Happy New Year! Trust you had a grand old time. I had the fortune to be whisked away to New Zealand for a fortnight of fun in the sun which was sheer bliss. Ahh… Has made it a wee bit tough to slide back into the chillier climes of Oxford, but there was a splash of blue sky on Wednesday which was lovely indeed. And, hey, spring is just around the corner, right? Right??
One of the quiver of my New Year resolutions was to throw a few more words up on FlatWhite in 2008, so perhaps you might begin to see some sort of regularity (gasp!) in the coming months. Thought I’d chip off the New Year with a few vids though. Words spoke by kooks that that have been simmering in my mind of late, care of the interweb.
First up is Willard Mitt Romney, one of the front-runners for the 2008 Republican nomination for President of the United States. Romney trucked out his ‘Faith in America’ speech just before Christmas to appease the quarter of Republicans who claimed they wouldn’t vote for him because he was Mormon. In the speech Romney looked to de-emphasise any particular faith and did a fine job of listing all of the major US religions and saying how wonderful they were. At the same time, to really hammer home to the religious base of the Republican party just how important he saw ‘faith’, he isolated secularists with the creepy phrase, "Freedom Requires Religion".
Any US citizen who has even a distant grasp on reality or history would choke on their TV dinner listening to Romney say that, but then he is a vote-whore so it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. He’s proven himself over the campaign to be the kind of guy who’ll say anything to get people to like him – appealing to black americans with the claim his father marched with Martin Luther King (he didn’t), appealing to the NRA by saying he’s been a hunter all his life (he hasn’t), and appealing to anti-capitalists by denying there are any Washington lobbyists working on his campaign (there are). Keith Olbermann has the juiciest clips from the speech…
Romney: Republican Theocrat out to Distort the Constitution via Countdown with Keith Olbermann, powered by YouTube
Second, Mike Huckabee, another Republican front-runner. Less of a vote-whore than Romney, but more of a crack-pot. In fact, he’s promised to amend the US constitution to be closer to ‘God’s Law’. You might think that sounds crazy, but look at the baying crowd loving it…Flavor Aid anyone?
Mike Huckabee: Amend the Constitution to God’s Standards via Countdown with Keith Olbermann, powered by YouTube
Third, good ol’ Bushie. GW has been making an ass of himself all over the Middle East lately, and of all the comical videos out there (look around for the Saudi Sword dance one too), this one has gotta be the best. In a visit to a US military base Bush shows once more his shaky hold on the English language, and his less shaky belief in himself. Jon Stewart is back, sans writers of course, and it’s a good ‘un.
Bush’s Future Tense via The Daily Show, powered by AOL Video
Finally, watch this one while you can. Possibly the biggest kook of them all, this is a video of Tom Cruise blathering on about how great Scientology is – all to the theme of Mission Impossible! I say ‘watch while you can’ because the ‘Church’ is trying damned hard to get this clip off the internet. This link may break eventually…until then, enjoy…
The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress via Gawker, powered by Daily Motion