2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.
Continuing with our headlines retrospective, here are some more from that fabulous year of 2003.
Bald Guy Sick Of Mr. Clean References
Bonds Pulls Up A Seat To Watch His Home Run
Limbaugh Admits He Took Oxycontin But Didn’t Swallow
2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.
From 2003 to 2009, we featured many great headlines in our webzine. We’ve already posted many in our Headlines category. Here are a few more we’ve dug up from the year 2003.
Self Absorbed Actress Smitten By Self Absorbed Actor
Dr. Phil Loses It: Advises Couple To Kill Each Other
The new year has started and already the Republicans have restored dysfunction to the House of Representatives. We’re actually getting sick of pointing out the stupidity of the GOP because we’ve been doing it for the past twenty years. That’s right, folks. The Bilge Bucket Gazette, the site that shovels it to the public just like the regular corporate media, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Of course, back when we started on May 19, 2003 (or aught 3 as old codger staff member Chester Einstein puts it) it was Dubya, Uncle Dick, Rummy and their cast of greedy, neoconservative corporate lackeys who were causing the chaos on the world stage by setting America up for the quagmire in Afghanistan and the clusterf*ck known as the Iraq War while simultaneously helping bring about the Great Recession with little to no opposition from the Democrats. Since then, Republicans have lurched so far to the right that they brag about being fascist, are open in their admiration of Nazis and have openly tried to overturn legitimate democratic elections. We’ve made many a satirical photo-toon over the years blasting them about their greed, corporatism, racism, fascism, white christian nationalism and now they’re exposed, openly proud of the fact they want to rid America of democracy. They have truly broken satire.
When we first started out we wanted to be a poor man’s Onion. We wanted to be a web site that offered a wide spectrum of irreverent social, corporate, political, sports, religion and celebrity satire and humor that would be, as editor Dex Rexter put it, “1/20th as funny as the Onion”. But the Republicans were so bad that we morphed into being mostly an anti-Republican, anti-conservative, anti-religion, anti-racist and anti-fascist web site.
Since we’re sick of the current asshole Republicans, the Democrats seem to be letting the GOP getting away with overturning democracy and it’s our 20th anniversary, we’ve decided that in the coming months we’d retrospectively look at the spectacular debacle that was the Dubya years – the disastrous administration that started the Republican’s slide into insanity. We’re also going to honor our original humble intentions and repost some our non- political articles, photo-toons, polls, lists and other scchhttufffff. Back in aught 3, we had a basic html site as you can see by our posted screenshot below (there’s elegance in simplicity). The first two issues were only articles and headlines – our first photo-toon didn’t appear until our third issue. We also released more regularly, mostly on an every other week basis. We changed the look-and-feel in late 2005. After Obama won in 2008, we took a two year hiatus starting in June 2009. Then in July 2011 we converted everything to a much more convenient WordPress blog format that we still have today. But our original material was archived and we’ve only reposted selected articles, headlines, photo-toons and other material from the early years since then. We’ve also had staff come and go and we’ll repost some of their articles and contributions as well.
So, let’s enjoy the trip down memory lane as we look back at the Dubya years (2003-2009) on the 20th anniversary of the Bilge Bucket Gazette.
Behold! A screenshot of the very first issue of the BilgeBucket Gazette on May 19, 2003 – a day that will live in infamy.
With all the latest news about surveillance, we thought we’d dust off a little article from our June 19, 2003 issue, almost ten years ago. Remember those halcyon days when super christian John Ashcroft was Attorney General, the Patriot Act had just been enacted and Ari Fleischer, doing his impersonation of a Stasi agent, warned us we had to watch what we said. Yes, Big Brother had just started to trample on our civil liberties and it hasn’t gotten any better. Guantanamo Bay is still open, too. Feeling safer yet? We didn’t think so. Thanks Dubya!
Ashcroft To Wiretap Prayers
In his latest attempt to halt terrorism in its tracks, Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced a plan to wiretap prayers to determine possible plots against the United States.
“Our scientists have made a breakthrough in prayer technology that will enable us to intercept evil prayers from evil doers and bring them to justice,” said Ashcroft. “We’ve built a device that will allow us to monitor all prayers from all American people no matter what religion they may be. We can determine to which God they are praying and for what they are praying.”
Ashcroft then gave an example. “Let’s say Mohammed Muslim starts praying to Allah and asks him to destroy the United States. Our agents can intercept the evil prayer, trace it back to its sender and have him locked up in Guantanamo Bay before you can say Jesus Christ.”
Ashcroft then added, “But don’t say Jesus Christ. It’s a sin to take the Lord’s name in vain.”
When asked if this was an invasion of personal privacy and freedom of religion, Ashcroft retorted angrily, “Look! George Bush and I are tight with God. We are doing his work! He wants us to win and the only way to win is by monitoring the minds of every single American and make sure they have no evil thoughts against the Bush Administration.”
When asked what he thought about the wiretapping of prayers, Jesus Christ said from his palatial mansion in heaven, “Hey it’s what I’d do. I’m tight with these guys okay. They know my mind. Excuse me now but I’ve got to watch the Reds-Dodgers game. Fred McGriff didn’t pray yesterday so I think he’ll be striking out a lot today. Who says I don’t care about sports.”
From 2003 to 2009, we featured many great headlines in our webzine. We’re going to present some of our favorites again for old times sake this summer. Here are a few we like from the year 2003.
