ninme

Provided without comment, a snippet of Bubblehead’s response to the movie meme:

Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order): This won’t be a list of great films, just films that stop my channel surfing in its’ tracks when I come across them:

1) “Glory“: Probably my all-time favorite war movie. Seeing men willingly marching into a hopeless battle not only for their fellow soldiers, but also for a greater cause, is a theme that never fails to affect me at the deepest levels of who I am.

2) “Caddyshack“

ninme giggles

Keith in Mountain View (my home town once removed) posted this in the comments of First Lady Travels to Egypt, Advocates Equal Rights For All Sexes, Religions, and Big Fuzzy Green Creatures, with the picture of Laura Bush meeting Nimnim. It cracked me up this morning when I read it and it’s been cracking me up all day. Absolutely, therefore, the funniest item of the day.

Big green cookie Monster? Cookies are a sometimes food - massacres are a sometimes Jihad?

God it’s hysterical!

This is the most bleeping hilarious thing I have ever seen on video.

“Kosovo” - The Music Video

My favourite lyric?

Somalia
Grenada
or rescuing Kuwait-ah
We screwed ya
Rwanda
Wished we coulda helped ya
Iraqi embargo, how it is we don’t know.”

And of course the jewel of an opener:

Croatia, Albania, somewhere near Romania
Ichiro, and NATO, why the hell do we go…

and

Somewhere far overseas,
There’s a place called Kosovo
That you don’t wanna go
If you’re Albanian at all.

Hilarious! And:

Every time we go
To little places like Kosovo
We never really know what happens after we go
Tough luck for Kosovo.

For Norwegian soldiers, they do a GREAT Beach Boys impression. They’re pretty cute, too. I think given the general quality of this video, and the line “We’ll kick their ass and then we’ll see how it goes,” it’s pretty clear that they need something to do. I need lyrics.

Curtsies to Blackfive. God this thing is funny. I’m on the fifth run through. Heeheee.

The Englishman spreads breast cancer awareness and tells a funny joke, all at the same time!

(Yes it’s about Kylie.)

And here I thought Patrick Ruffini’s blog usually a bit dull.

Patrick Ruffini - Photoshop Contest: Darth W. Vader?

Ahh, I love it. And it works in so many ways, too. Replace a couple Bush 04 stickers with Bud Light ones and you’ve pretty much taken the next logical step in that man’s complete inability to maintain any hint of scruples in brand licensing.

Speaking of Star Wars, Chrenkoff’s had up an Open Letter to George Lucas for a couple days, which is just everything I wish I could say but can’t because I’m not that articulate and I didn’t grow up in a communist country. But anyway, I said this in the comments, and I think it deservers repeating, as my Official Stance On George Lucas’s Ridiculous Comments Made at Cannes. Everyone else has said something, so I should too:

Also, how about we all back up a couple steps and consider that this is the fluffiest, most obvious, least intellectually-challenging adventure movie ever made! There’s no place for politics in it! And discussing how the politics he aspires to represent in these movies should go one way or the other just elevates it to a status it doesn’t deserve! It’s a space adventure flick! This is NOT Schindler’s List!

The guy’s an idiot. All he’s ever done is made fluff, and this is his last big hurrah, and he’s trying to get himself invited to all the artsy cocktail parties before it’s too late. So he goes to Cannes and tries to compete with von Trier for the Palme d’Or — Wackiest Liberal Commentary Award.

There. All done.

BBC - Red faces over Perth danger alert

The message was sent out to media, travel agencies, and subscribers to the Australian government’s travel warning service.

“This is a message to let you know that Perth is dangerous at this time of year,” it read.

The rest of the story:

Australia’s foreign ministry has apologised for an e-mailed advisory warning of the dangers of travelling to the Western Australian capital, Perth. The foreign ministry said the message was mistakenly sent out by an outside contractor, as a test.

Variously described as the “friendly city”, “laid back”, and the “most isolated city in the world”, Perth is not usually known for its risks.

The president of the Tourism Council of Western Australia said he was furious.

“Perth is one of the safest cities in the world at the present time as far as we are concerned. It’s quite alarming that [the department of foreign affairs] doesn’t have these advisories checked by senior management before they are released to the wider audience,” said Ron Buckley.

“It makes Australia look absolutely stupid,” he said…

The foreign affairs department said it was following up the email with the contractor who sent it.

“The message was in poor taste and showed a clear lack of judgement,” a spokesman said.

But the City of Perth Council was less concerned.

“The weather is a bit dodgy,” a spokesman commented.

Maybe they’ll promote themselves with cheap flights and hotels. I’m perfectly willing to brave the dangerously scary dodgy weather.

Chrenkoff’s usually a pretty cool customer, but on the rare occasion he lowers himself to biting sarcasm, he’s hilarious.

