So 12:34:56 7/8/9 yesterday was a bust. Never mind. Committed End Timers know The End is always Near, and as Clag pointed out in comments, Euro 12:34:56 7/8/9 arrives on August 7. You don’t even have to wait another century. If doom and destruction and an end to it all is what you want, there’s always something to hope for. 

There’s only three and a half doom-shopping years till Dec. 21, 2012, after all.

* More on Vince, Armaggedon, the Great Final Battle Between Good and Evil and End-Timing numerology here. And yeah, Mojo, spoil the fun if you like … 9, ‘09, whatever. You won’t be sneering when demons are playing billiards with your eyeballs!

UPDATE: Well, it’s 12:34:56 7/8/9 plus, EDT. World not visibly ended yet. Damn. Could have been interesting. Central/Mountain, La-La Time still to go. That could be it. The world probably ends on La-La Time. Then there’s whatever kind of time they have in Hawaii, Alaska, points west. International dateline, the last sunset.

This moment in numerological minutiae brought to you by my pal Paul C., a Vietnam Psyops vet and sober-minded, non-apocalyptic corporate lawyer who also emailed the other day recommending Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot by Andrea and Bruce Leininger about their son, whose screams, dreams and waking pronouncements at age two prompted research. Paul deems it “remarkable.” I’ll say. Reviews and vid at the link. Sounds weird, yet fascinating.

Bibi: Look, Ehud, Obama himself as confirmed it. It is chjust as Shlomo from Mossad said.

Ehud: ChHuh? ChWhat are you chtalking about?

Bibi: About Biden greenlighting us for an attack on the mullahs’ nukes. Obama has chconfirmed it. We are chgood to chgo. It’s all here in the Jerusalem Post.

Ehud: ChWhat does it say?

Bibi:

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel a green light for such an attack, Obama answered: “Absolutely not.”

In the interview, which was broadcast from Russia, where Obama is on an official visit, he added: “We can’t dictate to other countries what their security interests are.

“What is also true is, it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear capabilities,” Obama said.

This would be achieved “through diplomatic channels,” he added.

On Sunday, US Vice President Joe Biden was asked on ABC’s ‘This Week’ whether the US would stand in the way militarily if the Israelis decided they needed to take out Iran’s nuclear program.

Ehud: Bibi, chhow is that a green light?

Bibi: ChCould it be any chclearer? “We can’t dictate to our countries what their security interests are.”

Ehud: ChWhat about the “diplomatic channels” part?

Bibi: ChWhat could be more diplomatic than letting us do the chheavy lifting, while he tut tuts? As Shlomo from Mossad explained yesterday, the Biden Option provides the president of the United States with perfect deniability. He gets the buffoon with the bad hairplugs to deliver the message, and no one can chhold him responsible. Not only that, chwhen Obama denounces us for solving his Iranian problem, the mullahs will like him better … chtheoretically.

Ehud: ChHa chha chha! Just like when he kissed the mullahs’ backchsides about those protests! “Not interfering.” Remember chhow much like liked him better that time? You chhave to chhand it to Obama, he really knows chhow to make friends and influence mullahs! ChHa ha ha!

Bibi: ChHa chha chha! If he chwalking on chwater like this, I’ll begin to chthink he is the Anointed One!

Ehud: Maybe not. But what a foreign policy genius! ChHa chha chha! “Hello, Anointed One? Yes, this is your Lord God Yahweh. Hear me and tremble. Yes, yes, I know its 3 a.m. … ” ChHa chha chha! I crackch myself up!

Christopher Hitchens, who was for liberating Iraq before he was for the guy who wanted to abandon it, comes out for the liberation of Iraq and subsequent elections there as the inspiration for the pro-democracy movement in Iran.

Hey, whose idea was all that? Don’t worry, you can get through this Hitchens article at Slate without having that shoved in your face: 

Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran? Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about “the liberation of Iraq,” he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread. One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran’s regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a “let’s pretend” election and even then tries to fix the outcome. Iranians by no means like to take their tune from Arabs—perhaps least of all from Iraqis—but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself.

