Penalty of Vision
Lee on Dec 16 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Tag Archive 'youtube'
Flight of the Flightless
Lee on Nov 17 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Biden: Clinton Better
Lee on Sep 10 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
says Hillary Clinton would have been a better pick than himself. A little amusing naturally, but I’m impressed by the candor and humility of it. Fine characteristics for a serving vice president who is expected to exert substantial influence on foreign policy.
Sphere: Related ContentBomb Philosophy
Lee on Sep 09 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
9/11 Denial comedic interlude of the day. I’d say we’re approaching a existential moment with Andrew Kornkven and those of similar sentiment. One in which absolutely everything becomes a manufactured illusion to justify hidden purposes. A cynic might observe that it’s a pointless moment if so, given that in the end the bomb actually knows a purpose for its existence, whereas the “truthers” are very clearly still in search of one.
Sphere: Related ContentSarah Palin in the Green Room
Lee on Sep 05 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008
Sarah on babysitting, energy independence and CS Lewis in the Charlie Rose Green Room:
Sphere: Related ContentWar Crimes Live
Lee on Aug 14 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Lee's Page, Media
Georgian television reporter Tamara Urushadze gets shot by a Russian sniper as she delivered a live report near Gori. Tough girl, she finishes the report without a tear.
Sphere: Related ContentTargeting the “Original Maverick”
Lee on Aug 07 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008
(photo: WBEZ Chicago Public Radio | site)
Obama’s newish mocking McCain’s “original maverick” slogan is fairly good. As Ken Wheaton notes, all the time McCain had to spend trying to convince the GOP he was a loyal Republican, unfortunately produced a lot of pro-Bush statements on videotape. Also, I like the Rovian touch of attacking McCain’s strength: experience.
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Sphere: Related ContentLife Under Stalinism
Lee on Aug 06 2008 | Filed under: History, Lee's Page
of victims of the Terror recounting their experiences at the hands of the secret police. The levity that many exhibit in revisiting the systematic decimation of human dignity they experienced, is the ageless strength of Russia as a nation. The inhuman brutality they describe, is the curse of that great and unfortunate nation’s state.
Sphere: Related ContentDissonance Control in Political Paranoia
Lee on Aug 03 2008 | Filed under: Culture, Domestic Politics, Glenn Greenwald's Carnival of Fisking, Lee's Page, Uncategorized
(photo: companyink)
After writing about the Ronpaulist fear mongering of Jordan Page, and then reading Lance’s splendid post on the latest contheorist pandering of Glenn Greenwald, a common insight has reoccurred to me: the absurd amount of cognitive dissonance conditional to political paranoia.
This is something Christopher Hitchens explored quite adeptly last year at the “Four Horsemen” chat with his three fellow atheist luminaries, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris (, skip to 8:17). In a response to a point by Dennett, Hitchens argues that the stress of cognitive dissonance is the inevitable state deriving from belief in political unreality, and furthermore, that this condition exists and persists on purely survival grounds (seems true in miniature too).
I’d add that it’s the compartmentalism that political paranoia necessitates in an open society that is the most conspicuous betrayal of its essential cynicism. Something especially apparent when you run into it face to face.
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Defending the Second World War
Lee on Aug 02 2008 | Filed under: History
Here’s a five part Uncommon Knowledge segment featuring a superb pairing of Christopher Hitchens and Victor Davis Hanson, to discuss the new World War II revisionism led by Pat Buchanan. While it’s an entertaining exercise for a Saturday, I’ll warn you that there’s a certain weakness to the discussion, given that both Hanson and Hitchens are in agreement. It’s left to poor Peter Robinson as host to present the revisionist case.
But, Robinson probably does as well a job as Pat Buchanan could. As Hitchens and Hanson both deftly demonstrate by different courses, Buchanan is advancing arguments which are largely indefensible and occasionally even crazy.
Part One of Five:
Sphere: Related ContentWhat Jack Kemp is About
Lee on Jul 30 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
calls himself “a progressive conservative, Democratic Republican” these days apparently. Who knows what the hell that means.
Sphere: Related ContentSonny Landham Falls
Lee on Jul 29 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Lee's Page, Libertarianism
Looks like the Libertarian Party of Kentucky has dumped Sonny Landham, previously their clinically insane pick for US Senate. Good for them. Even if given the psychopathic nature of Landham’s views, I feel a little like I’m congratulating them for breathing.
While the Obama campaign might like to think that the LP could pose a serious threat to John McCain in Georgia, the Landham misadventure only reminds me yet again of the extraordinary amateurishness that seems to characterize almost all Libertarian Party political campaigns. There’s simply no excuse for failing to properly vet a candidate you intend to challenge for the seat held by the Senate Minority Leader.
