After Air Force One’s buzzing of NYC, which many people noted could have achieved the required “cool picture” for less money and fewer 9/11 flashbacks through the use of PhotoShop, the NY Daily News decided to hold a photoshop contest. Here are some of the entries.
Silvio Berlusconi’s wife has been emailing news organizations complaining about his attempt to fill the European Parliament with hot young women, which she calls “entertainment for the emperor.” Silvio responded that she was being manipulated by left-wing media and said that the hot chicks will be a nice contrast to the “evil-smelling, badly-dressed people who represent certain parties in Parliament.” However, he seems to have dropped several of the showgirl candidates from the official candidate list, retaining only Barbara Matera.
Speaking of entertainment for the emperor, Obama held a prime time press conference to mark his 100th day in office.
He gave some advice to the American people: “So wash your hands when you shake hands. Cover your mouth when you cough.” He’s still trying to wash the Arlen Specter off his hands.
Asked whether waterboarding is torture and whether the Bush administration had sanctioned torture, he answered the first part in the affirmative and wiggled out of answering the second, going only so far as to call waterboarding a “mistake.” He said that “waterboarding violates our ideals and our values,” but evidently letting the people responsible for waterboarding get off scot-free does not violate our ideals and our values.
He said, “we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.” Tickling. Merciless, relentless tickling.
Also, remember to always wash your hands after torturing.
That sort of pragmatic talk about what should be a moral issue always makes me nervous, since he didn’t exactly rule out using torture in circumstances in which information can’t be gotten in other ways.
He applied that pragmatism as well to a question about abortion. He said that the Freedom of Choice Act “is not highest legislative priority. I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on.” In other words, the real problem, as far as Obama is concerned, is not maintaining women’s ability to exercise their rights but tamping down anger.
He added, “I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they -- if they suggest -- and I don’t want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women’s freedom and that there’s no other considerations.” There may be other considerations, but women’s freedom, i.e. their constitutional right to abortion, trumps them.
Also, remember to always wash your hands after an abortion.
NYT reporter Jeff Zeleny asked what most surprised, enchanted, humbled and troubled Obama in his first hundred days. He was surprised by the shitstorm that fell on him, enchanted by the military, troubled by how slowly Washington moves, and humbled by not having the god-like powers he expected. “And so I can’t just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want”. He should definitely work on that, cuz that would be cool.
Also humbling: “I don’t know how to create an affordable, well-designed plug-in hybrid.” Yes, Obama has really been a great disappointment.
Also humbling, or possibly enchanting: somehow everyone who becomes president, even a black guy from Chicago, winds up saying “doggone it”: “But I know that, if the Japanese can design an affordable, well-designed hybrid, then, doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same.”
As long as they remember to wash their hands afterwards.
Arlen Specter appeared this morning alongside Obama and Biden.
Specter, perhaps forgetting that people who vote in Republican primaries sometimes show up for general elections as well, said, “I was unwilling to subject my 29-year record in the United States Senate to the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate”. You know, I can’t say I have much respect for Republicans either, but it’s unseemly for an elected official in a democracy to speak quite so disdainfully about “subjecting” himself to voters. Insulting the party leaders is one thing, dismissing the 3,169,194 registered Republicans is something else.
Anyways, the following homoerotic-sounding things were said during the photo op:
Biden: “We’ve ridden the train for so many years... it’s just a delight to have no separation.”
Specter: “We’ve ridden that train together again and again, and we’ve supported that train.”
Specter: “And I appreciate what you have in the stimulus package, Mr. President.”
Specter: “When I talked to the president yesterday, I said, I haven’t seen you in the elevator lately.”
Obama: “I don’t expect Arlen to be a rubber stamp.”
Obama: “And I’m also grateful that Joe Biden paid him a little attention on the train.”
Scalia, in the 5-4 decision that the FCC was not being arbitrary in fining tv stations for fleeting profanity (a lower court detected arbitrariness because the FCC had changed its policy without warning, subjecting broadcasters to fines for shit they’d gotten away with in the past): “There are some propositions for which scant empirical evidence can be marshaled, and the harmful effect of broadcast profanity on children is one of them.” He then went on about the difficulty of performing this experiment on children, exposing some to a non-stop diet of profanity, but only from tv, to determine its effects. Yes, that would be difficult, although it might explain how Glenn Beck came to be Glenn Beck. Scalia continued, “The FCC did not need empirical evidence proving that fleeting expletives constitute harmful ‘first blows’ to children; it suffices to know that children mimic behavior they observe.” The first blows are always the best, aren’t they?
Mitch McConnell, pathetically explaining the insignificance of Arlen Specter’s switch in party affiliation: “This is not a national story. This is a Pennsylvania story.” Katharine Hepburn was especially good in that one.
