Bush Joke.

good one. Here's one with a British slant. While visiting England, George Bush is invited to tea with the Queen. He asks her what her leadership philosophy is. She says that it is to surround herself with intelligent people. Bush asks how she knows if they're intelligent. "I do so by asking them the right questions," says the Queen. "Allow me to demonstrate." Bush watches as the Queen phones Tony Blair and says, "Mr. Prime Minister, please answer this question: your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or sister. Who is it?" Tony Blair responds, "It's me, ma'am." "Correct. Thank you and good-bye, sir," says the Queen. She hangs up and says, "Did you get that, Mr. Bush?" Bush nods: "Yes ma'am. Thanks a lot. I'll definitely be using that!" Bush, upon returning to Washington, decides he'd better put the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the test. Bush summons Jesse Helms to the White House and says, "Senator Helms, I wonder if you can answer a question for me." "Why, of course, sir. What's on your mind?" Bush poses the question: "Uhh, your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?" Helms hems and haws and finally asks, "Can I think about it and get back to you?" Bush agrees, and Helms leaves. He immediately calls a meeting of other senior Republican senators, and they puzzle over the question for several hours, but nobody can come up with an answer. Finally, in desperation, Helms calls Colin Powell at the State Department and explains his problem. "Now lookee here, son, your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?" Powell answers immediately, "It's me, of course." Much relieved, Helms rushes back to the White House, finds George Bush, and exclaims, "I know the answer, sir! I know who it is! It's Colin Powell!" And Bush replies in disgust, "Wrong, you dumb sh*t, it's Tony Blair!" Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

Good jokes but they both tend to make Bush sound brighter than he is. Especially the second where I'm sure he would not have remembered the question correctly. "Now lookee here, son, your mom and pop have a child but he's not a Christian. Is he your brother?"

A warning was issued after a 46-year-old man set off a security alarm during check-in at Orlando airport in Florida six weeks after he received radioiodine. He was detained, strip-searched and subjected to a prolonged interrogation. Sniffer dogs were also used before security officials released him. Wonder what happens if you get radiodenver intead :O)

If you fly with Radio Denver, you get through security with no problems (it helps to wear sandles) and also get a free upgrade to first class...every time. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

I wonder what the radiation detectors are for? Could be to catch terrorists who have swallowed atomic bombs in an effort to smuggle them though customs. Can't see why the check you with sniffer dogs after the interrogation - maybe it's to see if the angry traveller is likely to cause a stink :O)

Bush may be dumb, he may not be, but he was certainly smart enough to get the top job, no matter how he did it! All those people who ride the anti-Bush/Blair bus are fooling themselves if they believe that the pair of them can really influence the behaviour of other countries just by making demands. They stand no more chance than you or I. They just happen to be 'today's' men, the world will be here tomorrow when they are gone.

"All those people who ride the anti-Bush/Blair bus are fooling themselves if they believe that the pair of them can really influence the behaviour of other countries just by making demands. They stand no more chance than you or I." Well, no this is wrong. In terms of Israel, for example. The US gives Israel aid money to buy weapons and then sells it the weapons. I'm not saying either that it's wrong for Israel to have weapons or that it couldn't buy them from other places but to suggest that US Presidents don't have influence over Israel's policy by virtue of this relationship is wrong. Anyone who can give either someone something they want or need, or take it away, has significant influence over their behaviour. As the US is a rich and military powerful country it can influence the behaviour of a lot of other countries. Tony Blair's influence is less clear cut.

To answer my own question (note iodine-131 is tech term for radioiodine) : Many airports in countries now have radiation detectors in order to detect the smuggling of radioactive materials that may be used in weapons manufacture. Patients should be warned that if they choose to travel by air, they may set off radiation detectors at airports up to 12 weeks after their treatment with iodine-131. A physician's letter does not exempt one from interrogation by airport security personnel, because these letters are easily forged. For security reasons, there is no information available in the public domain on which airports use radiation detectors. Source Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-131

David, do you REALLY believe that Israel will stop their offensive tomorrow if Bush / Blair demand it? Sorry mate, it just isn't gonna happen. Maybe when Israel runs short of ordinance they may think about it.

