New Dawn Coming!
Today is Sunday, 8 August 2010.
A famous Cold War poster by Noel Lawson proclaimed, “Sleep tight tonight: your Air Force is awake”. The image was of an old coot who’d forgotten to insert his false teeth, jauntily arrayed in flight suit and helmet.
The people of Iraq must enjoy much the same feeling, as the last US Army brigade formally designated as a combat unit yesterday handed over its responsibilities to an Iraqi Army division. By the end of this month, American troop strength is meant to be reduced to 50,000, none assigned to combat roles, all assigned to “advise and assist”. Operation Iraqi Freedom will end, replaced on 1 September by Operation New Dawn. All Yanqui troops are scheduled to be withdrawn by the end of 2011.
It is now 5 months since the Iraqi parliamentary elections, and the parties and factions therein are still deadlocked on the formation of a new government (i.e., which alliance of thugs and thieves will terrorize and loot the country). Mao famously opined that “political power derives from the barrel of a gun”. Perhaps he was right about that, to some extent, but W. Bush and R. Cheney et al. were certainly and absolutely wrong when they claimed that Iraqi democracy could derive from the barrels of American guns.
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Correction:
An enduring myth is that Richard Nixon resigned as president on this date in 1974. In fact, he only gave a televised speech announcing that he would resign the next day.
The letter of resignation, on White House stationery, is dated “August 9, 1974”, and the text reads: “Dear Mr. Secretary:/I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States./Sincerely,”, below which appears the signature, “Richard Nixon”, and then, flush left, the address, “The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger/The Secretary of State/Washington, D.C. 20520”. To the right of the address is handwritten the time of receipt, “11.35 AM”, and underneath are the initials “HK”. The original is in the National Archives.
Historians rarely have the chance to “make” history, but we must always strive to prevent its falsification, whether in matters small or large.
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Fire This Arsehat:
The Chairman and CEO of General Motors, Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., hopes that the company will soon make an initial public offering of stock, and expects the Federal government to sell its stake. Quoth he last week, “We don’t want to be known as Government Motors”.
That stake is 61% of the company. How did this jackarse graduate from Texas Tech, unaware that the correct term would be “Taxpayer Motors”? You work for the shareholders, bub, and that means 61% for the citizenry of the USA/USE. Oh, he knows that score, he’s just an arrogant rich prick trying to appeal to Teabaggers who hate “BIG GOVERNMENT”, and pretend not to realize that “L’Etat, c’est moi”, and that that moi is all of us.
Throw Whitarse out of the plane tomorrow: no severance, no golden parachute.
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Save the Date!
It’s almost certain that the re-make of the classic Cold War flick, Red Dawn, will impact a theater near you on 24 November. And this time the bad guys are “gooks”! (“Chinks”, to be precise. Tag line: "They are here to help".) I’ll go see it, but I can imagine no way in which they might improve on the original; better try to re-make Casablanca with Jolie and Pitt.
Wolverines!
A famous Cold War poster by Noel Lawson proclaimed, “Sleep tight tonight: your Air Force is awake”. The image was of an old coot who’d forgotten to insert his false teeth, jauntily arrayed in flight suit and helmet.
The people of Iraq must enjoy much the same feeling, as the last US Army brigade formally designated as a combat unit yesterday handed over its responsibilities to an Iraqi Army division. By the end of this month, American troop strength is meant to be reduced to 50,000, none assigned to combat roles, all assigned to “advise and assist”. Operation Iraqi Freedom will end, replaced on 1 September by Operation New Dawn. All Yanqui troops are scheduled to be withdrawn by the end of 2011.
It is now 5 months since the Iraqi parliamentary elections, and the parties and factions therein are still deadlocked on the formation of a new government (i.e., which alliance of thugs and thieves will terrorize and loot the country). Mao famously opined that “political power derives from the barrel of a gun”. Perhaps he was right about that, to some extent, but W. Bush and R. Cheney et al. were certainly and absolutely wrong when they claimed that Iraqi democracy could derive from the barrels of American guns.
______________________________________
Correction:
An enduring myth is that Richard Nixon resigned as president on this date in 1974. In fact, he only gave a televised speech announcing that he would resign the next day.
The letter of resignation, on White House stationery, is dated “August 9, 1974”, and the text reads: “Dear Mr. Secretary:/I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States./Sincerely,”, below which appears the signature, “Richard Nixon”, and then, flush left, the address, “The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger/The Secretary of State/Washington, D.C. 20520”. To the right of the address is handwritten the time of receipt, “11.35 AM”, and underneath are the initials “HK”. The original is in the National Archives.
Historians rarely have the chance to “make” history, but we must always strive to prevent its falsification, whether in matters small or large.
_______________________________________
Fire This Arsehat:
The Chairman and CEO of General Motors, Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., hopes that the company will soon make an initial public offering of stock, and expects the Federal government to sell its stake. Quoth he last week, “We don’t want to be known as Government Motors”.
That stake is 61% of the company. How did this jackarse graduate from Texas Tech, unaware that the correct term would be “Taxpayer Motors”? You work for the shareholders, bub, and that means 61% for the citizenry of the USA/USE. Oh, he knows that score, he’s just an arrogant rich prick trying to appeal to Teabaggers who hate “BIG GOVERNMENT”, and pretend not to realize that “L’Etat, c’est moi”, and that that moi is all of us.
Throw Whitarse out of the plane tomorrow: no severance, no golden parachute.
_______________________________________
Save the Date!
It’s almost certain that the re-make of the classic Cold War flick, Red Dawn, will impact a theater near you on 24 November. And this time the bad guys are “gooks”! (“Chinks”, to be precise. Tag line: "They are here to help".) I’ll go see it, but I can imagine no way in which they might improve on the original; better try to re-make Casablanca with Jolie and Pitt.
Wolverines!
posted by HH at 10:57 AM
1 Comments:
After Red Dawn, give Bodrum Mediterranean a go. Quite nice and reasonably priced. The lamb pizza, calamari, and kebabs are quite spectacular. Something to treasure in the fall...
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