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Last updated on May 20th, 2017 at 07:08 am
Behold, the Truth-to-Power Hatchback:
Read further chapters of this fascinating Ford Chomsky – spotted by Dave G. in the mean streets of Woollahra – here, here, here and here.
Bloke and Sheila driving behind this moron on the highway
Sheila: Look at that car! It’s got writing all over it. What’s it say?
Bloke: Huh? Oh, just some leftard, I’ll venture. I can’t make out the words from here. Listen, you’re suppose to be helping me look for a gas station or a rest stop; I’m really beginning to feel that third cup of coffee.
Sheila (reading out loud): “The U.S. makes more…capons?” Is that what that says? The U.S. makes more capons than any other country in the world?
Bloke: I believe it’s “Weapons”, luv, not “capons”. C’mon, c’mon! Where’s a gas station? Y’know, sometimes I feel like my main purpose in life is to serve as a middle man between coffee producers and the urinal.
Sheila: Well, you shouldn’t drink so much. Now, what’s that other line say…”It is the only country…to use atomic…boobs?” Is that what it says?
Bloke (head swings from left to right): What? What about boobs? Where?
Sheila: Watch out! The guy’s hitting his brakes!!
A few moments later, a police car pulls over onto the shoulder of the highway to investigate a burning Ford Escort, and a barely scratched Chevrolet Suburban. A large man is pissing on the prostrate form of a rather wimpy-looking, and slightly singed, academic type.
Officer: What’s all this?
Bloke: Fella’s car caught fire when we collided, officer; I pulled him out and…er…put him out, as it were.
Sheila: Saved his life, is more like it, officer. But that’s my Charlie, for yer: always using his head. After a manner of speakin’, I mean…
Officer (takes fire extinguisher out of his vehicle and puts out the car fire; walks around the car, reading the comments; helps Escort driver to his feet; turns to big bloke): Well, now. How fast was this guy going when he backed into you?
Because, as we all know, arms are bad and evil, and the way to make world peace is to not sell them to the good people of the world.
Then peace would descend on the entire world, as the aggressor overruns the disarmed.
(Oddly, the nation selling arms to Zimbabwe to keep it people down is not the horrible United States Warmonger, but the People’s Republic of China.
And why is the US highest on the list in dollars? Because we sell our peaceful allies very expensive weapons, like non-aggressive Patriot missiles. While China and Russia sell boatloads of RPGs and Kalashnikov rifles and heavy machineguns.
Massed data here at SIPRI.
Look, the USA sold that inveterate imperialist aggressor Australia 400 AMRAAM missiles nd a huge pile of other weapons. Doubtless postponing world peace for decades and promoting endless terrorism at the hands of the Roo Menace, right?)
That looks to be the poor man version of this.
Including, of course, that it’s far less entertaining, and far more stupid.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 04 28 at 03:18 PM • permalink
Pretty good penmanship though.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 04 28 at 03:18 PM • permalink
And why is the US highest on the list in dollars? Because we sell our peaceful allies very expensive weapons, like non-aggressive Patriot missiles. While China and Russia sell boatloads of RPGs and Kalashnikov rifles and heavy machineguns.
Apparently, Russia and China selling boatloads of arms to anyone with the cash is perfectly OK, since they’re supporting La Revolución! …
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 04 28 at 04:50 PM • permalink
- My car does not have a bumper sticker on it. My political views are my business. And of course, what I really hate about bumper stickers is that they are really about them. It’s often a way to express the driver’s belief in their moral superiority – nobody can seriously believe it would compel someone to change their mind – perhaps even change their vote, surely. Imagine the thought processes if that were possible:
“ Ohh, look at that neat bumper sticker! I think I will go and vote for Obama now, when all along I had planned to vote for that POW McCain.”
Looks like a Hatchet job to me.
Posted by brian_smaller on 2008 04 28 at 05:39 PM • permalink
After trying to read all that, I think it’s me.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 04 28 at 06:08 PM • permalink
- #3
Paco, very good. Bloke and Sheila.One or two minor corrections, we don’t have “gas” stations. Bloke would be looking for a “servo”.
Oh, and he wouldn’t say a “rest stop”, he’d say a “dunny” or a toilet. (We have toilets here and we aren’t afraid to call them that! We even GO to the toilet here!)Chevrolet Suburban? That’s a bloody truck, man! Do we have them in Aus?You really need to do a field trip to improve your ‘straylian idiom.
Though if you spoke with the owner of the little Laser, you’d probably learn more about the ‘straylian idiot.
- This is the most convincing argement against expanding public transport Ive ever seen. Can you imagine being stuck in a bus with this self rightous squeezer for a couple of hours?
