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For a month or two last year, I had a Facebook page. I balked, however, when Facebook executives refused to take down the page dedicated to British gunman/killer Raul Moat. Facebook claimed it was all about free speech. My understanding is that once the public expression of views crosses over into death threats and the encouragement of violent, anarchic activity, defense on the grounds of freedom of expression is no longer relevant.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Britain, even got involved and asked the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, to remove the site; Zuckerberg refused. In the end, the creator of the page removed it herself, though she only did so, she claimed, so things could simmer down a bit, and then she would re-launch it.
In disgust—and also considering that I had gotten into a serious fight with someone over the subject of capital punishment—I de-activated my page and left Facebook. I haven't been back since, nor have I missed it.
Mark Zuckerberg just ensured, beyond any shadow of doubt, why I won't reconsider my decision.
The Facebook chief likes to set little challenges for himself every year, such as learning Chinese or wearing a tie every day. If I had a douchebag face like his, I'd consider it a challenge just stepping out my front door and into the public domain every day. But apparently, that's not enough.
Zuckerberg now wants to eat meat only from animals he kills himself. He says this personal goal of his represents the need for people to be "thankful for what they eat rather than trying to ignore where it came from." I'll admit, this is good advice for carnivores/omnivores and in making this statement, Zuckerberg has a valid point.
Some meat-eaters are uncomfortable with how their food ends up on their plate and they'd rather not think about it. Luckily, the pickings available at the grocery store sanitize the whole sordid business. The supermarket or butcher is the middleman between the slaughterhouse and the consumer.
Using that exact same argument, why should anyone feel guilty about purchasing drugs from a dealer? He will never tell you who he shot dead for stepping onto his turf the night before, so you have no need to worry about it. Let that not interrupt anyone's narcotic-cloaked enjoyment of life.
Rather than finding the slaughter of animals deplorable, and using that as an excuse to set a vegetarian challenge for himself instead, Zuckerberg endorses it.
"I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have," Zuckerberg proclaimed.
Have I missed something? Who exactly is forcing people to eat meat? Has meat-consumption become the law of the land? As for the inane argument that meat-eating is vital for human nutrition, the last time I checked, humans weren't canines nor felines.
Zuckerberg has all-too-predictably received well-wishes and plaudits from those who pretend that their psychopathic hatred of any life form on Earth that dares not to be human is the very essence of libertarianism.
Well, I'm a libertarian too and my goal for the year is to hope in earnest every waking day that Zuckerberg swiftly becomes the victim of a hunting accident.
Only you won't find me encouraging that on Facebook.
Previously published by Blogcritics
It's odd. I know there are conservative people in Britain. But they're like God: I need faith that they actually exist, because, aside from my wife, I have never met anyone who came even remotely close to scoring 0.001 percent on the conservative scale.
I've certainly never worked with any. A good example came last week when the Daily Express arrived to the scanning room where a younger co-worker and I were stationed. The headline announced "40 Percent Rise in Ethnic Numbers." My immediate thought upon reading the headline was, This is not good for social cohesion. My colleague, however, gruffly stated, "Let's leave this paper with its racist headline till last."
Its racist headline? Score another point for the rose-colored glasses wearing, blue-sky thinking crowd, because that kid is clearly part of it. Who cares if foreign influx into the country is so high that we quickly find ourselves possessing no common language, cultural references or shared values with each other? We should care. After all, don't the British complain incessantly about the "Americanization" of their culture? Alas, I suppose it's far easier and more fashionable to complain about American words infiltrating Brit-speak (which are actually English words that Americans preserved) than how closely British immigration policy—or lack of it—resembles that of the U.S.
Why exactly do I bring this up? Sky News reported that President Obama signed the Westminster Abbey guestbook but dated his comment "May 24, 2008." A harmless gaffe, but do you know what the reaction to the story would have been had George W. Bush done that? It would have been proclaimed the dumbest mistake in the history of mankind. Reader comments would have declared: "Further proof the President's an idiot," "The American people deserve this man," "George Bush, worst president evah," and peppered throughout by the occasional but obligatory "GEORGE BUSH WAR CRIMINAL!"
It should come as no surprise that the reaction to the Obama story was all "peace," "love" and "what's the big deal?"
Give up nit picking [sic], so what he made a mistake with the date [sic], I think the President is a great guy and doing a grand job. It was lovely to see him and his wife at Buckingham Palace with the Queen.
