Goodbye From The World's Biggest Polluter

by hilzoy

When I saw the headline of this article from the Independent on Memeorandum, I thought they were paraphrasing, or summing up what they took to be Bush's attitude towards climate change, or something. I didn't think it was a direct quote:

"President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would "seriously consider" a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050."

Six more months. Just six more months.

Comments

[Will]

Sounds to me like a one fingered salute.

[Fledermaus]

President Bush being callous and indifferent? That's unpossible!

[Jim Parish]

Sounds to me like a one fingered salute.

This is from a British source; their version uses two, but the meaning is essentially the same.

[Model 62]

Sounds to me like a one fingered salute.

They use two fingers for that in the UK.

[jonnybutter]

I don't think that's an accurate quote. Corrected: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter. [smirk that only his mom thinks is cute] heh heh heh"

[Model 62]

Dammit, Jim.

[Jesurgislac]

They use two fingers for that in the UK.

That's because it's more painful. (The unspoken words that go with it are "And swivel!")

[garyb50]

This just seems so uncharacteristic of George W.

[Ugh]

I can't believe we have a fncking drunken frat boy as preznit.

[Brett Bellmore]

We're saying goodbye to China?

[Z. Mulls]

I'm trying to save some of my outrage for the Jan 2009 pardons. I'm almost tapped out.

[charles]

Obviously, the two-finger salute is twice as insulting as the one-finger kind, but considering who's doing the saluting, he probably just miscounted.

[Neo]

Actually, Bush got it wrong, the US is number 2-- China took that crown this year.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I think this is a miscounting thing - Bush probably thought that China already owns enough US debt to make the US part of it.

[Ugh]

At least there's a new fafblog post up today.

[Portia]

Jes:

I had heard somewhere (got to love my source at least) that it originated from the middle ages. The English had the most effective longbowmen in any army. The French cut off the two fingers on the right hand of some bowmen they captured in order to prevent their return to battle. When the english learned of this, the rest of the archers taunted the french with the two fingered salute -- showing they still had their fingers before they used them.

[Jesurgislac]

Portia - ahistorical urban myth, sorry. As noted here, bowmen actually needed three fingers to draw the bow, not two - also, what evidence there is suggests the two-fingered salute is much more recent in origin.

[Hartmut]

And the French would not have cut off fingers but simply killed captured archers anyway.
1.They would not yield any ransom, so keeping them alive served no purpose (that was not limited to archers but to any "worthless" prisoner)
2.Archers were seen as dishonorable. Many had a criminal background actually but the main point was that they dared to lift their hands against nobles and, worse, were successful with it. The meme archer*=coward can already be found in the Iliad.

*archer in war that is. Hunting with the bow was fully legitimate.

[Anthony Damiani]

...
Are we *absolutely* sure he's not trying to harm the country on purpose?