Ahmadinejad's ally (and Cindy Sheehan's crush), Hugo Chavez, is shutting down television stations silencing any truth, news or dissent. The people of Venezuela are demonstrating agaist this eggrgious violation of basic freedom of speech (and invariably the demise of their democracy) and
Chavez has responded by shootng at the demonstrators. Fox News reports these crowds have been peaceful. This dictator is the darling of Hollywoodand the Joe Kennedy's soulmate. If only they would move there. John Bolton calls him "Castro without brains," maybe so but he has the brutality down pat.
Daniel over at News and Views reports this shocka:
CHAVEZ SHOOTS STUDENTS. Venzuela News and Views
But this being internet, Katy of CCSC send us this great video from Chilean TV who filmed perfectly the modus operandi of the chavista police attacking mercilessly students. There is one chilling moment where about a dozen police man (S.A.?) are pursuing on their bike a single pedestrian student and shooting him with "perdigones" to injury him without killing.
To watch this fantastic video "on the ground" you need to go here, and look for the image that I repost on the right. That image was on the bottom left quadrant last time I checked. Under that image there is a video button, push it and watch. Even if you do not understand Chilean accent, the video is as clear as they come.
And Chavez? No where to be seen. As it is now a routine in his life, when he loses the emotional battle he retreats somewhere (Cuba?) to lick his bruised soul while his 
lackeys finish the dirty job he does not have the guts to direct. And there are still people that dare to defend him! It is simply amazing what some people will be able to accept as long as Chavez gives free aspirin to some of the poor, not the poor, some of them.
Bonus video: some videos are reaching the screens of You Tube. This one shows the march arriving at Chacaito. Note the appreciable size considering that it is a spontaneous march of students already blocked earlier at Plaza Venezuela. That person has a few videos in fact which are not all great but reflect a little bit the anguish but determination of these students as the sound track is sometime better than the images.
More coverage at The Devi's Excrement here.
It was certainly a surprising day today in Caracas. It was as if the magnitude of the measure of closing RCTV only hit people today. Or maybe they were awaiting some form of miracle or last minute concession by a Government that is not given to such gestures once it has made up its mind.
Of course, it was all started by the University students who decide to protest what they viewed as a serious step by the Government to silence the media in its criticism of what the Government does and the constant watch over its actions and missteps. It is easy to say that RCTV participated in the so called coup/Chavez resignation event of 2002, but reality is that Chavez’ cohorts themselves never allowed the infamous “truth” commission to complete its investigation so that events and facts could be hidden, manipulated and distorted by them since then. Thus, RCTV, once referred to by Chavez as one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, became a lonely horseman, as Venevision and Televen are following the party line and getting the Government's business, while Globovision’s rating is a scant 5% of the audience and the Government probably understands it is a 5% that it will have en extremely hard time convincing to jump sides.
In contrast, RCTV had 40% of the audience, which was gone with the cancellation of the concession and whose possible rebirth from its ashes as a cable or satellite station, was impeded by the perverse and absurd confiscation of its equipment last Friday. Moreover, cable and satellite’s reach is a scant 28% for obvious reason, which would have severely limited its coverage anyway.
Just for knowing, Mother Sheehan -- said on that she'd rather live under Chavez's rule than in America. Go now asshat.
UPDATE: Reader Brent Sperling emails:
I too had a Radio Shack 200-in-1 kit, and I definitely agree with you that it would be a great way to get kids interested in electronics.
I'd add, however, that today's kids (especially teens) would greatly benefit from a subscription to Make magazine
http://www.makezine.com/
. It's nerdy, cool, and inspirational. I only wish I had had something like that.
Good point, for somewhat older kids.
Several readers emailed about this incredibly vile thread of comments at Digg.com, but having seen a lot of this stuff, I thought I couldn’t be surprised any more. I was wrong. There is a bad craziness loose in the country, and reading the comments in this Digg post may make you feel physically ill; open antisemitism, calls for Israel’s destruction, fantasies about Bush and Cheney being murdered and/or suffering strokes, conspiracy theories, insane subliterate rants, and much more. Every deranged idea and delusion of the modern left wing bubbles up to the surface in this one, and it’s ugly beyond belief: Digg - ‘Wiped off the Map’ - The Rumor of the Century.
Here’s just one representative comment out of the hundreds:
by ichbinladen on 5/27/07
I’m going to laugh my ass off when Dick Cheney has a stroke. I hope they have a camera on his drooling, paralyzed face 24/7.
