Okay I swore off politics as a New Years resolution but it's 1 Feb now when we all fall off the wagon. Besides, the Yankee newsfront is slow, slow, slow. The biggest story of the past week were: they passed on signing Mike Piazza as a DH; A-Rod picked up his second MVP prize; and Reuben Sieerra signed with the Twinkies. Like, yeah. It's not changing the state of the Union in Steinbrenner-land. It's not like they traded for Miguel Tejada with a sack of beans. Heh heh.
I did see this lovely exchange somewhere on the net:
Red Sox fan: Now if we can just get a CF and a SS that's credible, we'll beat the Yankees hands down.Man, how can I ever give up baseball when I can come across humour like that.
Yankee fan: Yes. And if I could just make myself look like Brad Pitt I can bang both Jennifer Anniston AND Angelina Jolie.
Unfortunately, I did notice these following stories today which changes the complexion of the world so let me sock it to you today with the "No Shit Batman" story of the day No.1:
WASHINGTON — The future and character of the United States will be largely determined in the next year by getting over its dependency on foreign oil, ongoing turmoil in Iraq, the growing threat from Iran and concerted efforts to take care of America's own, President Bush said Tuesday night during his fifth annual State of the Union address.Gag me with a spoon.
"We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life. We will choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy — or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity," the president told a joint session of Congress.
"In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline. The only way to protect our people … the only way to secure the peace … the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership."
In order to get the nation's priorities done and reduce partisan bickering that in recent months has threatened to boil over, Bush said lawmakers and others need to confront issues "in a spirit of good will and respect for one another."
"There is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy," Bush said.
They're totally hooked on to foreign oil with a former oil man as their president. It's not a speech that has a lot of credibility in terms of good governance. And this bit of trying to differentiate responsible and irresponisble criticism is like rhetoric written by a sub-100 IQ high schooler. You wonder in fear for the world.
Here's the "No Shit, Batman" Story No.2 of the day:
WASHINGTON - Iran is refusing to turn over to U.N. investigators a copy of a black market document it could use to build nuclear weapons, according to a confidential U.N. report Tuesday.The rest of it doesn't get any better.
The document, which Iran received from an international nuclear smuggling ring, describes aspects of fabricating the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. The document is one more piece of evidence supporting concerns that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program in the guise of peaceful nuclear power research.
China and Russia agreed Tuesday to support reporting Iran to the United Nations Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions. The agreement came after talks in London attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The U.N. report will be provided to the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, who meet Thursday on whether to report Iran to the Security Council. The report was obtained by several news organizations, including Knight Ridder.
The report said that Iranian experts had begun preparations for test-scale uranium enrichment, the process that produces low enriched uranium for power plants and highly enriched uranium for warheads.
Iran remained defiant, showing no signs of accepting demands by the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany to re-freeze uranium enrichment work and meet IAEA demands to reveal all aspects of its nuclear program.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, was quoted on a government-run English language Internet site as warning that a referral to the Security Council would mean "the end of diplomacy."
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, has said that retaliatory steps could include expelling IAEA inspectors and measures that could drive up world petroleum prices.
Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, but admitted in 2002 to concealing the project from IAEA monitoring for 18 years. U.S. and European officials believe the Iranian military is secretly developing nuclear arms under cover of the civilian effort.
The new report was an update on Iran's compliance with the IAEA investigation of its nuclear program. That program is based in part on purchases of know-how and technologies from a Pakistani-led black market network.
One key issue involves a document bought from the network that Iran showed agency experts last year. The document is about requirements for casting and machining depleted and enriched uranium metal into hemispheres.
Hemispheres form the explosive cores of nuclear weapons. They have no application in civilian power plants.
Why do the Iranians think the world is just going to roll on this? Because of oil? Because the world just rolled on Pakistan and India? I hate to remind them but they still are considered a 'rogue nation' by that big bully state, the US of A. Britain, France and Germany aren't happy aabout it and now China and Russia aren't happy about it.
Expect fireworks. Buy shares in Haliburtons.
QUICK SHOT
I really like David Letterman - I don't know why, but I guess I like glibness. Glib is good. Charming is good. Facetiousness is good. Libertarianism is good. It's laissez fair in the best sense. Live and let live and all that.
On the other hand I really find Bill O'Reilly to be odious; As odious as the Angry Fat Man (who is yet to die of the heart attack like he promised, the fat, rat bastard!). Radical Fascism is mean-spirited, nasty, unconstructive, negative and basically the provenance of cunts and Dog-Rapists and the such like; which, by the way, I'm entirely happy to characterise in public that The Angry Fat Man is indeed a Dog-Raping Cunt Radical Fascist.
Anyway, I want to share this clip because actually I think 99.99% of what O'Reilly has to say is crap.
2 comments:
Re: the Letterman clip, I enjoyed that, the highlight being "...my guess is that 60% of what you are saying is crap". It was kind of scary how O'Reilly could deliver such convoluted logic so quickly, with such conviction.
I think it's pretty revealing that the cons want to shut down the question "why are we in Iraq". And also the implication that O'Rielly made that debate is fine as long as it has no effect on policy.
I liked the bit where Paul Schaeffer chimes in with "You think only 60%, Dave?". Priceless.
Yes, debate is fine as long as it doesn't change our policy. What a hypocrite. The Neo-Con line is so well-rehearsed O'Reilly doesn't have to stop to draw a breath.
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