The smug cloud it produces must be huge.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 04 28 at 07:26 PM • permalink
#34: Dude, you’re kiddin’ me, right? This is a Chevy Suburban. Me and the missus drive one (a 1987). Mrs. Paco was sideswiped by a Mustang a few years ago. Result? A few minor scratches on the Suburban; last I heard, the Mustang had been sold for parts.
#40: Well, I’m not sure that link works too well. Try this one on for size.
I’d wager the passenger seats never been used.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 04 28 at 08:01 PM • permalink
Once you own a Suburban, you just can’t understand what the heck people without one do to get by. Seriously. I plan to leave mine to my daughter in my will. I wont give it up before then. Besides, there is nothing more satisfying that parellel parking it in a tight spot while other cars wait for that spot assuming you’ll never be able to make it.
My father, rest his soul, asked to be transported to the cemetary in one. It was his one request for his funeral arrangements.
House on wheels, indeed. Though it is that too, if that is what you need. That’s why I love it.
- Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 04 28 at 08:47 PM • permalink
- Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 04 28 at 09:45 PM • permalink
“The mean streets of Woollahra”????
Having lived there, amongst the grey-rinsed luvvies and the stock broking yuppies and the ladies that do vodka at lunch in very expensive restaurants (prior to a shopping marathon in Double Bay), I can only assume that this is an art installation, paid for by the taxpayer of course.
There is probably a small plaque on a lamp post nearby that reads:
Jeremy Thistlewaite: 1957 –
Jeremy has envisaged an avant-garde expression of holistic neo-colonialisiam as an adaption of imperliastic cubism in a planar form. The analogue of reactionary thought in a stable space is set as a counterpoint to amorphism in secular dialogue. Envisaging rectilinear norms in non-intrusiveness encapsulates the organic whole.
Purchased by Woollahra Council for $17 million.
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 04 28 at 09:59 PM • permalink
“Medium – pen and ink on bucket of shite”.
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 04 28 at 10:02 PM • permalink
At least since the Spanish-American war, at the beginning of the C20th, the US has been killing … …in pursuit of its national interests.
Give or take the odd Mongol or Turkish invasion, the Ruskies have been doing that for a thousand years, the Arab states for one-and-a-half thousand years, the Iranians for two-and-a-half thousand years and the Chinese for ‘five thousand years.’
This guy needs to cut the Sepos some slack. I know which tyrannical empire I’d rather live under.
At least since the Spanish-American war…
He doesn’t sound to sure about his history.
I’d like to be the mechanic who overcharges him on his rego check and then fails him. Or we could just report this dumped car to the council and they’ll tow it away.
Wow she moves with the elites – Indian philosphers, Mandela ho hum. I wonder how many more lives would have been lost if the aggressive Japanese hadn’t been nuked. The US responded to invitations in WWII, helped keep the Korean south free from the commies and would have served a better purpose in Vietnam if it wasn’t for idiots like her in the thousands supported by the liberal press.
I hope she’s freezing her arse off.
Perhaps if you weren’t so far in rectal defilade, you would have read a bit about WWII. Casualty estimates for the necessary invasion of the Japanese Islands was 1 million + US soldiers and 12 -20 million or so Japanese. For the death of 200,000 +/- people in 2 cities, this was averted. People like you can’t see the forest trees, and would presumably condone massive death counts to not use scary weapons. Those of us born because our fathers didn’t die will gladly come kick your lard ass around until you get a grip on reality.
I would have thought there was enough paper produced daily for him to write on.
What a nutcase.
Posted by The Best Infidel on 2008 04 28 at 11:56 PM • permalink
And the best part is that no-one with a “suburban” is going to do it.
That’s because most people—Suburban owners or not—don’t display their cognitive dissonance in such a public and embarrassing fashion.
And it should go without saying that you are the exception, Bryla.
But then, there’s your own cognitive dissonance to consider, so it should be said.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 04 28 at 11:59 PM • permalink
- #48
Hydrocarbons consumed by your Big Oil polar-bear-drowning taxi in a year?#57
Not to forget the threat to the Japs from the Ruskis to the North and the sum of all cities fire bombed grossly outweighed the nukes and it still took the Jap War Cabinet 3 days to meet afterwards; the Jerries were thought to have capitulated sooner under similar circumstances.
Bryla forgets who the aggressor was and what they brought onto their own people.
