Zingers

This is a bit of a round-up, ala Newshog, as I head out the door this weekend for some diversion from the ghastly machinations extant in the world today.

First up, after Vladimir Putin turned the mike on Bush and Blair and gave the world a grim laugh at that poodle show during the G8, now Putin is telling the US to buzz off and will sell Venezuela about $3 billion in arms to Hugo Chavez. Furthermore, Chavez sought to tweak American officials with talk of nuclear power for his country, with a potential technology deal no doubt coming from Moscow. Moscow, of course, has something to gain from this cozy, arms-dealing relationship as well; Venezuela is an OPEC member and Chavez is pushing to fix the price of oil at $50 bbl, which would allow Venezuela to claim heavy crude as reserves, which in turn would allow the South American country to claim the world's biggest oil reserves. Expect nothing but steam out of Washington about this.

Meanwhile, Israel are now saying that the UN should butt out of southern Lebanon and have further indicated that the UN will not be welcome to participate in any investigation of the recent bombing of a UN observation post there. Israeli ambasssador to the UN, Dan Gellerman, said,

Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don't think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation.

Two problems with this argument, though: the incident didn't happen in Israel. It happened in a country you were bombing. And two, Gellerman has no idea whether Italy or France would allow a joint UN investigation: they've never blown up a UN observation post.

But with all this diplomatic mayhem, PNAC signatory and former Deputy Secretary of State under G.W. Bush, Richard Armitage, has said he fears that Israel's lavish application of bombs to Lebanon has done nothing but create a million refugees and empowered Hezbollah. Armitage says that this campaign may introduce an "element into the body politic" that no one has yet anticipated. Armitage should know, since he was Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan when Hezbollah sprouted from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

John Dean tells us that we have an "imperial presidency." Thanks for the heads up. We hadn't noticed lately, what with all the fucking wars going on.

Bill Clinton echoes Armitage by saying that Israel has gone too far. Not too far for Rice, though, as she found some time during playful banter about the Middle East to sit down at the piano and lay down a few licks on the crazy eighty-eights. Hey, all sitting around resisting cease-fire agreements and no play makes Condi a dull girl.

Cindy Sheehan, who so ingraciously camped outside Bush's Texas ranch while the president was there "clearin' brush" last August, has just purchased a five acre lot in Crawford, apparently with the hope that Bush will be a little more neighbourly now that she is a nearby property owner.

After U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor accused former FEMA director Michael Brown of being an "incompetent fool," Brown responded in a recent interview in the only way he knows how. Of Taylor, Brown said, "he can just bite me" and further insinuated that Taylor was a "little twerp." Pot, kettle.

And finally, news that doesn't seem like news at all: the world doesn't respect George Bush. Which works out well, since George Bush doesn't respect the world.

So, have fun with that.