On a different thread I mentioned the commemorative plaque which celebrated the victory of a former King of Thailand in a war with a neighbouring king. Atop their great war-elephants they fought a duel to decide the outcome of the war - being, relatively, civilised and noble men they wished to avoid all the death, destruction and great suffering that wars usually bring and settle it man to man. Surely the worst thing about modern confrontations is the terrible amount of damage that modern weapons wreak and the inevitable collateral damage. It is most often the innocent who are killed and wounded, have their homes turned to rubble and live in terror. If they are not actually killed by the bombs and missiles they often have no food or fresh water and little help and less hope. We look on, horrified, impotent, voyeurs encouraged to take sides and join in the hating or become demoralised by the sheer inhumanity of it all. While those who start the wars are hidden away in safety and most often have little regard for the lives of anyone but themselves. They speak with weasel words of unfortunate accidents, of their great sorrow and regret, of saving the world from terrorism. Where are the terrorists worse than they? Where in the world have they actually helped? How many people have died, how many homes destroyed, under the disgustingly disingenous guise of helping those they seek to destroy? We do it for YOU these war mongers dare to say! Well get on your elephants and ride into battle at the front of your armies then. Because YOU are by far the most dispensible cowards on the face of the Earth. If it were left to you to do the ACTUAL fighting wars would cease over night!

Anyone know where Israel gets its oil?

Good point there, Mykle. Leaders of old did indeed seem more willing to ride into battle at the head of their armies (possibly surrounded by a plattoon of their most distinguished captains or suchlike, but certainly at least near the fighting... in range of a spear or a rock or an arrow or suchlike...). If they had to actually, literally get blood on their hands, one has to wonder how the state of the world would differ today... However! Better than the above (because even in days of old, there were wars and death and things)... how about they just have it out in a nice game of scrabble? Or ping-pong? Or "Celebrity Death Match" on PS2...? ~PEPS~ “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.”

(does Israel get oil from Israel?) ~PEPS~ “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.”

I don't think they have much oil of their own Peps. I remember an old joke where a group of Jews are cursing Moses. "Fourty years searching in the desert and he still picks a place with no oil!"

Where does Israel get its oil? From Russia and former Soviet republics. Israel produces only a couple thousand barrels of oil a day, which means it relies on the global market for more than 99 percent of its consumption. It's difficult to name all of the country's suppliers—in 2004, Israel's minister of national infrastructures admitted that "Israel's situation is complicated. We don't have diplomatic relations with most of the countries from which we import oil." But over the past 25 years, significant fuel imports have come from Angola, Colombia, Mexico, Egypt, and Norway. In more recent times, the Israelis have turned to Russia, Kazakhstan, and some of the other -stans for the bulk of their oil.

Great reply - thanks Pendragon! So Israel gets most of it's oil from Russia - that's a bit of a shock. I think I heard that there is a new oil pipeline that passes Israel which coincedentally opened about the same time as the Israeli/Lebanon conflict started. I wonder if Israel will get any oil from that? Just checked and it doesn't look like it does actually touch Israel but an underwater Israeli-Turkish pipeline project has been envisaged which would link Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon. "[The BTC pipeline] considerably changes the status of the region's countries and cements a new pro-West alliance. Having taken the pipeline to the Mediterranean, Washington has practically set up a new bloc with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Israel, " (Komerzant, Moscow, 14 July 2006) The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060... I remember a BBC prog (before the government took control) which looked into the real reasons for the invasion of Iraq and ended up with the conclusion that future historians might see it as the first of the Oil Wars. I don't think that future is very far ahead.

