The Wonderful World of Infotainment

What's more important?
The Biggest Loser

Reality TV

 

Or the Biggest Loser

of a midterm election since Harry Truman

Seriously though,
What's more important than 
what the President has to say?
 

Grey's Anatomy,

The Big Bang Theory,

The Biggest Loser,

and

Bones

Who is planning to show the Presidents Address on Immigration tonight?  Univision and Telemundo.

“In 2006, Bush gave a 17 minute speech that was televised by all three networks that was about deploying 6000 national guard troops to the border. Obama is making a 10 minute speech that will have a vastly greater impact on the issue. And none of the networks are doing it. We can’t believe they were aggrieved that we announced this on Facebook,” a senior administration official told POLITICO. 

Western Hero would like to point out to the Big 4 broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) that in accordance with the Radio Act of 1927 the spectrum belongs to the public and licensees have no property rights to use it.  The issuance of broadcast licenses is via comparative hearings held by the FCC, the intended outcome of which is that "the most qualified user will be granted use of the spectrum to best serve the public interest".  Seriously, do the Big 4 really think that The Biggest Loser better serves the public interest than coverage of a presidential address on immigration that polls consistently rank as one of the top 5 problems facing the nation today.

 

Meanwhile in an entirely unrelated coincidence: French lawmakers get a new procedure to remove their president for "breach of their duties that is clearly incompatible with the exercise of their mandate".  The Local

 Vive la République!

Is Pride Racist?

PRIDE by JACOB MATHAM, 1592

The other day after responding to a comment I was reading an article on collective narcissism.  That led me to another article on hubris and group pride.  In that article I found the following:

Black pride is a slogan used primarily in the United States to raise awareness for a black racial identity. The slogan has been used by African Americans of sub-Saharan African origin to denote a feeling of self-confidence, self-respect, celebrating one's heritage, and being proud of one's personal worth.

White pride is a slogan used primarily in the United States for a white race identity. This is traditionally closely aligned with white supremacy, white separatism, and other extreme manifestations of white racism.

So let me see if I get this... Black Pride is a good thing, White Pride is a bad thing.

He said what?

 

Executive action on immigration would amount to violating our laws and would be “very difficult to defend legally.

“If we start broadening that (DREAM), then essentially, I’ll be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally, So that’s not an option.”

“The problem is, is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.”

“The easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws,”

New York Times

Bias?

 

Earlier this year the Oregon Senate passed Bill 833, a measure to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens.  Opponents gathered enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot and they had a vote.

Do a Google News search on Oregon Ballot Measure 88 and you'll find little reporting outside of Oregon itself.  Would you not think that with all of the talk of executive action to effectively grant amnesty to some six million persons residing illegally in the United States that the national media might pick up on the results of this referendum?

But Oregon's a liberal state you might say, the results wouldn't reflect national opinion... you might think that, but in liberal Oregon, the measure to give illegals driver's licenses was defeated by...

66.4%

In fact the measure was defeated in every county in Oregon except for Multnomah, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area.  And you wonder why conservatives think that the mainstream media is biased against them.

The Sound of Music

Photo: Michael Schmid

The Sound of Music opened on Broadway on this day in 1959.  Many people don't realize that the musical is based on a true story and is based on the memoir of  Marie von Trapp.  Below is the song Edelweiss performed by August, Amanda, Melanie, and Sofia von Trapp, the great grandchildren of Captain and Maria von Trapp.

Saturday Sessions: Clara Ann Fowler

The Singin' Rage,

Miss Patti Page

 

Traditional Pop singer Clara Ann Fowler who went by the stage name Patti Page was the best selling female artist of the 1950's.

Starting with the 1948 hit "Confess", Patti Page was one of the first pop artists to overdub her own voice due to a strike that made background singers unavailable.

Her signature song, "The Tennessee Waltz", first recorded in 1950 was one of the best selling singles of the 20th century.

Patti Smith continued to top Pop charts through the mid-sixties and remained a chart topping performer in adult contemporary and country music into the early 1980's.  Patti continued to perform, recording her first live album in 1998; Live at Carnegie Hall, and performed up until 2012.  She passed away on January 1st, 2013.