The whole article includes a lot of inside Qom baseball, which is as interesting and enlightening as we’d expect of Hitchens, though I can’t help but suspect it serves another purpose. Because what is fascinating is how Hitchens manages to get through the article without mentioning who brought democracy to the Middle East at such great cost. Maybe Hitchens feels it is important not to alienate much of his audience by naming he who must not be named without the prerequisite dismissive derision. Hitchens also manages to avoid mocking those who claim a pandering speech in Cairo inspired pro-democracy protests by people who didn’t hear it, against a murderous Iranian establishment with which the speaker, who must not be named without praise, still seeks to treat. Because what Hitchens seems to be trying to say is that the much-condemned actions of an earlier, much-despised U.S. administration may yet be influencing events, spreading notions of hope and freedom with the potential of lasting positive effects, contrary to the desires and efforts of another party, more recently engaged in weird efforts to be better liked by kowtowing to despots. 

(Sorry, I know that’s complicated, but I’m trying a Hitchensian exercise this morning. Inspired by Chris, I’m trying to see how hard it is to write that George Bush was right and Barack Obama is wrong, without actually saying that or identifying the principals. It isn’t easy, but fortunately Hitchens, though he’s abandoned his principles, hasn’t lost any of his intellectual deftness. He’s just sacrificed his brutal, incisive directness in favor of veiled flanking manuevers.)

Austin Bay at PJTV at some length on the same subject … how Iraqi democracy has influenced Iran … still doesn’t name any names, but throws in a wry remark about “that really is hope and change brought to reality, not just a rhetorical gesture.” Ouch. That’s hurtful!

I like Sarah Palin (though I don’t know her well). I respect her (though I’m aware of some of her limitations). I wish her well (though I’m not convinced she should be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee).

I am convinced, though, that she should have a chance to compete and make her case. In this, I seem to differ from many of my friends in the mainstream media and the Republican establishment. They tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?

It’s silly to claim Palin has no chance to win the nomination or the presidency. The fact is, despite a rough campaign in 2008, Palin has been (for what it’s worth at this stage) a co-front-runner in polls of GOP primary voters for 2012, along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. In a recent Pew survey, she had the strongest favorable-unfavorable numbers of the likely candidates among Republicans.

…

She’ll be able to make the case effectively that she should be the nominee, or she won’t.

… But the panic among mainstream media commentators and the GOP establishment suggests real worry that if she does, she might pull off an upset. Why else the vehement assertions that she’s clearly made a terrible mistake? Why else the categorical insistence that her political career is finished? Aren’t they all protesting too much?

…

For psychological and sociological reasons too deep for me to grasp, a good chunk of elite America hates Sarah Palin and what they’ve decided she stands for. But if she wears their scorn as a badge of honor, comports herself with good cheer and personal dignity, studies up on national issues and takes the lead in selected debates on behalf of conservative principles against Obama administration policies, she has a shot.

If she’s as foolish, erratic and even nutty as her critics claim, then of course she’ll fail. If she performs well, she may succeed. If you have an anti-mainstream-media and anti-GOP-establishment bone in your body, it’s hard not to root for her at least a bit.

Kristol compares Palin favorably to Obama in ‘05 and Bush in the late ’90s. I’d just add, if she doesn’t have the adoration of the media, what does she have that Obama didn’t have back then? A successful governorship, national name recognition and a national base, and something Obama has yet to fully experience, a trip through the national wringer throughout which she held her own.

Podhoretz at Commentary comes to Palin’s defense from bizarrely hypocritical sexist partisanship … not to be confused with the the obsessive crazy kind exercised by Andrew Sullivan … but concludes the only way she gets her house gets clean is when the nest is empty.

Ezra Klein blogging at the Washington Post gets literal on Kristol, indignantly demands to know who is trying to bar Palin from running. That’s what you get when you hire 25 year olds to do your deep thinking.

Heading farther down market, here’s Sadly No! with a great example of lefty commentary. Don’t worry, easy pictoral, no heavy reading, deep thot or logic required.

OK, climbing out of that, here’s The Other McCain at HotAir:

Just because you don’t know what Sarah Palin is doing doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Big, fat commentary and largely newsless news roundup at Memeorandum. Because she’s still keeping everyone guessing. And we’re out with some fun compliments of Surber: A Palin Critic Whines.

Bibi: … the vice president of the United States said chwhat?

Ehud: Well, Bibi, according to the New York Times, Joe Biden said if we want to chwhack Iran, that’s our business.

Bibi: This is the big chgreen light, right? ChGood news.

Ehud: Not exactly … here’s Shlomo from Mossad. He’ll exchplain.

Bibi: Shalom, Shlomo. So chwhat’s the deal? Biden says we can chwhack the mullahs.

