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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Why are Italians so approving of Berlusconi And his wife?

I don't argue that all Italians approve of Berlusconi's publicly flirting with younger women. I find it interesting, however, that his image as a politician is not affected negatively whenever his wife will publish a rebuke of him in the press. What does that say about Italian culture I wonder. Do Italians excuse his behavior because he is a prime minister or because he is a married man? Do Italian men share secret pride when He flirts or when She criticizes him?

His wife is mentioned in the British media as Veronica Lario not as Mrs. Berlusconi, is that deliberate? How about the Italian press? Why do you think she feels compelled to criticize him publicly if the public seems ok with his behavior? If she is so upset at him, why doesn't she divorce him? That would be a strong statement to make about finding her husband's behavior deeply offending. The public letter rebuke seems a business-as-usual response. Is it?

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earthquake prediction

I guess you know that there was a major earthquake here in Italy. Lot of people died. There is also this scientist saying that he had predicted the earthquake.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/04/06/italy.quake.prediction/index.html
I know that predicting an earthquake is almost impossible. If you knew this prediction would you evacuate your home? Do you think the goverment should have warned people based on this prediction?

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