Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-3c
This looks like a great sales venue, my sales so far, my thank-god-i’m-an-atheist t-shirt, and an offer to do instant art. They site went up this january, and they are very communicative and helpful. I gave them some web-usability ideas which they jumped on. Very gratifying, that. My posts there: Thankgodimantheist T-shirt and Create Instant ART
I don’t have the time to research the details, but apparently, yesterday, our (I use the term advisedly) putative Putsch President endorsed the idea of a contiguous Palestine. How fucking awesome is that?
Next thing you know, he’ll be pulling out of Iraq, learn to say “nuclear,” eliminate electronic voting machines and introduce parliamentary democracy and national healthcare.
The quote in my title above is in reference to speech given by The Shrub on June 28, 07. You can read about it in context in the quote from the Jerusalem Post, cited below.
How many ironies can you spot in this picture? It’s almost an irony that eats its own tail. We know that the president is a fruit-loop surrounded by fruit-loops. But we also know that some his handlers are just young guys on the make who, maybe 10-20 years from now will write McNamara-light-like memoirs about how they should have done more to Fight The Power, Do The Right Thing and so forth. The point being that just as Bush uses Ivy League lawyers to keep himself out of hot water while at the same appointing lawyers from the bottom of the barrel to fill federal posts, he has people smart enough to run defense and spin around the stream of idiocy that issues daily from his mouth, but not smart enough to advise him to NOT hold Israel up as a model for the new Iraqi state.
Bush does not have the smarts to even put together the following sentence, quoted from his June 28. ’07 speech (not that it would have taken a rocket scientist to write it, simply that it’s still beyond his capacities):
“Terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it’s not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that’s a good indicator of success that we’re looking for in Iraq.”
So…granted that “these words may be the stupidest ones ever uttered…” , what’s even more mind-blowing is that someone wrote them for him, and SOMEONE ELSE, thought it would be OK for The Shrub to utter them.
From the Jerusalem Post,
He (Bush) characterized the fight in Iraq, where tensions between Shiite and Sunni factions have kept the country in a cycle of violence, as primarily one against al-Qaida forces and their use of grisly suicide attacks and car bombings to sow chaos and despair.
“They understand that sensational images are the best way to overwhelm the quiet progress on the ground,” Bush said.
But in some of his plainest terms yet, he laid out how to define when the US presence in Iraq has achieved its goals.
“Our success in Iraq must not be measured by the enemy’s ability to get a car bombing in the evening news,” he said. “No matter how good the security, terrorists will always be able to explode a bomb on a crowded street.”
He suggested Israel as a model.
There, Bush said, “Terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it’s not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that’s a good indicator of success that we’re looking for in Iraq.”
It was likely to be controversial – and possibly even explosive – for Bush to set out Israel as a model for a Muslim Middle Eastern nation. Israel has been locked for decades in an intractable dispute with Palestinians in the neighboring occupied territories, a conflict that is viewed as a major recruiting tool for Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaida.
What America is aiming for in Iraq, Bush said, is “the rise of a government that can protect its people, deliver basic services for all its citizens and function as a democracy even amid violence.”
Talking Atomic Blues
(Vern Partlow) I'm gonna preach you all a sermon 'bout Old Man Atom, And I don't mean the Adam in the Bible datum. I don't mean the Adam Mother Eve mated, I mean the thing that science liberated. You know Einstein said he was scared, And if he's scared, brother, I'm scared. Yes, life used to be such a simple joy. The cyclotron was a super toy, Folks got born, they'd work and marry, And "atom" was a word in the dictionary; And then it happened. . . . These science guys, from every clime They all pitched in with overtime. Before you knew it, the job was done; They'd hitched up the power of the doggone Sun, Splitting atoms, right and left, While the diplomats . . . Were splitting hairs . . . Then the cartel crowd up and put on a show, They're gonna turn back the clock on the UNO. Grab a corner on atoms and maybe extinguish Every damn atom that can't speak English. Down with foreign-born atoms! America for American atoms! Step right up, folks, and let's atomize world peace. . . Ah, but the atom's international, in spite of hysteria, Flourishes in Utah, also in Siberia. He don't care about politics Or who got what into whichever fix. All he wants to do is sit around . . . And have his nucleus bombarded by neutrons. Yes, it's up to the people; the atom don't care. You can't fence him in; he's just like air. And whether you're white, black, red or brown, The question is this, when you boil it down, To be or not to be! That is the question. . . And the answer to it all ain't military datum, Like "Who gets there fustest with the mostest atoms," But the people of the world must decide their fate, We got to stick together or disintegrate. We hold these truths to be self-evident: All men Could be cremated equal. Copyright Bibo Music Publishers, 1950
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-tomorrow/what-they-said_b_46907.html
and read the comments below the strip.
Thank god I'm an atheist. 