June 17, 2005

• I’m sorry, you people in the first few rows. Apparently, my dump somehow offends you? Perhaps if I gather it up and fling it at you, you’ll think twice next time before you wrinkle your dinky noses at my healthy and natural exudate. Hey! More bananas! Less flinging!
• I loved this piece. Kudos for posting it, Flagpole. Your copulation partner must be gigantic and have a virtually bottomless supply of orange wedges to have snared a mate like you.
• I also loved this piece. Tears of laughter came to my eyes, and I got strange looks from the rest of the family. But I was *not* going to read it aloud to them. Even though it really looks like a fun read-aloud type piece.
• isn't the new yorker a gem of a mag?
• Thank you for posting this, Mr. Long Stick with a Waving Thing on the End.
• The president's greatest hits "George W. Bush held a press conference this morning. We suppose it was an attempt -- another attempt -- to turn around the president's free-fall in the polls, but the effort came off more like one of those bad '80s remix singles. Call it "Bush on 45." With nothing to say that he hasn't already said already, the president said it all again. Whatever the question, Bush reached for lines that he's used in a hundred speeches before. The attacks of 9/11 changed the way I think. We've got a plan for victory. I saw a threat in Iraq. This is a global war on terror. It's hard work. Did the president answer questions along the way? A few. He thinks Donald Rumsfeld is doing a "fine job" and shouldn't resign. He thinks the economy is strong and getting stronger. He thinks that Iraqis have looked into the abyss of civil war and chosen another future for their country. But then there were the questions that Bush couldn't or wouldn't really answer. When Helen Thomas asked Bush why he really went to war three years ago, he engaged in an extended argument with her about the premise of her question. "To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect," Bush said. When she tried to follow up, he shot back, "Hold on for a second, please. Excuse me. Excuse me," then talked about how 9/11 had changed his "attitude" about defending America. More puzzling still, he refused to answer a straightforward question that might have helped take some of the wind out of the Iraqi insurgency. Asked whether a day would come -- ever -- when U.S. troops would leave Iraq, Bush refused to say. He said the departure of U.S. troops is "of course an objective," but he repeatedly declined to say whether it would be met. He dismissed it as a question about "timetables" -- it wasn't -- and said that future presidents and commanders on the ground would have to make any decisions about the presence of U.S. troops. Asked about how Americans might respond to future developments in Iraq, Bush said it was "trick question" because it presumed that he pays attention to polls when he doesn't. Asked about the electoral worries of his own party -- New York State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., managed Monday to be elsewhere when Dick Cheney came to campaign for him -- the president seemed to dismiss any doubts as the sort of "uncertainty" that preceded elections in 2002 and 2004, too. The president isn't willing to acknowledge his low standing with the American public in public, but he clearly seemed beaten down by the reality he faced. Asked about the "political capital" of which he once boasted, he said he's spending it on the war in Iraq. Social Security reform? "It didn't get done." Bush's face turned sour when he was told about a supporter in Cleveland who said that he'd lost her over the war. He grew testy with reporters -- not just with the combative Helen Thomas but also with USAToday's easy-going David Jackson. He bristled at the notion that anyone -- let alone reporters -- would "stand up" and tell a president what he ought to be doing. At one point, looking down a list of reporters' names, he mumbled randomly, "Let's see. . . They've told me what to say." The president stumbled and stammered like a schoolboy on quiz day as he tried to lay out a vision for the universality of liberty. Trying to explain the difference between tyranny and democracy, Bush suggested that the Taliban probably never had a press conference like this one. When the next round of polls comes out, he may wish that he hadn't, either."
• This Press Conference yesterday is taking on some interesting proportions. A new crop of Bushisms, some fabulous flaming lies (*snap* *snap!*), and as usual, nothing in the way of news or information. During his press conference this morning, George W. Bush asked Americans to "imagine an enemy that says: 'We will kill innocent people because we're trying to encourage people to be free.'" We have no idea what he meant. We do know what we thought. Also, see Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches Some people say the government shouldn't illegally search your home as the Constitution says . . .