This one’s a jawdropper. We have Americans and innocent civilians dying in the streets of Baghdad; we have a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan; we are facing an overwhelming healthcare crisis; we are choking on our dependence on oil; our jobless recovery is shattering the hopes and dreams of millions of capable Americans; corruption in Bush’s America is approaching Teapot Dome levels; our president is a jackass who’s leading America straight down the toilet; and this – this – is what some in the GOP see as “the most important issue we face today.” Watch the video. Yes, she really says it.
September 28, 2006
What a bombshell. You have all got to see the video clip. The Chinese “organ agent” cheerfully admits the organs are coming from executed Chinese prisoners. Go watch it. And discover for yourself why, if you’re looking for a liver, next week will be an ideal time to find one on the mainland. Mooncake and livers will be in abundance.
And don’t miss the bit about the public execution, and how they strip out the organs. Reminded me of this old post (go there at your own risk – it isn’t pretty).
This is now the second or third time I write to praise a blogger from across the aisle, Rich Moran of the unfortunately named Right Wing Nut House. Today he rightly condemns an utterly bizarre and inexcusable article in Murdoch’s NY Post that mocks liberal cable TV pundit Keith Olbermann for being victim of an anthrax scare. It is really too vile for words. Moran throws the article’s malevolence right back in the reporter’s face.
In what, in my opinion, is one the most disgraceful and shocking exhibitions of callous disregard for journalistic standards not to mention human decency, the New York Post gossipy Page Six ran a story describing MSNBC host Keith Olbermann’s terrifying experience with a threatening letter that contained a ‘white powder.’
Here’s the piece:
September 27, 2006-MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who’s a frequent critic of President Bush’s policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick. The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post’s Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann’s pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn’t enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke’s Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn’t known. Olbermann had no comment.
The fact that the story is not considered ‘straight news’ is absolutely no excuse. The columnist, Paula Froelich, should be fired immediately.
The tone of the piece is not only insulting but attempts to make light of what must have been a horrifying experience for Mr. Olbermann. And, as Dave Neiwert points out, sending the letter is considered an act of terrorism – hardly something to yuck it up about with references to ‘lollipops’ not to mention the attempt to portray Olbermann as something less than courageous.
Moran admits to savaging Olbermann just the day before, but makes it clear that there’s a huige difference between going after a pundit on your blog and mocking them for being the victim of a very scary threat that should be wished upon no one.
China Daily watch has done it again, blasting a new China Daily article about our favorite topic, building a harmonious society. It’s so good I’m including a juicy excerpt.
“Building a harmonious society’ means different things to different people. To ordinary, poor Chinese, it means ‘stick with us, look how good your lives are going to be.’ To wealthy Chinese, it means ‘don’t rock the boat, and your wealth won’t spill.’ To grass-roots cadres, it means ‘stop screwing around.’ To high-level officials, it means ‘this is the way we our doing things, this is our ambition, and this will be our legacy.”
So vague are the ambitions for the building of social harmony (‘progress’ ‘development’ ‘co-existence’) that on one level it is impossible for the CPC to fail. Inevitably, the economy is going to keep improving, and people’s lives are going to get better. However, there are degrees of progress, and this is where the social harmony movement will be judged to have succeeded or failed.
If the momentum of wealth creation and spread slows, it will fail. If China’s rivers remain polluted, it will fail. If people continue to be wrongfully convicted of crimes at sham courts, it will fail. If people try to have their opinions heard and they continue to be silenced, it will fail.
Why will it fail? It will fail because people will become angry, and when people are angry, harmony cannot result.
My questions to President Hu Jintao is this: If it should come to push versus shove, interests of the People versus interests of the Party, are you man enough to do the right thing?
As to that last question, I think the answer is all too obvious. The CCP tends to do what every organism does, i.e., ensure its own survival. The interests of the party always have and always will over-ride the interests of the people. This is inherent to any one-party system, whether it’s the Qin emperor or Chiang Kai Shek or Mao. I applaud many of the party’s reforms and achievements. But as long as it answers to no one, with no checks, balances or political competition, it will destroy anything that gets in its way, as do all dictatorships. It is a physical, reflexive reaction, like when you shine a flashlight under a rock and all the bugs run out. It’s what the party simply has to do, and posing a question like this to Mr. Hu, while impresive in its rhetoric, is a doomed exercise.