Brooklyn the New Paris?

Photo: Jim Henderson

My sister used to live in Brooklyn, across the street from Sunset Park.  I remember visiting once and waking up to find all the cars on the park side of the street with slashed tires, fortunately I was on the house side of the street.  That was before she moved to the Upper East Side, just down and across the street from the Permanent Mission of St Kitts and Nevis.  I thought the Upper East Side was way cool.  Imagine my surprise to read that Brooklyn is the new Paris.

Now the wannabe city is Brooklyn...  Ballard is the Brooklyn of Seattle. Glasgow and Melbourne both claim Brooklyn cool. And Oakland, California, has been called the Brooklyn of San Francisco...  There's even a Brooklyn of Paris: the once-gritty suburb of Pantin. Its derelict, graffiti-covered warehouses have been taken over by galleries and artists, turning it into the hippest place in the City of Light. MSN

I haven't been to New York in four years, haven't been to Brooklyn for even longer.  Last time I was there we climbed up on the roof to spectacular views of the Harbor and World Trade Center.

Photo: GK Tramrunner229

 So... is Brooklyn "the new epicenter of cool" ?
 

Throwing Culture out with the Religious Bathwater

Johansen Viggo

Montgomery Co. ed board strips religious holiday references from new calendar

The 7-1 decision by the Montgomery County's Board of Education on Tuesday came after Muslim leaders in the community asked that equal recognition be given to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha.

Muslim leaders say they're not pleased with the result. They didn't want religious labels removed from the other holidays, just for Muslim students to be treated equally and to have their own holiday recognized. Huffpo

Like it or not, the United States is a Western Nation and as a Western Nation is part of Western Civilization.  Christianity is a defining, if not root, element of Western Civilization.  Everything from Santa Claus to the Easter Bunny are not just religious but cultural holidays.  In fact, the majority of Christian celebrations in the West are covered in the trappings of European pagan holidays that pre-date all other religions with the possible, but doubtful, exception of Judaism.  Christmas and for the most part Easter are celebrated by people of all religions and people of no religion.

The seven idiots on the Montgomery County Board of Education would be well served by taking a lesson from their Muslim petitioners and standing up for their cultural heritage.

Let Me Apologize in Advance

So, What hat goes with this outfit?

 

All I can say is at least he looks better
 than Bush in a Dress

There is a tradition at the APEC conference that the host nation chooses the attire and has been known to be referred to as the silly shirt summit. At the 2011 APEC summit in Honolulu President Obama relented, and did not make world leaders appear in Hawaiian shirts although they were all gifted with them, a decision I'm sure right now he's regretting.

WSJ APEC FASHION

Veterans Day

Joseph Ambrose age 86, a WWI veteran at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedication in 1982.

Western Hero honors the sacrifices of 
  
Patrice Vincent

 

Nathan Cirillo

As well as

Jacob Hess, William Lacy, Andrew McAdams, Drew Scobie, Daniel Lee, Andrew Sipple, Edward Balli, Joshua Gray, Christopher Landis, Roberto Skelt, John Pelham, Aaron Torian, Caleb Erickson, David Poirier, Adam Moralee,  James Chaffin, Kerry Danyluk, Clarke Thomas, Rakesh Chauhan, Spencer Faulkner, James Walters, Oliver Thomas, Shawn Farrell, Christian Chandler, Deric Rassmussen, Martin Barreras, Adrian Perkins, Jacob Wykstra, Jason Jones, Matthew Walker, Justin Helton, Aaron Toppen, Scott Studenmund, Jason McDonald, Justin Clouse, Terry Hurne, Brandon Garabrant, David Stewart, Adam Wolff, Thomas Spitzer, Todd Chidgey, Ivo Klusák, Libor Ligac, Jan Šenkýr, David Beneš, Lieskovan Jaroslav, Benjamin Prange, Keith Williams, Donnell Hamilton, Girard Gass, Harold Greene, Samuel Hairston, Matthew Leggett, Christopher Mulalley, Brian Arsenault, Charles Strong, Michael Donahue, Stephan Byus, Rafel Celebudzki, Andrew Weathers, Jonathan Walker, Christopher Kalafut, Jordan Spears.

