Rent-a-Veep

The Smoking Gun has the rap on the ALGORE'S REQUIREMENTS for his lectures and other appearances.



Basically, bring the Prius, ditch the prey-ess. (That's press, for those of you north of the Mason-Dixon line)

Burge for President!

Bring those babies out to be kissed!The Iowahawk for President campaign is a rolling along. Here, Iowa politicians begin their stumping duties. Well, at least.

My dad was from Iowa. It's a cool place.

A Day In the Lives

You didn't hear much about this on the sixth. But fifty years ago on that date, the future Sir Paul McCartney agreed to accompany his friend Ivan Vaughan to see Ivan's other friend, John Lennon, perform in a band called "The Quarrymen". The two sized each other up backstage and the rest is history.




UPDATE: Indeed Liverpool DID celebrate, all weekend.

Note that the first item of business on Friday was a church service at where the Quarrymen played. A church service. I'm sure atheists John & Paul would approve. ;-)

Ever have one of those days?

Kahlid Ahmed, MD, has, and wants to tell you about it. He may become the best guest blogger on Iowahawk since Al Zarkawi...depending on the skill of British burn treatment. Hang in there, buddy.

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2007/07/that-didnt-go-s.html

I'm French! Honest! Oui, oui, je suis dans la resistance!

National Review has a somber and fitting obit of Kurt Waldheim...whom I always confuse with Kurt Weil, for some reason... a must-read for anyone prone to think corrupt UN officials are a new breed.

If you had doubts about Waldheim's Nazi ties, David Pryce-Jones dissipates them handily by recounting how quickly the eventual Austrian president joined up with the Nazi Student League after the annexation and then the Brownshirts, then ended up with medals and commendations reserved for the most vicious of Hitler's henchmen. On a lighter note (in a black comedy sort of way), Pryce-Jones brings up the Nazi war criminal pledge: "I was never a Nazi, and if I was, I never did anything, and if I did, it was someone else's fault."

Closely related to the SS-Officer-on-May-7-Resistance-Fighter-May-8 pledge: "Hallo Herr Yankee I am ready to do my part in the Wirtschaftwunder! I was never a Nazi, and isn't it a shame, those poor Jews, I helped them all I could."

*****************

Also in the on-the-newstands NR is a blurb about current UN chief Ban Ki-moon's diagnosis of the cause of death for all those black Muslims and Christians in Darfur: "Global warming." Has the UN ever recognized genocide when it bit them in the face?

Saving You From Gender Confusion Anxiety in Cuber

Cuban health care is sooo good.....they don't just want to hand it out to anyone!

(and for heaven's sake, they don't want your boyfriend to have to embarrass himself at the bodega by having to pick up your unmentionables.)

18.1.2007 21:09 MSK
Cuban Women Cannot Buy Hygienic Pads without ID


CUBA, Havana. (CubaNet). Barbara Lorenzo de Armas was told at the pharmacy she could not buy hygienic pads without producing her identity card, which was seized by the State Security in 2001 for political reasons.

Lorenzo de Armaz said she went to the local pharmacy in the Managua district, but the manager refused to sell citing a nationwide government instruction that requires an identity card to buy any goods. Without writing down all particulars of your ID, I cannot sell, he explained.

Hygienic pads are available in Cuba at the pharmacies. They sell them to women aged from 12 to 55, one pack of 10 pieces per person per month. One can easily get this article of feminine hygiene on the black market where it costs 10 pesos per pack, or on the dollar market where the price is even higher.

----PRIMA–News Agency http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/

(Prima is a newsletter about human rights that comes to my e-mail box from Russia. Given that they argued leniency for those found responsible for killing 300--mostly children--in an Ossetian gradeschool in 2004, they are hardly a right-wing organization. But they are not fond of Castro.)

We, the jury, find the defendant, Mr. Turnupseed INNOCENT of the count of manslaughter....and guilty of having a really stupid name.

National Geographic ran an old show the other night about James Dean. Yes, that James Dean. (NG is expanding its pervue. But then again, how many stories about wildebeests and half naked women can you run? That aren't pornographic, I mean.) The show, called, "Crash Science", centered around Dean's death in a horrid accident on a California highway (eventually, they'll probably run out of famous tragically killed people, too.) It relied on all sorts of computer imagery, showing that, contrary to the image of the rebellious teen idol screaming along in his Porsche Spyder 550 at speeds at or over 100 mph, he was probably doing about 70 mph at the time his car and Donald Turnupseed's Ford had an intimate encounter. Which was still speeding. But sounds a little less thrilling.

