Moron Rosie O'Donnell's Fascination With the 9-11 Denial Crowd
As I mentioned yesterday on the Andrea Shea-King Show, the first person to bring up 9-11 Denial on The View was not Rosie O'Donnell, it was Mr Barbra Streisand himself, James Brolin:
Note as well that after decrying how partisan everybody is, Brolin brings up www.911weknow.com, a website that pushes the ridiculous 9-11 Mysteries video. The movie claims controlled demolition of the World Trade Center buildings. Oddly enough, Brolin is married to Barbra Streisand, who's Jewish, and 9-11 Mysteries promotes the work of Eric Hufschmid, a Holocaust Denier. This is a pattern we will see repeated.
The next time 9-11 Denial was discussed on the View, Broadway singer Christine Ebersole brought it up, this time while discussing YouTube videos:
Note that Rosie appears to recognize the website and its proprietor John Conner (now going by the name of Mark Dice, BTW). She mimicks Conner and shouts out "9-11 Was an Inside Job!" twice, thrilling the kooks to no end.
But guess what? Rosie's famously a lesbian, right? Remember when she got "married" to her partner in San Francisco?
I'm not homophobic, I’m a pervert-o-phobic. I’m afraid of perverts. I’m afraid of perverts destroying decency in society and in the media. I’m afraid of perverts being able to get married and ruining the meaning of marriage.
As noted in the Page 6 item yesterday, Rosie cribbed her World Trade Center 7 fantasies from a website known as What Really Happened.
But guess what? Rosie's rather famously a big liberal and a fan of the Clintons, right? Let's see what else we can find on What Really Happened:
Iranian naval vessels on Friday seized 15 British sailors and marines who had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf, British and U.S. officials said. Britain immediately protested the detentions, which come at a time of high tension between the West and Iran.
The Iranians said they had captured the sailors and marines because they were operating inside Iranian territorial waters.
"The Royal Navy replied that they were well inside Iraqi territorial waters (and) that was the end of the conversation," Aandahl said.
If you study history, you know that sometimes wars are touched off over apparently minor issues. This is a major issue, and so odds are that it will be resolved. But if Iran draws a line in the sand, this could be the flashpoint.
The Democrats are beginning to see the problem with being dependent on a very few, very wealthy donors to the party.
Leading Democrats, including Senator Obama of Illinois, are distancing themselves from an essay published this week by one of their party's leading financiers that called for the Democratic Party to "liberate" itself from the influence of the pro-Israel lobby.
You know, it used to be kooks on the right wing who talked about the Israel lobby; now it's the kooks on the left wing.
The Soros article puts Democrats in the awkward position of choosing between Mr. Soros, a major funder of their causes, and the pro- Israel lobby, whose members are also active in campaign fund-raising. Pressed by The New York Sun, some Democrats aired their differences with Mr. Soros.
One day after 21 people were arrested during a demonstration that vandalized a U.S. Army recruiting office on Milwaukee's east side, Wisconsin peace activist groups on Tuesday said some protesters might increasingly turn to destruction as their frustrations mount.
The good news is that the "Peace" movement seems to be attracting a younger demographic, according to the rap sheets:
Arrested were: Kelsey M. Kazik, 20, Sara Keiza, 17, Jillian Duckwitz, 21, Richard A. Ketcham, 22, Thomas P. Buckholt, 17, Andrew L. Ortlieb, 24, Kathryn E. Jacobs, 20, Keith Crum, 20, and Andrew Smart, 19, all of Milwaukee; Craig R. Barringer, 20, of Waukesha; Jonathon W. Wilson, 17, of Wauwatosa; Amy M. Barger, 19, Jessica L. Brooks, 18, Derek W. Johnson, 17, Nathan J. Bartelt, 20, Jeffrey G. Lavato, 18, and Kyle Sawson, 21, all of West Bend; and David W. Clerkin, 21, of Madison.
As the world’s warmest winter on record drew to an end with a weekend snow storm, a group of religious leaders started walking across the state Friday to bring attention to global warming.