Bryla forgets who the aggressor was and what they brought onto their own people.
egg, I’d bet on “selective memory”, myself.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 04 29 at 12:28 AM • permalink
- Posted by Tony.T.Teacher on 2008 04 29 at 01:46 AM • permalink
- Bumper sticker/T-shirt combo around in 1995
“No more Hiroshimas?…EASY…no more Pearl Harbours!!And for the imbecile Bryla -Pearl Harbour is a naval base in Hawaii, United States of America, attacked without warning in December 1941 by naval forces of the Japanese Empire, such action being in contravention of international law and custom as recognised at the time. This lead, immediately, to the Pacific War segment of World War II*, which had been started 2 years earlier when Germany invaded Poland
* Not a rock bandContrary to what you may believe, international conflict is not an invention of BushhitlerSSKKKcheneyhoWARd, but is actually (and unfortunately, for those of us who have experienced it) a very common state of the wider human condition.
Have a nice day!!
First, atomic weapons are not nuclear weapons. America has not used nuclear weapons against anyone. Let’s not let another lie start propagating. Yes, they’re both big and nasty and deadly, but then so are daisycutters, which are a “conventional” bomb.
Second, the atomic bombings (not nuclear) were a long time ago in extraordinary circumstances. Whether they were right or wrong is irrelevant today. It has no bearing on the question “Who threatens world peace”.
Third, if America withdrew all its forces from the trouble-spots of the world, such as south Korea, and then proceeded to disband its military, there would be quite a lot less “world peace” than there is now.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 04 29 at 07:06 AM • permalink
A man’s mind travels not far who displays his wit on the back of his car.
Posted by surfmaster on 2008 04 29 at 08:46 AM • permalink
the beauty of the Suburban is that it makes no apologies or excuses for being a monster car.
It is NOT a four wheel drive. It’s just a bloody big car!
Mine is. They are actually some of the best rated off road vehicles. I have the off road package and when the unpaved road that leads to my house is all muddy or covered in a foot or so of snow, my Suburban gets me where I need to go. It also carries my 4 large dogs and pulls a large horse trailer.
According to a recent report from Human Rights First, China is Sudan’s largest supplier of small arms—the weapons the Sudanese military and its Janjaweed militia allies use to slaughter residents of Darfur’s villages.
China provided 90 percent of Sudan’s small arms in 2004 and 94 percent in 2005.
Sudan’s air force includes only thirteen US made aircraft (x3 Hercules transports and x10 Bell 212 transport helicopters) while their combat aircraft is exclusively Chinese and Russian:
x12 MiG-29 fighters
x22 Chengdu f-7 fighters
x10 Shenyang F-5 fighters
x12+ Mi-24 helicopter gunships
x15+ Nanchang A-5 ground attack aircraftt
x3 MiG-23 fighters
x2+ MiG-29 fighters
x20+ Chengdu F-7 fighters
x6 Mi-24 assault helicopters
x12 Chengdu JF-17 fighters orderedx40 Chengdu F-7 fighters
x12+ MiG-29 fighters
x16 Shenyang J-6 fighter-ground attack aircraft
x48 Nanchang A-5 fighter-ground attack aircraftAnd North Korea…
Perhaps, instead of asking a pointless rhetorical question about the US dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population (which contained military targets, btw), in order to stop a war we didn’t start, maybe you are to start asking yourself how long it will be before one of your beloved nutball dictators sets off a nuclear bomb in a civilian area in order to start a war.
Definition of Blair purgatory: being made to drive one of [SmartCar].
Saw one the other day on my way to Salinas airport to go flying.
It was red and black, and parked on the shoulder by the northbound lane. The driver being addressed by a CHP (California Highway Patrol) officer.
Don’t know if he was dealing with a speeder, or giving the driver a safety lecture for being out in traffic with real motor vehicles.
As for “facts”, maybe someone here wants to tell me who else has used nuclear weapons on a civilian population?
I suppose you had something resembling a point to make?
Let me help a bit:
1) Imperial Japan didn’t separate military facilities from civilian populations.
2) War material production was distributed throughout civilian areas, much of it by using home workshops.
3) Hiroshima, which it had not previously been attacked, happened to be the 2nd Army headquarters, a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It’s harbor was a major shipping point for outbound troops and logistics.
4) Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and included factories making ordnance, military equipment, and other war materials. Nagasaki was also a major shipbuilding center for the IJN.
5) The invasion of the home islands, judging from the results of the Okinawa operations, were projected to result in upwards of a million allied casualties, and more Japanese casualties were expected.
6) Meanwhile, civilian deaths in parts of asia still occupied by Japanese forces were running roughly 20,000 per day. This had been ongoing, to a greater or lesser degree, since at least 1937.
Yet you seem to have a problem with ending the war as quickly as possible.
- steveH:
Would this be a useful set of definitions:
atomic: fission
nuclear: fission or fusion
thermonuclear: fusion?Posted by Patrick Chester on 2008 04 29 at 05:27 PM • permalink
- Posted by daddy dave on 2008 04 29 at 07:11 PM • permalink
When the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the Japanese had been attempting to surrender for some time.
