First, Khrushchev used his shoe to bang on the table at the UN in 1960. And now, Bush was nearly nailed by a shoe in the head by a journalist in Iraq, who shouted, "Here's farewell, you dog."
Points for Bush for ducking in time. Points for the Iraqi journalist for using the insult "you dog." I really must use that insult more often.
Apt. 11d 
What’s tragic is that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are off for the rest of the year and won’t be back on air till January.
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A Russian general to an upstart Georgian leader, 19th century:
“Shameless Sultan with the soul of a Persian — so you still dare to write to me! Yours is the soul of a dog and the understanding of an ass, yet you think to deceive me with your specious phrases. Know that until you become a loyal vassal of my Emperor I shall only long to wash my boots in your blood.”
Now that’s invective I can believe in!
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Doug,
So how did that turn out? You left out the ending.
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yot if yoro buch saaa bully
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Well Wendy, here’s my guess of joke number one from one or the other:
“Look at our agile president. That was clearly no lame duck.”
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Amy, I went back and double-checked. It was a General Tsitsianoff (your transliteration may very) writing to the Sultan of Ilisu in the early 19th century. Ilisu seems to have spanned the current Georgian-Azeri border, reaching up toward Dagestan as well. Anyway, General Ts was himself of Georgian extraction. The quote is from p. 6 of Tony Anderson’s Bread and Ashes, and the next sentence relates that “the Sultan of Ilisu and his allies submitted, swore allegiance to Russia and were forced to pay tribute.”
As is the way of things in the region, in 1844 a later Sultan rebelled against Russian rule, joined up with Imam Shamyl but was also forced in the end to beg for Russian pardon by 1859. It’s a tough neighborhood.
After the fall of the czar, it seems to have passed back and forth between Azerbaijan and Georgia a bit before the Bolshies assigned the area to Azerbaijan in 1921. There’s a nice national park over in that corner of Georgia now (Lagodekhi), and I hope to hike up into the mountains this summer.
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JMT, who needs Jon Stewart? Thanks. 🙂
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This is a good blog post, I was wondering if I could use this posting on my website, I will link it back to your website though. If this is a problem please let me know and I will take it down right away.
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