Tue, May 29, 2007 at 9:50:37 am PDT | link: 244 comments
Astronomers Spot 28 New Planets Orbiting Far-Off Stars
What Happened to the WW II Movie Stars ?
Read My Lips: I Will Raise Taxes [Some Democrats are telling voters a hard truth......]
Remarks by President Bush on Comprehensive Immigration Reform (5/29/07)--Call the Savannah office of the soon to be Ex- Senator Saxby Chambliss and politely express your response
(912) 232-3657 . The Pres is visiting my old home town. Trust me the staff is very nice and so is the office in Atlanta (770) 763-9090 .
Save Chambliss & Isakson from disaster--Bush is hard at work cementing his position as Second Worst President Ever.
Links and contact info:
CONTACT YOUR REPS NOW
MORE CONTACT INFO
Stop Amnesty Now!... a must read
Bush Attacks Immigration Deal Opponents--After so many years of faith and support, I see corruption everywhere and I wonder what kind of country I’m sending brave kids into harms way for. Why should they die for a ruling class that seemingly has nothing but contempt for us?
Term limit backers direct focus on politicians' perks
Caught On Tape: Cops Behaving Badly
Arizona guns find their way to Mexican drug lords--Rich drug dealers in Mexico are buying guns from America. And that’s news because...?
I'd not seen so many BATF lies in one article before:
- Cartel operatives flood Arizona to buy semiautomatic assault rifles, grenades, plastic explosives and rocket launchers in bulk
- "These are the same weapons you see on the battlefields of Iraq,"
- Mexican gunrunners exploit loopholes in state gun laws
- The expiration in 2004 of the U.S. federal assault-weapons ban left some states, including Arizona and Texas, with no prohibition against buying an unlimited number of semiautomatic rifles at once without paperwork.
- Newell estimates that about half of those sold in Arizona wind up in Mexico, a quarter find their way to street gangs in California, where the laws are stricter, and a quarter stay with Arizona criminals.
Pretty high lie density, even for the BATFtards.
Oh, fer Gawd's sake:
Fireworks cause environmental pollution
And!
"Ban on pellet guns would increase safety" [Barf Alert]
Firefox Takes 25% of Browser Market
Fall of Constantinople, May 29, 1453
No Organic Bee Losses (Solution to bee colony collapse?)
Education Notebook... Hillary Clinton: No 4-Year Old Left Behind
Thompson Movement Grows In S.C.
A thriving dark horse (Fred Thompson)
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/gibbon_decline.html
The great historian, Gibbons, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, gave five reasons for the fall of the great dynasty.
First: Rapid increase of divorce, with the undermining of the sanctity of the home, which is the basis of society.
Second: Higher and higher taxes; the spending of money for bread and celebrations.
Third: The mad craze for pleasure, sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.
Fourth: The building of gigantic armaments, when the real enemy was within; the decadence of the people.
Fifth: The decay of religion; faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life, and becoming impotent to guide it.
Everything You Should Know On Amnesty, You Learned In Kindergarten
Bush talks about immigration:Quotes from Dubyaon the topic ofimmigration--Sadly, it shows the depths of long-term contempt that the President and the New Majority and RMSP has for the legal citizens of this nation and the miserable choices we have been offered by both parties to lead us. The bottom line is we, our Republic, is at the precipice. We will either tend towards Liberty, or decay into a socialist hell. President Bush, along with many in Congress, seem hell bent on pushing into third world socialist hell.
The Islamist Threat Arrives in Switzerland
Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah is a preacher of global influence and is one of the senior figures of the fundamentalist Islamic Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia as well as a close associate of Osama bin Laden. He was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for his extremist ideologies from 1994 until 1999. Even after his imprisonment, he adopts the call to armed struggle against the infidel Western countries in his writings."
- A report filed by the Ministry of Justice in Switzerland, May 2007
In another sign of the spread of Islam within Europe, last month, Swiss Muslims announced their plan to open " Europe's biggest Islamic center" in the capital city of Bern. The center is estimated to cover 84 acres and to cost as much as $66 million to build.
Switzerland seems to be an unlikely locus for a battle over jihadist Islamism, but according to reports, its Muslim citizens, who make up about 5% of the total population, increasingly look to radical Middle East clerics for spiritual guidance. The country is also home to a controversial professor, Tariq Ramadan, whose visa to come to America was revoked by the State Department, and reports indicate there has been a rising tension between Muslims and non-Muslims there. In what could be considered pouring fuel on a fire, two weeks ago, the League of Swiss Muslims invited Sheik Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah of Saudi Arabia to participate in their annual conference.
