Catfish and hush puppies

Because it's too late for the usual biscuits and gravy.

Bill, Janet, MSM: KISS MY ASS!

Mark Steyn - Atlanticist small talk is all that's left

In Brussels yesterday, the President's "charm offensive" consisted of saying the same things he always says – on Iraq, Iran, Palestine, the illusion of stability, the benefits of freedom, the need for Egypt and Saudi Arabia to get with the programme, etc. But, tone-wise, the Bush charm offensive did its best to keep the offensiveness reasonably charming – though his references to anti-Semitism and the murder of Theo van Gogh by a Dutch Islamist were a little more pointed than his hosts would have cared for.
...
Nato will not be around circa 2015 - which is why the Americans are talking it up right now. An organisation that represents the fading residual military will of mostly post-military nations is marginally less harmful than the EU, which is the embodiment of their pacifist delusions. But, either way, there's not a lot to talk about.
...
So what would you do in Bush's shoes? Slap 'em around a bit? What for? Where would it get you? Or would you do exactly what he's doing? Climb into the old soup-and-fish, make small talk with Mme Chirac and raise a glass of champagne to the enduring friendship of our peoples: what else is left? This week we're toasting the end of an idea: the death of "the West".

Many Africans See U.S. As Distant Savior

LOME, Togo - As President Bush (news - web sites) visits Europe this week, he is up against a continent brimming with hostile public opinion. But while Americans have grown used to being condemned as global bullies, at least one region has people looking to them for salvation.

For many of the young people who take to the streets in protest in Lome and other blighted, overlooked capitals across Africa, only one distant power seems great enough to defeat the local forces of tyranny: the U.S. military.

"Tell George Bush to send us guns," young protesters screamed last weekend in Lome, capital of Togo, where the dictator of 38 years had just died, only for his son to succeed him by military appointment within hours.

"We need American troops to deliver us from this regime," young men shouted.

Gosh, what would the Euros and the UN say?

Aid Pours in for Victims of Mommy Madness

Pearsall, herself a mother of four and part-time convenience store clerk in Alachua, is widely credited with creating the grassroots relief network that has generated over $4,600 in donations for Upper Westside supermoms desperately seeking meaningful time for self-actualization. Her charitable crusade was spurred, in part, by an injury to one of her children.

"Little Brandon was goin' at the bug zapper again, even after I warnt him that'd git him another whuppin'," she explains. "Anyways, I was sittin' in the waitin' room at the emergency clinic, and I picked up this Newsweek magazine and read me this article about how these mommas up there in New York and Boston were faced with all them false expectations and gender roles, and I just flat ass broke down."

"I hadn't cried that hard since NASCAR fined Little E for sayin' them cuss words," she adds, her eyes still welling with traces of the raw emotion that drove her to action.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" It turns out that my favorite Hunter S. Thompson story is excerpted online:

This incident has haunted me ever since it smacked me in the eyes one peaceful Sunday morning a few weeks ago as I sat on the balmy screened porch of the National Affairs Suite here in the Royal Biscayne Hotel. I was slicing up grapefruit and sipping a pot of coffee while perusing the political page of the Herald when I suddenly saw my name in the middle of a story on Ed Muskie's "Sunshine Special" campaign train from Jacksonville to Miami.

Several quick phone calls confirmed that something ugly had happened on that train, and that I was being blamed for it. A New York reporter assigned to the Muskie camp warned me to "stay clear of this place . . . they're really hot about it. They've pulled your pass for good."

"Wonderful," I said. "That's one more bummer that I have an excuse to avoid: But what happened? Why do they blame me?"

"Jesus Christ!" he said. "That crazy sonofabitch got on the train wearing your press badge and went completely crazy. He drank about ten martinis before the train even got moving, then he started abusing people. He cornered some poor bastard from one of the Washington papers and called him a Greasy Faggot and a Communist Buttf***er . . . then he started pushing him around and saying he was going to throw him off the train at the next bridge . . . we couldn't believe it was happening. He scared one of the network TV guys so bad that he locked himself in a water-closet for the rest of the trip."

"Jesus, I hate to hear this," I said. "But nobody really thought it was me, did they?"

"Hell, yes, they did," he replied.

And then it got even better. I seem to recall that the imposter's interruption of Muskie's big speech had to do with a demand for more gin and there was something about "triple gin bucks without the buck", but it's been some years since I read it. And yes, I am old enough to remember Muskie. Just think what you whippersnappers missed.