As a former Hollywood actor and convicted criminal, it wouldn’t have been particularly difficult to uncover Landham’s violent imagination or deplorable associations with rightwing hate groups. A simple YouTube and Google search might have sufficed in fact.
Speaking of which, if you’ve never seen the deranged Bircher-style videos that Landham did while a member of the white supremacist/neo-Confederate organization the ‘Council of Conservative Citizens‘, it’s well worth a watch. The strangely tense and badly rehearsed panel discussion scene seems like something lifted out of a lost David Lynch film: .
Supplemental: I must say I do appreciate the fact that Landham hasn’t disowned himself and begged for mercy from the mob, in that axiomatic ritual of insincere contrition we’ve all grown accustomed to. His quote to the Associated Press: “My views are still the same, I make no apologies for them.”
If you think about it, that’s quite a rare response. Crazy, but commendable for its candor.
Sphere: Related ContentThuggery for Obama?
Lee on May 31 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Wow. They beat the crap out of this elderly school teacher, because she chanted for Hillary at the Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting: . (via FDL). I suppose that’s one way to put down internal insurrection. Not a very good one though in a building full of cameras.
Sphere: Related ContentHarriet and the Spies
Lee on May 31 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Vowing to vote McCain, an outspoken, paranoid and hopefully drunk Hillary supporter gets tossed out of the Democratic Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting, raving about race and CIA surveillance: .
Sphere: Related ContentBill Clinton’s Laws of Politics
Lee on Feb 29 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
from 2004. Bill Clinton:”If one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes…” You know where that’s going. Ahem. Clearly these were not carved in stone.
(HT: BigDog)
Sphere: Related ContentPecking Order
Lee on Feb 22 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Pompeii Against Allah?
Lee on Feb 22 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
photo: Martin Dixon
Here’s a grim laugh for your Friday morning. A Muslim which preposterously seeks to explain the death and burial of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 1st century, as the result of the wrath of Allah against the decadent Roman empire. The video marvels at how people were struck down with little warning by the eruption of Vesuvius, and cites the Quran as evidence of divine retribution. Particularly offensive is the implication that slavery was a uniquely Roman institution. Something that no doubt would come as a great surprise to slaves who suffer to this day, under cruel ownership by devout Muslim masters in Africa and Saudi Arabia.
Errors in Modern Gender
Lee on Feb 19 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Meet Alan Finch (). Alan became Helen Finch at 21, through sexual reassignment surgery…and then became Alan again when he was thirty. As you can see above, the results of his original surgery were extraordinarily effective. But Alan has decided he was misdiagnosed as suffering from gender identity disorder, and is now suing the clinic that treated him for “surgically mutilating” him. Alan claims what he needed instead was simple psychotherapy. While a tragic predicament, it’s abhorrent that someone should seek to punish physicians for what was clearly an unforced free choice in a free society. Plus…I do get the nagging feeling in looking at Alan’s photographs, that we may be hearing from him again in ten years, suing his psychotherapist.
Sphere: Related ContentA Boy and His Hero
Lee on Feb 17 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
The Warden
Lee on Feb 12 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
I am really enjoying the cinematic PETA ads depicting KFC’s Colonel Sanders as an evil prison warden abusing anthropomorphic chicken men. in particular is hilarious. The premise and message is too ridiculous to take seriously as any kind of political message, thus it transcends its purpose to become genuine entertainment. One wonders if they intend to adapt Col. Sander’s Asian personas anytime soon. I hope so. I’d personally enjoy Samurai Sanders making a chicken sandwich with a katana.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Practicality of Barack
Lee on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
At some point along the way Obama became the pragmatist’s choice. Hillary used to own that territory when concerns turned to electability, but that’s all over with now. Perception is as PoliticalBuzz puts it, “Obama is someone who can rally a broad base.” Combining the leftist base with the moderate infrastructure is always difficult. But this time both may be able to consolidate behind Obama. See Judith Gayle for a representative example of the shift that’s going on among progressives. However, the bearded, bereted, , perhaps isn’t the best image to preach the message of electability.
(HT: Ben Weyl)
Deceptive Introductions
Lee on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Barren Politics
Lee on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
The vacuous Draft Bloomberg movement has made a . I have no idea how this is supposed to make me support him. I’m not sure they even know why they support him. No policy proposals, no platform, no definable ideology, no ideas at all. At least Ross Perot had plans and proposals (and lots of charts). Silly though it was, the Draft Perot movement could at least come up with reasons to support him. The Bloomberg people have absolutely nothing. “He was an entrepreneur and a mayor and…time is running out, sign the petition!” Predictably, so far only about 8,200 people have decided they want a candidate with no ideas, no purpose and the charisma of a rock.