Oy. Read it all here.
YESTERDAY'S POST on giving kids
hands-on skills raised the question of what to do about adults, many of whom never acquired the skills that people used to take for granted. That's actually something that the
Popular Mechanics folks are trying to address via their
Skill Sets feature, complete with how-to instructions everything from how to
hammer a nail properly to how to
solder a circuit board. Many items include video.
when Hillary books collide.
MORE BLOGGING ABOUT breasts and porn.
The marketing of lunacy (UK)--
The marketing of lunacy
The above was about the marketing of evil, now I will turn to the marketing of lunacy.
Full-Auto and Suppressor Ownership--Well, as the author mentioned, the 1986 law put paid to any hopes of a normal income individual owning a full auto weapon. Cap the supply + increase the demand = rocketing prices. I remember going to a gun show in OKC back around 1980. You could get a NIB Mac-10 for $ 400 (tax not included.) An Uzi was substantially more, roughly $ 8-900 (also NIB.) And don’t I now wish I had bought every single one the dealer had and stashed them away ! Hell, when I was in high school, you could by an NRA-Good condition Lewis gun in .303 for $ 35. By mail order.
La Raza and Americans
MISS UNIVERSE BOOS AND U.S. / MEXICAN RELATIONS: "For what it's worth, I think this kind of episode has more impact on Americans' attitudes toward other countries than is generally recognized. The fact that millions of Americans witnessed the rudeness in Mexico City will not make matters easier for those who are pushing immigration legislation in Congress."
It's not a big deal, but that's right. "We hate you -- let us in!" is a poor approach.
May 30th, 2007
From those celebrants of the gorgeous mosaic at ABC News:
Boos for Miss USA Aimed at U.S. Lawmakers
Heckling Rachel Smith Was a Reaction to the Proposed Immigration Legislation
May 30, 2007 — Hey, Miss USA: Don’t take it personally.
Maybe if we all start speaking Spanish the Mexicans will like us more.
Right, ABC?
22 Comments » "Since more than ten percent of their population has already come here, why don’t we just annex Mexico and make them the 51st state?"
The Brett Lamb Sheltered Workshop
Brett Lamb;
Anyhow, speaking of glass houses, some right-wing blog written by an artist who airbrushes cheeseball, kitsch paintings on motorcycle helmets, linked to the walk post and sent a couple of -- expected -- odd and offensive people to the comments (now deleted). Sociopaths and right wing blogs! They go together like ... dragons and boobies!
Now, that was a really interesting comment - in effect, a smear directed not at me as much as it is those honest working guys (and girls) who come to me with their wish list and a bike helmet, goal mask, or racecar.
We call automotive airbrushing "candy art" for a reason. It reflects the customer's whims, not the artist's. It's supposed to be fun and decorative, but rendered with the seriousness reserved for the potentially temporary. That's because this style of art is sometimes painted on objects known to hurtle down racetracks at speeds approaching 200 mph.
Indeed, these particular customers trust that your prep and paint technique won't result in the failure of structural integrity when they crash. Because eventually, they all crash.
Brett Lamb knows all this. Or he should - he's a graphic artist. And he's probably worn a silk-screened t-shirt at some point in his life. He may have even seen "boobies" and "dragons" cover art on a '70's rock album. And I'll bet he knows that when he screws up the cover of a program guide, the customer doesn't die.
Which brings me to the real point.
As it turns out, when he's not documenting the stalking of rich people by Toronto Star columnists, he's art director for the "Hot Docs" film festival;
For me, work on this year's Hot Docs festival began almost a year ago -- the first ad for RealScreen announcing the 2006 festival was due the day after the staff wrap party. It's a very satisfying project: it's quiet for several months, then things build slowly in the fall with Doc Soup, then the pace picks up in the new year and for the final two months it's madness as we juggle deadline after deadline ... Finally, it all comes together! Tonight is Opening Night and from here on it's parties and screenings (and more work, but that's the life, eh?).
I wonder - from where does "Hot Docs" get a portion of their funding?
"The Ontario government has announced it is spending around $600,000 this year on programs to help artists improve business skills, reported The Globe and Mail April 30. Among the programs: film-industry training labs at the Hot Docs festival..."
Isn't that thoughtful. Channeliing tax dollars towards filmmakers who find themselves unhappily excluded from that merit-based community known as "people who create stuff people will pay for voluntarily".
