PREACHING FROM A BARSTOOL

“If you make an exception for India, we will be preaching from a barstool to the rest of the world.” -Rep. Edward J. Markey (D) Mass.

I've done a lot of barstool preaching in my time. Back in the day. I gave it up because no one listened to The Gospel According to Neil. But I may have to take up the calling again if Bush's sweetheart nuke deal with India goes through. And if no one listens to me this time, well at least I'll be drunk for Armageddon. Stinkin' drunk. Like an astronaut.

"Though India would be prohibited from using the fuel it purchases from the United States for nuclear weapons, the ability to reprocess the fuel means Indias other supplies would be freed up to expand its arsenal." (NYT)

And there was some good stuff in The Gospel According to Neil too, like The Sermon on the Pool Table and Neil's Third Epistle to the Urinal. (That urinal was my best audience, come to think of it.)

Mr. Bush, eager to place relations with India on a new footing, waived many of the restrictions in order to sign the initial deal. It was heavily supported by Indian-Americans and American nuclear equipment companies, which see a huge potential market for their reactors and expertise.

Oh! And there was my "DUANE FOR POPE" campaign that I ran from my barstool that one summer. That didn't go so well either. I did sell that one t-shirt to myself, but I was stuck with the other eleven. Duane didn't even want one. So I lost some good drinkin' money there.

Three years after President Bush urged global rules to stop additional nations from making nuclear fuel, the State Department today announced that the administration is carving out an exception for India, in a last-ditch effort to seal a civilian nuclear deal between the countries.

So let's see: Bush is gonna sell nuclear fuel to India, which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, so his friends and campaign contributors in the nuke industry can make mushroom clouds full of money. India can then enrich its own spent fuel from its current reactors to make more nuclear weapons and 'stockpile' them.

Right next door is nuclear Pakistan, which hates India, has also not signed the NPT and has as its most famous son Dr. 'Kill Em All' Kahn himself, who sells nuclear secrets to the highest bidder hoping to start World War Three somewhere.

And, in the "tribal areas" of Pakistan sits none other than Osama bin Laden. Well, at least according to the best guesses of this dimwitted administration who couldn't find their own codpiece in their own pants, even with the help of the Navy SEALS.

But those arguing that the administration has not made good on its promises to clamp down on the trade in nuclear fuel argue that Mr. Bush could be setting a precedent that will undercut his nonproliferation initiative.

Mr. Burns said he disagreed because “this agreement is so very much in our national interest.”

“It will further our nonproliferation efforts globally” by gradually bringing India into the nuclear fold, he said.

Mr. Burns? Not THAT Mr. Burns, surely!

Therefore "non-proliferation" in the Bush administration means selling India nuclear fuel so it can reprocess its own spent fuel so it can make more bombs! Brilliant! That, ladies and gentlemen, is "non-proliferation" at its finest!

Now, some of you might think that sounds more like "pro-proliferation", that the Bush administration has fallen down the donut hole and landed in Springfield and hired THAT Mr. Burns to be its Nuclear Policy Czar. (Homer was unavailable because Bush had tapped him to run NASA due his expertise in the consumption of alcoholic beverages.)

Sure, you might think that, but that just means that you haven't read the final chapter in The Gospel According to Neil, which would be, of course, The Revelation of St. Neil of The Barstool.

That's the one where The Four Whores of the Apoca.....

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Shakespeare seems to have fallen off his barstool.]