Fun fact about The Philadelphia Story: screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart, who won an Academy Award for the movie, was later blacklisted.
Andy Zaltzman of The Bugle on the logic of waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times: “if the fear of drowning didn’t crack him – and it clearly didn’t – the sight of his fingers going all wrinkly would have been just too much to bear.”
Obama issues a statement for Armenian Remembrance Day. He says, “My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts.” However, throughout his statement he fails, as he did in Turkey, to use the word genocide. In fact, the event is actually called Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, not Armenian Remembrance Day. And while he says that Armenians were “massacred” in “one of the great atrocities of the 20th century,” he uses the passive voice a lot, failing to mention who might have been doing the massacring (much like Bush’s Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day statements). Oh well, we know he’s all about the looking forward.
As has been noted here before, Silvio Berlusconi tends to promote women into politics for reasons other than competence and experience. Among his picks to liven up the next elections for the European Parliament are Angela Sozio, best known from Big Brother (Grande Fratello),
Eleonora Gaggioli, a tv actress,
Camilla Ferranti, star of soap opera and nudie calendar alike,
and Barbara Matera, a former Miss Italy contestant and tv announcer.
As with his Minister of for Equal Opportunities, you can find topless pictures of some of these women online (hell, it was hard to find a picture of Angela Sozio where she wasn’t topless, but this is a family blog). Sez Silvio, “I want new, young faces.” That was my excuse for this post. But then, I’m running a blog, not a country.
Israeli Foreign Minister Unholy Avigdor Lieberman says that the US will only work for Middle East peace if Israel tells it to. “Believe me, America accepts all our decisions.”
Headline of the Day: “Nazi-Bred Super Cows Roam Farm in Devon.” Heck cattle, they’re called.
The lawyer for Master Sgt. John Hatley, convicted last week of killing four bound and gagged Iraqi prisoners, says: “He loved his soldiers too much, that was his crime.”
Today Obama visited the CIA. He gave a little talk, standing in front of the wall commemorating the spooks who died in our many, many secret wars.
WELL, IT’S BETTER THAN EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION: “Well, thank you for the extraordinary welcome.”
And why not an extraordinary welcome? He gave them nothing but praise. They’re doing God’s work, they’re “fundamental to America’s national security,” they’re “the tip of the spear,” but not in a gay way. Basically he went to reassure them that just because he released those memos about their having tortured people doesn’t mean he doesn’t love and appreciate them.
WHICH IS TOO BAD, BECAUSE THAT’S KIND OF WHO YOU HAVE TO PROTECT AGAINST: “I understand that it’s hard when you are asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples and would willingly and gladly kill innocents.”
UNLIKE THE CIA??? “Al Qaeda is not constrained by a constitution.”
WELL ISN’T THAT SPECIAL? “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it’s expedient to do so.” This as he reassures torturers etc etc.
POTENTIALLY: “So don’t be discouraged by what’s happened in the last few weeks. Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes.” Mistakes? Or, rather, some potential mistakes? Okay, I could see how you could accidentally waterboard somebody thirty or forty times, but I’m pretty sure if you do it 183 times, you’re doing it on purpose.
He continued, “That’s how we learn. But the fact that we are willing to acknowledge them and then move forward, that is precisely why I am proud to be president of the United States, and that’s why you should be proud to be members of the CIA.” So he’s proud because we’re willing to acknowledge torturing people, so long as there are no consequences for the torturers, and then we “move forward.” That’s how we learn.
Barack Obama held a press conference at the end of the Summit of the Americas.
SO THEY SHOULD DENY DIGNITY AND OPPORTUNITY AND A CHANCE TO LIVE OUT THEIR DRIVES TO JUST THE RIGHT NUMBER OF CITIZENS: “And too many citizens are being denied dignity and opportunity and a chance to live out their dreams in Cuba and all across the hemisphere.”
Bolivian President Evo Morales demanded that Obama explicitly oppose assassination attempts and coups (he evidently privately accused Obama, to his face, of being involved in one such attempt). Surprisingly, Obama decided not to take umbrage and just do so: “Now, specifically on the Bolivia issue, I just want to make absolutely clear that I am absolutely opposed and condemn any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments, wherever it happens in the hemisphere. That is not the policy of our government. That is not how the American people expect their government to conduct themselves.” Well, the American people who have no idea whatsoever of our history... oh, right.
SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST SO UNAPPRECIATIVE: “But one of the things that I mentioned in both public remarks as well as private remarks is that the United States obviously has a history in this region that’s not always appreciated from the perspective of some”.
SOMETHING BUSH WOULD NEVER HAVE SAID: “but we recognize that other countries have good ideas, too, and we want to hear them.” Although later he said the US is boycotting the UN racism conference because there are some ideas we don’t want to hear.
