Here’s a poem that’s been making it rounds on the blogosphere:

CAUSA BELLI by Andrew Motion
They read good books, and quote, but never learn
a language other than the scream of rocket-burn.
Our straighter talk is drowned but ironclad:
elections, money, empire, oil and Dad.

It was penned by some British poet laureate, and everyone who’s anyone is making a parody. Tim Blair was probably first, but Emperor Misha has one too, as does AcidMan, and Laurence Simon. Michele has made making one a initiation rite into her prestigious Club Katana, so here is my attempt:

CAUSA I SAID SO by Frank J.
The peaceniks loudly protest and preen and pose
so we blast them all with a high-power fire hose.
And though the doves may work and toil,
they’ll never stop us from bombing Baghdad and stealing its oil.

UPDATE: I was going to update with more poetry links, but it’s easier to just link again to Tim Blair who has the most complete list.

Britain wants us to wait until Autumn for war with Iraq. Those crumpet-eating pansies! Why don’t we just wait until the problem is taken care of by the earth being swallowed by the sun? This is why I’ve always been against having allies; inevitably, allies to America will be other countries than America, and thus cowardly whiners. We should never have started the U.N.; that just gave countries the idea they can have opinions contrary to our own.
What happens while we are waiting? Maybe someone else will have war with Iraq and then we’ll lose our chance. Then whom will we wreak our unholy vengeance upon? Iran? Sure, it’s only a one-letter difference, but it’s just not the same.
More, likely, while we’re waiting, Saddam will finish hollowing out a volcano and thus be well on his way to full-fledged supervillainy. He’ll probably even make a weather-controlling laser. Then, when in September London is being torn apart by tornados, we can just be like, “We’d love to help, but, technically, fall isn’t for a few more days, and we don’t want to break our word.”
But, we can’t just sit here and wait. I guess that means we have to convince our allies to attack now. So how do we do that? I know what you’re saying: bomb the crap out of them. But, the first rule of diplomacy is “You can’t bomb your allies.” Yeah, I don’t understand the reasoning either, but it’s just one of those universally agreed upon rules. Instead, diplomacy only allows us to talk to them. So I guess the answer is threats of bombing.

I said earlier that I was confused by what Saddam meant when he said he would fight to the last drop of blood, but Charles Austin has a different interpretation.
Emperor Misha gives some well deserved kudos to President Bush. Our president may not be Donald Rumsfeld, but he still kicks ass sometimes.
My arch-nemesis Scott Ott reports on Lieberman’s choice for a running mate. Does the VP get to be president if he murders him himself?
Finally, go check out the Carnival of the Vanitites if you haven’t already. This week it’s hosted by The Eleven Day Empire. Next week, it will be hosted by Greeblie. He has a link to me, so he must be a great blogger.

The Drudge Report is reporting that Iraq has released a statement saying that Saddam will not leave and country and will “fight to the last drop of blood.” It’s hard to understand what he means, though, as current munitions in use by the U.S. military would actually reduce Saddam to a fine red mist, not leaving any “drops” whatsoever.

Rachel Lucas has a psychological analysis of Michael Moore. I have to admit it: I found the movie Canadian Bacon funny. Does that make me evil to enjoy that piece of crap’s work?
Laurence Simon spots a beautiful thing.
Initially I said I wouldn’t link to Instapundit in my Links of the Day, as any traffic I might send his way would be like a few drops of water to the Pacific Ocean, but I enjoyed him ripping apart an article based just on its title so much that I had to point it out.

A lot of us are pissed at Michael Moore for his new idotic and racist statements, but few would dispute his right to say it (thought some may be perturbed by the illegality of beating the crap out of him for it). Ones who might not allow Moore speaking are the Germans. They are trying to prosecute a man for a post on the internet that allegedly glorifies the 9-11 attacks. Maybe he is an idiot and deserves a Clue Bat™ to the head, but three years in prison for one statement he wrote on the internet? You think the Germans would have learned their lesson after we kicked their ass for being Nazis, but apparently not. Just goes to show you once again that, if you want to live in the land of the free, some European country ain’t going to cut it. America is your one and only choice. Apparently, a nation can only truly understand freedom if it gets its start by shooting a bunch of Redcoats with muskets.

