Saturday, December 03, 2005

I love you Barney


Tired of the endless jabbering and conspiracy talk churned out by alternative news outlets, I’ve just spent half an hour or so perusing official US Government websites in a bid to keep informed about what’s really going on.

Based on my research, I’d like to recommend a couple of sites in particular.

First off comes the US State Department of Defence home page; a veritable trove of informative articles and photographs. Many available as high resolution downloads.

Recent stories include

And not forgetting the very special

Don’t let the titles fool you, the first story is the funniest.

The second link I’d like to recommend is Barney the dog’s home page on the official Whitehouse Site. Barney’s daily photo diary is a particularly good browse and probably the most fucking surreal thing I’ve seen since I ate that out of date Pot Noodle a few months back.

Fans of Barney will be pleased to learn that they can sign up for regular email photo updates from Barney and send Barney questions such as…

Q: Mollie from Purdue writes: My dog, Percy, and I are thrilled that you will be in the White House another four years! As First Dog, you are an exemplary role model for all American dogs. What are your plans for this next term?

A: Barney, First Dog: Bark, Bark, Woof.

Part of me really, really wishes I’d made that exchange up and not just cut and pasted it from the homepage of the government of the most powerful nation on Earth.

But there is method to this apparent madness and one should never underestimate the power of cute dogs to fire the imagination of the typical American voter.

Cue the quote from Richard Nixon’s well-received ‘Checkers Speech’ made in response to accusations of personal corruption back in 1952…

… one other thing I probably should tell you because if we don't they'll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.

Aaaaaaaaah…


2 comments:

Superchou said...

wow, that is just weird.

Shablagoo! said...

OMG, Bloody hell, WEIRD! I 'd heard about this before and discounted it as some sort of daft urban legend. Obviously its for real. :O


Disturbing...although Barney is a rather cute little fella.