Totalachusetts

True to their Puritan heritage, Massachusetts busybodies are once again attempting to control the behavior of their fellow citizens through government.

THE SCARLET LETTER

On Wednesday, the Westminster, Massachusetts Board of Health will hear public comment on a proposed regulation that could make Westminster the first municipality in the United States to ban sales of all tobacco products within town lines.  AP

 

Thoughts to Ponder

CBS News

Who's Your Daddy

And a Hat Tip to Lisa at Who's Your Daddy

I don't normally reblog, but this was priceless.

Saturday Sessions: Gordon Lightfoot

Photo: Greenmars

Photo: Mikerussell

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank sometime after 7:10 pm on November 10, 1975 with the loss of 29 souls.

Calling all Czars!

Where is Ron Klain*?

* Ron Klain is President Obama's new Ebola Czar.

But where is he? He failed to show at the President's big emergency meeting last week.

My guess? He's behind the scenes setting up the grift, figuring out how to make the best political advantage of this crisis and use it to sluice grotesque amounts of taxpayer money into the pockets of politically-connected FOOs (Friends of Obama)

That's what DC bagmen like Klain do. He's a fixer. It's why he was hired. A serious president would appoint a serious doctor as 'Ebola Czar,' or better yet, a serious president would dispense with such transparent kabuki theater and rely upon government people already in place at HHS and NIH.

Anyway, how will Czar Klain spread around the government largess? Under what guise? Ebola sensors at all major airports, etc? Like the way Former Heimatland Sicherheit Kommissar Chertoff cashed in on the terrorist scare by selling his multi-billion dollar security scanners that didn't work to the federal government?

Manpower. Maybe we'll see some big contracts that employs hordes of people, kinda like the left's version of Halliburton, only unlike KBR, these workers will have no useable skills or clearly defined roles.

An expansion of Homeland Security? More swat teams for HHS and NIH?

The possibilities are endless. Can you come up with any ideas to help Ebola Czar Ron Klain cover Obama's keister while simultaneously helping FOOs loot the US Treasury?

Please, put your modesty aside. No idea is too outlandish for this merry band of swindlers.

The Thrill is Gone

Photo: David Shankbone

The thrill up his leg is apparently gone...


“The people, if you look at the polling, their problem is illegal immigration,” he said. “He says, ‘I’m going to fix the problem.’ He doesn’t mean he’s gonna stop illegal immigration. He’s not going to do anything to stop illegal hiring, which is the magnet for illegal immigration, really. He’s going to basically say, ‘I’m going to deal with them by giving them green cards.’”

National Review

Rejoice, Columbia's Sons, Rejoice

Dissatisfied with your performance last night?

Perhaps a little embarrassed this morning?

You might be a Democrat and...

You might be suffering from Electile Dysfunction

No, no...

A bag of little blue pills isn't going to help you

You need to get back to basics

The gloomy night before us flies,
The reign of terror now is o'er;
No gags, inquisitors and spies,
The herds of harpies are no more.

Rejoice, Columbia's sons, rejoice
To tyrants never bend the knee
Join with heart with soul and voice
For Jefferson and Liberty. 

Lift up your hands ye heroes,
And swear with proud disdain,
The wretch that would ensnare you
Shall lay his snares in vain

You'll have to forgive a little musical gloating for...

Betcha gonna wish you had that filibuster now!

As the saying goes...

What goes around comes around.

 

"I am not on the ballot this fall…. But make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot," Obama said of Democratic proposals such as raising the minimum wage. "Every single one of them."

These policies have been repudiated by the American voter, 

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM

Now I'm not so naive as to believe everything is going to change, or really that anything is going to change... but I do love poking fun at our liberal compatriots.

  

Is this the Winter of Our Discontent

Down to the Wire

As the election draws closer it seems Republicans are up in Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Arkansas in the Senate race.  