What is it, fashionable to hate on Obama now?
Which only goes to show he is also human and open to the same effects of media exposure and jetlag!! Good for him.
you all are hatters. [sic] why don't you get a life. [sic] We all make mistakes. who haven't? [sic] put your hands up. leave the poor man alone people [sic].
And on, and on, and on the Obama bum-kissing goes, for over 1,000 mind-numbing, grammatically appalling comments. Suddenly it's fashionable in Britain to stick up for the American President. And golly gee, aren't those Yanks nice, cuddly people for electing him too? The world's such a snuggly-wuggly place!
The world's not coming to an end just because Barack Obama signed the wrong year to his guestbook entry. I get that. It's to be expected, I suppose. The man has never stopped campaigning, after all. That's why he's hardly ever in the office he got elected to. He's living in a perpetual 2008. One of these days, he's going to say that's when he had Osama bin Laden executed.
But doesn't it speak volumes about a man who pronounced corpsman as "corpseman," said he visited 57 U.S. states, and thinks Austrian is spoken in Austria? Are we going to have a book on Obama-isms to join the volumes of tomes dedicated to Bushisms?
How about Mr. Obama completely screwing up while delivering a toast to the Queen? The band is instructed to play when they hear "the Queen." That's their cue. Obama and his defenders will try to blame the orchestra, when the truth is, Obama never should have spoken those words until the end of his speech.
I ask again, if Dubya had done this, what would the reaction have been? Of course, Bush never would have fouled up like that for he would have pulled all the stops to get it right before speaking. He would have bothered to study the protocol. Beautiful people like Barack Obama, however, have no need for that because their brilliance is beyond the reach of normal people. Or so we're told, time and time again by the fawning media, both American and international.
What really throws me is the completely fake bonhomie that Obama is presenting to the Queen, David Cameron and the British people themselves. Obama is a notorious Brit-hater. Nile Gardiner spelled it all out in his commentary "Does Obama Have it in for Britain?":
Obama seems strangely oblivious to the dangerous path he has embarked on, becoming the first U.S. President in modern times to place no importance on the historic relationship between the U.S. and Britain.
We cannot say, however, that we weren't warned.
This, after all, is a man who, within days of being sworn in as President, ordered that a bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from the British people to the U.S. in the dark days that followed 9/11—be removed from the Oval Office.
... When the U.S. marches in, it's only ever the British who can be depended on to march alongside them.
And yet all that proud history, all that noble sacrifice, seems to count for nothing in Obama's eyes. He seems oblivious to the debt of gratitude he, and the American people, owes this country.
Despite that, Obama is enormously popular in this country. The British talk a good game about being different from Europeans, but the President's popularity numbers continue to hover between the 75 to 80 percent mark, as with France and Germany. Obama might very well declare in the House of Commons, "Screw it, I'm not pretending to like you anymore. You're all evil and you should consider yourselves lucky if I don't nuke you all to hell where you belong." Sky News would report it, and you'd still have Brits commenting, "Come on, take it easy on the President. He's a wonderful man, the most brilliant in all of history. He wants to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony," only without the punctuation or capital letters.
I learned years ago that a strong, confident America is not what the world, including Britain, wants—and everyone can relax because that's certainly not something the world is going to witness under the present administration. But this is ridiculous. I'd have an easier time finding a unicorn or gryphon walking the streets of Britain than I would someone who isn't an Obamabot, to use Ted Rall's appropriate term. I prefer the phrase "Obama rumpswab," but that would be politically incorrect, now wouldn't it?
Yesterday, this blog told the tale regarding the curious case of far-Left loonie Ted Rall. For the past two years, Rall has been spitting vitriol at Barack Obama, calling him a "monster" and a "terrible leader," and the resultant rejection of his animated commentaries by editors confirms what we all know: the media is not only biased, but you are in for hard times if you dare to diss their anointed saint and savior, even if the color of your blood runs pink(o).
Robert Fisk has no such worries as he is not a freelancer. He is the established Middle East correspondent for the left-of-center British paper The Independent. I will acknowledge that Fisk is a brave man to have made Middle East reporting his specialty. But he long ago upgraded from objective reporter to subjective columnist and that's the trouble with him. A socialist, Fisk predictably decries U.S. (and some British and European Union) policy in the region and is always denouncing Israel. A recent column of his demonstrates this all too well.
