Remembering Tommy.

Tommy Thompson was a candidate who had it all: a lovable personality, an incredible career as the governor of Wisconsin, and disturbing tales about alternative methods of conception. But sadly, he is no longer with us. After a dismal showing at the Ames Straw Poll, Thompson bravely decided to fall on his own political sword, foregoing the risk of any further humiliation at the hands of citizens who simply refused to understand his wholesome mid-western ways.

(From The Politico)
Keeping his promise to withdraw from the GOP contest if he finished worse than second at the Ames Straw Poll, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson announced in a statement tonight that he was "leaving the campaign trail."

"I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as President, but I respect the decision of the voters," Thompson said in the press release.

The first thought that came to mind as I read the news with tear-filled eyes was that age old question: why do bad things happen to good people? To be perfectly honest, I don't know. I really don't know. But I do know this: as long as Tommy -- and his beloved daughter Tommi -- remain in our hearts, they'll be with us forever. So please, don't cry for Tommy Thompson. Keep him alive in your memory each and every day, remembering him as he would have wanted to be remembered -- as a stalwart cultural crusader standing up for the rights of the little man, implementing common sense policies, and sailing around the globe with medical students in order to heal the impoverished natives of third world countries.


Farewell, The Honorable Tommy Thompson.

Stupid Celebrity Tricks

Hollywood celebrities, in their never-ending quest to rationalize their frivolous existence, love to become the self-proclaimed champions of popular causes. You've got Leonardo Dicaprio lending his intellectual gravitas to the go-green movement, Brangelina raising Africa out of poverty by adopting a couple of African children (while posing in pictures with a few more), Tom Cruise crusading against the evils of psychiatric drugs, and so on and so forth. But there aren't many causes quite so popular among celebrities as that venerated grand-daddy of celebrity causes, first amendment rights. Every year, various celebrity organizations congregate in order to hand out cute little awards to the celebrities who possess the most zeal for the defense of free speech. It's usually easy to spot the main contenders; they're the ones that annoy the general public by taking every opportunity to talk incessantly about how the Bush administration won't let them talk incessantly about how bad the Bush administration is, and then proceed to talk about the growing gap between the noble poor and filthy, self-centered rich people like themselves, and why the Bush administration is at fault for not taking more of their money for redistribution. In other words, just about every celebrity qualifies for these coveted first amendment awards, and ultimately, the winner is probably selected at random.

Last year, the prestigious Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award happened to be awarded to Sean Penn, who graced the ears of his audience with an eloquent acceptance speech about --of all things-- the evils of the Bush administration. Naturally, the speech was filled with the whiny, self-righteous moralizing, grand-standing, and pretentious theatrics that characterize most of the anti-Bush rants that usher from the mouths of the Hollywood elite. Sean Penn was in his element, standing as the lone beacon of truth in the midst of a vast Republican ocean of corruption and deceit:

Should we speak truth, we stand against government efforts to intimidate or legislate in the service of censorship. Whether under the guise of a Patriot Act or any other benevolent-sounding rationale for the age-old game of shutting down dissent by discouraging independent thinking and preventing progressive social change.
...
globally, the United States is number one at demanding accountability and backing up that demand with imprisonment. But, when it comes to our president, vice president, secretary of state, former secretary of defense...this insistence on accountability vanishes. All of a sudden, what's past is prologue. And we're just "forward-looking." But some people can't just look forward. Men and women stationed in Iraq at this moment, under orders of a Commander-in-Chief so sufficiently practiced in the art of deception, that he got vast numbers of American journalists and the most esteemed media outlets of this country, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and PBS to eagerly serve his agenda-building for war. And the process also induced vast numbers of artists and performers (probably even some in this room tonight) to keep quiet and facilitate the push for an invasion in Iraq.
...
Christopher Reeve promised to get out of that chair. Well, I don't know about you, but it feels like he's up now and I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't on his shoulders. Let it be for something.

Of course, after the speech was over, applause was the only thing that Mr. Penn received for his daring monologue. He didn't receive jail time, sharp reprimands from the media, a pink slip, or any negative consequences whatsoever. He continues to live his life in obscene luxury, untroubled by the supposedly far-reaching tentacles of the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, down in Venezuela, critics of the government can actually run into real trouble. Hugo Chavez, the goblin-esque leader of Venezuela's socialist government, has been proactively cracking down on the country's independent media for years. Recently, RCTV, the second largest television station in the country, was shut down by Chavez due to the stations history of airing material that presented criticism of his administration. Just last month, the Venezuelan legislature passed a law that allows for the deportation of any foreigners that criticize the government. Venezuela is now classified as "Not Free" by Freedom House, ranked 115th out of 168 in press freedom by Reporters Without Borders, and a US Senate resolution has been passed condemning the Chavez administration's increasing hostility towards the free press.