The NYT give Republicans a 68% 70% chance of taking the Senate while The Washington Post gives them a 96% 97% chance, and now CNN is giving them a 95% chance. 

I wrote this article on Sunday, I've updated the forecasts and added CNN on Monday and left in the previous number just to illustrate the continuous state of flux.

Yesterday Nancy Pelosi warned this election could be a catastrophe for Democrats... of course she was trying to raise money.  What are your thoughts?

Play Baby Play!

Think of the Press as a Great Keyboard

on which the Government can Play.

Joseph Goebbels

The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests. 

"They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out," said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press.

You don't really need to find out what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone

Don Henley

Let's All Go A'Soalin - All Souls Day

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Day of the Dead (1859)

Soul Cakes

1 Cup Butter

3 3/4 Cups Sifted Flour

1 Cup Fine Sugar

1/4 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Ginger

1 tsp Allspice

2 Eggs
Currants or Raisins
2 tsp  Cider Vinegar

4-6 Tbsp Milk

powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or a large fork.

Blend in the sugar, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and allspice; beat eggs, vinegar, and milk together.

Mix with the flour mixture until a stiff dough is formed.

Knead thoroughly and roll out 1/4-inch thick.

Cut into 3-inch rounds and place on greased baking sheets. Decorate tops with currants or raisins in the form of a cross.  Prick several times with a fork and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar while still warm.    

Hallowtide

Originally Hallow's Eve or Halloween was the start of a Triduum, a three day festival encompassing Halloween, All Saint's Day, and All Souls Day.  In England, a tradition associated with All Souls Day was Souling or Soalin, where bands of children and the poor went round begging for money, apples, ale, or cake.

   

Saturday Sessions: The Silent Comedy

An interesting band out of San Diego

and their song All Saints Day

A WESTERN HERO
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

It's the 1st of Movember

1. Sign up,  begin today - clean shaven.

2. Grow and groom a moustache this month.

3. Don't fake it, no beards, no goatees.

4. Use the power of the Stache to create conversations about men's health and to raise funds for prostate cancer, testicular cancel, and mental health.

5. Each Mo Bro must conduct himself as a true gentleman.

What kind of Stache can you grow?

 

Photo: Mr Azed

 

Happy Halloween

Doll: Bjtales.com

In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.
But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

W.B. Yeats

Baobhan Sith, Leannan Sidhe, Dearg-Due, they go by many names in many places these beautiful seductresses of the Aos Sí, the people of the barrows, the bane of travelers at night.  Rumor has it that the only way to tell that these beautiful women were not women was to get a peak under their dress at their cloven feet.  Rumor also has it that they were the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The Baobhan Sith, or white woman of the Scottish highlands was simply a vampire, who drank the blood of her victims and left them dead and empty husks.  Leannan Sidhe however, was a muse, an inspiration to Irish writers and poets that in exchange for her powers drained her partners of their life.  The explanation for why all great Irish writers and poets seem to die young.   

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Arthur Hughes

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Henry Meynell Rheam

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

John Keats

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Freedom? You Can't Handle Freedom!

Do some people need a dictator?  Do some situations call for a temporary dictatorship?

Der Spiegel published two essays, each taking opposing views on the subject of dictatorships, anarchy and stability.

Christiane Hoffmann asks, Are Dictatorships better than Anarchy?

She lets us know where she stands with her opening sentences...

Although there is always reason to celebrate the toppling of an autocrat, the outcome of the Iraq war and the rise of Islamic State have demonstrated in horrific terms that the alternative can be even worse.

[...]

The last decade has shown that there is something worse than dictatorship, worse than the absence of freedom, worse than oppression: civil war and chaos.

Mathieu von Rohr steps up for the defense of liberty and boldly states Dictatorships and Chaos go Hand in Hand

The mistake lies in even describing a dictatorship as stable: If the dictatorships of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Moammar Gadhafi in Libya or Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia had been stable, they wouldn't have collapsed.