Chrenkoff - “Media Watch” - the last word

Firstly, a mea culpa: responding to what I thought was an intrusive and irrelevant question, I misled the producer of the “Media Watch” program: I do in fact receive some money from the “Opinion Journal” (or more precisely, Dow Jones, which is the company that owns and runs the “Opinion Journal” and the “Wall Street Journal”) for their republication of my “Good news” segments.

Now that we have finally settled the really momentous and world-stopping question of my financial relationship with the “Opinion Journal”, the left can move on go back to ignoring “Good news from Iraq”, or in case of the “Media Watch”, downplaying its significance as list of “cute-kitten”-type stories.

I have already apologized for my lapse of judgment to the parties directly concerned, including the “Media Watch”, which in good faith relied on my answers (according to an unkind view by left wing bloggers, in order to portray me as an easily-dismissible amateur), and I now take this opportunity to apologize to my readers. Whatever I thought about the question, I should have answered truthfully, not only because it is a right thing to do, but because it has again allowed my critics to focus on a totally irrelevant issue instead of the question of the mainstream media’s coverage of Iraq.

By the way, if you are coming here to gloat, please make sure you leave your contact details in the comments sections, as I will want to visit you in person to pay homage to a person who has never told a lie in their life. I’ll be also bringing a rock or two as a gift, to add to your already large collection of first stones. Than I’ll tuck you in your bed and switch on the TV, so that you can fall asleep blissfully never having to confront the terrifying reality that something might actually be going well in Iraq.

Hilarious!

Oh man, this cracked me up:

Opinion Journal (published by the Wall Street Journal) - Best of the Web Today, BY JAMES TARANTO

Watching the Watchers

Australian blogger Tim Blair calls our attention to an amusing kerfuffle Down Under that involves this Web site. It began when Janet Albrechtsen, a columnist for the Australian newspaper, gave a plug to the work of Arthur Chrenkoff:

Good news [about Iraq] is not hard to come by. But when something positive does happen, it either gets filtered through the anti-war eyes of the media or is all but ignored. And that is what the terrorists are counting on. They must detest The Wall Street Journal. Each fortnight the paper’s website (www.wsj.com) includes a round-up of good news from Iraq. It makes for refreshing reading, if only to even up the Iraq ledger.

Last week came the latest instalment, all 27 pages of it.

There’s a small error here. Chrenkoff’s good-news roundup appears not on the Journal’s primary Web site, WSJ.com, but here on OpinionJournal.com. Our guess is that Albrechtsen wrote “the paper’s website” and some well-meaning copy editor inserted what turned out to be the wrong URL.

This prompted one Liz Jackson, a presenter for an amusingly bad show called “Media Watch” on the Australian Broadcast Corp., to file a “gotcha” commentary:

27 pages of good news, from the prestigious Wall Street Journal? We wanted to know more . . . but couldn’t find it on their web site.

Until we followed this link to a spin-off site called OpinionJournal.com, where, if you hunt hard enough, you’ll find this. . . .

Scroll down the page and it’s pretty soon apparent that far from being the news that no-one else has reported, Arthur’s good news is culled from stories produced by the BBC, the Washington Post, and other media outlets. . . .

There’s also a fair swag of material direct from government agencies like USAID.

These pages were not produced by a Wall Street journalist, but a self described blogger. . . .

Arthur is not paid by the Wall Street Journal or the Dow Jones website OpinionJournal.com which publishes his blog without editing. . . .

No Janet.

Good News from Iraq is not published on the highly respected Wall Street Journal website–it’s a blog published by a sister site.

Albrechtsen’s column contains a small and probably innocent error, but Jackson’s commentary includes several whoppers. OpinionJournal.com is in fact published by The Wall Street Journal; both its editor (a k a this columnist) and its assistant editor, Brendan Miniter, are on the editorial page staff and do work for the print edition of the paper as well. We do pay Chrenkoff a modest fee, and we do edit his work, though not for length. (In this case we aim for comprehensiveness rather than an easy read.)

We’d have been happy to explain this all if someone at ABC had bothered to phone or e-mail us (a practice we newspapermen call “reporting”). Liz, we’ve never heard of you either, but allow us to offer you some advice: If you’re going to be snotty, at least make some effort at getting the facts right.

Hah! Take that, you snooty cow! Btw I still like your hair.

Yesterday I mentioned how excited Georgia is in receiving the President today. Now we know another reason why they’re all a-twitter:

The stupid shall be punished - Staff Officer Quotes 6

In honor of President Bush’s visit to Tbilisi:

“From the Russian point of view, the US being in Georgia is like the teenage boy who shows up to take your daughter out on a date. No matter what he says, you know what he’s got on his mind…” CDR (DSCA)

giggle

BBC - Tour diary: Bush in Europe: 8 May

LIBERTY

It’s official. President Bush has been out-freedomed.