There’s lots more to Charlie’s post, so check it out on his site.
Update: I also enjoyed the same blogger’s earlier post, which I somehow missed, in which he lovingly refers to the CCP as “rotten to the core.”
If you’d begun to think China could sort out its corruption problem, if you’d begun to think there was some separation of politics and administration, if you’d begun to think these leaders cared for the people above the fatness of their wallets and bounds of their power, then think again.
The Communist Party of China is rotten to the core, and I polish their propaganda. In my less selfish moments, it does make me feel uncomfortable. Most of the time I can justify it with the argument that change will first come from within: however, when I see stories like this, I know what wishful thinking that is.
Nice.
What a day. Lots of conservatives laying into other conservatives. So refreshing. Today, one of my least favorite bloggers seems to have had an epiphanous moment, recognizing Michelle Malkin for the unbridled, unapologetic racist she so proudly is. His complaint is that Malkin fails to draw distinctions between Muslims and Muslims who commit acts of terrorism. He says, quite rightly, that her lumping them together as a single enemy would be akin to the US in WWII declaring a war to the death with all people of Germanic heritage, or with all Asian people. This, of course, is what Malkin and her soulmate Charles Johnson do every day – they insist all Muslims are potential terrorists and enemies
I will note again, as I often have, that during World War II there were Filipinos who were ethnically Japanese and who spoke Japanese, but who allied with us against the Japanese Empire. Fought and in some cases died alongside our boys in the South Pacific. Some of them were even United States citizens, and served invaluable roles as translators and in propaganda efforts (and “propaganda” is not a necessarily a dirty word by the way).
Furthemore the Chinese, as much as they “looked Japanese” to American eyes, were also welcome allies against Tojo’s Japan.
I think that many of America’s rightists–including, sadly, Michelle Malkin–have done a piss-poor job of making such vital distinctions. Indeed, I would like to publicly challenge Michelle Malkin: you’ve said you’ve stopped using terms like “Islamo-fascist” and “Islamic radicals” because they don’t make sense. Oh really? Then how is it, Michelle, that you guys at Hot Air and Michellemalkin.com still approvingly highlight statements by America’s Iraqi and Afghan allies, like Hamid Karzai and Nouri al-Maliki? They are Muslims. Born and bred Muslims. They’re Muslims right now. They will almost certainly die Muslim. So why do you treat them like enemies and liars?
I’m making an open appeal to your conscience, Michelle Malkin, and to the conscience of conservatives everywhere: shouldn’t you start making a distinction between Muslims who hate us and want to kill us, and Muslims who believe in freedom, democracy, and religious tolerance?
Conscience? What conscience?? Somewhere in that filthy, spider-webbed attic that is Michelle’s mind, you may find an odd remnant or or two of what used to be her conscience, but trust me, those faded little pieces are beyond repair. When she wrote a book endorsing the internment of entire races, she threw away her soul, and there’s no retrieving it. Someone as smart as Esmay – not my favorite blogger, but no idiot – surely understands this.
He lives in Hangzhou, his IP address is 60.190.253.150 and he is posting insane comments as fast as I can delete them. (He’s also friends with another one of everyone’s favorite trolls, and I have reason to think it’s a group effort, based on a recent incident in the Duckpond – IP addresses don’t lie.). If I can’t catch them all, please quickly scroll past them, and don’t let the two of them ruin the site. They’re trying as hard as they can. Some people have way too much time on their hands.
Don’t believe me? Just look over here. If it’s in People’ Daily, it must be true.
Via an amusing post from the Weifang Radish.
[NOTE: My apologies for deleting this post last night and then re-posting it. It’s a long story.]
September 27, 2006
This is a funny story. And yes, the “major blog” he refers to is Peking Duck. It was quite comical. As the blogger says, there are some mischievous people out there “with too much time on their hands.” Tell me about it.
Read the shocking story of institutionalized thuggery and see the photorgaphs over here. A real horror story, with some light at the end of the tunnel, the Southern Metropolis Daily is making the story known to all.
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