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Latest stumbles
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
One cold November evening several years ago I was out in the West End with a group of colleagues several of whom were American. The conversation quickly got round to the fast-approaching Thanksgiving holiday since they were having to work their schedules around the event. Displaying a stunning lack of their own country's history as well as everyone else's, one of them suddenly asked "So, do you Brits celebrate Thanksgiving too?" While I was hunting frantically for the hidden camera I assumed must be somewhere in the room, I heard one of my British coworkers cheerfully answering the question: "Sure we do. Except we have it on 6th September instead" "Why is that" asked the clueless 'merkin. "Because we celebrate when the Pilgrim Fathers set sail" Happy Thanksgiving. (date checked courtesy of Today-in-History)Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 11:24 AM
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Monday, June 06, 2005
Quote of the week...month...whatever Bush disassembles English language, again - note that this is coming from the world's biggest liar: "It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth." However, my personal favourite comes from someone with maybe a couple more IQ points... CNN.com - The real Paris Hilton - May 5, 2005Q: What did you want to be when you were a little girl? HILTON: A veterinarian, but then I realized I could just buy a bunch of animals. Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 10:29 AM
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Monday, May 09, 2005
Preparing for Emergencies - " In an effort to worry the public and convince them to vote for us again next year, and because George Bush asked us to, this website includes the common sense advice found in the Preparing for Emergencies booklet, and information on what the government is doing to protect the country as a whole. (Hint: we're praying really, really hard.) " Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 12:36 PM
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Postscript to last week's inauguration from Interesting Drug: Anyone feel like captioning this?
Guess she was just tuckered out after giving all those Devil Worshipping salutes to her fellow Texans. It's good to know the Bush twins can always be relied upon to live down to our expectations. Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 1:26 PM
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Friday, January 21, 2005
Reading the news today, it's a wonder Dubya had time for the inauguration at all. I would have thought he would be too busy trying to learn all the new names of his Cabinet.
Hmm, maybe it's Time For Another Bush Purge!!:
Everyone knows that Dubya regularly flip flops about the current proposals to ammend the constitution but at least last time he had the grace to do in via two separate interviews. Here he manages to contradict himself in the space of two paragraphs. It rather reinforces the whole 'attention-span-of-a-gnat' image:
" 'I fully understand that the job of the president is and must always be protecting the great right of people to worship or not worship as they see fit,' Mr. Bush said. 'That's what distinguishes us from the Taliban. The greatest freedom we have or one of the greatest freedoms is the right to worship the way you see fit.
'On the other hand, I don't see how you can be president at least from my perspective, how you can be president, without a relationship with the Lord,' he said. "
(Source: President outlines role of his faith - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - January 12, 2005)
:: ak13 :: Ten reasons to love George W. Bush - well, I gather he's kind to animals....? (pardons a turkey every year apparently)
George W. Bush: The Officious Website: www.GeorgeWBush.org - like whitehouse.org, this is another site which exploits the present junta's oversight in not buying the '.org' version of their domain names. A good source for Blue State oneliners (also available on stickers, mugs etc)
And finally:
Boing Boing: The madness of King George - no need to ask if he is full of purple piss as well.
Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 10:22 AM
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Tuesday, December 14, 2004
I'm having yet another purge of Bush-hate links:
BocaNews.com - I can sympathise with this. Frustrated Democrats in Florida (yes, your vote really doesn't count) are organising group therapy sessions to help them come to terms with events last November and cope with the next four years (as far as I know, not even 9/11 had this effect).
Bush Charges Nov 2004 Following on from the recent joke news item on plans to arrest Bush during a recent trip to Canada, one group of lawyers have drafted an outline of how to set about doing it for real.
This was from a recent edition of The New York Review of Books - On War: "We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens' expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront our hubris and the lies told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, we will not so much defeat dictators like Saddam Hussein as become them. "
Guardian Unlimited Film | Features | No sex, please, we're Republicans - good article on why the religious right is so afraid of Kinsey and therefore why the recent film about him has got them foaming at the mouth again. Haven't they worked out where little Republicans come from?
American Fundamentalists by Joel Pelletier depicting "Christ's Entry into Washington in 2008". You hope it won't happen but, deep down, you're not entirely sure.
Dubya - The Movie - the only thing that makes this bearable, even as a joke is that it's incredibly well-made.
Well, that - and the fact that it stars Don Knotts. Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 10:37 AM
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Tuesday, November 30, 2004
From the Ottawa Independent Media Center George Bush has been arrested for War Crimes.
OK, so this is just a beautiful flight of fancy but it's very well done. They seem to have hit every button, even:
"A Britney Spears concert which had been scheduled to occur this evening in Ottawa has been postponed. A spokesman for the entertainer said that Ms. Spears was concerned for the President's wife and two daughters. The spokesman also said that Ms. Spears would be praying for the president."