The Democrats in New York’s City Council are now moving to ban all toy guns, realistic looking or not. They say you can spray paint an unrealistic gun and then get yourself shot by police, and that, they also say, is a bad thing. One case they mention in favor of this ban was how a 17-year-old got himself killed after pointing a toy gun at the head of a police officer in an attempted mugging. Maybe I just don’t think like other people, but instead of my first reaction to that story being “We must ban toy guns immediately to prevent such tragedy” it’s “Dumbass! Good thing he killed himself off.”
Who will be most affected by this ban? It’s The Children™, that’s who. Boys love nothing more than to pretend to shoot each other, but, being denied toy guns to play with, they’ll have no choice but to become flaming homosexuals. But children’s feelings can be dismissed in legislative decisions because they can’t vote. That’s because most people believe that, if children are left to their own resources, they’ll do nothing but stick their fingers in electrical outlets and drink Drano. I, on the other hand, think children can have some political clout. They need to realize that, if first the government is allowed to ban toy guns, nothing prevents videogames or Barbie from being banned as well. So, children need to use a Democratic debating technique that they actually invented: the nagging whine.
“Mommy! I don’t want there to be Democrats in office!” a child can scream and then pound the floor with his fists. Eventually, the parent will have no choice but to vote out all the Democrats. Otherwise, the federal penitentiary will fill up with eight year olds found in illegal possession of squirt guns, which, I guess, will also end the nagging.

Jamie McDonald has a letter I’d like to see a response to. Maybe I should add pop-up ads to my site. Does everyone like pop-up ads?

While everyone is distracted by the little Commie evil, North Korea, the big Commie evil, China, is making plans to get their grubby hands on outerspace. We can’t let that stand; if we don’t stop them now, our orbit will soon be infested with Commie space ninjas chopping away at our precious satellites with their space swords. They even have plans to go the moon. That’s ours!
If I remember my history right (and I never do), back in the long long ago, the Russian Commies tried to impress us with how good their kidnapped German scientists are by putting a beeping object in space. All that outer space was to them, though, was an extravagant way to cruelly kill dogs, so we knew we had to show them up. Thus, we immediately sent people to the moon and acted like it was nothing. If I recall correctly, they just ended one newscast with, “By the way, Americans landed on the moon today… not that that’s too surprising since we are America and not a bunch of goddamn Commies.” The rivalry between the Americans and Russians is why there’s that famous photo of Buzz Aldrin standing on the moon holding up a sign saying, “Bite me, you Commie bastards!”
And, as prophesized in the Bible (I believe one of the Psalms), the country that first landed on the moon wins God’s favor and dominion over the entire universe. By bringing back magic moon rocks, we protected ourselves during the Cold War. But, if a Commie were ever to set foot on the moon, we would instantly fall from God’s graces and be plagued with boils, have our seas turn red as blood, and a hail of trial lawyers will fall from the sky.
That’s why I assume we have some sort of plan to shoot the Chi-Coms out of the sky (the space?). If we’re worried and getting whined at by the Euro-weenies, we can just say Russia did it. Those guys have been pretty screwy since they went non-Commie, so I think people will buy it.

Why hadn’t I heard of this move before? The Hunted (1995) is all about ninja fighting samurai. I’m not sure if it had a great plot or good acting, because I was too distracted by all the cool ninjas fighting the awesome samurai. They were throwing ninja stars at him, and he knocks them away with his katana and then chops up the evil ninjas.
That what I watch movies for.
Technically, the movie stars Christopher Lambert as a man on a short business trip to Japan who accidentally finds himself in the middle of a conflict between ninjas and samurai. He then spends pretty much the whole movie trying to stay out of the way of the aforementioned ninjas and the samurai until the very end when he fights the head ninja. He only has three weeks training with a sword, but there’s a twist to the fight that makes it somewhat realistic that he could win.
Unlike lots of cheesy 80’s ninja films, this movie tries to be accurate about the fighting styles and customs of the ninjas and the samurai. And why not; it was written and directed by the scribe of Pretty Woman. I haven’t seen that movie yet, but I can’t wait to now. It must be full of ninja/samurai action (and, I assume, some sort of attractive woman). Four stars.

