Picking Up The Pieces

Only yesterday, President Jesus Bush's favourite poodle, PM Tony Blair urged his fellow Europeans to "face up to the reality and bow and kneel before your master", a call that was roundly rejected by one of the many remaining voices of sanity in Europe, French President Chirac, who compounded his opposition to appeals for closer cooperation between the US and Europe in Mr Bush's second term by snubbing an EU summit lunch for Ayad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister, and urging Europe to act as a counterweight to American hegemony "in a world that's more multi-polar than ever".

Chirac is probably just jealous that he doesn't have a legion of idiotic, Jesus-loving voters to back him up but nevertheless, I think we can agree: (at least 50% of) Americans Is So Stupid.

Killing Flies

Desultory Turgescence's favourite quote of the week comes from the interim president of Iraq, Ghazi al-Yawar, has rejected the coalition's plans to launch an all-out assault on the rebel-held town of Falluja.

Mr al-Yawar told the Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas: "I completely disagree with those who see a need to decide [Falluja] through military action."

He added: "The coalition's handling of this crisis is wrong. It's like someone who fired bullets at his horse's head just because a fly landed on it; the horse died and the fly went away."

Well, Mr al-Yawar, wake up and smell another four years of bullets.

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How Many God-Fearing Republicans Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb?

Kudos to the group called Yes Bush Can, who over the last several weeks of the election provoked numerous loyal Republicans to happily sign a pledge in which, among other things:

1. They agreed to host a permanent nuclear waste storage facility in their neighbourhood.
2. Promised not to have sex before marriage.
3. Specified which branch of the military they would prefer their children to join to fight America's forthcoming war against North Korea.

"That's what's amazing about the discourse in this country," says Mike Bonnano, one of the two absurdists behind Yes Bush Can. "People are so used to complete absurdity that nothing surprises them any more."

It also illustrates that the blind will keep on following blindly. The depth of peoples' faith, either religiously or politically, knows no bounds.

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What Isn't To Love?

We decided to do a samplying of some of the other bloggers listed on our links side and it appears some people are not as satisfied as others about the American election results:

Four More Fears

"This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it -- that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear And Loathing On the Campaign Trail, November, 1972. via Whiskey Bar

Four More Years by Lyssas Lounge envisions new condoms with the warning label "Say No To Sex and Yes To Jesus", via A Fistful of Euros.

Wow. It appears to be confirmed. Have a look at Comparison of IQ and Voting Patterns in the US - many thanks, via JuliusBlog. A comparison of Jesus Freaks and IQ would be as fascinatingly predictable as well, I reckon.

The Unbearable Darkness of Being by Lakshmi Chaudhry:

"On Tuesday, the largest turnout in recent history couldn't save us from defeat. Democracy won and so did George Bush. And all the Monday morning quarterbacking doesn't change the sad fact that the truth did not set us free. Nearly 52 percent of all Americans preferred to simply ignore reality to keep their faith in God and the man who is only too happy to play messiah.

This is now their White House, their Senate, their House of Representatives, and very likely their Supreme Court. It's their country." - via De Leeskamer

You might wonder: Will The Election Change Literary Culture? as they have at mediabistro, via Maud Newton -- it might do, for those Americans wishing to expatriot themselves to Canada, to have a look at this map of The United States of American and Jesusland. Laugh through your tears...

Meanwhile, 525 Reasons To Dump Bush notes that "The future of this site is unclear. We've talked about adding another ten to the URL, turning our attention to Congress, and calling it 535 Reasons to Keep an Eye on Democracy, but we are, understandably, ready for a break from daily updates."

Perhaps it's time to start an "Americans Out of America!" campaign.

"We say outright: these are madmen, yet these madmen
have their own logic, their teaching, their code, their God
even, and it's as deepset as it could be." — Dostoyevesky, via One Good Move who also provides a link to Jon Stewart reporting on the world's reaction to Dubs election, angry to violently angry, and on his "make-believe arrogance."

"Bush and Cheney- what a pair!
Who said life isn't fair?
While Iraq gets tanks and occupation-
You have idiots to run your nation!" Election Condolences for Hallmark or Yahoo greetings, via Baghdad Burning/Riverbend.

Steve Bell's take on Four More Years via Fat Buddha - hang in there, mate, at least Bush won't be running the Blues into the ground.

If you can't get at Bush, there's always the Osama bin Laden Stress Doll: Punch him! Crush him! Twist him! Stab him! via Je Blog.

"TV Catalunya has posted a forum where people can give their opinions about the US elections. Here are a few of them. The original Catalan is first, in quotations; my translation follows.

"Em sembla lamentable que haguem d'aguantar l'imbècil mes gran del mon quatre anys mes. Felicitats als ignorants i analfabets; els seus vots sí són vàlids."

I think it's terrible that we have to put up with the biggest imbecile in the world four more years. Congratulations to the ignorant and illiterate; their votes do count.

"i l'altre es l'insult amb motiu, i aquests menja-hamburgueses ara per ara se'ls mereixen tots, només un poble com ells, després de veure TOTES les desgracies que ha fet Bush, el tornarien a votar per "campechano i cristià"... s'ha de ser BURRO."

Another thing is an insult with a good reason, and those burger-eaters deserve all there are right now, only a people like them, after seeing all the bad things Bush has done, would vote for him again because he's "friendly and Christian"...they must be stupid."
More via Iberian Notes.

NB: For the record, although I think "hamburger-eaters" is funny, my experience has always been that even liberals eat hamburgers, the non-vegans anyway, so perhaps it should be clarified that it is the "Jesus-loving hambuger-eaters" in particular. That way I'm free to gourge myself without fear of retribution from TV Catalunya viewers.

Killer Cola

Although once the slogan for Coca Cola was "Coke Adds Life", it appear they can now add the slogan Coke Adds Death to their stable of slogans.

It appears that instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, farmers in India are reportedly spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola.

In the past month there have been reports of hundreds of farmers turning to Coke in Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh states.

Gotu Laxmaiah, a farmer from Ramakrishnapuram in Andra Pradesh, said he was delighted with his new cola spray, which he applied this year to several hectares of cotton. "I observed that the pests began to die after the soft drink was sprayed on my cotton," he told the Deccan Herald newspaper.

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Lastly, quite an evening here in Inkberrow last night for Guy Fawkes Night. The new horse was quite dazzled by fireworks display and equally jittery confounded by the enormous bonfire in the acreage out behind us but survived the night. As did we and our homemade mulled wine.