Shlomo from Mossad: Well, Mr. Prime Minister, as the New ChYork Times notes, Mr. Biden has a chhistory of saying bizarre things that do not reflect the position of the American administration. I chquote:

The remarks went beyond at least the spirit of any public utterances by President Barack Obama, who has said that diplomatic efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program should be given to the end of the year. But the president has also said that he is “not reconciled” to the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon — a goal Tehran denies.

Mr. Biden’s comments came at a particularly sensitive time, amid the continuing tumult over the disputed Iranian elections, and seemed to risk handing a besieged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a new tool with which to fan nationalist sentiments in Iran.

What was not immediately clear was whether Mr. Biden, who has a long-standing reputation for speaking volubly — and sometimes going too far in the heat of the moment — was sending an officially sanctioned message.

The Obama administration has said, and Mr. Biden reaffirmed this, that it remains open to negotiations with Tehran, even after the bitterly contested election that returned Mr. Ahmadinejad to the presidency.

“If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” Mr. Biden said. “The offer’s on the table.”

Bibi: Chwhat’s so chhard to understand? We’re chhappy to talkch, but all chterrorism must end. No mercy for chterrorists. Peace chthrough airstrikes. What chcould be simpler? It is exactly our position!

Shlomo: It’s not that simple, Mr. Prime Minister. Mr. Biden is a bit of a loose chcannon. It may be he just made this up because he chthought it was what Mr. Stephanopoulos wanted to hear. As you know we maintain informal chchannels very high within the U.S. administration, as usual, however, we have so far failed to develop a full understanding of what happens under the vice-president’s combover.

Bibi: Combover? ChHah! Don’t make me laugh! That one has girly hairplugs! … So you don’t think this is the chcarrot and stick? What else do they say?

Shlomo from Mossad:

If Mr. Biden’s comments on Israel and Iran were perhaps off the cuff, he did not back away from them when given a chance to do so.

George Stephanopoulos, the program’s host, asked: “But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?”

And Mr. Biden replied: “Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination — if they make a determination — that they’re existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.”

Bibi: Chsounds pretty unambichguous.

Shlomo from Mossad: Best chcase scenario, Mr. Prime Minister, this is an exchtreme chcase of ChCYA.

Bibi and Ehud: ChHuh?

Shlomo from Mossad: Well, sir, we judge that the Obama administration’s main foreign policy priority has been to be better liked, but Mr. Obama has repeatedly encountered diffichculties when faced with reality. Guantanamo cannot simply be emptied, the chharsh interrogation methods cannot simply be dismissed, the Global War on ChTerrorism must still be fought, the mullahs in ChTehran are homicidal maniacs who cannot be chtrusted and also have made chhim look bad. We think that by having Mr. Biden blurt out something to Mr. Stephanopoulos, the administration might in fact be signalling they do in fact want us to chsolve this problem for chthem, they simply do not chwant any responsibility. We thought this might happen. We call it The Biden Option. It is the ultimate in deniability. We chwhack ChTehran’s nuchkes, and Washington denounces us, announces the Iranian nuclear threat chhas been regrettably removed, declares solidarity with chthird-world dictatorships everywhere, and blames it all on a big chgoofy blunder by Mr. Biden. 

Bibi: ChHmmm. ChGutless … but brilliant. I chthink.

Shlomo from Mossad: Yes, we chthink we chthink so, too.

Bibi: So, chwe are on our own. 

Shlomo from Mossad: As usual, sir.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Laughed so much a bit of wee came out!
 
This “Basil” sounds like the kind of chap I’d like to share a bowl of tripe and onions with. What a smart fellow; de-crying any group of people with guns, tanks and bombs as a force for peace!
 
Anyway, had a wonderful Fourth. I slipped the theme tune to Team America on our iPod playlist to my great amusement when less refined people than myself scowled at the ”America! F**k yeah! Comin’ again to save the motherf**king day, yeah!” moment.
 
My pulled pork was a runaway success - just like they make it in the old country. My burgers also went down a storm. I embellished them with plenty of onion, garlic, worcestershire sauce and cumin - as per the recipe I was given. I made them “man-size” so that people didn’t need to eat again for the rest of the day. Nice.
 
The only thing missing was a loud American to barrel in with a beard and gun to demand we hand over our oil…. luckily, this sceptred isle has none anymore so we’re safe!
 
Anyway, hope you had a good one.

