hurricane Katrina victims.
The band is also making it easy for fans to join them in giving to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund at each stop on their Bigger Bang Tour.

Meanwhile, Jagger makes his 20th cover appearance on Rolling Stone today - more than any other artist.

Asked in the mag about the band's new song "Sweet Neo Con," Sir Mick recalls a conversation we had with him back in October, when we asked about the Bush-Kerry race.

"I don't want to overexplain ," he tells David Fricke. "But it is very direct. During the presidential election, I was asked by the New York Daily News which side I was on. I said it's not polite to take sides in foreigners' elections. But we're not in an election now."

Katrina, Bush and the fair
Friday, September 09, 2005
JEFF KRAMER
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

President George W. Bush's handpicked commission to investigate the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina issued its finding today, taking less than six hours to conclude that the leader of the free world "is not fit to run the Potato Bar at the Great New York State Fair."

Bush immediately embraced the conclusion of the nine-member panel of cronies, convicted CEOs and friends of his father.

"It's right there in black and white," Bush said, displaying the 300-page report and winking at commission Chairman Robert Bork. "I'm not equipped to be president - never was. I'm grateful to the commission for rolling up its sleeves and not dillydallying. We need more of that in Washington."

Appearing unfazed by the crushing indictment of his leadership at a time of national crisis, Bush vowed to "Hold accountable anyone who helped me become president in the first place," starting with voters.

"For four years, and frankly well before that, I did everything humanly possible to telegraph my unfitness for office, yet a majority of folks refused to heed the warnings. No one could have predicted that."

Bush singled out the architect of his 2004 re-election victory, Karl Rove, for "doing his job a little too well," and promised to "go after" Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and his Democratic rival John Kerry for their role in the retention of a blatantly incompetent chief executive.

"If John Kerry had been a more dynamic speaker on the campaign trail, the death toll in Louisiana would be significantly lower," Bush said.

Similarly, he chastised Al Gore for squandering the 2000 election by overemphasizing policy issues such as global warming instead of developing a likable persona. "Through his inexcusable emphasis of substance over style, Vice President Gore distanced himself from folks, thus allowing me to seize power and guide this nation to the edge of the abyss," Bush said, looking confident and rested.

Heeding a major recommendation of the commission, Bush said he will ask Congress for $3.5 billion to educate Americans about the difference between symbolic wedge issues such as flag burning and gay marriage versus real issues such as major cities being obliterated. He also proposed placing the chief executive job under the supervision of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whom Bush praised as "someone who really knows his stuff." Asked how the nation will pay for the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, Bush answered, "tax cuts."

He then turned to the matter that has dominated his attention since Katrina struck - rebuilding former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's home.

"America will not rest until we get Trent and his loved ones out of the Houston Astrodome," Bush said. "Which reminds me: On Bourbon Street back in the '70s, I got a lap dance from a man."

Bush said he has no plans to fire himself because he does not know how. He urged Americans to pray for him to have an affair with an intern.

Jeff Kramer's humor column runs Mondays and Fridays in CNY. Reach him at features@syracuse.com.