WHAT IT’S IMPORTANT FOR US NOT TO THINK: “it’s important for us not to think that completely ignoring Cuba is somehow going to change policy”.
That said, because Obama made some rather minimal changes in the US’s Cuban policy, the ball is evidently in Cuba’s court now.
SOMETHING ELSE BUSH WOULD NEVER HAVE SAID: On Chavez’s gift of a book about the effects of imperialism in Latin America: “it was a nice gesture to give me a book; I’m a reader.”
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair describes the torture memos as basically historical documents which must be understood in the context of the benighted era of the early 21st century: “Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing.” He added, because it would clearly be an act of ethnocentrism to judge the people of that by-gone age by our own values, “we will absolutely defend those who relied on these memos.”
So what Blair is saying is that human rights apply only on sunny, safe days. On those rainy, unsafe days when the government might actually want to torture you, those are the days you don’t have the right not to be tortured. On a sunny, safe day when the government doesn’t want to torture you, you have a right not to be tortured. Enjoy it in good health.
In his telling use of the word “graphic,” Blair harkens back to Bush and Rumsfeld’s reactions to the Abu Ghraib pictures, when they were always clearly so much more concerned by the leak of images of torture than they were with the torture itself.
Sarah Palin revealed at an anti-abortion event that when she learned that her fetus had Down syndrome, she thought about having an abortion “for a fleeting moment”.
I’m not surprised.
She’s never had a thought that lasted longer than a fleeting moment.
Karzai explains how that pesky marital rape provision got into the Shia family law he signed: he didn’t notice it was in there because the bill “has so many articles.” So that’s okay, then.
Obama, in a press conference with Mexican President Calderón: “the relationship between Mexico and the United States cannot just be defined by drugs.”
Bush’s CIA director Michael Hayden and his last attorney general Michael Mukasey have an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal condemning the release of the torture memos.
For a start, it gives future detainees advance warning of what they will experience: “There would be little point in the president authorizing measures whose nature and precise limits have already been disclosed in detail to those whose resolve we hope to overcome.” Little point, because Al Qaida would just give its members anti-waterboarding vaccines.
“Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption.” Evidently they can’t conceive of the possibility that people might oppose torture for reasons other than political gain. They’ve heard of people having moral principles, they just don’t believe they really exist.
They warn that in future CIA officers will be unwilling to torture: “Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself.” I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing in law as a “binding opinion,” even from the Justice Department. Kind of a contradiction in terms, really. Although if legal precedent is what they want, a few trials of CIA torturers and their superiors might establish just that, no winks, nods, or handshakes required.-
Obama on his position of impunity for torturers: “This is a time for reflection, not retribution”; “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” Because the torturers tortured in, you know, good faith. Good-faith torturing. So that’s okay, then.
Well-paid, adult men in our government spent their days sending memos back and forth to each other about whether and how to exploit a prisoner’s fear of insects.
And making up new words for their acts of violence against prisoners: Walling: to slam a detainee into a wall. “A detainee may be walled one time (one impact with the wall) to make a point, or twenty to thirty times consecutively when the interrogator requires a more significant response to a question.” To make a point! More significant response!
NYT: “Mr. Ahmadinejad warned Wednesday that Washington should adopt a respectful tone toward Iran. ‘The Iranian nation might forget the past and start a new era,’ he said, in a reference to Iran’s accusations that the United States has meddled in its affairs in the past.”
Accusations? Is there some question about CIA involvement in the 1953 coup against Iran’s democratic government? It’s not exactly a he said, she said, is it now?
Middle East envoy George Mitchell, in Jerusalem today, said that the US goal is “a two-state solution which will have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel.” What exactly is the American definition of a “Jewish state”? Will Palestinians be allowed to live in it without converting? Will non-Jews have any rights?
Here’s a 6-minute audio clip from a 2006 episode of Just a Minute, on which he performed for more than 40 years, with Freud, Tim Rice, Stephen Fry, and Paul Merton speaking on “How to be irresistible to women”:
Sadly, I was unable to find any of his famous 1960s dog food commercials (with a basset he curiously resembled) on YouTube. The Timesquotes some of his columns for the paper. (Update): Like me, the Guardian has been trawling YouTube for his appearances on Just a Minute and elsewhere, and put up a dozen or so here.
As in an editorial he wrote about the upcoming Summit of the Americas.
“Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors.” So how often should the US not pursue and sustain engagement with our neighbors?
“We have been too easily distracted by other priorities”. So how distracted is just distracted enough?
“The U.S.-Cuba relationship is one example of a debate in the Americas that is too often dragged back to the 20th century.” So how often should the debate be dragged back to the 20th century?
“Too many in our hemisphere are forced to live in fear.” So how many in our hemisphere should be forced to live in fear? In round numbers?