Here's some interesting links, the views and opinions voiced in them are far more believeable than some of the hogwash spouted by newspapers with axes to grind, and regurgitated by sheep. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2281184_1,00.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/16/do... http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19771 Here's some stuff I've culled from these and other sites... (as was my previous post) Survey reveals backing for 7/7 attacks Almost a quarter of British Muslims believe the July 7 terror attacks were justified because of Britain's support for the war on terror, a poll has revealed. And nearly half said the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy between the US and Israel. The survey found Muslims under the age of 24 were twice as likely to justify the 7/7 attacks as those aged over 45. It found 24 per cent across all age groups either agreed or tended to agree that the 7/7 bombings were justified, although 48 per cent said they "strongly disagreed" and 17 per cent said they did not know. A third of those questioned said they would rather live under Sharia law in the UK than British law. The survey also reveals concerns among Muslims about Britain's moral standards, with 40 per cent saying it is a country of bad moral behaviour, and 66 per cent saying parents allow their children too much freedom. " " Right now there are 22 active conflicts across the globe in which Muslims are involved. Most Muslims have not even heard of most of them because those conflicts do not provide excuses for fomenting hatred against the United States. When the Serbs massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica 10 years ago, not a ripple disturbed the serene calm of Muslim opinion. At that time, the mullahs of Teheran and Col. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya were in cahoots with Slobodan Milosevic, supplying him with oil and money because Yugoslavia held the presidency of the so-called nonaligned movement. Belgrade was the only European capital to be graced with a state visit by Ali Khamenehi, the mullah who is now the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic. During Ramadan, news came that more than 500 Muslims had been killed in clashes with the police in southern Thailand. At least 80 were suffocated to death in police buses under suspicious circumstances. The Arab and the Iranian press, however, either ignored the event or relegated it to inside pages. To my knowledge, only one Muslim newspaper devoted an editorial to it. And only two newspapers mentioned that Thailand was building a wall to cordon off almost two million Muslims in southern Thailand – a wall higher and longer than the controversial "security fence" Israel is building. " "

Can't speak for all your statistics Pendragon, but certainly the first half dozen seem very similar to those quoted on Channel Four's What Muslims Want. Not sure I'm convinced by the point you seem to be making but it's worth considering.

I'm not making any point, just trying to help people to have a balanced view of what's happening. The survey bit is actually on IE's home page today. None of the statistics are 'mine', by the way, I'm just the messenger.

Ah, I see the second half of your post is from the Jerusalem Post - and is purporting to reflect the opinion of Arab Muslims in the Middle East - but the first half is essentially statistics of Asian Muslims living in the UK. http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/9792 Benador Associates is a public relations firm based in New York and Washington.

From what I can gather the 500 deaths in Southern Thailand were in the months from January until December 2004. The deaths of 85 Muslim protesters (seven people were shot during clashes with police and 78 died in army trucks) resulted in an inquiry that has concluded they were not killed deliberately. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4104335.stm No doubt the chap reporting the incident had got mixed up with the prisoners who suffocated in Police Vans in Iraq.

Mykle, Benador Associates are based in SEVERAL cities as you will know, one of which is London. Why is it I get the feeling that you are trying to use the bits that suit your view to discredit the report, which incidentally I read in The Times. I only used the site as it was reproduced there and it saved me typing it out myself. The first link is to The Sunday Times and the second link, as is obvious, is to The Telegraph. All of those newspapers are, I believe, respectable news reporters, and should be given some credence, at least in so far as their integrity is concerned. Whether any of the texts are , or have been printed in the 'Jerusalem post', I wouldn't know. What I do know however is that many people, maybe you included, have the idea that their point of view is the truth and anyone else's is either lies or at the very least biased in the extreme. It's easy to see where you stand in all of this, but it's possible you're wrong. It's also possible that those that differ from you are wrong also. My personal point of view is there are rights and wrongs on both sides.

Pendragon: If you follow the link I provided you will see that the article comes from the Jerusalem Post and is posted on the Benador Associates site. WHAT IF IT'S NOT ISRAEL THEY LOATHE? by Amir Taheri December 2, 2004 If you have a link to a different source please post it. I spent a month in Egypt earlier this year and I can assure you that the article is patent nonsense. The arabs had no great quarrel with the American at that time - though they may now - but they, shall we say, 'disliked' the Israelis. I'm sure that is true of most arab countries and they were just too polite to tell the journalist hence the pregnant silence when he suggested otherwise..

I wish I was as knowledgeable as you.

I wish I could remember, so well, things I had read over 18 months ago in The Times :O)

So do I. I read it in The Sunday Times, two days ago.