Cheerio,

“Basil”

With a beard? He must mean the mythic Billy Mays figure that lives in the heart of every true American. Brilliant move, Basil, the “Team America” theme. Why didn’t I think of that? Sounds like Basil’s guests have a lot of work to do, but Basil is making great progress. I told Basil back when he lived here in the Great Satan, that he would be profoundly changed by his experience here, and one day he’d catch himself lecturing some snivelling, sallow, half-washed Brit, and hear the terrible words coming out of his own mouth:

“The United States military is the greatest force for peace and freedom the world has ever seen … you bloody twit!”

That day may be coming sooner than I expected. Here’s the other email Basil sent me this morning: 

I’ll be surprised if you haven’t heard this one before…

When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for invading Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.

He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.’

You could have heard a pin drop…

***

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?’

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’

You could have heard a pin drop.

***

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries.

Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking
French?’

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied  ’Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’

You could have heard a pin drop.

***

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. ‘You have been to France before, monsieur?’ the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

‘Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.’

The American said, ‘The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.’

‘Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France!’

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ‘Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.’

You could have heard a pin drop. 

***

If you are proud to be American, British, Canadian or Australian pass this on!

If not, delete it!

By George, I think Basil’s got it!

Happy Fourth! Just back from taking the kids to get clams and hotdogs at Sullivan’s at Castle Island and watch the USS Constitution’s turnaround. BOOM! Unfortunately, due to budget cuts or something like that, the old girl didn’t make it past Rowe’s Wharf, and no BOOM! So the view was not this good.   

A Brit pal … I’ll call him “Basil” …  spent several years living and working in the United States, but due to some conflict between his family situation and his immigration status, and against my advice that he was climbing the wrong way back up the evolutionary tree, he opted to return to the U.K. I told him it was like wanting to start knuckle-walking again once you’ve mastered bipedalism. He wouldn’t listen.

But Basil was greatly impressed by the United States in his time here. 

He observed that we fly American flags all year here, for no apparent reason. I explained it’s because we’re so grateful our ancestors left wherever they came from so we could be born here, and basically just because it is so great here. I thought he was going to sneer, but he said he kind of liked it. “You know where you are.” I said yeah, that’s how we feel about it.

Basil asked about the small things, like tipping. “I say, why do you pay someone extra just to do their job?” I explained that waiters typically make less than minimum wage, and tips are part of their compensation by design. He thought that was “frightful.” So I asked him what he thought about the American dining experience … portions, quality, promptness and attitude.  

“It’s fantastic!” Basil said, gushing about some recent meal he and Mrs. Basil had enjoyed at some cookie-cutter national family dining chain, the kind you find around a mall. And its British equivalent?

“Bloody awful!” Basil said, making a face as he recalled a repast of boot leather tossed on a plate with a scowl, eventually, with the cook loudly griping in the kitchen ”Wot’s their fooking roosh?” when aggressively inoffensive friend Basil had politely inquired after his missing dinner. I explained the social philosophy and economic policy of the incentive system. It was like watching a little light go on in his head.

But another time, Basil reported with horror that he actually overheard an old geezer telling a young fella at the mall, “The United States military is the greatest force for peace and freedom the world has ever seen.”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” I told Basil. I explained to him that America was the crucible in which the best of English thought on individual rights and free enterprise had been proven, and that Americans had unselfishly made these wonderful things available to the world at no insignificant cost of American blood and money, liberating without conquering, protecting without levying. In fact, America was the only place most of those things … things like free speech … could stilll be found, though not unchallenged even here by the kind of political correctitude that never stops screaming racism and sexism, then kowtows to Sharia law.

Basil conceded some of those points, but couldn’t quite wrap his head around the concept of military force as a vehicle of peace and freedom.

Still, all of it must have had some impact. From Hurl-Upon-Slime, or whatever the name of that place he ended up is, here’s Basil:

Thought you might like to know we’re celebrating the Fourth of July this year. I’m cooking up some pulled pork, based on a wicked recipe from an American friend of mine, and I’ll be making my own burgers. We will, however, be using Lincolnshire sausages as you simply can’t get Italian sausages this far north in England.

Anyway, I hope things are good in Obamaland.

Crit:

Sounds like a small corner of a foreign field that will be forever American-influenced. You might try to buy hotdogs online. Hebrew National are good. Kosher … along with the pulled pork that should keep the mullahs at bay. 

All good over here. Still America last time I checked.

Crit, several days later:

Still moved, all misty-eyed about your 4th observance.  The Fourth of July is such a wonderful holiday. It’s a lot like Guy Fawkes Day. Only instead of being about burning a traitor at the stake from some old religious war, it’s about getting the heck away from all that!

