Jesse Ventura - Putz Extraordinaire

Had to endure a Larry King interview with former MN Governor Jesse Ventura tonight while at a Mexican grill in Dinkytown (good food, bad TV). For the second half, "The Body/Mind/Whatever" was flanked by Congressman Charlie Rangel and some Democratic Party operative (perhaps another congressman).

I can't currently find a link to the video (wait- I think this is it), but it was pretty excruciating- Ventura mouthing off about the "two-party dictatorship" blah, blah, blah, the Democrats and Republicans not reflecting the "true" public will- kind of like a pathetic, scaled-down version of Lou Dobbs (who himself has turned into a disgrace).

Of course if Jesse the Putz truly gave a crap about anything he spews out, he could have run for another term as governor or even lifted his itty bitty pinky to build up the (moderate?) Independence Party here in Minnesota.

So when I got home, I tried to look up the as-yet-unposted video on CNN and I got another interview with this putz- this time claiming he was fired from MSNBC for being against the Iraq War- somebody tell Keith Olbermann!! He didn't get the memo, dude!!

Why I don't refer to the Left as "liberal"

A three year-old article from the Weekly Standard, "Take_Back_the_Word", but I always wanted to post it (and I mistakenly thought it was from National Review).

I would prefer that my friends on the right follow suit.

belated Sichuan earthquake post

No "schadenfreude" here- my first reaction was to let my Chinese friends from Chengdu know so they could contact their parents.

My second reaction was admittedly cynical- I had just read an article that the PRC was blocking action by the UN Security Council on the catastrophic cyclone in their client state of Burma/Myanmar, so while I didn't enjoy seeing Chinese schoolchildren pulled out of the rubble (I taught English for two weeks to Chinese kids myself 2 years ago just south of Shanghai), I didn't want the earthquake to deflect criticism directed toward China of their helping to keep international aid out of Burma.

The quake has, of course, focused attention in the Chinese media itself on the shoddy construction of area buildings/structures/schools and may yet prove to trigger some mininal accountability on the part of the CCP towards its citizens.

So last_Saturday, I wrote a post defending Obama on the "57 states" comment, and now I run into this_footage of Bill O'Reilly mouthing off to his studio crew waaayyy back before the "Factor" when he was still hosting that ridiculous show Inside Edition.
So, WTF? This is news?! The guy had a really bad afternoon more then ten years ago and it's some kind of (rather pathetic) gotcha moment?? Sheesh . . .

China_reluctant_to_prod_Myanmar_over_aid.

BEIJING - China faces mounting appeals to prod cyclone-ravaged Myanmar to allow
access to foreign aid workers but is giving no sign it will use its influence
over its ally, insisting instead that the world respect the military junta's
sovereignty.

. . . and . . .

This week, Beijing blocked a proposal to have the U.N. humanitarian chief brief
the Security Council on Myanmar, saying governments should not politicize the
issue.

classy, just classy

I think Obama was just joking

when he said he'd been through 57_states. instapundit and others have tried to paint it as a Dan Qwayle moment, but I think it's clear from the video that he was trying to be humorous. (not that I'm voting for him in November, but...)