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Monday, Aug 21, 2006
Apologies to Chicago
The phrase "leave Iraq" was spoken many times during today's press conference, both in questions and in Bush's rambling responses. The chorus of a certain song appeared in my head, and I thought I would share the experience.
[span class="maniacal laughter"]Ha ha ha ha ha![/span]
Oo, oo, oo, oo, we got to kill some more
If we leave Iraq, you'll take away the very heart of me
Oo, oo, oo, oo, we got to kill some more
Oo, oo, oo, oo, babe I want my troops to stay
A war like ours is war that's hard to find
How could we let it slip away
We've come too far to leave it all behind
How could we end it all this way
When tomorrow comes we'll both regret
All the blood on our hands
If we leave Iraq, you’ll take away the biggest part of me
Oo, oo, oo, oo, no, please don’t stop my war
Oo, oo, oo, Death, I’ve just got to have you by my side
Oo, oo, oo, oo, no, please don’t stop my war
Oo, mama I’ve just got to have my war!
Nothin! (Bitches.)
I caught a bit of the press conference that Mr. Bush held with the White House press corps in their temporary digs. Too much of it was a chummy love fest. How about some professional distance, hmmm?
But there was just enough tough questioning to get Mr. Bush a little feisty. At one point, a reporter interrupted a rambling answer, and got Mr. Bush to admit, in plain language, that one of the pro-war talking points was bullshit.
QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.
Update: Full transcript.
Update 2: Norbiz's transcript.
Science Funnies
Centrifugal Force
Science, It works bitches
Mars, Bitches!
The guy causing all the trouble with all the new planets, Mike Brown, is an old buddy of mine. I used to hang with the UC Berkeley hiking club in the late eighties, even though I wasn't a proper student. I was taking extension classes, off campus, taught by non-faculty members. But hey, I had a car with four doors, and was willing to drive on every single backpacking trip that I went on.
Anyway, Mike was a grad student at the time, unsure of where he wanted to go with the whole astronomy thing. Eventually, planetary science sparked his interest. And he's gone down that path in a big way, making some breakthroughs in the field by revisiting the techniques (in a modern computer-oriented sort of way) that Clyde Tomball used to discover Pluto.
Speaking of planetary science, I'm particularly pissed at Mr. Bush for his initiative to go back to the moon and on to Mars. The non-manned flight portions of NASA are being gutted to serve this goal. Really the goal is just a front for building more capable space craft for operating in the near Earth environment -- for military purposes. The Republicans are preying upon the ignorance of the American public.
Most people haven't done the math to realize we could have vast numbers of little robots crawling all over Mars for much less than the cost of sending people there for a very short visit and back. Sending carbon-based bipeds into the inhospitable realm of interplanetary space is a crappy, overpriced way of doing science.
This is all long-winded windup to saying I mentioned the "Mars, bitches!" catch phrase, which is a favorite of Atrios', to Mike, who had never heard it before. I did the homework to find the origin. Dave Chappelle. Duh. It's at the end of this excellent send-up of Mr. Bush.