I wish I were kidding - congratulations to the people that run the Olympics for being a bunch of fucking assholes. I love people who reward historically proven brutality against their own people and now apparently animals.

I'm not gonna lie - this is disturbing.



Josh

Viva la revolucion!



Watch the video too.

You won't be hearing about any of this on Radio Havana Cuba, by the way.

Josh

EDIT: Interesting story about Obama's leftward-leaning economic policies and how even people sympathetic to him are beginning to worry - - I told you people he is naive.

1925 - 2008



Today is a sadder day in American life if you are into political and civic discourse. William F. Buckley, Jr. is one of the people that influenced my interest in politics. For many years he hosted a debate program on PBS called Firing Line, which was the best debate show on any network before or since. He routinely hosted legends of political, cultural, intellectual, political and academic persuasions - the roster of his past guests is without peer and is pretty impressive.

He was the only conservative in American public life for many, many years. He is generally credited with laying the groundwork for the modern conservative movement, which is something the evangelical conservatives have utterly, utterly bastardized and twisted around into an embarrassing mishmash of bigotry, hypocrisy and hubris. Buckley was famous for denouncing the John Birch Society and he was criticized by conservatives for doing so. If he's the grand poobah of the conservative movement, if you ask me which side I'd pick in a debate I'll take the guy who was the grand poobah of it all. He and Barry Goldwater were virtually identical in terms of political and philosophical outlook, although in Goldwater's case what he lacked in eloquence he made up for in humor.

Buckley was a Connecticut WASP, Yale educated and spoke with an aristocratic patois that you'd certainly pin to his upbringing... and you wouldn't necessarily be wrong. What people do not know is that English was Buckley's third language that he had learned by the age of 7. He had spoken Spanish and French prior to that, having lived in Mexico and France with his parents at an early age. As a result, his English accent was idiosyncratic and sounded somewhere between northeastern WASP and English. During his life he routinely described himself as a libertarian or a conservative, which in the absolutely purest academic sense of conservatism that he subscribed to, could ultimately be interchangeable terms although in today's society what it means to be a libertarian is defined a hundred different ways. When Bill Buckley was around, conservatism and the church were not intertwined as it is now.

Hands down - the best debater to ever have appeared on television. He was an intimidating person to debate against because of his deep intellect, verbosity, steely gaze and sometimes uncomfortable line of questioning. The Hoover Institution at Stanford University has archived his past television shows; links to 5-minute clips from various shows have been provided. Many of the shows topics are provocative and at least one should pique your interest. Click here -

In London they now charge $15 or so if you want to drive a car into the city center. A lot of people think its a great idea. Guess who proposed that 43 years ago when he ran for mayor of New York? He also proposed installing bike lanes. Bloomberg has been suggesting ideas like this for New York these days and people think he's a genius. Buckley finished third in that race.

The main reason why we are poorer for his passing today is because he was the last remaining credible debater/pundit who insisted on intelligent, polite, civil public discourse in our society (with the possible exception of the Gore Vidal debacle). The days where we could simply talk to each other seem so long gone when you watch Firing Line. We don't talk to each other like this any more. Buckley showed that it was good, even great, to argue with each other if we're going to thoughtfully consider the issues in our society. What makes him different from most is that he maintained great personal friendships with people he had vehement philosophical differences with. Its an incredibly telling thing, when you are greatly loved by people who otherwise would be considered an "enemy."

I don't know if we'll ever have people like this anymore. Its a shame because our country needs more people with the same outlook on how to proceed with civic discourse as he had. I hope its our generation that returns to this way of thinking and talking. And why can't we be funny about it? Buckley was interviewed in Playboy in the late 60's/early 70's and people wondered why he agreed to appear in a bawdy publication such as that. His response was classic - "to communicate my views to my son!"

I'll give you one guess as to who originally came up with this, but I was surprised to hear this "ad" on KGO 810 San Francicsco last night in the middle of liberal talk host Karel's show.