I've loathed Fisk for years, but, as with Rall, I find myself fascinated by his denouncements of Obama. Like Rall, who wrote that Obama is timid and all-too-readily gives in to political correctness, Fisk also states the obvious, accusing the President of "speechifying" and calling him "vain and cowardly."
Here's where it really gets enjoyable: Fisk nearly blows a gasket by sarcastically mocking Obama as "our favorite President," preferring the adjective "mealy-mouthed" to describe him, and makes the spot-on prediction that whatever Obama says about the Middle East (or anything for that matter), "we will be treated to all the usual analysts in the States, saying how fine the President's words are." Whoa!
I must give Fisk some credit. He nails it when he declares, "We will be asked—oh, I fear we will—to turn our backs on the Bin Laden past, to seek 'closure' and 'move on' (which I'm afraid the Taliban don't quite agree with)." Even Fisk gets what Obama apparently doesn't.
I can hardly wait to read what Fisk will say about Obama's depressingly clueless pronouncement that Israel should revert back to its pre-Six-Day War borders. I'm guessing Fisk will approve.
But whatever. If the Independent's editors instructed him to "go easy on O," Fisk's columns would lose any shred of entertainment value they currently carry.
Sometimes a truly incredible phenomenon occurs and it's a wonder to witness. Whenever there's a split within the Left, or a member of the Left rants against his or her own, I get very excited by it. It's like an orgasm for my mind.
Case in point: editorial cartoonist Ted Rall. If you're a patriotic American, there's nothing nice you can say about him. I don't like Ted Rall for having the nerve to call Bill Maher a "libertarian," for starters. But he's not afraid to go against the grain.
Rall made a name for himself internationally and became a hit with the champagne socialists and limousine liberals in the lamestream media—sorry for the clichés, but it's all true, isn't it?—because he unrelentingly attacked President Bush, the War on Terror, Republicans and conservatives in general. But Rall isn't so popular in the elitist liberal camp these days. Why? He dislikes Obama.
One editor told Rall, "Can't you focus more on the GOP?" in response to Rall's anti-Obama work. Rall admits to nearly going broke, angrily writes "I didn't realize how besotted progressives were by Mr. Hopey Changey," and excoriates the militant Democrats a.k.a. Obamabots.
Granted, Rall's considerable distaste for Obama is the result of his dismay that the President has not closed Guantánamo and continues to rely on Bush-era intelligence techniques. (Interestingly, Rall hates Obamacare as well.) But he also calls him out for political correctness. Get a load of this, from this Universal Syndicate Press column that somehow managed to work its way past the Messiah-loving censors:
"From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning? Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now—before he drags us further into the abyss."
Obama is timid, worries too much about offending, and dangerous? Mr. Rall, now surely you jest! When you read the column further, it becomes clear that Rall is offended by Obama because he thinks the President is doing too much to secure America's safety. In Rall's twisted brain, that just won't do. But I am absolutely fascinated by a Leftie who would call Obama a "monster" and a "terrible leader." Rall is saying all the right words; he's just arguing from the wrong side of the fence.
Rall makes a good point about his work being turned down by the operatives of the mainstream media who idolize Obama. I dare to critcize their man, Rall is saying, and I get shut down. Where's freedom of speech and freedom of the press? I agree. The media is censoring Rall and, despite how vicious, mean-spirited and small-minded Rall is, that isn't right.
You could argue that Rall is reaping what he has sowed. See, Ted, this is why there have been no denouncements of the war in Libya. The Obamabots you criticize do disagree with it, but they refuse to say one critical word against their Messiah.
Ted Rall isn't the only Leftie ticked off at Obama. Another recently called him "cowardly" and "mealy-mouthed." But I'll leave that for my next entry.
Consider the following poetry, dear reader:
"I got the black strap to make the cops run
They watching me, I'm watching them
Them dick boys got a lotta cock in them
My people on the block got a lotta Pac in them
And when we roll together, we be rocking them to sleep."
Those lines are from a 2007 piece entitled "A Letter to the Law," written by actor-cum-rapper Lonnie Rashin Lynn Jr., a.k.a. Common, who is referring to and apparently advocating the killing of cops.
Well, it was Poetry Night at the White House on Wednesday night, held to display the breadth of American culture in metered words, to which Common was invited to perform. He did not perform "A Letter to the Law," speaking instead of the illustrious world achievement that Barack Obama's presidency represents.