You see, for reasons that have never been clearly explained, select members of the "arts community" are actually sheltered from their own lack of market appeal through programs and funding provided by various arms of government!
Hot Docs is one of 34 film festivals across the country supported by the media arts program at the Council. Support for media arts festivals is aimed at raising the profile of Canadian independent film and video artists and their works, and helping them connect with distributors, exhibitors and broadcasters.
In other industries, these people are called "corporate welfare bums".
It's not new for elitists to direct ridicule towards the whims and tastes of working class Canadians. You'd just think that subsidized elitists would exercise a little self-restraint.
While Brett may offer precautionary advice that the road to artistic misery is to allow money to "dictate what you do" - that's the path that I and the oilfield workers, electricians, lawyers, doctors, and engineers who ask for "kitsch" on their helmets, cars, shop vehicles walk every day. Beyond the shiny, huggy, distainful realm of the publicly funded arts, there exist people who do that miserable, cheesy, commercially viable work to earn the bucks to pay the taxes to prop up the budgets of films and festivals that keep the kind of creative genius required to generate posters and brochures from having to sully itself with a second job behind a Burger King counter.
You know, if someone actually scraped these artistic parasites off the public tit, it might inspire a few of them to create something worth paying for.
Or, increase the number of available workers for the food service industry.
Win, win.
Posted by Kate at
3:02 PM |
Comments (64) "Curiosity got the better of me and I checked out a link or two from this Brett charactor's blog.
I'll give the lad credit. He certainly knows where to find taxpayer's dollars."
It Takes a Socialist Village --"it worked with smokers." Not exactly. I think the smoking issue is more like the last straw. People are starting to open their eyes and think, "Whats next? My choice of car? My cooking oil? Gambling?
Decadence, here we come:
You Don't Speak for Me! --
Illegal aliens from any country should never be rewarded with benefits or privileges
Becoming an American citizen is a unique and wonderful privilege.
War is coming to Tucson--Here in Wisconsin you’d think that the war is a 1000 miles away, but it isn’t. 1) Two weeks ago a Wisconsin cop was murdered by an illegal alien with an arrest record going through four states before he hit Wisconsin. He also had five stolen Social Security Numbers. None of his numerous priors resulted in much jail time much less deportation. So now we’ve buried a cop. 2) This week we discovered that the city of Milwaukee, after and exhaustive back-round check, hired an illegal alien to its police force!!! Turns out our non-citizen cop had stolen a dead person’s identity a decade ago. More outrageously, he’s still collecting his full pay while his case is being considered...this is not a South issue, it’s a national crisis.
RNC Fires Phone Solicitors--“They seem to forget that corporations can’t vote”
"Any assertion that overall donations have gone down is patently false," Miss Schmitt said. "We continue to outraise our Democrat counterpart by a substantive amount (nearly double)."
I wonder if the RNC will outsource its fundraising to Mexico.
--Here's the 2004 election cycle donations by group:
Industry-Interest Group/Repubs/Percent to Repubs
Oil & Gas $20,587,439 80.30%
*General Contractors $19,361,814 75.00%
Automotive $15,945,598 78.10%
*Food & Beverage $9,380,217 72.50%
*Food Process/Sales $8,191,115 72.50%
*Building Materials $8,156,486 84.30%
*Home Builders $7,887,672 78.00%
*Subcontractors $7,359,758 74.10%
Repub/Conservative $7,117,834 99.50%
Chemicals $5,661,598 77.80%
*Livestock $4,504,640 77.60%
*Trucking $4,380,337 85.40%
Forest Products $4,064,931 79.50%
Railroads $3,862,217 77.40%
Mining $3,721,316 84.90%
Tobacco $2,719,055 74.20%
*Business Assns $1,707,938 84.90%
Gun Rights $1,160,405 87.80%
*Poultry & Eggs $1,132,119 74.10%
Waste Management $1,061,838 76.20%
source:
http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/partisans.asp?cycle=2004
When the "R's" call, hit this:
Chain Migration
Stanley Kurtz links to an article on chain migration;
Pablo Baltazar was the first in his family to cross the Rio Grande, seeking a place where his children would never have to fight over morsels of meat in a watery stew, as he and his siblings had done on hungry nights. In the three decades since his crossing, all nine of his siblings followed, bringing spouses and children. The Baltazar clan, now too numerous to count, stretches from Eastern North Carolina, where its members started out working the fields, to Florida, Texas and Colorado.
Their family ties to Pablo, who was granted legal residency in a 1986 amnesty, have helped nearly all of them become legal residents.'
