At last night’s food fight among five would-be governors of the great state of California, things got a little testy between Arianna Huffington, an independent, and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.
Reuters reports that, “When the action star attempted to cut in during Huffington's answer to a question, she said, ‘This is the way you treat women, we know that.’
“The moderator, Stan Statham, called that a ‘direct and personal attack’ on Schwarzenegger and gave him a chance to respond.
" ‘I would just like to say that I just realized I have a perfect part for you in 'Terminator 4,' Schwarzenegger shot back … "
Here’s what he no doubt had in mind, as originally reported by Entertainment Weekly on the release of “Terminator 3”:
“… nothing in T3 bears Schwarzenegger's creative stamp more than his epic tussle with the Terminatrix, a battle that begins in a bathroom. The sequence was made longer and more elaborate thanks to the actor's largess -- and his singular imagination.
" ‘As we were rehearsing, I saw this toilet bowl,’ says Schwarzenegger, an impish smile crossing his face. ‘How many times do you get away with this -- to take a woman, grab her upside down, and bury her face in a toilet bowl? I wanted to have something floating in there,’ he adds. Apparently, he was vetoed. ‘They thought it was my typical Schwarzenegger overboard,’ he says. ‘The thing is, you can do it, because in the end, I didn't do it to a woman -- she's a machine! We could get away with it without being crucified by who-knows-what group.’ " Certainly not by the California Republican Women's Caucus, which actually endorsed this misogynist dolt because he “supports family.”
Just not female family, I guess.
Good news and bad news from Iraq
First the bad: not only is the Bush administration getting no offers of aid – especially in the form of much-needed troops to give ours some relief – but now it appears possible that the UN may pull out of Iraq altogether because of two bombings of its facilities. Exactly how we’re going to increase the UN’s role in Iraq if it doesn’t even have its feet on the ground there is a good question.
Now the good. Middle East Report has a Q&A with Isam al-Khafaji, an Iraqi social scientist who participated in the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council before resigning in frustration. Al-Kafaji offers constructive criticism of how he thinks the U.S. administration in Iraq could do better, remains optimistic about the future of his country and is adamant that Iraq is not Vietnam:
”The fact that people get killed -- both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians -- doesn't mean that there is a popular Iraqi resistance. This is no Vietnam. There are very few Iraqis being killed because there [sic] are seen as collaborators, and the number of American casualties is also very low. If you asked Iraqis whether U.S. troops should leave, the vast majority would say no. On the other hand, the rising number of attacks have already forced the Americans to swallow much, not all, of their arrogance. But is this ‘resistance’? No. Sometimes we confuse our emotions with the facts. A real popular resistance does not end up with one or two dead a day -- with my deep sorrow for each life lost. If this were popular resistance, there would be something like 50 dead a day.”
Those Russkies are really cards
The U.S. military had its deck of cards featuring most-wanted Iraqis from Saddam Hussein down. Now a Russian newspaper is selling decks of cards featuring members of the Bush administration (the prez is the Jack of Hearts). At about $8.20 each, the decks are said to be selling out in Moscow.
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