from the Guardian

There have probably been more English literature PhD papers written on "the unreliable narrator" than the sexuality of Shakespeare, but the literary trope has a less straightforward appeal in publishing. The former and much missed (by comedians) president of the United States, George W Bush, is to receive a rumoured $7m advance for his autobiography, or what will otherwise be referred to as $5m less than Bill Clinton got for his. Fortunately, George knows someone who will be able to sympathise - his good lady wife who has reportedly received a mere $1.6m for her memoirs, almost $6.5m less than Hillary and less even than her mother-in-law got back in the last century.

Meanwhile, with the kind of synchronised timing that makes one think there is a divine plan after all, their literary superior Britney Spears has reportedly rejected pleas from three publishers to write her autobiography. If only George was a good guy, we could have turned this into a "what a world of skewed values we live in" piece.

Now, in the interests of clarity, George's book isn't strictly speaking an autobiography but rather a series of explanations of decisions he has taken, including why he gave up drinking and why he decided Dick Cheney was a good idea, without having to bother with that boring crap called "narrative". Think of it, as one suspects George does, as the York Notes to his autobiography.

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see toon at top..

from Arabiya

Saddam Hussein may have been despised by his people but the Iraqi government still intends to memorialize him as it planned to open a museum filled with weapons, statues, paintings, furniture and artifacts that belonged to the nation's toppled dictator, officials announced Saturday.

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Guantanamo should be turned into a Bush Museum... There, one could see Tussaud's wax statues of soldiers and prisoners melting in the atrocious heat. We could also read the memos and the secret documents that edged the US Constitution out of its box... In a broken glass case, in a grubby corner, we could see the last beer bottle that the little shrub ever drank before becoming a lunatic fundamentalist warrior of bumbling proportion to suit the neo-cons agenda, with a bible suspended over it.. But the piece of resistance would be the "Mission Accomplished" banner and the sacred soap box from which the midget pronounced the infamous words. Of course Cheney would feature big as well, with his double barrel shotgun and the lead pellets that disfigured his 'friend" the judge. Most of the Cheney section of the Bush exhibit would, of course, be staged in complete darkness...

With his new memoir, Decision Points, and a promotion tour, the former president who in cockier times could not think of a single mistake he had made, lists many. He counts the years without a post-9/11 attack as his transcendent achievement. He says the economic calamity he handed to Barack Obama was "one ugly way to end a presidency".

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/after-two-years-of-near-silence-george-bush-the-decider--is-back-20101109-17kyi.html

In a separate interview to publicise the book, Bush traces his opposition to abortion back to his teenage years when his mother had a miscarriage, kept the foetus in a jar, and showed it to her son.

"She said to her teenage kid: here's the foetus," Bush told NBC. "There's no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life … There was a human life, a little brother or sister."

Bush said that the purpose of telling the story "wasn't to try show the evolution of a pro-life point of view".

"It was really to show how my mom and I developed a relationship."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/08/george-bush-memoir-decision-points

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No wonder the Bush kid's mind was f$#@%ed!!! He had a brother — or was it a sister — in a jar full of formaldehyde... see toon at top.

Boston – George W. Bush’s appearances this week on NBC, Oprah, and Jay Leno underscore how his memoir "Decision Points" is geared toward an American audience. But the former president is also attracting international attention, with media worldwide focusing on aspects of the book specific to their regions.

Ukraine’s The Kyiv Post, for example, highlights how Russian leader Valdimir Putin, after he met Mr. Bush's Scottish terrier Barney, introduced the American president to his “big black Labrador.” Bush writes that, "With a twinkle in his eye, Vladimir said, 'Bigger, stronger, faster than Barney.' "

While Russian media did not appear to be covering the interaction, or Bush's memoir, which will be released Tuesday, his reflections on relations with Israel, decision to start two wars, and interactions with world leaders are all sparking discussion in much of the international press.

In Britain, The Guardian noted that Mr. Bush’s memoir comes nearly two months after the release of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s memoir, “A Journey,” which was also published by Random House. The Guardian uniquely compares their cover art:

“The cover of Bush's memoir shows the 43rd president – who has, according to the publisher, spent almost every day writing the book since leaving the Oval Office – in motion, hand in pocket, gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance – possibly as he makes one of those 14 all-important decisions. Blair's jacket takes a close-up approach, with the relaxed air of the former prime minister's open-necked shirt at odds with his fixed almost-grin.”

Britain's right-leaning Telegraph newspaper calls the memoir "a timely reminder of how rapidly political fortunes can alter." Bush left office with a 25 percent approval rating.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20101108/wl_csm/341924

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Gus: a page-turner? At high-speed!!! Flick through it without stopping and throw it back in the discounted books bin... Soil the bastard!... And, as well as "A Journey" by turncoat Blair, don't forget to send your neighbour's copy of Johnnee Rattus "Lazarus Rising" to that eager book-burning priest... He can burn a Koran, a Bible and the Book of Job at the same time... see toon at top...

A Texas man was condemned to death and executed in 2000 on the basis of hair that did not belong to him, according to the results of a DNA test released on Thursday.

A test by Mitotyping Technologies published by the Texas Observer magazine - which fought a three-year legal battle to gain access to the evidence - showed that Claude Howard Jones was "excluded as the contributor of this questioned hair".

Jones - who had a long criminal record - had insisted that he was waiting in the car when his accomplice killed Allen Hilzendager during a liquor store robbery.

He was convicted of the 1989 murder and denied several appeals, largely on the basis of that single strand of hair that police found at the scene.

Forensic science was limited at the time to examining the hair under a microscope, where it appeared to belong to Jones.

The DNA test posted on the magazine's website found that the hair most likely belonged instead to the victim.

Analysing hair under a microscope was later abandoned after it was deemed inconclusive and obsolete with the development of DNA testing.

Jones requested a DNA test and a stay of execution until it could be performed, but he was denied by then-governor George W. Bush.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/condemned-to-death-man-executed-on-wrong-dna-20101112-17q7i.html

Gus: Bush "decision points" number 15 to 145,793 were as stupid as "decision points" number one to 14...

see toon at top.