Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

OK, I can't vouch for whether this is true or not, but one of my aunts just posted to Facebook that Romney wrote the following in his book, No Apology:

"England is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions."

He apparently also addressed Ed Miliband as "Mr. Leader."

I'm enjoying Romney's tour of Blighty so far.

[Etienne]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Seems to be accurate enough.

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Ha ha, maybe (though I think the Germans might have been discouraged by more than just water), but it's not really the most diplomatic thing to write about one of our oldest allies for somebody expecting to be a future statesman.

[Incandenza]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Was put up on a FP blog.

Here it is in Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PDpBpo5CVB4C&lpg=PA121&vq=england&pg=PA39 #v=snippet&q=england&f=false

[San Bernardhinault]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

I suppose if I mock him for calling England an island I am just some elitist intellectual snob, right?

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

La Lanterne Rouge wrote: I suppose if I mock him for calling England an island I am just some elitist intellectual snob, right?

Indeed. And don't expect any apology from him! He will not apologize for anything. Ever! Because America.

[Cal Alamein]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Anglo-Saxon Mittens palling around w/ casino/porn scumbag Seldon Adelson in Israel should be a hoot.

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

David Cameron's response:

"We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world," Cameron said. "Of course it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere."

(Nothing better than a conservative circular firing squad.)

[anton pulisov]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

La Lanterne Rouge wrote: I suppose if I mock him for calling England an island I am just some elitist intellectual snob, right?

And the British media refers to Great Britain as "The Mainland" in reference to Ireland. Which I always found quite entertaining.

[linus]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Ha ha! Apparently there's a guy here in the states who shows up at Romney appearances driving a car with a fake dog strapped to the top. Epic troll, as the kids say. (Maybe.)

[NickSTFU]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

We may be the USA’s oldest ally, but the one thing they did admire us for, our military, is now seen as a bit of a joke. Not just because our lack of kit, but also because of the UK’s piss poor attempts (on a strategic level) at counterinsurgency in Basra and Helmand. Romney will surely know this.

Anyhow, I listened to what he said and taken in the context of his involvement in Salt Lake, he had a valid point. Of course only Brits are allowed to moan about other Brits, not some “Jonny Foreigner” and a Yank to boot. Gosh how dare he eh? This was what Boris was thinking when he whipped his audience into frenzy last night over the comments and was a real “Fuck you Romney” moment.

On a side note my mate who lives on the IoW calls the rest of the UK (including NI) North Island. Always makes me smile.

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

NickSTFU wrote: We may be the USA’s oldest ally, but the one thing they did admire us for, our military, is now seen as a bit of a joke. Not just because our lack of kit, but also because of the UK’s piss poor attempts (on a strategic level) at counterinsurgency in Basra and Helmand. Romney will surely know this.

Anyhow, I listened to what he said and taken in the context of his involvement in Salt Lake, he had a valid point. Of course only Brits are allowed to moan about other Brits, not some “Jonny Foreigner” and a Yank to boot. Gosh how dare he eh? This was what Boris was thinking when he whipped his audience into frenzy last night over the comments and was a real “Fuck you Romney” moment.

I see this, but from an American perspective, whether he "had a point" or not is kind of beside the point. He went over to the U.K. and elsewhere to burnish his foreign policy credentials and show that he could "walk the walk" and meet with the leaders of one of our most important allies. Whether what he said was true or not, it shows that in fact Romney is (so far) a very terrible diplomat. I mean, within a day of arriving he's got the prime minister and the mayor of London cracking wise and playing the dozens on him and he's revealed a secret meeting with the head of MI6. That is not somebody I'm comfortable with having the proverbial "hand on the red button," thank you very much.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

I bet he'd sell alaska to the sibneft within weeks of taking office.

[alyxandr]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Hmmmn. Less oil and salmon, but also less Sarah Palin... that's a toughie. I suppose as long as they continue exports, i'd tentatively approve.

[ursus arctos]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Over my dead body.

We'd lose the Brown Bear and Salmon Cam

I liked Mobutu's take on the (Not So) Innocent Abroad. The Podhoretz comparison to Mr. Bean is particularly good.