(What kind of a name is Turnupseed that, anyway? Did it used to be Turnipseed? Do turnips have seeds? Aren't they a root vegetable? )

Then we are told that, actually, the cops testified to exactly that at the following trial. About Dean doing 70 mph, I mean. The police had stopped Dean doing 95 a little earlier in the afternoon, and calculated from that and the time of the accident he must be doing 70, which was a geezerly 15 over the speed limit.

But either the jury

1) was so overwhelmed by Dean's reputation as a crazed speed demon youth that they completely ignored the cops' testimony or

2) they figured that cops can't calculate.

And therefore, word has been handed down from generation to generation that that acting, car racing, homosexual James Dean was flying over the hills and fields looking for someone to kill (or a way to die) on the California highway. At at least 100 mph. Maybe more. (All of which, if you were born before 1925, is horrifying, but if you were born anytime after that, particularly after 1970, is REALLY COOL!.)

In a film from an engineering firm it's asserted that Mr. Dean was not speeding at all in his journey towards doom that fateful September day. Go figure.

Don't Imus-ize Rush!

Rush Limbaugh isn't mentioned too much anymore in Conservative Blog-land; maybe many people have taken him for granted; maybe his no-holds-barred loyalty to the Republican Party lost him a few friends in the last election. But I listen to Rush every day. I think he's funnier and frankly more respectful to guests (even liberals) than the usual brand of talk show host.

Sometimes, Rush will be accused of saying something way out of league, usually something he didn't say, but that liberals say he says, or have twisted around. All liberals, including the Democratic Party and George Soros' infamous "Media Matters" would like nothing more than to shut Rush or any conservative talk show host up, e.g by a "fair media" bill which would be nothing short of silencing what listeners have already voted by their ears to hear.

You may remember the hoopla about Rush "making fun" of Michael J. Fox during the 2004 elections. MJF appeared in a commercial asking people to vote for a bill that would help to fund embryonic stem cell research (the commercialpormoted the fairy tale that embryonic stem cells are the magic wand that will make Parkinson's disease, which MJF has, as well as paralysis, Alzheimer's, and bad hair days disappear....but I digress). Rush did no such thing. What he did do was wonder aloud why MJF's appearance in this commercial was so different from his appearance in other venues. Limbaugh said something to the effect of, "He seems to be exaggerating his symptoms. He's shaking like crazy in this commercial, and I don't really think that's how he usually appears." Rush has a webcam on his website and as he said that, he could be seen mimicking the movements MJF was making to demonstrate what he meant.

None of this was said in a tone of disrespect. There was a little frustration, like "what does Fox thinks he's doing? Pull one over on the voters?" Which is a legitimate question 1) for a public figure and 2) for someone volunteering to be in a political advertisement. But if you just saw the video of Rush on the webcam, which was broadcast all over CNN and PMSNBC and Fox and everywhere else, you just see this guy who looks like he's mocking someone with Parkinson's.

Fast forward to three or four weeks ago. The LA Times publishes a piece entitled, "Barrack, the Magic Negro." (Now for the record, I haven't heard Rush say anything about Obama at all, except that any mud raked about him is probably raked up by Billary.) The article was written by an African American and Rush thought it was a hoot. The hypothesis was that Obama wasn't "black enough", that he didn't deserve to be president yet because he hadn't pay his "dues." Obviously, this is not a belief to which Rush ascribes.

However, amused, arranged for a song for his show's ersatz character, Al Sharpton (who always speaks through a megaphone) called "Barrack the Magic Negro" to be composed. Sharpton fit the satire because he had also distanced himself from Obama recently--I confess I don't know the whole story about that.

So the following week Rush listeners were treated to a wonderful parody of "the Rev. Al" singing (through his megaphone) a very sad tune indeed...."Barack the Magic Negro..."

Some of the words are "See, real black men like Snoop Dog, and me and Farakhan, have talked the talk and walked the walk...." It clearly sets up "The Rev. Al" as a goofball singing about someone who sounds like a pretty nice, competent guy of whom he's mighty jealous.

Within a few days, the NBC Today show and other media outlets were saying Rush was calling Obama a Magic Negro!!!!! All of a sudden he was a racist!!!! Over the past 2 weeks, he has sent TV stations reems of transcripts. He has talked to them. He has sent them the song. He has been interviewed. His HR person has been interviewed. And what has the Today Show done?

They made up a video to the song that looks racist, without bothering to add...Rush didn't do the video. (It's a radio show, people.) What's funny is that Sharpton hasn't been bothered at all about the whole thing, although the satire is about him.

If they can push Imus out, can they push Rush out? I hope conservatives can reach back in their memory and remember how much this man means to us.