“People have been asking me what happens if it snows,” said the Rev. Fred Small of the First Church Unitarian in Littleton. “I tell them: ‘We walk.’ ”
The nine-day haul from downtown Northampton, Mass., to Copley Square in Boston was planned far before forecasts called for a weekend of snow and sleet just a few days before the start of spring.
“It was windy and cold. I was walking on the front of the line and I felt like I was bow of a ship with the wind just coming into my face,” said the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Johns of the Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, where the group warmed up on bowls of lentil and minestrone soup after walking eight miles in deep snow from Northampton to Amherst.
Bullitt-Johns said the walkers kept their spirits strong by singing “Keep on walking forward, never turning back,” a hymn they had chanted in prayer services before the march to Boston.
The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian of the Haydenville Congregational Church said the snow was so deep, it felt like she was breaking trail.
You know, I used to think that I was complimenting Pam when I said that her blogging style reminded me of my own. Now I realize that I was complimenting myself.
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York University.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you or me...
No word on whether there are any bombshells in there, like correspondence between Earl Browder and Alger Hiss.
The good news is that the reason this stuff is being given over is that the CP-USA is a spent force:
The Communist Party USA contacted Tamiment, which is devoted to the study of labor history and progressive politics, a year ago. Mr. Nash said he was surprised when he got the call. “I didn’t really realize it still existed,” he admitted.
During the summer, Mr. Nash said, he and a group of students scoured the party’s offices on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. They frantically packed up papers before contractors came in to renovate the space, which was being rented out. The donation includes 20,000 books, journals and pamphlets and a million photographs from The Daily Worker’s archives.
I don't always look at the magazines right away; they make great reading material on a plane. But this one, from last week is quite annoying, and will result in the cancellation of my SI subcription. As you can imagine, despite the attempt at humor on the cover, there is no similar levity inside the magazine. The attempts to tie it to sports are tenuous at best; for example, they speculate that Willie Mays might never have caught Vic Wertz's fly ball if the temperature had just been a degree warmer that day.
They also show that all the major league ballparks in Florida would be under water, showing what the Sunshine State would look like with a "six meter sea level rise". But of course nobody outside of Al Gore is projecting that increase; they mention that by 2100 the rise is projected at "up to a meter".
That the planet is getting warmer seems self-evident, although those digging out from the latest snowstorm might have trouble believing it. The question is whether it's the sun heating up or the earth not radiating as much heat back into space. And there's plenty of evidence that the sun itself is heating up, making it somewhat ridiculous for us to try to combat.
As usual for the doomsayers, there is no discussion of any positive effects of global warming; we're all losers. With no apparent sense of irony, they present a good amount of charts showing how many fewer ski resorts there will be in Europe based on some projections handily provided to SI by uninterested third parties like the Natural Resources Defense Council. Oh, jeez, you mean I won't be able to fly over to the Alps for a week? Qu'elle dommage!
Where does this default assumption come from? And why is it so prevalent among our affluent educated class (which, after all, would seem to overlap considerably with the people being complained about?). It comes, I think, from our schools and, especially, from our colleges and universities. The first are staffed by liberals long accustomed to see America as full of problems needing solving; the latter have been packed full of the people cultural critic Roger Kimball calls "tenured radicals," people who see this country and its people as the source of all evil in the world.
As Barone notes, these theories don't get accepted explicitly, but the underlying spite for the US and its values gets absorbed into the implicit worldview. Which is a shame, since the US is a force for good in the world:
What they have been denied in their higher education is an accurate view of history and America's place in it. Many adults actively seek what they have been missing: witness the robust sales of books on the Founding Fathers. Witness, also, the robust sales of British historian Andrew Roberts's splendid "History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900."
Roberts points out almost all the advances of freedom in the 20th century have been made by the English-speaking peoples -- Americans especially, but British, as well, and also (here his account will be unfamiliar to most American readers) Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. And he recalls what held and holds them together by quoting a speech Winston Churchill gave in 1943 at Harvard: "Law, language, literature -- these are considerable factors. Common conceptions of what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play, especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial justice and above all a love of personal freedom ... these are the common conceptions on both sides of the ocean among the English-speaking peoples."
