bullet points
1. Vladimir Putin poses for a lot of photographs, including on the official Kremlin website, with his shirt off. Sure, but didn’t Yeltsin used to do that?
2. Mitt Romney says things like “Gee Wilikers” and “Aw shucks” a lot. I believe it’s a Mormon thing. I will have to ask my Mormons.
3. George W Bush made a comparison between Vietnam and Iraq. I know from whence this is coming from. His neo-con advisers chest thumped their way to the idea of strong-arming the meaning of Vietnam to, as Bush noted previously, we lost because we quit. I think I knew this was coming right around when I saw the Weekly Standard cover promising that US public opinion had indeed turned in the pro-war favor — the neo-cons are getting feisty, and the Rove strategy is always said to be “Make the weakness into the strength; make the opponent’s strength into the weakness”.
It is amusing that he mentioned I.F. Stone, and This speech was certainly penned by one of the older drivellers from the Weekly Standard; no one else would think to mention I.F. Stone or Graham Greene. That part of Stone’s book is an old standby for a certain generation of “The Right” in their ideological battles, many believing IF Stone — Robert Novak including– was indeed a Soviet agent. Not figuratively, mind you, literally.
At the same time any number of libertarians are found of his quote “All governments lie”, and will use it in a manner that demands the answer to the question “Do you know who you are quoting?”
4. Sum Nunn is rumoured to be planning a “Unity 08” presidential bid. What is the point of that “Unity 08” contraption, again, and what issues are they trying to drive us toward?
5. A teenager took apart an i-phone and reassembled it to allow it to work more properly — ie: against Apple’s restrictions. Australia is in a tizzy. FREE AUSTRALIA!