I Hate What You Just Said

You learn something new every day at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church.

So when you’re on the ropes and its time to come out fighting, the political handbook states: “attack a nonexistent constituency that you can tie to your opponent.”  On the McCain report, Michael Goldfarb writes that McCain didn’t lift any lines from Solzhenitsyn as he simultaneously waxed Georgian and prisoner-of-war, what are you talking about?  The real issue is this:

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.

The McCain Report

Wargaming nerds in black, tight fitting t-shirts take that!   Don’t hate Obama because his Charisma score makes him a more powerful orc slayer than you.  You can forget my vote in November Mr. McCain.  Oh, and mom, can you bring down some more lemonade–make that hateorade– for me and the boys?

Obama’s European tour and the unrealistic expectations that it’s creating on the continent:

He came, he saw, he sprinked us with stardust
The Guardian

Obama on tour: three special relationships in one day
The Independent

L’appel d’Obama aux Européens: “Aidez-nous”
Le Monde

Adoration All Round as Obama Meets Sarkozy in the City of Love
Deutsche Welle

Obamamania grips Europe
The Economist

Wheeeeee! I’m popping open a cold EuroBud in celebration of a really big number.  Ahhh, freedom never tasted so good.

Who do those Europeans think they are, pretending to show us Americans how to brew beer?  Hop pellets, rice…ginseng, guarana.  B-to-the-E doggg, it’s what fine brewing is all about:

B^E is Budweiser’s newest entry in a long line of innovative beers. This remarkable new product combines beer with caffeine, ginseng and guarana giving you a new malt beverage with a variety of ingredients.

B^E has a bold and bracing beer taste with lightly sweet/tart tones, and a “wow” factor in the finish. Created for those contemporary adults who are looking for the latest flavors and variety of mixtures to keep up with their fast paced and highly social lifestyles, B^E takes beer to the next level.

It’s different. It’s exciting. It’s beer with something extra!

How’d that work out?

Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. will reformulate its alcoholic energy drinks to remove caffeine and other stimulants they contain as part of a nationwide legal settlement, it announced Thursday.

An investigation by attorneys general of 11 states found the largest U.S. brewer was marketing its caffeinated alcoholic beverages to minors and misrepresenting the drinks’ health benefits, New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.

Though the company agreed to make changes, it insisted its Tilt and Bud Extra drinks were not marketed to minors.

CNN

Any more questions about how the King of Beers became the Belgian biatch?   Europe is kicking our ass, admit it.

In the situation room

There was a toy world

And a flight costume

and a picture of–

It’s Goodnight Bush!  Sweet Dreams…

Oh, I’m just getting warmed up Berlusconi today.  His latest scandal centers around a series of recorded telephone conversations that show just how hard he’s willing to work to secure policy positions for topless models.  This man’s sacrifice is truly mind boggling; why he’s the Jesus Christ of Politics! In response to the incriminating transcripts, Berlusconi did what any self-respecting unreconstructed fascist would do: try to make government accountability illegal.  So in America, wiretapping expands while in Italy, it becomes more limited.  Excuse me for a moment while I laugh and cry at the same time.

Problem is, the cat is already out the bag on this one, and it is a non-stop quote machine.

First, there’s the case of Mara Carfagna, the current minister for Equal Opportunity.  This headline pretty much sums up her situation: Carfagna denies pleasuring Berlusconi.  Even better is this long piece from the Guardian:

For more than a week now, Rome has been alive with rumours that police in Naples, working on yet another investigation of Berlusconi for alleged corruption, taped sexually explicit discussions between the prime minister and his 32-year-old equal opportunities minister, Mara Carfagna, a former topless model. The tapes were reportedly made while investigators were probing the relationship between Berlusconi and the head of drama at RAI, Italy’s equivalent of the BBC.

Moving on, it’s the case of the journalist Virginia Sanjust di Teulada, that has the most, ahem, legs.  What happened here?

As for Sanjust di Teulada, the intelligence officer’s wife, her role remains mysterious. According to Armati’s version, set out in documents submitted to the Rome court and summarised this week in the daily La Repubblica, the flowers his wife received were the prelude to a lunch the next day at the prime minister’s office and a gift of a diamond bracelet. The intelligence officer claims it was the start of a intense romance from which he initially benefited…

Contacted by a journalist from Corriere della Sera, she replied with a refined ambiguity worthy of a character in a Pirandello drama. “The truth,” mused Virginia Sanjust di Teulada, “is always - but in this case particularly - impossible to explain in words.”