Kurtz writes;
[I]n a clear echoing of the European pattern–the article notes, "Chain migration has cleared out entire village in Mexico. And it has turned areas of rural North Carolina into places where Spanish is the dominant language." That is the heart of the problem. Not only does chain migration make nonsense of numerical limits, it transfers entire extended clans–even whole villages–from one country to another. By setting up a little world that’s culturally and linguistically just like the originating country, chain migration effectively blocks assimilation.
Posted by Kate at
5:33 PM |
Comments (8)
God help us, the man has gone bonkers: A NEW BUSH CLIMATE POLICY: Jonathan Adler
has a roundup.
Brisco Lives!
Over the years, I have gradually lost interest in episodic television. Most of them recycle the same old plot lines; the good ones find new twists and different personalities to showcase, but the stories themselves don't vary much from one to another. The exceptions to that rule have gradually disappeared, or more often get cancelled before anyone knows they exist.
Fortunately, we live in the era of the DVD -- and that has allowed us to revisit shows that fall into that latter category. In 1993, Fox aired a show that blended science fiction, Western, action, and comedy called The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr -- and promptly cancelled it after 27 episodes, including a two-hour pilot. Given that it was Fox and that they hardly had anything else to air, many wondered why they didn't give the series a chance to find an audience. The DVD collection with all 27 shows may prove that Fox made a big mistake, not unlike the one they made in canceling Firefly.
In fact, the two shows have some similarity. Both have the same elements, and both challenge traditional notions of storytelling and of the nature of heroes. Brisco County was more comedic than Firefly, but both used sardonic comments for stylish humor. Both used recurring villains and secondary characters to an unusual extent to flesh out the strange universe created in both shows, and to entrance the audience.
Brisco County had more of a serial nature to its episodes. Brisco's father gets killed in the pilot (played by R. Lee Ermey), and his son gets hired to track down the gang that killed him. Each of the episodes brings him closer to that goal, and by the end of the season, he actually accomplishes the task. However, a golden orb with supernatural powers complicates matters, and Brisco and others want to find out the nature and the origin of the orb, and how to control its seemingly limitless power.
The cast is top-flight. Bruce Campbell played Brisco, with the same comedic sense that he displayed in Army of Darkness and other Sam Raimi features. John Astin played the absent-minded Professor Albert Wickwire. Billy Drago played Brisco's archnemesis, John Bly, whose gang Brisco seeks. Lesser-known actors fill out the rest of the important roles, such as Julias Carry playing fellow bounty-hunter Lord Bowler, Kelly Rutherford as temptress Dixie Cousins, and Christian Clemenson as Socrates Poole. John Pyper-Ferguson plays the often-killed Pete Hutter, a nutter with a wide vocabulary (and apparently a lot of luck).
Tonight we watched the pilot episode, and I wasn't sure what to expect. After all, 14 years have gone by since it aired, and memories can play tricks on you. Fortunately, it was exactly as I remembered it: funny, inventive, wise-cracking, and full of surprises. Each commercial break featured a cliff-hanger, and every resolution had a laugh. Even the First Mate liked it -- and she doesn't even remember the show at all.
I still think Fox blew an opportunity to carve out an audience with Brisco County. Lucky for us, we can revisit it and see that for ourselves all over again.
Posted by Ed Morrissey at
9:49 PM |
Comments (1)
The man is talking the talk. Big time. Alternate link for the MP3 Audio:
http://tinyurl.com/2yy3yq audio tip Jeff...Living in Terror By Fred Thompson...| Permalink | Comments (2) "He makes McCain's "Straight Talk Express" look like a bus at the bottom of a very deep ravine."
After the earlier guest post from Duncan Hunter, several readers emailed about yesterday’s post at the ABC radio network site by alleged candidate Fred Thompson: Living in Terror. link: 391 comments "What Bush has done is set Republican candidates free by aligning himself with Democrats on amnesty... "
Chavez has responded by shootng at the demonstrators. Fox News reports these crowds have been peaceful. This dictator is the darling of Hollywoodand the Joe Kennedy's soulmate. If only they would move there. John Bolton calls him "Castro without brains," maybe so but he has the brutality down pat.
#19 Sharmuta
If there is one thing GWB gets it's this. People forget he qualified and served as a fighter pilot, at the time his bird was an interceptor single function airplane whose sole purpose was to kill an enemy bomber before it got to the US.
I think he still thinks that way.
Kill a threat before it delivers.