Shoeraq

After President Bush's apt ducking of two shoes thrown straight at him, the State of Texas announced that a shoe rack will heretofore be called a Shoeraq in memory of the incident and spelled as one word. Those hunting trips Bush took with Dick Cheney in Texas were a hell of a good training. If nothing fatal came out of dodging bullets thrown at him, they sure developed excellent reflexes in Bush. In Iraq, the government decided that the pair of shoes thrown at Bush will be auctioned and the billion dollar proceeds be sent out to GM, Ford and Chrysler as a first bailout handout so that their poor CEOs can fly back to Congress on private jets and ask for more money.

Shoe pride is now high in the Middle East which plans to advertise its shoes as the only ones that can demonstrably and reliably follow a straight throw-line to the individual in target. The boom in shoe exports soon to follow this world-class demonstration is the perfect solution to the desperate need for countries in the Middle East to diversify their oil-based economies and offer traditional new ways for young people there to express themselves.

Within minutes of the incident being reported and with the Pope's blessing, the Holy Shoe Trinity of Ferragamo, Prada and Bruno Magli announced plans to set up shoe manufacturing in Iraq. Unfortunately the shoes that were thrown at Bush were too cheap a brand to be auctioned at Christie's and fetch the trillion dollar amounts needed to bail out the US economy.

The Iraqi government announced that all journalists in Iraq will be given Italian brands to shoeraq freely against foreign dignitaries with an exception made for Carla Bruni because she still is too God-damn pretty and because she was hired to advertise the shoes in a new commercial where she and Sarkozy will be shown quarreling. At some point Carla will take off her shoes and throw them at petit Nicola who being so petit won't have to duck down to avoid the hit. The commercial will close by Carla singing "Some fights you don't wanna miss"

In a show of accord with this gracious decision to exempt Carla from Shoeraq, the Vatican requested that devil-wearing Prada design special protest-shoes with angel wings on the side for use by protesters when new priest-in-child scandals break out. This is how the new design will be used to the Church's favor. By mastering his God-intermediation powers the Pope will animate the wings attached to the shoes turning the shoe-throwing protests into a massive up-the-sky dove-release spectacle. Those protesters who refuse to use the Pope-animated Devil-wears-Prada shoes will be denied a fair hearing postmortem.

Religious-devout Iran who has tremendous spiriticopolitical influence over Iraq also announced that when a persona non grata visits Iraq from a country well-versed in the Satan, female journalists will be invited to attend the press conference. Under special fatwa from resurrect-elect Khomeini, all female journalists present will wear stiletto heels with the clear understanding that they'll use them to Shoeraq the foreign dignitary but not miss him next time.

Finally, fashion-conscious protesters in democracy-born Greece who are in the streets for a second week and bored sick of throwing rocks and Molotov bombs to the police are inspired anew by Shoeraq and vow to compete head-on with the Middle East on riot publicity. They believe Bush was actually controlled by the CIA and that's why he maneuvered so fast and dodged the shoe. Down with the CIA controlling our leaders they cry. Shoe stores in Athens are busy placing massive orders of Middle East shoes in response to the high demand from angry left-wing protesters who now want to burn down Athens shoe-style.

Don't you just love to read the news Bush makes when he travels abroad? By getting himself into the most unimaginable situations, it helps fire up people's imagination everywhere. By ducking successfully the shoe throw and letting the journalist go free for exercising his freedom of speech, Bush finally unveiled his version of how democracy will spread in the Middle East. I throw guns at you, duck it if you can. You throw shoes at me, I sure duck it well!!

I am ashamed to joke like that but compared to Bush, Obama might end up being a very boring, uneventful and yes here is my shame, less colorful US president...

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Press conferences going Japanese

Following the shoe incident with Bush in Iraq, press conference organizers are thinking of instituting new rules and manners. All participants will be asked to take their shoes off and wear paper-thin slippers. The measure is expected to improve the hygiene and ambience of the press room and make everyone relax and feel more comfortable.

Initially the idea was to ask participants to tie their shoes and hang them on power lines and phone wires outside the venue to give it western-style semantics but the fear this could be interpreted as a gangs-in-town sign or a drug dealer's marking made everyone revise and adopt symbolism-neutral Japanese manners on room hygiene.

I guess the most symbolic and heard-out-loud kind of peaceful protest to a future Bush-style US president, might be to hang shoes from power lines and telephone poles everywhere in town so that the message is visible from everywhere no matter what route the presidential motorcade will take to get in and out of town. It will be a spectacle to remember and the number of shoes hanging in protest a new Guinness world record countries will compete in!

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Better dimplomacy on the Middle East

This thought was posted on Thinkaloo on 2 November 2007 by member obamaforpresident

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I think Barack Obama has the best ideas on how we can shape a better Middle East which can help get ourselves out of the Iraqi mess.

When it comes to foreign policy he seems to always come with ideas that are different than any other candidate out there.

I list 3 of his ideas when it comes to US diplomacy in the Middle East that I think are very unique and promising.

Obama has been the only one with the guts to offer opportunity for real diplomacy than stubborn war rhetoric that will get us nowhere in the Middle East.

1. Talk to Iran, offer economic & security incentives

This is seen as almost heretical by some, but think about it. If you don't talk with your enemy about peace with your enemy, who will you talk it with?

2. No preconditions in the talks

It would be nice if Iran could suspend its nuclear weapons activity first, but realistically they never will because we say so or because we threaten them with war.

We need to be realistic, if we don't want more war either, we got to enter the talks in good faith.

3. Tie the above with progress on Iraq

Make no mistake, Iran's influence on Iraq is tremendous. If we get the Iranians on our side in Iraq, only then can we talk about realistic dates for out troops to withdraw

I can go on, but I want your views on these 3 specific ideas. I think they merit a lot of debate and need to be supported.

Look forward to your comments & thoughts