Uh....like...y'know. Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 9:38 AM
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Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Textbook disclaimer stickers - the Creationists didn't give up after the Scopes trial. A Gallop Poll discovered recently that forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago. A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.
Now they think they have the political high ground in the US, there's been a resurgence in the drive to downplay (if not totally eliminate) the teaching of evolution in American schools. They've started by adding stickers to the covers of science books which they deem to have questionable content (that would be all of 'em presumably). This site offers some alternate stickers which you might find useful.
Having taught in the American education system, I know just how uninformed college students can be; they really don't need any further handicapping (unless of course you want to keep them ignorant so they'll vote for you). However I've got no problem with suggesting students keep an open mind and question everything that they are told.
So when can we start stickering the Bible? Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 2:14 PM
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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
It's been a week now. I think I'm just going to have to get everything else out of my system (and blog drafts file) in one go:
A Right to Vote? Not in the United States - OK so in the light of last week's events this may be starting to look like sour grapes.
But, you know what? I . Don't . Care.
It's a Big Blue World out there. Ever wonder if the US re-elected Bush simply out of tiny-minded cussedness?
Meanwhile many of my American friends are exploring their options regarding relocation. However, even for those who go as far as marrying a Canadian this approach has a few inherent disadvantages:
Bill Hicks once told a story about an American friend of his who complained about the USA. When told, "well, if you don't like it then move somewhere else" the friend's reply would be, "What? And become a victim of our foreign policy?"
(quote found on Boing Boing: Kerry concedes.)
Four More Years of Living on the Other Side of A Country - a New Yorker's personal take on recent events.
www.bushrecall.org - home of "Lord of the Right Wing", still an entertaining flash movie
Fuck the South - a rather pithy little rant with some interesting observations on the viability of some states' isolationist attitudes.
Final thoughts on the US elections - this guy eloquently explains the reasons behind the overwhelming sense of depression evoked by Bush's re-election. And the concluding paragraph is...erm...novel.
He also has a laudably imaginative way of using weather.com to help him depict the view from his family homestead.
Private Eye's cover pretty much says it all
Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 1:07 PM
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Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Extract from an article by Anatole Kaletsky in the London Times last Saturday:
“The primary function of democracy is not to elect good leaders, since nobody can predict in advance how a politician will perform. It is to eject leaders who have manifestly failed. The ability to remove leaders who turn out to be corrupt, dangerous, outrageously dishonest or manifestly incompetent is the primary privilege and duty of any democracy. And if any leader in our lifetime deserved to be ejected by voters, regardless of their ideology or political persuasion, it is surely President Bush.
He inherited a prosperous, peaceful, law-abiding country which was universally admired around the world. He promised, if elected, to govern as a “compassionate conservative”, to end partisan confrontation in Washington and to run a “humble” foreign policy which would respect other countries and show restraint in the use of America’s global power.
Four years later, he presides over a struggling economy, the steepest four-year loss of jobs since the Great Depression, and now has the biggest budget deficits and trade imbalances on record. Far worse, he started an unnecessary war on false pretences and mismanaged it so disastrously that the instability of the Middle East is probably now a greater danger to world peace than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. The President has failed in his primary military mission of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and destroying al-Qaeda.
Even the task of eliminating the Taliban and stopping the flow of fundamentalist teachings from Saudi Arabia has proved too much. Imagine the state of the world today if instead of invading Iraq, America had finished the job against Saudi Arabia, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. If, for example, Mr Bush had devoted a fraction of the military manpower and the $200 billion wasted in Iraq on rebuilding Afghanistan that benighted country would soon be the Switzerland of the Himalayas.
To make matters worse, Mr Bush has failed in all these tasks, while breaking every promise he made about his character and leadership style. Instead of running a bipartisan government of national unity, he has been the most ideological, divisive and extremist leader America has ever seen. Instead of showing humility in his international dealings, his punitive and aggressive foreign policies — not only against Iraq but also against North Korea, Venezuela, Iran and even Germany and France — have transformed America into the most hated country on earth. Instead of respecting the primacy of the US Constitution, he has imprisoned thousands of people without trial or charge — many no doubt dangerous terrorists, but some presumably just ordinary people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If Americans cannot bring themselves to vote against the President after this record, we must ask whether American democracy is capable of performing its primary function.”
Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 9:30 PM
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Sunday, October 10, 2004
Friday, October 08, 2004
In preparation for tonight's Presidential 'debate', here's a quick trip down memory lane with some reaction to last week's Republican humilation.