So, you'd naturally expect that an outspoken defender of freedom of speech like Sean Penn wouldn't be the first in line to cozy up to Hugo Chavez. And you'd be wrong:

(From the Associated Press)
CARACAS, Venezuela - Sean Penn applauded President Hugo Chavez as the Venezuelan leader lambasted the Bush administration and demanded an end to war in Iraq.

Chavez met privately with the 46-year-old actor for two hours Thursday, praising him as being "brave" for urging Americans to impeach President Bush.
Chavez said he and Penn discussed the question of "why the (U.S.) empire attacks Chavez so much," saying Venezuela's oil wealth is a key reason.

He also said Washington is "afraid that the people of the United States will learn the real truth" about the situation in Venezuela, citing his social programs for the poor.

"If the people of the United States, those millions and millions of poor people ... if that nation realizes what is truly happening here, there would be a revolution in the United States," Chavez said, eliciting applause from Penn.

Some Chavez opponents were angered by Penn's visit.

If I was the kind of person who gets upset when a celebrity does something stupid, I would be angry as well. But, being who I am, I have to say that I find Penn's ignorant international faux-pas more amusing than infuriating. An actor behaving in a hypocritical manner? Whodathunkit!

But the event serves to highlight one of the dangers that the more-red-than-pink variety of liberalism presents to our country. While some conservatives will eagerly sacrifice liberty for security, certain liberals would be equally willing to sacrifice that same liberty for "social progress". While they can talk for hours about the importance of a free press, in actuality, many on the far left consider free press to merely be a means to accomplish the end of radical social change. They believe, as the marxists of decades past believed, that the masses need to be incited to rise up against their upper-class masters, and the inflammatory power of the media is the perfect tool to accomplish this feat. Once the desired changes in society have been made, the tool is no longer necessary, and can be replaced with a state-run apparatus designed to perpetuate the new order.

Due to this mindset, Penn is all for freedom of speech in America, because he hates Bush and wants to oust him from the White House. But on the other hand, Penn is indifferent to freedom of speech in Venezuela, because he likes Hugo Chavez's socialist policies and anti-Bush stance, and wants him to remain in place. Apparently, Penn believes that freedom of speech is sacred in places with governments he doesn't like, but can be tossed out the window in countries with "progressive" governments. I don't think I need to say that this is stupid, but I'll say it anyways: this is stupid.

I don't know if I've ever actually seen a movie with Sean Penn in it, but if I have, I sort of regret watching it. I also sort of regret that Sean Penn is one of the only big actors to have acted in a movie partially shot in Omaha.

I guess we still have Jack Nicholson.

A Little Q&A

Last night, CNN held it's much-hyped YouTube debate. According to CNN, the debate was a "historical" forum which gave citizens "uncut" and "unfiltered" access to the candidates. According to me, CNN's description is hogwash.

CNN would like you to believe that this debate was a departure from televised debates in the past because of one fundamental difference: instead of being asked by a moderator, the questions featured in the debate were submitted by voters in the form of YouTube videos. At first glance, this looks very high-tech, shiny, hip, and revolutionary. Unfortunately, the assertion that this new addition to the television debate format changes the way television debates work in any meaningful way is plainly false. There is absolutely no difference in substance (although there is a difference in style) between the voter-submitted YouTube videos used in last nights debate and the voter-submitted written questions that have been the mainstay of televised debates for years. In both cases, the questions originate from ordinary citizens; presenting the questions in video form does nothing to make the debate more of a conversation with the American people.

And in both cases, the conversation with the American people is an illusion. Ultimately, the questions that get played or read on television have to pass through television producers who select the questions that they want asked. In all likelihood, the content of the debate would change very little if the producers wrote all the questions themselves.

But that doesn't really matter. Debates shouldn't be judged based on where the questions originate or how stylishly they're presented. They should be about candidates having rational discussions about the issues at hand in order to give voters a clear idea of what their individual positions are. I don't care if it's Jim Lehrer or your next-door neighbor Bernie asking Barrack Obama what his plan for Iraq is; I care about what Barrack Obama's plan is. Debates are about the answers, not the questions.

In that sense, the YouTube debate can be seen as a step backward for reasoned political discussion in America. As soon as the debate was over, an article on CNN.com boasted that,

"The lights and cameras were focused on the eight candidates, but it was the personal, heartfelt and, at times, comical nature of the user questions that stole the spotlight."

The title of the article?

"Questions, not answers, highlight YouTube debate"

Apparently, CNN believes that a good debate is one in which the issues are raised in an entertaining fashion, not one in which the candidates are able to examine those issues thoroughly. I don't want to be mean, but that's pretty dang stupid. Many people have accused television of watering down politics in this country, but very rarely has a television station been so open about the fact. If CNN wants to hold a truly groundbreaking debate, they should try giving the candidates more than a paltry thirty-seconds-to-a-minute to answer questions, and eliminate fluffy queries like "who was your favorite teacher and why?"