Sphere: Related ContentBrezhnev Rap
Lee on Feb 09 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Fabulous of scenes in the Soviet Union in 1983. From the author: “We entered Moscow with a tourist visa, a tiny super8 camera, b/w film material and a nice piece of hashish. we wanted to know how Moscow did look like off the red square parades.”
Sphere: Related ContentSignal to Noise
Lee on Feb 08 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
If like Keith and myself you were in doubt as to whether there were boos among the introductory applause for John McCain at CPAC (apart from this obvious moment), be not in doubt.
Sphere: Related ContentThe New Media Zombie Apocalypse
Lee on Feb 07 2008 | Filed under: Blogs, Culture, Lee's Page, Media
image: Dead Central (see alternate posters at ZNN)
George Romero is evidently taking on the dynamics of social networking and new media culture, in his latest apocalyptic zombie film . George, in an interview for the AP:
“If Hitler were alive today, he wouldn’t have to stand out in that square. He could just put out a blog and he’d have millions of followers. It’s completely uncontrolled. It’s not information, it’s opinion. And it’s scary. You can get an audience no matter what your opinion is.”
“There is serious debate going on, but most of it, and the stuff that people are attracted to, is in some way entertainment. Is Michael Moore an honest documentarian? Honestly? I don’t think he is. … The real discussion gets left behind the entertainment value.”
(Associated Press)
Romero’s zombie films have always been built around a caustic social allegory. Critical themes have ranged from racism to consumerism to xenophobia. However, I guess we bloggers are now in the crosshairs eh? Should be fun to see us getting metaphorically devoured.
Sphere: Related ContentOuch, Ouch, Ouch.
Lee on Feb 05 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
of Sean Hannity asking Frank Luntz’s group of Democratic Obama supporters to name one (1) specific accomplishment of their candidate. They all fail embarrassingly and resort to offering Obama’s personality characteristics as achievements. One young girl does manage to meekly submit “community organizer,” which may be a valid allusion to Barack’s accomplishments on behalf of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago in the 1980s. The rest…ought to be ashamed of themselves. Anyone this uninformed about who they intend to vote for, should probably not be voting in an election to begin with.
From: HotAir
Sphere: Related ContentA Witness in Mauritania
Lee on Feb 03 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Israel Matzav has a of a report on the Al Qaeda attack on the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott, Mauritania. You have to lament for the investigation when your eye witness refers to the scene of the attack as “the embassy of the Zionist Entity.”
Sphere: Related ContentCounter Coulter
Lee on Feb 01 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
of Ann Coulter endorsing Hillary Clinton and pledging to campaign for her. Perhaps a worse political catastrophe for Team Hillary than drivers licenses for illegals.
Sphere: Related ContentConservative Trash Television
Lee on Jan 30 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Do you remember in the 80s when there were these bizarre quasi-political trash shows with psychopathic screaming hosts on television and the radio? They were something like a combination of Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Springer. Here’s of two of the worst getting into a fight over who is more “conservative.” Wally wins, but his only redeeming virtue now and then was that he was the father of Rebecca De Mornay (and this will always be as far as I’m concerned). Edit. Ah, .
Sphere: Related ContentMoney Honey Memories
Lee on Jan 30 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Horrible audio and video quality, but here’s Joey Ramone performing . Joey would be dead six months later, but the financial industry and markets he celebrated and loved live forever. You can download a high quality version of this classic track here for ninety-nine cents.
Sphere: Related ContentIdi Amin’s Uganda
Lee on Jan 23 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Somewhat dated but excellent documentary on the psychopathic depravity of Amin’s rule. The moment of macabre high comedy, in which Amin declares he has unilaterally withdrawn his army from Tanzania in the name of neighborly brotherhood during the Ugandan – Tanzanian War (when in fact his forces had been annihilated by the Tanzanian army’s counterattack), is particularly well handled.
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Dreams for Sale
Lee on Jan 23 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Top 10 Scariest Moments in Soviet Cinema
Lee on Jan 18 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
God’s Own Constitution
Lee on Jan 16 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
of Mike Huckabee arguing that “what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards.” Hmm. Is that really in accord with anyone’s notion of Founders intent? I know committed social conservatives who do not share such a false and extreme view of the Constitution. Aside from that, can you imagine this kind of rhetoric in the context of a general election? Automatic defeat.
H/T: Pamela Leavey
Sphere: Related Content
The View From the Bluff: Lance’s Economic and Finance Blog