As for Nader - shrug. I think the liberals hate him despite the fact that he's done more good for the common man in America than they ever will. Like I always say, as a voter if you like to pontificate about how you hate the 2-party system, don't bitch when a third candidate actually enters the race! He will take Democrat votes, but how many remain to be seen. I think I agree with (e:james) in that he will have a limited effect, with the libs having been down this road before and feeling like they are hip to the political game. Then again, another side of me knows all too well that many Democrats feel beholden to vote for the party despite not really liking either Obama or Hillary... this I believe is why Nader entered in the first place. Throw in the independent vote and I could be totally wrong about Nader's effect in the election. He knows he isn't going to win, but he knows that he has a constituency that in his mind should be represented in the vote. Call it "spoiling" if you will but like I always say, if your case to the American people was strong enough to begin with then you wouldn't have had to worry about a Ralph Nader.

NEWSFLASH: The New York Times Serves Piping Hot Bile For Morning Reading

Why they will never learn their lesson, I do not know.



NYT has been guilty practitioners of partisan yellow journalism for decades. This is merely another example of a 100% unsubstantiated story based on "anonymous sources" with the utterly transparent intent to cause harm to John McCain's candidacy and to demoralize political enemies. Let me repeat it again - THERE IS NO JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY ANYMORE! Under any definition of ethical journalism or journalistic integrity, the NYT has once again failed the American people. I won't be holding my breath for an attack on Obama that will never happen, by the way, and I have news for you - it ain't because he's clean as a whistle.

How many times have I written political blog entries telling you - my readers past, present, future, occasional, etc. - that liberal Democrats are not and never will be as good at the political game as the GOP are?

I see this article as an incredibly short sighted gambit that was going to blow up in their own faces the minute it was published. Journalists at the NYT are blinded by their partisanship and have convinced themselves that their partisanship is not in fact a detriment to their profession but an enhancement, which in any rational persons estimation is laughable. Its obvious why this has been condoned over the years, but the real interesting part of it all is how ideological partisanship has transformed the culture of the newsroom. The lengths to which these people go to justify their unprofessional behavior are interesting to watch. At times its like watching an accused criminal squirming in a chair at a police station while the detectives ask him uncomfortable questions. Other times the complaints are simply ignored, as if they owe no explanation to anyone.

Journalists, YOU ARE WRONG and your profession is dying because of your lack of ethics and your inability to restrain yourselves when a juicy rumor comes around. Aren't you the same idiots that believed Bill Burkett in 2004 and ran with it because it was, as they say, sympathetic to the cause?

Journalists believe that anonymous reporting is essential to their work because otherwise they would not be able to report stories that are of vital importance to the American people. This is marble mouthed idiocy that I simply cannot tolerate as a person who refuses to allow an insult to his (and by extension, your) intelligence go unnoticed. That is merely an attempt to justify a complete lack of journalistic integrity, pure and simple.

The bottom line is this. Can you trust a paper that as standard operating procedure prints controversial and accusatory articles, knowing that they are unwilling to publicly substantiate what it is that their printing?

This is classic journalistic muckraking, but the joke isn't on John McCain.


Why They Got It Wrong - 2008's Biggest Political Miscalculation Thus Far

The title of this journal entry is provocative but is ultimately true. I truly believe that the NYT has made a colossal mistake that may end up costing the Democrats far more than it will cost the GOP. Read on to find out why.

The essence of the gambit the NYT has played is this. Who do conservatives hate more - McCain or the New York Times? The liberals making the decisions at the Times have severely miscalculated how efficiently their own behavior galvanizes conservatives across America.

Trust me on this - I know these people like I know every inch of my glorious naked body. Conservatives will never believe anything that the New York Times prints and will never hold up an article from the NYT as evidence that John McCain is the GOP version of Bill Clinton. Siding with print from the New York Times is simply not part of the equation and never will be. The NYT has made an assumption about how readers perceive them that is ultimately inaccurate. They have undermined themselves in a most stunning fashion.

NYT has risked waking the GOP up merely because they wanted to play what will widely be perceived as a transparently dirty trick. I am not saying that conservatives will be in lockstep with McCain, but they certainly will not allow a sworn political enemy like the NYT to slander McCain. This sort of thing is going to affect how many GOP voters come out in November, I guarantee it. It just won't be in the way the NYT were hoping for. Things just got more interesting. Is it possible that this year the candidates will be civil but the press will not?