Courts in Naples and in Rome are currently sifting through over 250 hours of transcripts.  Stay tuned.

The Italian left Bush Administration pulled no punches during the recent G8 conference on climate change, setting the record straight once and for all on the record of Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (born 1936) is one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for governmental corruption and vice. Primarily a businessman with massive holdings and influence in international media, he is regarded by many as a political dilettante who gained his high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media.

Encyclopedia of World Biography

Oops!  Picture the scenario.  Intern X is charged with circulating a short biography of G8 leaders for a White House press release.  Like any other red blooded 21st century American scholar, she hops online and nabs the first thing that looks authoritative, cuts and pastes, and voilà, the job is done.

Hated by many but respected by all at least for his bella figura (personal style) and the sheer force of his will, Berlusconi has parlayed his business acumen and influence into a personal empire that has resulted in Italy’s longest–running government ever and in his becoming the country’s wealthiest man. Bursting onto the scene with no political experience in 1993, he campaigned—using his vast network of media holdings—on a promise to purge the notoriously lackadaisical Italian government of corruption. He won appointment to the office of prime minister in 1994. However, he and his fellow Forza Italia Party leaders soon found themselves accused of the very corruption he had vowed to eradicate.

This is an extremely sloppy mistake for an administration that has been so disciplined in distributing its version of reality.  Did someone at the White House forget that Berlusconi and Bush are good personal friends that go way back?  Ah, who can forget the good times they had together after September 11, 2001?  But why, oh why do they always leave the best parts out?

He released a CD in 2003 of Neopolitan love songs. The prime minister prefers to spend his spare time at his 70–room villa in Sardinia named “Arcore,” whose amenities include a private park, a movie theater, and walls of large–screen televisions.

Bush is just jealous I guess.

Call me old fashioned, but it might be a good policy to actually write the things published under the guise of official government communications.  It’s easier to stay on message that way and cuts down on the written apologies, not that it’s necessary to apologize for speaking the truth every now and then.

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

The Independent

What else can I say?  Our president is a dick who thinks that he’s funny.  Sure, you argue, Bush gave some ground at the talks, agreeing for the first time to reduce greenhouse emissions by 50% by 2050 after extracting signatures from China and India.  But these targets are well below those set by Kyoto protocol and such emissions are still on the rise worldwide and in the U.S.

Yeah, things are looking up, good times ahead.  We’re finally headed in the right direction and the G8 is showing the kind of leadership necessary to get the job done:

One day, in particular, he said, was “gloriously incoherent.” At a meeting in the morning, participants focused on finding ways to reduce gas prices, he said, while a session that afternoon focused on raising them through caps or taxes on fossil fuels.

The most discouraging aspect of the statements out of Japan, for many experts, was seeing the persistent gap between what science is saying about global warming and what countries are doing.

New York Times

Speaking with one voice…out of both sides of the mouth.  Now, that’s funny.

Those Irish punks have ruined everything, now Poland :

In a newspaper interview published Tuesday, Mr. Kaczynski said it would “pointless” to sign the Lisbon Treaty in light of the Irish rejection.

Damn, that’s the height of amazing nerve.  I’ll bet Sarko’s not happy.

“The European idea is in danger if we don’t protect Europeans,” Mr. Sarkozy said Monday.

What’s the “European idea” you ask? Is it a more moderate, sensible version of the American dream? A collective light bulb hovering over Belgium?  What kind of fuel economy does it get?  Does it include peeing standing up?

In a surprisingly frank admission, the French foreign minister, Bernard Koucher said the no vote in Ireland illustrated how the European Union had alienated its citizens by conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.

“They understand nothing,” Mr. Kouchner said in comments to journalists in Paris “The institutions interest no one.”

He argued that, in contrast, voters did appreciate that Europe “was not able to respond to the rise in the price of petrol.” As for the jargon in which business in Brussels is conducted, Mr. Kouchner said, “no one understands — including me.”

New York Times

Conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.  Good thing we don’t have that problem here in the greatest and best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth.