An Abject Apology to Bush Lite

I apologize!

I am so ashamed for the snarky things I wrote about Mr. Bush-Lite, a.k.a. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the other day. I both deeply and abjectly apologize.

First of all, I snarked that Anders Fogh had, except for a few measly contracts gotten very little in repayment for the Danish lives wasted in Wudda-Wreck and on the rocky plains of the Helmand province in Farawaystan -- that was a mistake and I apologize!

Not only did Bush-Lite and his wife get to enjoy a real Arrogant hamburger prepared by the nimble hands of the Codpiece Himself, they got to sleep overnight on the ranch. But, best of all, Bush-Lite got to ride a mountain bike alongside the Codpiece -- twice! -- once in the evening sunset and once in the morning sunrise! To top it all off, the Codpiece actually praised Bush-Lite, saying that Anders Fogh had not even broken out in a sweat!

In return, Anders Fogh was allowed to ask the Codpiece about the crossing of Danish airspace and actual landing of Arrogant airplanes on Danish soil, planes which carried prisoners being extraordinarily rendered -- that is, being sent to dark foreign places where they would be tortured. The Codpiece smiled his strange smile which some call a smirk and replied, "I'll ask them to look into it..."

To show his gratitude, Bush-Lite said, "You, Mr. Prez and the Unified State of Arrogance have done more than any other to promote this vision of freedom and democracy throughout the world, please let me praise you for that!"

Ah yes, the Codpiece is a real piece of work when it comes to defending freedom! What can we do but praise Anders Fogh for having drawn attention to this only slightly indisputable fact? For only a brave leader such as the Codpiece would have the gall to veto law which requires all Arrogant agencies to abide by and follow the guidelines in the Universal code of Military Justice which prohibits such fun pastimes as:

Forcing a prisoner to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner.
Placing hoods or sacks over the head of a prisoner, and using duct tape over the eyes.
Applying beatings, electric shocks, burns or other forms of physical pain.
Waterboarding.
Using military working dogs.
Inducing hypothermia or heat injury.
Conducting mock executions.
Depriving a prisoner of necessary food, water or medical care.

When Bush Lite Went to Crawford...

[Barf bags should be near at hand...]

Bush Lite, a.k.a. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of the Happy Little Kingdom is grabbing sound bites and headlines here in the Danish media because he has scored yet another success in what passes for international diplomacy these days. Even as I, with some success, control my retch reflex, he and his wife are eating lunch in Crawford with the Codpiece-in-Chief, Himself!

This is a crowning achievement for Anders Fogh, putting in the shade, having breakfast in the White House, lunch and even being invited to Camp David!

These are rewards for lying to the Danish Parliament so that they would okay Danish participation as a member of Coalition of the Willing in the invasion of Wudda-Wreck and the ensuing on-growing catastrophe devolving into utter nightmare and the middle circles of Dante's Hell...

Although one might argue that a couple dozen Danish lives lost in Wudda-Wreck and Farawaystan was a bad investment, it can't be denied that there have excellent economic returns! But, of course, this pales in comparison with having been one of the very select few to have been invited to lunch at The Ranch!

On the other hand, maybe the Codpiece intends to seek political asylum here next year?

Saint John's Evening, 2007....

It was St. John's Evening last night and, being invited over by our daughter to enjoy the evening, I had to take a bath, trim my beard, put on clean underwear and make sure they weren't no spinach hanging between my snaggled teeth when I smiled...

Sankte Hans (St. John's Evening) is of course a rip off the priests did on the the age old Midsummer, the idea being it is 6 months to the other rip off the priests did on Yule where the age-old tradition has been to celebrate the rebirth of hope and light -- if you remember, St. John (aka the Baptist) was according to the texts, born exactly six months before his cousin Jesus. This of course, like so many other things is proof of Intelligent Design or of rewriting history so that it fits in with ancient prophecies...

All kidding and snark aside, Sankte Hans is a strange time -- it's just after the summer solstice and marks the long, slow slide into the the dark of winter. There is a strangely soft bittersweetness to this evening.

I read yesterday that the Chinese have managed to excede America in the CO2 pollution they manage to pour into the common resource we all share which we call the atmoshpere -- way to go China! Of course, this is total pollution and not per-captita -- if it was per-capita we'd all be choking right now, I guess.

Meanwhile, the American economy is starting to look like a fellow pissing in his pants to stay warm. If nothing else, the Codpiece should be doinbg hard time just for what his (mal)admin has done to the economy.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the idea that the Chinese could grab America by the balls and demand we pay up on the trillions they hold in IOUs -- that is RIDICULOUS!

What people con't understand is that when we went off the gold standard it was because we are now on the PLUTONIUM standard! That means is that, when push comes to shove, our leaders will say fug-you chinee azzholes, you want our monee? We blow your shit out of the water!

I'm sort of just kidding, but the world ain't always a nice place and our leaders are a flock of azzholes!

Such a Summerly Day and the Rape Weed was in Bloom

They have a saying in Danish which directly translates to, "all green is good for the eye" [alt grønt er godt for øjet].

What is meant is that it is good to eat leafy vegetables, but also that it is good to be where you can see green things around you, like the grass and the trees.

The sky was blue and high, the birds were in song and the air was thick with spring and summerly smells. We saw out over the fields, the small forests and rolling hills of the Danish countryside. The rape weed* in full flower was releasing their almost cloyingly sweet smell, their bright mustard yellow contrasted delightfully with the green of the fields wheat, barley, and other farmers' crops.

It is indeed a blessing to bicycle out of town on a day like yesterday when we went with Mette out to her little colony garden about two miles from where we live.

Yesterday was the tail end of Big Prayer Day Weekend here in Denmark, the last of the family left to return to Copenhagen Sunday morning and our old friend had invited us to have lunch at her colony garden.

"Colony garden" is a direct translation of "kolonihave". They are a special Danish institution which began in the first half of the 1900's as a social movement. The idea was to enable ordinary working folk and their families to get out of their dark and crowded apartments in the cities and towns and spend quality time in the open during the spring, summer and early fall.

Colony gardens are small green areas usually not far from a city or town. They are divided up into a number of small garden plots where people put up a cabin or shelter of some sort where they can spend the night or stay if the weather turns inclement. Otherwise, they will be outside, enjoying themselves, eating, drinking coffee, talking with friends, or just puttering in their gardens.

We spent our afternoon there, eating lunch, enjoying a few glasses of cold Italian frascati.

It was a lovely day and now I will turn on my sourpuss and Cassandra mode and pour some malurt in the cup, as they say in Danish.

On our way home, it was 80 F in the shade.

April was the warmest and driest on record, as were March, February and January this year (January was an almost record for rain, though). The same holds true for the last four months of 2006. May looks to be warm also. This spring when we've had a cold front, the weather has been like a "normal" summer day in Denmark. A cold front came in last night, for example, and when I got to work at 7:30 AM it was 55 F and clear skies...

Moon of Alabama had a nice, concise post about methane and global warming/climate change and the comments and links in the comments are recommended if you are not up to date on the subject of the effects of cow farts and melting permafrost...

Meanwhile, as Rome burns and the polar caps melt, Americans we treated with a mind numbing spectacle at the much ballyhooed debate with 10 participants bidding for the Republican nomination in 2008. Imagine -- people who are ostensibly jockeying for a chance at the most powerful executive office the world has ever known were asked to raise their hands if "they believe in evolution".

Jeeze, they should give them guys some coloring books and a box of crayons!

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* "Rape weed" -- Brassica napus : a plant of the cabbage family grown for the oil which can be extracted fom its seeds.

Big Prayer Day, 2007

This will be short.

Today is Big Prayer Day [Storebededag] in Denmark, which is always the fourth Friday after what is called Long Friday [Langfredag] here and, I think, Good Friday in most English speaking places.

It's kind of odd, you'd think, that the day commemorating the torture and snuff job on a rather well-known teacher of our common humanity and its relation to the Eternal is called "Good".

The explanation though, is as simple as why it is called "Long" in Danish. "Good", in this context, stands for "God" -- we see this in the common farewell phrase, "good-bye", which is a contraction of "God be with you".

In times past, even bakers closed on Big Prayer Day -- therefore, the custom became that they made a special bread especially suited for toasting, so that people could have something on Friday. However, these small breads [called "hvede" or "wheats"] were cleverly made to be quite tasty and people had to stock up on them to make sure they had enough...

Today though, it is seen mostly as a long weekend in the Spring and a good occasion for families to get together. This is why I will be brief today -- most of our family will be here in a few hours and Sunflower Woman has assigned me a number of chores in that regard this morning.

Speaking of prayer, there is a place up in north Jutland called Ejnar Bavnehoej which is the highest spot in Denmark. "Bavnehoej" means "bonfire high", that is a place where bonfires could be lit to signal to people miles around that there was some sort of danger afoot.

I came by chance to visit this place back in the early 1980s and was astounded by how much of northern Jutland one could see from the top of the hill.

As I stood there gazing over the parapet, I could see miles and miles of Danish countryside, rolling hills, fields and forests in the late summer afternoon. Suddenly, I found myself in the grasp of a strong feeling and emotion and found myself quietly praying. Just exactly what I prayed, I can't tell you, but it was something like, "In the time to come, please keep Denmark from harm.".

I puzzled for a moment what had moved me to do that and then I thought, o well, Chuck, you're a crazy old sot, so don't worry about it!

Still, I do wish somebody could say a "big prayer" like that for America, I think she needs it...

"The Secret War", Redux

I wrote in December about the Danish Documentary, "The Secret War" and the flap it then generated on the political scene here.

To recap the scandal for you, in 2002 Danish special forces [jægerkorps] turned over people they had taken prisoner in Afghanistan to the American military who tortured and sent some of them to free vacations at Git-mo where they were served yummy food like chicken breast in lemon sauce.

The government of Anders Fogh, aka "Bush Lite", of course denied the facts revealed in the documentary. Of course Denmark abides by the Geneva convention and would never do such a thing. Furthermore, we didn't know the Americans did torture and anyway we didn't give them that many prisoners and not that many times.

This is known as the Waffling BS defense.

Well, the flap has started up again and now it is the Defense minister, Søren Gade who is in hot water because he lied (again) to the Danish Parliament [Folketing] -- he said that Danish special forces don't have the distinctive Danish flag on their fatigues when they are doing special ops and therefore the movie was lying about this.

The press talked with one of the soldiers and he said that not only did they were their flag patches when delivering prisoners to the American compound in Bagran, they were in fact ordered to wear their patches.

The press has also talked with the American interrogator shown in the movie and he confirmed that he personally had seen Danish soldiers turning over prisoners up to a half dozen times.

Ouch! On top of this the Defense Minister has been caught with his foot in his mouth over the case of the translators the Danish military employs in Iraq.

As is well know, the Danes are getting ready to leave Iraq (their area of ops there is in the Brit zone north of Basra). As is also well known, the reason the Danes are pulling out is because the Brits are pulling out and the reason they are pulling out is because things are peaceful and the Iraqis can manage their security in a secure way.


Things are so secure there that the twenty some translators the Danes have employed fear for their lives and the safety of their families when the coalition forces leave.

The Danish military asked if the Iraqis could be granted asylum in Denmark and the Defense Minister replied in no uncertain terms that there was no way that could happen.

The logic I guess is that you are leaving because the mission is accomplished and it's peaceful and secure, it just doesn't jibe if you take the translators with you because they are in danger of being killed.

Hell, things are so peaceful there that two Brit soldiers were killed y'day by a road side bomb.