I was going to comment on this but all I could make my fingers type was “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha”:
“Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that’s its military power,” [Condi] Rice told reporters en route to an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers set for Tuesday. “That’s not the way to deal in the 21st century.”
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.
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?
John McCain’s computer skills are nothing to write home about. But his jet skiing is legend.
Seriously, nothing says “foreign policy experience” like a wrinkly white-haired dude jumping wake on a Sea-Doo with the president of a former Soviet republic.
I hope they have video, ’cause this would make a killer ad.
UPDATE I:
Uh, oh. The waters are getting turbid and choppy for the jet ski duo. Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili had this to say today:
“Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians now,’” Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. “Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s time to pass from this. From words to deeds.”
Ouch. I wonder if the jet ski is named the “Straight Deed Express”? And, does Saakashvili understand that McCain is not the president of the United States?
UPDATE II:
Wait, wait. This is too awesome: McCain is now sending his own delegation to Georgia. You’ll never believe who it is . . . . . . . . . Lieberman and Graham! That’s right. Joe-mentum and Huckleberry Graham. They’re in the DEED business! Stand way back, bitches.
No word yet on how the Bush administration will take McCain’s efforts to undermine the diplomacy of the actual government of the United States.
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
From the McCain website, Tucker Bounds (no, really) on Obama’s speech in Berlin:
“While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a ‘citizen of the world,’ John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving, and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it.”
Sigh.
Is our political culture really this ridiculous? Are there really people who think it makes you a bad American if you consider yourself a citizen of the world? Are we this childish? Can I come up with even more smart-ass rhetorical questions?
It is worth pointing out that one of McCain’s heroes (and, like McCain, a guy who ran for president when he was well over a million years old) used the same phrase in 1982 at the United Nations:
I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world. I come with the heartfelt wishes of my people for peace, bearing honest proposals and looking for genuine progress.
That was Ronald Reagan. The guy who McCain called “that most eloquent, visionary, and steadfast apostle of freedom.”
Remember when George Bush addressed the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel and mocked Barack Obama’s idea that we should engage our enemies in dialog? You know, the speech where he said this:
Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Guess what!
The Bush administration has now decided that they will send one of our highest ranking diplomats to “participate in international talks with Iran this weekend”:
President George W. Bush has authorized the most significant U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, sending the U.S. State Department’s third-ranking official to Geneva for a meeting this weekend on Iran’s nuclear program, administration officials said.
The decision appeared to bend, if not exactly break, the administration’s insistence that it would not negotiate with Iran over its nuclear programs unless it first suspended uranium enrichment.
I’m going with “break.”
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:
BE 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.
BE 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, BE 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.
Any more questions about how the King of Beers became the Belgian biatch? Europe is kicking our ass, admit it.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
