Friday, June 30, 2006

On Olbermann, Seinfeld and Liberal humor..



Clark Baker
has an excellent incisive piece on a recent minor brouhaha between the obtuse ex-sport analyst turned Lib Cynic-shill.

ex-Liberal in Hollywood: On Humor & Fascism

The incident is reported and drilled into and the telling point, regarding Olbermann and his fellow travelers, is this quote from George Orwell:

Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security…

What I object to is the intellectual cowardice of people who are objectively and to some extent emotionally pro-Fascist, but who don’t care to say so and take refuge behind the formula ‘I am just as anti-fascist as anyone, but—’. The result of this is that so-called peace propaganda is just as dishonest and intellectually disgusting as war propaganda.


To which Baker adds:
Although Olbermann thinks he confronted hate, he actually attacked Americans who have good reason to question his patriotism. I wasn’t privy to the email exchange, but those who subordinate their country and servicemen for envy or greed (ratings) probably lacks spiritual values as well.


The other point leading to the topic of this post really made sense to me.

Seinfeld was watched and enjoyed by millions but you will all remember the dichotomy exposed on the LAST Episode.
Evidently most of his viewers were shocked at it... because they saw something that differed with their impression of the back-story of the entire series.

I was shocked, too.. but only in that all the self-absorbed numbnuts ditziness had come home to roost on the main characters. Which obviously you wouldnt expect from a n obstensible Liberal creative type.

But then Larry David, even in his most current effort is the world's best caricature of what most think a Lib is really all about.

Friday, June 23, 2006

US World Cup Team: Time to move on

I'm sure that most of us soccer fans were disappointed to see the US fail to make it out of their group in Germany; though most of us werent surprised at it. The US team drew into one of, if not the, most difficult groups in the opening round.

But the real disappointment comes at the rather unspectacular end to so many bright though not brilliant careers on the team.

Brian McBride wont be back, Claudio Reyna wont. Eddie Pope and anyone else selected for the 1998 team likewise. Surely after the 2002 performance we'd hoped to see the team improve on their steadying and gritty influence.

One we cannot say that about is Landon Donovan... though if his performance is any indicator of our future fortunes, we have cause for dismay.
Donovan easily took on the role of face of the US team from McBride since '02; yet it is now McBride, again, who personifies the team.

Bruce Arena has to share some of the blame for this, the US having only 4 shots on goal in three games being the result of his conservative tactics. But he had little to work with..only Eddie Johnson had any real goal-scoring success in the qualifying run-up.
Let's face it.. we dont have much to choose from and banking on Freddy Adu to pull us out of the swamp is a little much. But, right now he, along with Johnson, is all we have.

So, I'm thinking that the entire team needs to be scuttled and remade. Anyone who was on the 02 team needs to be told that they will have to actually work HARDER to make the team than a newcomer would.

If for no other reason than to send a message to Landon Donovan.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Al Quaeda in the West..

A collection of misfits, fascists, Religious nuts, sociopaths and self-disenfranchised:
There may be enough hate lying around in the West to forge committed Jihadis even in say, Marin County, feats which previously required training camps in places like Afghanistan. Gates of Vienna and the Politics of CP have reported on the possible presence of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra in rural Virginia. And as the Spectator notes "My, terrorists do seem to have a strong affinity for Western universities."
......
"The suspect is a 24-year-old man, a 2000 graduate of Mount Hebron High School in Howard County and a 2005 graduate of Loyola College, where he majored in biology. Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar's family home is a house valued at more than $1 million in one of Baltimore County's most affluent neighborhoods. ... Jabbar's address is in Anton North, one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Baltimore County, with million-dollar mansions hidden by trees and at the end of long, twisting driveways. A list of residents includes such Baltimore business names as Frankel and Luskin, and former Blue Cross/Blue Shield Chief Executive William L. Jews."

- The Belmont Club: Read it all, including comments


The perfect storm will succeed sooner or later, if they run out of Islamiscists they can always recruit from Kos commenters.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Falling on the tracks

For years I posted and argued on the politics forum of a soccer site. It was fun for a while, then became more and more tedious as I kept having to knock down strawmen in the form of what Limbaugh calls "Drive-by" cliches; those old saws like "Where are the WMD" and "Bush Lied, Children died."

And THEN I get treated to my own party preferring to preserve their power and seats rather than stand up for any principle of conservative thought. Especially guys like Ted Stevens and Dennis Hastert..meaning they will be conservative to get elected, then they will be 'quasi-Byrd-democrats'to KEEP getting elected.

Well, screw it! Arguing with other civilians doesnt work... and the reason it doesnt work is those guys USUALLY are trying to salvage their own belief systems and world view. It's called denial.. obviously.. and no amount of evidence or fact will deter them. Not until the obvious is surrounding and about to drown them.

So I think I'll just come back to this anonymous, unseen, unread, space to distill and write down what I think. I get about two hits a day and that's alright.

Since I read a lot of middle-right wing blogs, and sure cant beat them in either content or point of view. So I guess I'm going to have to find some way of sifting the odd nugget here and there.
Eh we'll see.