This is a great opportunity for you to tell all your Brit pals how great America is, that we fly flags all year because we are so grateful our ancestors left wherever they came from so we could be born here, and that this holiday marks the day, July 4 1776, on which great British ideals of personal freedom and democracy were advanced in this great country, founded by Englishmen who had dispensed with all the forelock tugging and snooty class nonsense, and also introduced the great incentive system we call “tipping.”

Basil:

Over here, we celebrate July 4th as the day we got rid of that pesky troublemaking colony!

That said, had we known what you guys could do with meat, we’d have never let you go!
 
With that in mind, do you have a top burger recipe or any other 4th menu tips you could furnish me with?
 
I’ll doff my flat cap to the US military on July 4th if it makes you feel better as my liberal friends and I bemoan the world’s greatest invasion force…. (heh heh heh)
 
Anyway, hope you can help solve my culinary conundrum.
 
Yours with a stiff upper lip,
 
Basil 

Crit:

Well, you could raise a glass and say, “Thanks, Yanks, that we don’t have to speak German!”   
 
American Fourth of July cuisine is pretty simple.
 
Best thing to do with burgers is just plain lean ground beef.  Wholesome, straightforward, earnest, a little boring, just like us!

Otherwise, you need plain white buns. tomato slices. lettuce. pickles. yellow mustard. mayo. ketchup.  White cheese to melt on just before you take them off the grill if people want cheeseburgers. Closest to the American ingredients you can find. They must have a specialty American cuisine shop in London. Pick up some wretched American pisswater like Budweiser while you’re there. Though if you have any of that “near beer” stuff you start the toddlers on, that would do.
 
Potato salad. Pretty simple. Boil the potatoes (I know you know how to boil a potato), mix with mayo, dill, vinegar, salt and pepper, that kind of thing. 

Mac’n'cheese. You may need to go to the Yank food shop in London for that.
 
Garden salad, plain. Lettuce, tomates, cukes. With some dressing out of a bottle. You guys have iceberg lettuce over there? That wilty funny-colored Euro stuff is no good.
 
Potato chips. American ones. Not to be confused with what we call “French fries.” See if that American cuisine emporium has something called “Ruffles,” or at least “Pringles.” You know those were invented by NASA for the space shuttle, right? God, I love this country.

I’d suggest a big pot of chili, but where the heck are you going to find ground beef that won’t give you Mad Cow disease? 
 
Paper plates. Thanks to the Internet (another of our great gifts to the world), you can probably order a fine assortment of stuff with stars and stripes and eagles all over it.

I’d suggest for fun you make at least one grotesque oversized multilayer triple patty bacon cheeseburger, with ranch dressing or something like that on it. Whichever one of your pals has the worst fake American accent has to eat it.
 
For dessert, seeing as you probably can’t get fresh blueberries and raspberries over there for the standard “Country Living” cover American flag cake, I’d suggest Jello. Red and blue, with vanilla ice cream. Very American. Also, here’s a traditional favorite, some lime Jello, in a mold, with canned pineapple chunks in it.
 
Music, I’d suggest a medley of Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Pat Benetar, Bruce Springsteen.  All the really bad stuff. You probably want to have a Rambo-thon on vid.  “Red Dawn” is pretty good, too. It’s a documentary about hometown American boys fighting off an combined Russky-Nicaraguan commie invasion. It happened in the 1980s.

Basil:

Thanks for the suggestions, old bean! I actually like the sound of that three-patty meat fest - so will be making that I think! For music, I’m thinking Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, the Eagles and Green Day. 

Crit:

If you really have to go “Green,” I’d suggest you download some Lee Greenwood, I think that’s his name, “I’m Proud to be an American.” Embarrassingly bad country pop anthem. Your guests should enjoy singing along once drunk, if they didn’t already arrive in that condition. Also, Toby Keith. And lots of Dolly Parton.
 
You should also encourage your guests to dress, talk and behave like Americans. Loud. Bumping into things a lot. Have everybody address each other as ”Joe” or “Earl.” ”Bob” is good too, but you have to pronounce it “Baaab.” Like “Hey Baaaab, get me another Bud while yer up, will ya?”  … and that’s “while” not “whilst” …For the women, just add “Jo” to whatever Brit name they already have. “Vanessa Jo” will be a little weird, but it’ll do. The best thing is for everyone to just pretend they’re George Bush, kind of goofy, ineptly invading everything. The women should have gum, and snap it a lot. Speaking of Dolly Parton, the women should basically model themselves on her. I know you pretty much only got to see Boston … which is sort of like a slightly healthier Britain, only with slightly less socialism and a more ridiculously misbehaving local dynasty still running the place … but in the rest of the country, that’s what most American women are like. It’s great!