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

I loved Mobutu's re-titling of No Apology to I Don't Care, Mom: You Can Make Me Say Sorry, But I Won't Mean It.

[Cal Alamein]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

He's doing a 'foreign' tour, yet he spent last night in a foreign country grubbing for cash w/ his banking-financial sector ilk...not really a surprise I suppose, but very scummy.

Did Obama overtly fundraise when he went on his Euro tour in '08?

Mitt might sell Hawaii, but not a chance w/ Alaska. AK is a red state w/ loads of profitable resources. Palin probably visits her home state for a few weeks a year.

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Cal Alamein wrote: Did Obama overtly fundraise when he went on his Euro tour in '08?

I don't know. During that campaign he was getting most of his money from small donors, so he probably didn't need to. Americans abroad (the civilian ones, at least) tend to vote Democratic by something really lopsided like 3 to 1.

Romney's actually fundraising with people not too far from the Libor scandal, isn't he?

[Cal Alamein]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

And that should be reported - totally legal I am sure, but very, very secretive, unseemly, and quite Mittens-like.

[Cal Alamein]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

At the bottom of the following article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/26/mitt-romney-olympics-blunder

Romney later went on to a fundraiser at the Mandarin hotel in London, at which he repeated his promise to restore a bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office in the White House if he is elected. Obama replaced the bust with one of Abraham Lincoln after his election, in what was interpreted in the British media as a snub to the transatlantic relationship.

His campaign team claimed the event took $2m in donations, but there were reports earlier that ticket prices had been lowered, and that some people had been offered free passes.

Scumbag

[Anton Gramscescu]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

ursus arctos wrote: Over my dead body.

We'd lose the Brown Bear and Salmon Cam

That's not a brown bear and salmon cam.

This is a brown bear and salmon cam.

[Renart]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

U.S. conservative "reverence" for Churchill always bothers me, because it's not really about Winnie himself as much as that they can't bring themselves to acknowledge that the architect of the New Deal led the U.S. through World War II.

Anyway, I think the Churchill bust was on loan, so it's not like Obama was returning a gift. And really, is it so strange that the first black president might prefer a bust of Lincoln to that of an English Conservative leader?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

why would a man of kenyan decent want rid of a bust of churchill? It couldn't be anything to do with his campaign of concentration camps and extra-judicial mass murder?

[Incandenza]

Smoking poll - the 2012 election happy ending

Strip clubs in Tampa ready for the GOP convention boom:

Over at the back door of the 2001 Odyssey, a limo-size tent with flaps — especially designed for discretion and camera-shy guests — is ready to go up. Déjà Vu is welcoming extra “talent” from around the country in its V.I.P. rooms.

And Thee DollHouse is all Americana: women plan to slip out of red, white and blue corsets and offer red, white and blue vodka. The headliner that week is expected to bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain ex-governor from a wilderness state, known for her strong jaw and devotion to guns and God.

“She’s a dead ringer for her,” said Warren Colazzo, co-owner of Thee DollHouse. “It’s just a really good gimmick to get publicity.”

As Tampa gears up for the Republican National Convention, the biggest party it has ever held, the city and its businesses are primping and polishing for the August arrival of tens of thousands of visitors. Like it or not — mostly not, for city officials — Tampa’s well-known strip clubs have joined the welcome wagon.

Club owners here say they have schmoozed with their counterparts in former host cities, like Denver, and have been told that revenue pours in during conventions, sometimes quadrupling earnings from a Super Bowl week. As for party affiliation, this is one place where the country’s caustic partisan differences fall away, owners say.

Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which serves as a trade association for strip clubs, said an informal survey of convention business in New York and Denver had determined that Republicans dropped more money at clubs, by far.

“Hands down, it was Republicans,” she said. “The average was $150 for Republicans and $50 for Democrats.”

As further evidence of the clubs’ nonpartisan appeal, Don Kleinhans, the owner of the 2001 Odyssey, said when the Promise Keepers, a male evangelical group, came to town years ago, business was rollicking.

“We had phenomenal numbers all weekend, and they walked in wearing badges and name tags and weren’t shy at all,” he said.