It gets worse. The White House poetry slam coincided with Police Memorial Week in Washington, D.C. Law enforcement officials, paying homage to their slain colleagues and remembering the families they left behind, must have been thrilled to acknowledge Common's presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and reflecting on the "black strap" he wears to enable him to rock police officers "to sleep."
It turns out that Common, a Chicago native, attended the Trinity United Church, listening to the "sermons" of pastor Jeremiah Wright, spiritual leader of the Obamas.
I was proud of Obama for a few days after the bin Laden execution, and it was great while it lasted. I truly enjoyed the opportunity to praise the President. But consider what has occurred since the Prez gave the capture/kill order on bin Laden:
(1) He refused to release the photos. These are photos which every American deserves the right to see, but Obama doesn't want to offend "Muslim sensitivities."
(2) The White House sent out form letters to a lottery list of fifty families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks, inviting them to the President's visit to the World Trade Center site, but addrressing every one as "Dear 9/11 Family Member," which one such family member, John Vigiano, politely described as "kind of lame."
(3) Obama snapped at Debra Burlingame, who lost a sibling in the attacks, when she asked the President during his Ground Zero visit if he would consider advising Attorney General Eric Holder to drop the investigations of the CIA agents accused of waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The information KSM gave interrogaters led us to bin Laden's courier. Obama cannot order Holder to stop the prosecutions, but Burlingame was aware of this. She just wanted the President to ask Holder to reconsider his inquisition of these agents. Instead, true to his egotistical nature, Obama grumbled "No, I won't" at Burlingame and walked away from her. Whatever happened to "Yes We Can," Mr. President?
(4) Obama had to rush back to the White House after his sojourn to New York City to host a Cinco de Mayo party. I understand that Cinco de Mayo is part of American history, given that the U.S. helped Mexico to oust the French who had occupied Mexico and were attempting to influence the direction of the Civil War in favor of the South by arming Confederate troops. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 when the Mexican army temporarily defeated French forces. (The U.S. would step up military assistance to Mexico in 1865 in helping to defeat the French for good.) All very well. But America's much more recent victory is a lot more relevant. And isn't Cinco de Mayo, as celebrated by this Administration, laced with the theme of granting amnesty to illegals and denouncing Arizona's immigration law?
(5) This is unrelated to bin Laden's execution, but during the same week that they scored a foreign policy victory, the Obama administration continued to show that they're clueless on domestic policy by proposing to tax drivers by the number of miles driven. Ray La Hood, the Transportation Secretary, says the proposed Vehcile Miles Traveled scheme would be short-term, but when has a new tax scheme ever been sunsetted? I can't think of one either. It would take several years to implement, by which time the gasoline-tax revenue issue might no longer be relevant. We'd be stuck with a gas tax and a VMT tax.
Only Obama could so quickly go from hero to horror show. Against all this, Common's sanctioned participation in the White House poetry evening rubs off as ... well, commonplace for this particular g-crew. Obama will keep us safe from al-Qaeda because giving us nightmares is his job.
I don't know what it is, but big things have happened lately whenever I've posted an entry here. I write about Donald Trump, making mention of the birther phenomenon—and suddenly Obama releases his birth certificate (or what we've been led to believe is the real birth certificate).
I then write about a silly spat between the Prime Minister and the opposition bench in the House of Commons—and Osama bin Laden is killed.
So, naturally, I'm expecting big news to break after I've posted this. I fail to see how the news can possibly get any grander or more spectacular than that—but hey, first "proof" that Obama is native-born citizen, then proof that Osama is dead, now proof that extraterrestrial life exists? It's not as if I'm calling the shots here, but the nightdragon is indirectly controlling world events, or so it would appear.
There's not much I can say about bin Laden's demise that hasn't already been said. Naturally, I'm relieved and thankful to the courageous US special forces, glad that Pakistani officials worked with us, and I'm celebrating as much as any red-blooded American that revenge has, at long last, been exacted.
I'm disappointed that this did not happen on Bush's watch, preferably during his final months in office so he could have left on a high and been remembered the way he deserved to be. Obama's approval ratings will rocket skyward as a result of this. "Obama got Osama!" is the rallying cry from sea to shining sea.
But, then again, let's not be politically selfish. President Obama watched every minute of this raid unfold and, by all accounts, was genuinely relieved at the end result. His slight smirk during the early morning White House address was not the product of his usual unctousness, but a heartfelt joy that he could not wait to share with the country. We need to give the President the credit he's earned. Obama (and Hilary Clinton) displayed the same anxious emotions during those nerve-shredding moments that you or I would have had we just given the "go" order.