Prizes for the Ugliest American, Loudest American, Stupidest American, Best Britney Spears, Best Dick Cheney, etc. Videotape the thing, and put it on YouTube. It could be a big hit.

Basil:

Jolly good. I’ll turn them all into proper Yanks! Would you advise breaking wind or burping?

Crit:

Both! A lot. And everyone should stuff pillows in their pants for added authenticity, though from what I’ve heard about Britain lately, it might not be necessary. Also, they probably should all try to shower, use soap, before they come over, though I guess that’s optional. 

I assume the European Union has outlawed fireworks, much like Massachusetts. Too much fun. Now, what do you have for firearms?

OK, that’s not exactly how our email exchange went, but it’s not far off.

Riehl’s celebrating July 4, 1775. Gen. Washington’s general orders.

Powerline fast forwards to 1858, Douglas and Lincoln, for the eternal meaning of the Fourth.

Volokh Conspiracy on the 5th of July: Frederick Douglas’ 1852 gentle reminder.

Reynolds, with photos, on how some people are spending the Fourth. Protesting.

Hyscience with the presidential speech he’d rather have heard. John McCain’s.

HotAir has a Fourth vid roundup and your Declaration of Independence. It’s a good read, especially if you’re one of Darleen Click’s sorry group of civic illiterates … which I’m guessing you aren’t. (No, not her illiterates. The ones she’s bemoaning. Click’s got more good civic reading).

Malkin has the Nork of July … Kim’s holiday fireworks … and notes how some other Americans are spending the day. In combat. And hee’s Mudville with the Fourth in Baghdad.

In other international news, Gateway on some people who could use a Declaration of Independence, from their own homegrown oppressors.

At Wednesday’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board meeting, chairman H.R. Crawford – a former District Council member and Marion Barry confidante – told fellow Board members that he has heard talk on Capitol Hill about yanking former President Ronald Reagan’s name off the local airport and returning it to its previous generic moniker: National Airport.

“It was just a discussion. We’re not aware of anything specific,” MWAA spokeswoman Tara Hamilton later told The Examiner.

The right-wing nutcases keep saying we’ve been saddled with a socialist government. But I dunno, that’s more Soviet.  

The Memeorandum aggregator seems worried. The above Sovietism is meme’d along with the following about socialists and socialism: 

Apt-monikered lefty blogger Crooks and Liars approvingly channels a Senate socialist who thinks, with Franken on board, the time is right to brush aside the kulaks and other reactionary elements, and advance the socialist agenda.

The White House blog exults about the triumphs of social engineering through energy policy. It’s got a quaint Soviet Realist, five-year planny kind of feel to it.

Meanwhile, Jammie Wearing Fool suggests the Dems quit pussyfooting around and just name it after Obama. Red State: “But citizen, it has always been known as Obama National Airport.” 

G’day Instapundit, etal, always good to see you. You know about Obama’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot strategy, right? That’s the one where commanders in the field say, “We need more troops,” and POTUS says “WTF?” … We’re also mulling whether the time is right to Whack Now, plus Rule Of Law By Military Coup. And please feel free to browse around Crittenden’s Right-Wing Warmonger Bookshop and General Store.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d’état.

That is nonsense.

In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law.

…

Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America’s authoritarian tradition. The Constitution’s provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents. In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo.

The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya’s arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day.

Don’t believe the coup myth. The Honduran military acted entirely within the bounds of the Constitution. The military gained nothing but the respect of the nation by its actions.

I am extremely proud of my compatriots. Finally, we have decided to stand up and become a country of laws, not men. From now on, here in Honduras, no one will be above the law.

Whole thing here.

A Washington Post op-ed, meanwhile, offers a Zelaya backgrounder and posits he has no one to blame for himself. Here’s another at the NYPost: “Obama ‘meddles’ in Honduras, choose wrong side.” Not to be confused with backing off in support of the wrong side.

Legal Insurrection wonders, but not much, which side the United States is going to be on when it comes to tyrants.

Gateway on the other big pro-democracy protests the Obama admin is ignoring … the ones in Honduras in favor of rule of law by coup.

Big Fausta news and commentary roundup.

* Which, to clarify, looks like a good thing and constitutionally mandated, if ironic given the region’s history.