The US has its flaws; even conservatives agree with liberals on that point (although they certainly disagree on what the flaws are). But it also has systems in place to correct those flaws, and anyway the flaws are minor compared to most other countries.
I'll put up my thoughts about the latest episode here, once the show airs. I'm going to repeat my prediction from last week, that Charla and Myrna, aka One and a Half Women, will be Phil-Liminated tonight. Winners? I'll go with Joyce and Uchenna, who I believe are the only prior season winners on "All-Stars".
Update: Well, another wonderful night for my quite logical predictions.
Teams leave for a ski area where there's apparently a glacier left what with all the global warming going on, and where they can then destroy part of that glacier to find a clue. The interesting thing is that this task uses some sort of satellite technology with directional beacons, and teams must realize that there are multiple sources.
As it works out, the chairlift starts at 8:00 AM, which means that there is an effective bunching of the teams; IIRC one of the few so far in the race. The Beauty Queens miss picking up backpacks at the end of the chairlift and so they must return.
Young gay, who arrive first, go straight to worst, apparently unable to cope with the technology, while Old Gay seemingly ace the challenge, and get the clue to go to Mozambique. Despite some apparent drama, all teams up on the same set of flights, so we've got another bunching in one episode.
Eric is wearing his funny "Colege" tee-shirt. This appears to be a not-so-subtle way of telling us that he's a dope.
In Mozambique, teams get a mine-sweeping exercise with rats. Now I have to admit, having never really encountered rats in my life I have to wonder what the big deal is--big mice, little hamsters is what they look like to me. Granted, I would not want to deal with them if they were not trained, but these were, so it would not bother me in the slightest.
One and a Half Women fall behind here, despite the obvious "low to the ground" advantage that Charla would appear to have. Is it trouble for them as predicted?
Next task is to go to Maputo. As it happens there are two exits, but the one to the left turns out to be the wrong way. The folks who see that there are two screw up, while ironically, the ones who missed seeing the second sign come out ahead at the Cluebox. The clue is a Detour: Pamper or Porter. This was a dividing line; the teams that chose Pamper won and the teams that chose Porter lost. They had to raise some 30 local currency units by providing manicures, or fill ten bags with coal and carry one of them to a particular address.
Well, Charla and Myrna, aka One and a Half Women managed to sell enough manicures (apparently to men) that they suddenly move from last to first, while all the teams taking the Porter route are in trouble. The other two teams to take that option are the Beauty Queens and the French Foreign Legion, and sure enough they are now in second and third.
Charla and Myrna make it to the mat first! Wow, way to call it, Brainster! They win a trip to Aruba. The BQs finish next, while the FFL take third.
The coal turns out to be a horrendous task, while the FFL manage to get enough from two (ridiculously two) manicures to move into third. Uchenna & Joyce, who are the last to arrive at the coal sack event look to be in severe trouble.
The Young Gays arrive and one announces that he's going to hug Phil with his coal-dust-covered hands. Phil shows those shifty moves that earned him all-eighth-grade honors. I had to laugh at this bit, because it was so un-PC for Phil to duck a gay embrace even if they can laugh it off as avoiding a coal-dust-on-his-clothes embrace.
And now, it looks like Joyce & Uchenna are doomed. As they run up towards Phil, do we notice a little, ummm, surgical enhancement to Joyce? Indeed we do, as Phil solemnly tells them that they are the last team to arrive. But, after a moment, he is pleased to inform them that they have gotten one of the bye-weeks. Still they must finish first next leg or face a 30-minute penalty.
It was a breath-taking, historic, and emotional day in Washington, D.C. You won't know it if you tune in to the usual MSM channels. But new media--bloggers, conservative documentarians, Internet activists, FReepers (giant thread here), citizen journalists, photojournalists, and talk radio hosts--turned out in full force to participate and cover the Gathering of Eagles counter-protest. Thousands upon thousands turned out despite freezing temperatures and hairy travel conditions. We met bikers who drove up all night from Huntsville, Alabama; a retired NYC firefighter who arrived here at 2am; college students who traveled from Massachusetts; a Vietnam veteran's wife who bought plane tickets at the last minute from San Francisco; and countless participants who arrived as part of Move America Forward's cross-country caravan.