There are many things wrong with television debates, but I've never considered un-entertaining questions to be one of them. Nor is a lack of "conversation" between the people and the candidates the primary flaw in our political system. What we need is more in-depth public discourse on the issues facing our country, and CNN's YouTube debate did less than nothing to deliver this.

Hitler Obviously Had Better Hair.

Today, someone compared Bush to Hitler. Of course, certain people have been doing that for almost half a decade now, so the statement itself isn't all that shocking. What might be a little more shocking is the fact that the man making the dubious comparison wasn't just another marginalized, green-haired nut waving an obscenity-laden sign by the road. It was congressman Keith Ellison, America's very first Muslim member of the House.

[from The Telegraph]
Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers.

[9/11 was] almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

To applause from his audience of 300 members of Atheists for Human Rights, Mr Ellison said he would not accuse the Bush administration of planning 9/11 because "you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you".

Vice-President Dick Cheney's stance of refusing to answer some questions from Congress was "the very definition of totalitarianism, authoritarianism and dictatorship", he added.

Okay, so...

(1) Bush is a Hitler-esque dictator.

and yet...

(2) He lets members of congress openly label him as such.

Bush is the nicest evil dictator ever.

Creepy Video... Explained?

For everyone who was disturbed or confused by the video I posted featuring presidential candidate Mike Gravel staring into the camera and throwing a rock into a pond: fear not. Below is an interview in which the creepy guy himself explains the meaning of the video. Prepare to be enlightened.

Fighting Fire With Firefighters

Once upon a time, there was a man named John Kerry who wanted to be the President. Unfortunately, he didn't have looks, charisma, or name recognition. But he did have something the other guys didn't have: purple hearts. John Kerry was a decorated veteran of the Vietnam war, and he soon found that he could win support by emphasizing the fact that he was a war hero. Then the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth burst onto the scene: a bunch of guys who served with John Kerry in Vietnam and thought he was a low-down varmint who didn't earn his medals and betrayed the United States after his return. Whether or not the allegations were true, they stuck to him like some kind of ridiculous-looking adhesive baboon, and managed to destroy one of the most powerful pillars of the Kerry campaign. Needless to say, President John Kerry wasn't sworn into office on the 20th of January, 2005.

Flash forward to the present day, where a man named Rudy Giuliani is seeking the presidency. He should be a long-shot candidate: he sides against the vast majority of his own party on just about every hot-button issue out there. But up until now, none of that has mattered, because Giuliani is a decorated veteran of the War on Terror; the man who heroically led New York City during it's darkest hour. Running solely on his record as a hero, Giuliani, a liberal, east-coast politician, has managed to capture the heart of a party that's been controlled by bible-belt conservatives for over four decades. But now, Giuliani will have his own Swift Boat Veterans to deal with: the disgruntled firefighters of New York City. Yes, those firefighters. The ones you always see in pictures of 9/11, the ones standing at Rudy's side by the rubble of the twin towers. As it turns out, a lot of them actually think that Giuliani was a low-down varmint who mismanaged the response to 9/11 and caused the deaths of hundreds of NYC firemen. And they're going public with those allegations. This video, entitled "Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend", was created by the International Association of Firefighters to shatter Giuliani's seemingly unbreakable reputation as the hero of 9/11. Will this be the beginning of the end for the Giuliani campaign? We'll see...

Various Videos

In the absence of an actual article, here are a bunch of random videos combined with tiny articles that are definitely not actual. Read them, watch them, love them, or ignore them and move on to a more interesting part of the Internet.

Dumb Global-Warming-Type Video
This video, created by Madonna, is a promotional music video for Live Earth, Al Gore's miserable failure of a global-warming awareness concert. On the surface, it's a fairly slick music video made with a lot of quick cutting and emotional footage. Beneath the surface, it isn't anything at all. Just try paying attention to the lyrics for a few seconds and you'll probably notice something: the song was constructed entirely from a bunch of vague hippy-isms that don't even relate to the subject at hand, or any subject for that matter. There are a few visual gems to watch for as well: several shots of evil nuclear power plants, which happen to be carbon-emission free (they emit steam, not smoke); lots of wretched, impoverished children, who apparently became wretched and impoverished because of global warming; and middle-eastern Muslims, who would sooner behead an infidel like Al Gore than hug a tree, bowing in a mosque (which is obviously the green thing to do). On the plus side, this is probably the best Madonna music video ever, completely due to the total absence of the artist herself in the footage.





Video of a Scary Person of Color
There are two kinds of people in this world: scary people, and not-scary people. The person in this video is definitely one of the former. The question is, why was this on C-SPAN? Scary.





Video of a Scary White Guy
Mike Gravel is an obscure ex-senator from Alaska who happens to be running for president. He gained a big online following due to his over the top antics and anti-establishment ranting during the recent Democratic candidate debates. And he just made this video. If you can tell me what it means, you win a biscuit.



And that's about it.
(To people reading this on facebook: embedded videos don't work on facebook. Go to the actual blog, dagnabbit!)