Kim du Toit, unlike me, will not call Democrats childish names.
Alex Knapp wishes J.R.R. Tolkein a happy eleventy-first birthday (I just started reading the books over the holidays, so I get why that is significant).
Joshua Martin celebrates that Christianity is on the rise world wide. Everyone loves Christians.
I had never heard of the Bloggies before, but I have decided I want one. Go and nominate me.
Now!

Bush hasn’t even said what his economic plan is, and Democrats are already describing it as just a tax cut for the rich. That seems kind of silly, but I believe it shows good thinking on their part. They’ve never failed to label any Republican tax cut proposal as a “tax cut for the rich,” so why even wait for the details anymore.
That got me thinking (if anything, I’m a thinker): they have a lot of those type phrases they consistently use in response to whatever Republicans do. There is a good reason for that, since the average Democrat isn’t the brightest chap and needs a simple concept to grasp on to.

Democratic Leader (pausing momentarily from sipping his martini): “It’s just a tax cut for the rich.”
Average Democrat (pausing momentarily from trying to insert a VHS tape into his new DVD player): “Me no like rich. Me vote Democrat.”

But, if Democrats always use the same response to certain stimuli (like mention of tax cuts or social security reform), that sounds like the perfect thing to automate. I think I could build a robotic Democrat (must… resist… obvious Gore joke…) that could perform the same function as any Democratic politician on a talk show. All I would have to do is take a manequin that could be made to sit up in a chair and then insert a microphone, speaker, and a simple computer system running voice recognition software. It will scan the speech of the Republican he’s it’s supposed to be debating, and then start repeating in a loop its standard response.
Stimulus: “tax cut”
Response: “It’s just a tax cut for the rich! It’s just a tax cut for the rich! It’s just a tax cut…”
Stimulus: “social security”
Response: “Republicans want to throw old people out on the street! Republicans want to throw old people out on the street! Republicans want to throw…”
Stimulus: “environment”
Response: “Republicans want to poison our air and water! Republicans want to poison our air and water! Republicans want to poison…”
Stimulus: “affirmative action”
Response: “Republicans are racist! Republicans are racist! Republicans are…”
Stimulus: “welfare”
Response: “Republicans want to starve school children! Republicans want to starve school children! Republicans want to–”
Stimulus: “guns”
Response: “Redrum! Redrum!”
If no recognized stimuli are found, a number of universal responses can be used such as “Republicans are mean-spirited!” or it can just emit some sort of high-pitched, incomprehensible whine.
Once I’ve produced a prototype, I can then pitch it to news organizations as a replacement for getting an actual Democrat politician on their show. This will remove all the costs associated with having to book Democrats on their programs and allow them to immediately have a Democratic response to any major issue. I think I could make a bundle.
To be honest, I got the idea when I recalled the debate of Al Gore vs. Dan Quayle back in 1992. When the subject of abortion came up, Al Gore just kept repeating “Don’t you support a woman’s right to choose?” over and over as Quayle tried to speak (can’t– resist– Gore robot joke– any longer–).
Oh man, I just realized that, while I thought I was describing this great new product idea, all I was doing was describing Al Gore.

South Korea seems to think that both North Korea and the U.S. need to make concessions. I know what you’re thinking – “What!? They even suggest we make concessions to nuclear weilding dimwits! Let’s murder them all!” – but don’t be so hasty. Remember, South Korea animates The Simpsons, and thus they control a resource even more important than oil. That’s why we at least have to humor them. Here are my ideas for concessions that each side can make:
NORTH KOREAN CONCESSIONS
* Shall have Kim Jong-Il wear a red nose to complete his look.
* Shall now have to give what little food they have to us in case we feel like an extra snack between breakfast and brunch.
* Shall change national religion such that all Americans are worshipped as gods.
* Shall dance for our amusement.
* Shall nuke selves as punishment.
* Shall burn in hell.
AMERICAN CONCESSIONS
* Shall only kill the first born child of each family.
* Shall not sow salt in the earth after saturation bombing.
* Shall not feed them to dogs.
* Shall limit dancing on their graves to a week’s length.
* Shall not subject them again to Carter.
* Shall not be extremely blatant in ignoring concessions.