Sunday, February 24, 2008

Then what’s the point of even having a prime minister?


London Sunday Times: “Downing Street has rejected an online petition that calls on Gordon Brown to sing, ‘We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line,’ while standing in a barrel of custard. The petitioner has been told: ‘This is outside the remit of the prime minister.’”

Do you suppose that these days Osama bin Laden gets annoyed when people mistake his name for Barack Obama’s?

Do you suppose the reason Hillary Clinton can get so few people excited about the prospect of the first woman president is that everyone is just kind of embarrassed that it’s so overdue, in the way that a 33-year old who has just lost his virginity is less likely to trumpet the fact to his friends than a 17-year old?

Headline of the Day (London Times) and Death of the Day: “Runaway Lawnmower Kills Buddhist Monk.” At the Peace Pagoda in Milton Keynes. The thing got away from him, he ran after it trying to get back into the cab, but was pulled under the blades, possibly because he was missing three fingers. From another lawnmower accident ten years ago.

Other Death of the Day (also London Times): “Man Choked in Cake-Eating Contest.”

George Bush hosted the 100th annual state dinner for US governors, which may well also have featured a cake-eating contest. Although it was scheduled at the same time as the Academy Awards, somehow Jack Nicholson was sitting in the front row wearing sunglasses indoors there too. He’s just that good.

Bush said of that first dinner, “I can’t imagine what they were thinking about what America would look like a hundred years ago. And I’m not sure what people will think a hundred years from now.” They’ll still think you were the worst president ever.

By the way, the governors’ dinner was initiated by Teddy Roosevelt, for whom the teddy bear was named, and the song “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” was written by the same man who wrote “We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line.” So it all ties together.

Here are Bush and my steamed esteemed governor. But what, oh what, could they be saying, readers?


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