Although his basic premise is self-evident, I think Rohr's is the weaker argument.  Sometimes dictatorships are stable, then something changes:  It drifts from benignity to cruelty, or more often people and society end up growing beyond the need for such paternalism.  Many experts point to Egypt's economy, not iron-fisted military rule, as the ultimate reason for Mubarak's downfall. 

One of the many ironies of our Iraq invasion is contained in the conjecture posited by many Iraqis that if we has imposed order immediately and shot all looters and criminals in the street, the whole project may have ended up a success.

Were I an Iraqi father and husband just trying to get myself and my family through the day, I would probably agree.

Were I a Christian, I would want Saddam back in Iraq, and I would be helping Assad's regime in Syria.  "Freedom" has resulted in more danger, death and persecution for the Levant's religious minorities.

They Say it Can't Happen Here...

Liberals, Conservatives and Progressives of all parties all have their own ideas about right living and community standards, and they have the all-too-human dictatorial itch enforce it all.  Besides the money, why else are they fighting over the levers of power?  Power.

After all the cajoling, nudging and jollying along, at some point, ideas of right living and community standards will be enforced at the point of a government gun.

700,000 Non-Citizens Voted

Photo: Jonathan McIntosh

Harvard Study: Cooperative Congressional Elections Study

How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections? More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008

National Review

Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won election in 2008 with a victory margin of 312 votes. Votes cast by just 0.65 percent of Minnesota non-citizens could account for this margin. 

Washington Post

Voter ID?

Of the 27 non-citizens who indicated that they were “asked to show picture identification, such as a driver’s license, at the polling place or election office,” in the 2008 survey, 18 claimed to have subsequently voted, and one more indicated that they were “allowed to vote using a provisional ballot.” Only 7 (25.9%) indicated that they were not allowed to vote after showing identification. 

Hillary's Obama Moment

Don't let anybody, don't let anybody tell you, that, uh, you know, It's corporations and businesses that create jobs.

Yeah, governments can create jobs... like baking bread.  Here the citizenry stands in line to get some:

Government can also run construction, here's an apartment complex in Beijing:

Government can create good jobs.  Just ask former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney:

And remember, you didn't build that.

 

The Second Constitutional Convention of these United States

Governor Martin O'Malley (D) recently stated that "WIFI is a human right". Obviously we're behind the times... therefore I would like to get you started on the second Bill of Rights.  Welcome to the Second Constitutional Convention of these United States, please contribute.

Here goes:

1. Gummy Bears 
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

and so on and so forth...

Why I'm voting for a Democrat

Irv Halter, Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)

I try my best not to vote by pulling a party lever, I take a rational analytic approach to voting and have crossed party lines in voting for who I believed to be the most qualified candidate in local elections.  I believe Irv Halter is the most qualified candidate and I can live with his positions.  Irv Halter will be my first cross-party vote in a federal election.

As Irv Halter said "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me".  I can understand and empathize with that position.  Irv Halter was a Republican, then an Independent, and now he's running as a Democrat.  I'm not voting for Irv Halter because he's a Democrat, I actually dislike the fact that he's running as a Democrat, I'm voting for Irv Halter because of his positions on the issues.  It's kind of funny, but the one and only comment on the CPR website is that Irv Halter seems to have a much more solid conservative grounding than his Republican opponent, a position I tend to agree with.

Now I have to be honest, if this were the Senate race, I wouldn't be voting for Irv Halter, in that case I would be voting against his party rather than voting for his opponent.  Chances are Irv Halter isn't going to get elected, but even if he does the Democrats aren't going to take control of the House.  I'm willing to give Irv Halter the chance to live up to his campaign positions and buck the left-wing of the Democratic party.  I may be proved wrong, but it's a chance I'm willing to take.

Clap me on the back or kick me in the ass, your choice.  Agree with me or attempt to persuade me otherwise, but in my opinion Doug Lamborn is the epitome of everything wrong in Republican politics.  I'm voting for Irv Halter because of his positions and because Doug Lamborn is a Putz.  Frankly, I'm sorry that Irv Halter is running as a Democrat, he should be running as a Republican, but the days of voting for someone because they have a D or R after their name need to come to an end.