The so-called sticking point was a desire by the Japanese to retain the Emporer’s immunity from prosecution as opposed to “unconditional” surrender. Politics.
McArthur extended immunity and continuity to the Emporer anyway.
Cynics suggest the two different weapons were tested on cities relatively untouched until 1945 in order to accurately test the effects of those weapons. Everyone acknowledges it was also done as a warning to the Soviets concerning thier ambitions in Asia. More politics.
I think the message on that hatchback is both pretty accurate, and a great use for old car panels.
See “Downfall” by Richard Frank for a good account of the end of the Japanese war. The Japanese still clung to the idea of a negotiated surrender in which they would not be occupied, which was a non-starter. The Japanese plan was to make the invasion of Japan expensive enough to extract favorable terms.
The Japanese had correctly anticipated the US invasion plan and had heavily fortified the beaches. About 100,000 Chinese per month were dying under Japanese occupation.
Even after the Japanese agreed to surrender there was an attempted coup against the person of the Emperor by elements of the Japanese armed forces in order to continue the war.
“The centerpiece of the book is an exacting and dispassionate examination both of the American decision to use the atomic bomb and of whether Japan would have surrendered absent the bomb. Frank marshals an impressive and complex array of evidence to support his contention that surrender by Japan was by no means imminent in August 1945, and that alternatives to the bomb, such as incendiary bombing, carried no certainty of causing less suffering and fewer deaths than the atomic bomb. “
Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 2008 04 29 at 07:40 PM • permalink
Ahem.
The quotation often attributed to Nelson Mandela is actually by Marianne Williamson, in her book “A Return to Love”. See this link for the citation, as well as links to the text of Mr Mandela’s actual inauguration speech. (He did not quote Ms Williamson.)
This has been a pedantic moment from Mary in LA. Thank you.
Posted by Mary in LA on 2008 04 29 at 08:08 PM • permalink
Die, italics, die die die!
Well, that sure didn’t work…
Posted by Mary in LA on 2008 04 29 at 08:10 PM • permalink
Oh, wait! Maybe it did work, after all.
Posted by Mary in LA on 2008 04 29 at 08:11 PM • permalink
When the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the Japanese had been attempting to surrender for some time.
That’s pure history revision, flavored with selective quoting, Bryla. Not to mention apologizing for Imperial Japan racism and brutality.
But then, should we expect anything different from someone who hates America, and all things good that comes it?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 04 29 at 10:40 PM • permalink
- Bryla
When you lose a war, its fairly traditional not to be able to set the terms of your own surrender.
Both Germany and Japan were under no illusions the allies (Including the USSR in Germanys case) were all out for unconditional surrender.
One of the biggest criticisms of the Donitz government (Hitlers successor) was that he spent quite a while trying to negotiate a surrender while troops on all sides bled and died.
Germany still has missing territory from WW2 as does Japan. Again this is fairly normal.
Its only a fairly modern concept to defeat a nation, then leave its borders largely intact.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 04 30 at 02:47 AM • permalink
Bolta seems to be getting closer to giving Barry Bones the flick.
Maybe Andrea could consider telling Bryla to find another blog where he could continue developing friendships. He could also share his unique perspective on how to feel bad about oneself and share it with others.
He’ll miss us. Never before and maybe never again have so many people tried to enrich a more less deserving twit.
Would this be a useful set of definitions:
atomic: fission
nuclear: fission or fusion
thermonuclear: fusionatomic; since fission and fusion both involve process inside the atom, probably too restrictive. atomic would address both fusion of nuclei and fission of nuclei.
nuclear; yep.
Hey, it’s been about 40 years since I had The Biological Effects of Nuclear Processes in school. I’m lucky I remember any of it.
thermonuclear; yep.
When the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the Japanese had been attempting to surrender for some time.
Sort of, kinda, not really.
There were feelers out to other parties, such as the Soviet Union, to broker a deal with the Allies, and some attempts to set conditions (which wasn’t going to happen) for a halt to hostilities.
But they weren’t being tendered by parties inside the Japanese government who actually had any say in the matter.
The military factions, particularly the Army, weren’t about to give up, and at least one faction in the Army was planning to take and hold the Emperor hostage, which if you know anything at all about their beliefs, says a lot.
The Emperor stepped in instead and stopped everything.
After both bombs had been dropped.
You know what the lefties would say if we didnt use the atomic bomb dont you?.
The US had it within its power to end the war quickly with a single nuclear bomb but didnt because they wanted the war to last longer so big business could make more war profits. And the military industrial complex could extend its reach and power within the country, even at the expense of a million US casualties and tens of millions of japanese.
taken from the book
‘Why not the Bomb’, written by professor Noam chomsky, 1965
Ya know, I’m thinking he’s just angry because he’s driving a POS Ford.
God knows I would be.