The Hammer - VERBATIM: PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
The Talent Show: EXCLUSIVE : Bush's Debate Notes - obviously this is a forgery - it's funny and the artwork is too good.
I gather that there's another debate left after this one - guess the Shrub is still hoping for the best of three... Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 1:54 PM
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Sunday, October 03, 2004
I missed this particular Freudian slip back in August:
President Signs Defense Bill: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. "
-- George W. Bush (August 5, 2004) Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 11:12 PM
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Thursday, June 17, 2004
Telegraph | News | D-Day 1899 and President Denzel Washington is leading liberation of New Zealand from the Nazi's: "It is 1899 and Denzel Washington, the American president, orders Anne Frank and her troops to storm the beaches of Nazi-occupied New Zealand.
This may not be how you remember D-Day but for a worrying number of Britain's children this is the confused scenario they associate with the events of June 6, 1944."
Chris Grayling, the shadow education minister, said: "These are really very recent events that have shaped the lives of all of us.
"It is a real worry that so few children seem to know the basics of what happened during the Second World War. We must not allow this to continue."
That's an interesting comment from the Tories given that, while in power, it was they who downgraded the importance of teaching history in UK schools.
Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 3:28 PM
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Monday, June 07, 2004
American homeland security - I read this article over the weekend. Forget all the hypothetical scenarios that liberals paint regarding the erosion of civil liberties in the US. This really happened. I'm not a journalist but I've abandonned any plans to visit the US for the foreseeable future. If this is how they treat writers, heaven knows how they treat regular folk with no public voice.
Thinking of the quote from Samuel Johnson, I'm starting to think that the "Patriot" Act should be more accurately renamed as "Last Refuge of a Scoundrel" Act. Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 2:15 PM
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Thursday, August 28, 2003
George W. Bush The White House, USA Past Work Experience:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; the company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
With my father's help and name, I was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments as Governor:
I changed pollution laws in favor of the power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I cut taxes and bankrupted Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
I set the record for the most executions by any Governor in American history.
I became U.S. President after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes with the help of major Enron money and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments as President:
I attacked and overtook two countries.
I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market.
My record for environmental issues is the least of my concerns.
I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one year period.
After taking-off the entire month of August, I then presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
I am supporting development of a "Tactical Bunker Buster" nuke, a WMD.
I am getting our troops killed, under the lie of Sadam's procurement of Yellow Cake Nuke WMD components, then blaming the lie on our British friends.
I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. president.
In my first year in office over 2-million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any president in U.S.history.
I set the record for least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
I signed more laws and executive orders effectively amending or ignoring the Constitution than any president in history.
I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use national reserves as past presidents have done.
I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families -- in war time.
I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people) shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I've dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
I've made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.
I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history.
My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have almost all 50 states of the Union simultaneously suffer massive financial crisis.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in history.
I am the first president in U.S. history to order a pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in history.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.
I rendered the entire United Nations viewpoints irrelevant.
I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. "prisoners of war" (detainees) and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
I am the first president in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation) presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. history. My political party used the Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
I have spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.
I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most resented country in the world, possibly the largest failure of diplomacy in World history.
I am actively working on a policy of "disengagement" creating the most hostile of Israel-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
I am first president in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
I am the first U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set an all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling their huge personal investments in corporations bidding for U.S. contracts.
I failed to fulfill my pledge to capture Osama Bin Laden, dead or alive.
I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the U.S. Capitol Building. Even after 18 months I have no leads and no credible suspects.
In the past 18 months following the World Trade Center attack I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
I removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any president in U.S. history.
In a little over two years, I created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided since the Civil War.
I entered my office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and have turned every single economic category downward -- all in less than two years.
Records and References:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine. My Texas driving record has been erased and is not available.
I was AWOL from the National Guard.
I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as Governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed, and unavailable for public view.
All records of SEC investigations into insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
~ Please consider my experience when voting in 2004. ~
Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 9:23 PM
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Monday, November 04, 2002
San Francisco Man Becomes First American To Grasp Significance Of Irony
SAN FRANCISCO - Jay Fullmer, 38, yesterday became the first American to get to grips with the concept of irony. 'It was weird' Fullmer said. 'I was in London and, like, talking to this guy and it was raining and he pulled a face and said, 'great weather eh?' and I thought 'Wait a minute, no way is it great weather'. Fullmer then realised that the other man's 'mistake' was in fact deliberate.
Fullmer, who is 39 next month and married with two children, aged 8 and 3, plans to use irony himself in future. 'I'm like using it all the time.' he said. 'Last weekend I was grilling steaks and I burned them to a crisp and I said 'hey, great weather'
Labels: fuckwittery
posted at 11:43 AM
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