During his speech at the Margraten Military Cemetery, the Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende used President Bush’s favourite word more often than Mr Bush did in the speech he delivered straight afterwards.

Even if you allow “liberty” to count, it was still a 14-12 Dutch victory - although three of Balkenende’s “freedoms” were taken from a quote by Franklin D Roosevelt.

haha!

It was suitably inclement weather for a day marking the sacrifice and suffering of a generation.

As one wag from the White House press office put it - all hail on the chief. All hail on the chief’s press corps, more to the point.

I wish I’d worn one of the orange plastic ponchos which the assembled Dutch audience were wearing patriotically.

The last time I’ve seen such a sea of capes in that colour was during Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.

If Mr Bush had the same thought it would have warmed the cockles of his heart - if not his feet.

And what about the protests? My Dutch sources (well, Dutch family members) had assured me that protesters would be blocking the roads and disrupting the ceremony.

The only delay I experienced was when our coach failed to show and a bedraggled press crew watched as golf carts ferried veterans and their wives backwards and forwards.

I think the organisers had their priorities right.

Maybe not an obvious choice for Absolutely the Funniest Item of the Day, but it just cracked me up.

Lookit Laura!

The others are all talking and exchanging normal happy pleasantries, and Laura’s all “Wow!”

(L to R) U.S. President George W. Bush shakes hands with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga as he is awarded with the Three Star Order during a ceremony at Riga Castle in Latvia, May 7, 2005, as U.S. first lady Laura Bush and Vike-Freiberga’s husband Imants Freiberga look on. Bush hailed Latvia’s young democracy on Saturday in a visit that has revived tensions over Soviet domination of the Baltic states and antagonised Moscow before celebrations of the 1945 victory over the Nazis. Bush is travelling to Latvia, The Netherlands, Russia and Georgia on his five-day trip abroad. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Update:

Oh fer crying out loud. Smarter-than-the-rest-of-us Reuters got the President’s husband’s name wrong! His name is Friebergs. Hers is Frieberga.

Update II:

Latvian soldiers have awsome boots! More.

Even if it is over two years old (what can I say. I have to look hard for diversion these days):

Cox & Forkum - Udder Nonsense

Going through old Cox and Forkum cartoons, and this one’s gotta be the story of my life.

Except, of course, the tenacious fact-checking. I don’t work that hard. And I dunno if I’d use the word “insightful” when describing my commentary.

Okay, this is kinda old, but I just now saw it:

Shape of Days - My mean-spirited post for the day

Anyway, on to the point: Zack Moussaoui, confessed al-Qaida terrorist who planned to fly a 747 into the White House and who oh by the way just happens to be French can you believe it, has asked to be buried in “Muslim land” when he finally, after a long and agonizing prison sentence, coughs and dies.

You know what, Zacky boy? Just for that, I’m personally taking up a collection to get your filthy remains interred in a Catholic churchyard, in consecrated ground, with Extreme Unction and everything. If there is an Allah — and I feel pretty comfortable saying that there isn’t — then I want to make sure he sends you straight to whatever you people use for Hell and keeps you there forever and ever, amen.

Supreme Unction! Hilarious!

BBC - First Lady puts the joke on Bush

President Bush had begun a joke at the 91st correspondents dinner in Washington when his wife quickly rose to say: “Not that old joke - not again.

“I’ve been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. Well, I’ve got a few things I want to say for a change,” she said to great applause.

She went on to tell the audience of journalists, politicians and celebrities: “Nine o’clock and Mr Excitement here is in bed and I am watching Desperate Housewives - with [vice-president's wife] Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife.”

Mrs Bush poked fun at her husband’s riotous youth, saying: “I was a librarian that spent 12 hours a day in the library. Yet somehow I met George.”

The First Lady said her husband’s ranching skills had come on since he bought their plot in Crawford, Texas.

“He’s learned a lot about ranching since that first year, when he tried to milk the horse. What’s worse, it was a male horse,” she said.

Mrs Bush also joked about her mother-in-law, Barbara Bush: “People think she’s a sweet, grandmotherly… type. She’s actually more like [Mafia character] Don Corleone.”

There’s a video link on this article that everyone HAS to watch. Who woulda thunk Laura could be such a cutup. After the chainsaw line everyone stood up to applaud. Hilarious.

Another more complete video clip.

Update: Chrenkoff’s got some truly joyless commenters. Note, however, how many of the women thought she was great, and how many of the men are all, “How dare she!” Chrenkoff, for his part, has managed to pull together some salient comparisons on Presidential Circadian Rhythms. What a guy!