It has to be said that Obama has not been as timid in conducting the War on Terror as his oppenents have alleged, and this is the proof.
It remains to be seen how humble the President will be in the wake of this. If he acts gracious and humble, as he should, we may finally witness a true leader of the free world emerge.
The economy will eventually return as the focal-point issue and the President will still have to answer to that. Would it were that he saw the light on the price of living as he did the price on bin Laden's head.
Proof that Labour has not learned any lessons since they lost control of the Government a year ago came last week during a Parliamentary question-and-answer session.
Shadow (Labour) Treasury minister Angela Eagle accused Prime Minister David Cameron of getting his facts wrong regarding the defeat of a former minister and general practice doctor who supports the reforms. Cameron replied, "Calm down, dear, calm down," urging her to "listen to the doctor." For this, the Prime Minister has been accused not only of unprofessionalism, but of sexism and discrimination.
Three things:
One: "Calm down, dear" is the catchphrase used by film director Michael Winner from the multitude of insurance commercials he's starred in. There cannot be anyone in England who hasn't seen nor heard Winner utter that phrase, and Winner used it with males and females alike. Cameron may have mimicked Winner for jocular effect, and Winner himself said he was honored, adding that Labour were acting like "politically correct lunatics."
Two: Although Cameron is not a Northerner, Miss Eagle is from Yorkshire, and words like "love," "pet," and "dear" are used affectionately by a good slice of the populace in Yorkshire and other Northern counties. Men use them with women, and women use them with men. If Cameron was not mimicking Winner, he may have simply been trying to affectionately parry with Eagle.
Three: This is the nature of Parliamentary debate. It's always a show, rife with wordplay, insinuations, catcalls and a chorus of boo-birds. This is the way it's been for centuries. If Cameron was not mimicking Winner nor affectionately parrying with Eagle by using Northern words, then he was simply acting like a British politician in a Parliamentary debate.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has demanded answers from David Cameron and the Tories, calling the PM's remarks to Eagle, "patronising, sexist, insulting and deeply un-prime ministerial." Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman called the remark "contemptuous." Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls was the only Labourite with ... well, with any balls to acknowledge that Cameron was only joking, but also opined that the Prime Mininster was "silly" and would regret the humorous moment.
Angela Eagle herself said, "I don't think any modern man would have expressed himself in that way." You mean the modern man with the pink shirt, man-bag and subscription to Cosmopolitan who cried during the Royal Wedding? Give me a break! Calm down, dear.
I, too, dear reader, would be disgusted by any mean-spirited remarks aimed at Miss Eagle. But the insensitive rejoinders by Cameron are only too conspicuous by their total absence. As always, the figment of easily-riled imaginations on the part of the opposition give life to the ghost of malice.
Labour is being hypocritical. Watch the video provided with the Daily Telegraph story. At 1:33, you can see Ed Balls and Ed Miliband laughing and Harriet Harman smirking, evidently enjoying the moment for all it was worth. (Poor deputy PM Nick Clegg just looks plain embarrassed throughout the whole thing—but he didn't say one word about it.)
Cameron was floored by the reaction. He confronted Ed Balls at one point, telling him, "I said 'calm down.' Yes, 'calm down, dear.' I'll say it to you, if you like."
Kudos to Speaker John Bercow who, fed up with the pointless uproar, erupted at the Labour bench, "There's far too much noise in this chamber, which makes a ... order! ... which makes a very bad impression on the public as a whole and the other people waiting to contribute."
The Labour party under "Red Ed" is displaying the same knee-jerk, politically correct mannerisms that got them into trouble in the first place. "New Labour" was new for a limited time period after its phenomenal election in 1997, and everything that's new eventually becomes old. And "Old Labour" is the stuff of nightmares.
The Conservatives believe Miliband performed badly at the debate or wanted to suppress figures showing gradual economic recovery under the Coalition government, so he resorted to that tried-and-tested political shenanigan of creating a controversy out of nothing, trotting out the same old Leftie accusations of insensitivity upon hearing a style of speech they disagree with.
Labour needs to grow a backbone and to stop engaging in political deception, because it does them no good and it is really sad to see them acting like this. Cameron did nothing wrong. Time to get back to real issues.
