Political musical animation, US style

[Tom]

See, and hear, http://www.jibjab.com/.

I like it.

[francis]

The JibJab thing hasn't gone down well with Guthrie's publishers (http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/26/commentary/wastler/wastler/)

With intentions to do something interesting with it rather than just the usual link dump, a couple of weeks ago I decided to see what sites there were out there that were anti-Bush and that specifically had the word Bush in the URL. I think I was trying to see exactly how unpopular the guy was, although I never did anything to see if there were still any anti-Clinton sites out there as a comparison. Anyway:

http://stopbushproject.com/
http://www.impeach-bush-now.org/
http://www.bluetoothusersagainstbush.com/
http://www.bushwatch.com/
http://bush-lies.blogspot.com/
http://www.anti-bush.com/
http://www.babesagainstbush.com/
http://www.unelectable-bush.com/
http://bush-whacked.com/bw/index.cfm
http://www.bushyoga.com/
http://www.shoptodropbush.com/
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/
http://www.bushflash.com/
http://www.bushorchimp.com/
http://www.bushcards.com/
http://georgemustgo.blogspot.com/
http://www.president-bush.com/
http://www.bushspeech.org/

Good to see their (un)elected president is such a popular guy! That was the result of about an hour searching, so there's undoubtedly more out there that Google hasn't indexed.

""This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating." George W Bush [New York Daily News, April 23rd, 2002

"The French don't have a word for 'entrepreneur'"

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" President GW Bush [Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000]

"First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill." George W. Bush [Washington, D.C., May 19, 2003]

http://www.websitearchitecture.co.uk/storr/forumimgs/bushwisdom2.jpg

[Tom]

"Stop xxx" seems to have become part of the presidential election scene, like strawberries at Wimbledon. I think it started with with the Anti-Vietnam War protest - and nothing has been as sharp as the chant 'LBJ, LBJ - how many kids have you killed today?' My view is that all the WMD stuff was hogwash - but that Saddam was a criminal and it was right to bring him to justice. I don't see why the (comparatively recent) invention of the nation state should protect him.

For an interesting political website which trys to institutionalize voter involvement in democracy, see http://moveon.org/front/. At present, the site seems to have one aim: defeat Bush. It had a big write up in a business magazine.

[francis]

In a bizarre twist on the already very strange Subservient Chicken (http://www.subservientchicken.com/) (can you see Burger King - yes, really - getting away with that here?) here's Subservient President (http://www.subservientpresident.net/). Type in commands and get Dubya doing things. Because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to type in the commands that people have discovered so far, here's a metafilter post (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/34724) with loads in. Most a pretty funny, "choke" is somewhat tasteless.

(If you want the chicken ones, here's the relevant MeFi post (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/32285)

[francis]

Another site for the list: this apparently proves that Bush is the antichrist (http://www.bushisantichrist.com/) (argument falls down if you include the 'W').

Favourite quote from the web so far:

Bush/Cheney 2004: why change horsemen mid-apocalypse?

[James]

I can't decide about the war, on the one hand I agree with Tom that there were no WMD but it was right to oust Saddam. But why didn't we just say that - he's slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people - justification enough surely.

On the other hand, Iraq has one of the world's greatest reserves of oil. Having just got back from the US I have seen how important gasolene is to the yanks.

No doubt Iraq's oil is now being sold to pay for the rebuilding of the country by Western firms.

Bush is a clown, but I don't like Kerry much either. He's too American, with his bouffant hair, chiseled face and white teeth. But that's just being personal. I think Bush will win though.

Clinton was the best president they've had in recent years in my opinion, certainly the most peace-loving.

[francis]

Clinton was a statesman and also had America's finances in the black, something I'd guess that isn't easy to do.

Another quote that you may or may not have read comes from Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief, and is still scarily relevant today:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

This sums up America's flag-waving jingoism to a tee.

[francis]

Stupid forum/connection/innernet - this was a double post -the original is one up from this.

[Tom]

The 'thinking man', they say, wants both presidential candidates to lose (this is what they said about the Iran-Iraq war too). The reason they couldn't just say 'we are going to war to oust Saddam' is that the UN does not recognise this as an allowable reason for going to war.

Its not that I'm prejudiced against cheese-eating surrender monkeys (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheese+eating+surrender+monkeys) (as with most countries, I like the people and dislike the governments) but I keep thinking that if the French had not opposed the war then (1) it would have had UN support, because Iraq was not in compliance with weapons inspection requirements (2) the Turks would have joined if the UN had joined in (3) armies could have driven south from Turkey and north from Kuwait simultaneously (4) the war would have ended and Saddam would have been caught within a week (5) Iraqs army would have surrendered instead of just 'undressing', so that they could have been put in charge of the country as the Japanese army was in 1946 (5) all would have lived happily ever after.