It is a Peter Seller’s movie from the 50′s. You might want to pick it up at your video rental spot. It is all about the the Duchy of Grand Fenwick waging war on the U.S. and winning. Tomorrow that bit of silliness gets closer to real fact.
The idea of the comedy is pretty timely. You get crushed by U.S. military might and as the loser get huge amounts of American aid. It has to be one of the most popular movies in Iraq. But, there’s one other spot that still has it showing in their main-run theaters. That would be Antigua & Barbuda who love the punch line where Fenwick won the war.
In the flick, Peter Sellers plays the Prime Minister, the Grand Duchess, and the Army head. Mark Mendel isn’t quite as versatile. He only plays the real attorney for Antigua-Barbuda that wants a 3.4 billion dollar settlement. In the world of rodents, that is one hell of a piece of cheese. And, he’s upping the ante to around 7-bil after we did the a King’s X move with the GAT treaty by saying we never meant to include things we included in our world trade plans. That’s chump change against the E.U.’s claim of 15-billion over our withdrawl from our treaty obligations. I expect the E.U. will at least send A-B a thank you card.
Tomorrow (8/31) Mark Mendel has another day to kick us in the nether parts at the WTO. This is another step in the process started years ago and has crept through the WTO’s lengthy processes to March of this year when A-B won a final decision from that organization. But, like the Michael Vick trial, resolution awaits the sentencing.
We’ve done all the classic explanations of the alternatives. The ones that emasculate the U.S. are the suspension of copyright protections. This was only granted once before and that time the country didn’t have to use it to get their issues resolved. I imagine that, should that option be granted A-B, we’d come to our senses again. That is even more likely with the time frame pushing things beyond the Bush Whitehouse.
We are a very moral nation. It is a fact that regularly bites us in the ass. It was fun to use dunking stools in the past or to sew an A on the chick down the street’s tank top. Most of us can live with a born again and even the occasional Mormon showing up on our doorstep. I tell them I am happy with my affiliation and we smile happily at each other and they waddle off to the next house. But that puritanic rite doesn’t cost me or the other 302,735,803 (U.S. Population Clock) citizens $72.67