Fiskie Time Has Come Again

Nominations are now being accepted for the coveted Robert Fisk Award for Idiotarian of 2003, over at little green footballs.

Like last year, you can cast up to five votes. My five nominations this year? Michael Moore, Ted Rall, Sean Penn, Mike Farrell, and Janeane Garofolo.

See May the "Best" One Win.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 01/01/04 09:06:57 PM
Categorized as Other.

Blog Stuff

Daily Commentary from the Cato Institute has been added to The Daily Roll.

A Watches section has been added to Here a Blog, There a Blog.

The monthly indices have been eliminated, but the weekly indices have been amplified with an extract from each entry, and the entries are now grouped by day with a link to each daily archive. The category indices have been similarly amplified, but each entry extract is presented as the link's "title" ("tool tip" or "balloon") rather than as text on the page.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 01/01/04 08:28:31 PM
Categorized as Other.

Does Michael Moore Hurt or Help George W. Bush?

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode LXXVI

Damian Thompson writes in today's London Telegraph:

.... Moore's fans don't care how many fast ones he pulls because, hey, he's a funny guy. There is nothing the Right can do to dent his popularity. And perhaps it shouldn't even try.

The truth is that George W Bush owes Moore a debt of gratitude. He wouldn't be president today if it weren't for the Green candidate, Ralph Nader, who vacuumed up votes that would otherwise have gone to Al Gore. Moore was Nader's biggest celebrity backer. So we can be reasonably sure that at least 538 Florida students voted Green because Mike told them to, thereby handing Dubya his winning margin.

And next time? Strange though it might seem, Moore could help the President achieve a second term. There he stands, inciting his audience to ever greater heights of Bush-hatred. The snag is that, although this goes down a treat in cappuccino-sipping Berkeley, it doesn't play so well among blue-collar voters who think Saddam deserved to get his ass kicked.

Histrionic invective directed against relatively popular sitting presidents rarely pays off, as the McGovernites discovered in 1972 and the Clinton-haters did in 1996. The sheer incontinence of the attacks on Bush by Moore and his Hollywood friends could help deliver the Midwest to Bush...

(Thanks, Kathy.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 01/01/04 01:15:15 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

"The 10 Worst Quotes From The Democratic Underground For 2003"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode LXXV

Compiled by John Hawkins at Right Wing News, yesterday:

10) "A war of real information and real issues alone is doomed to fail. The Texas Fascist Party carries elections by drawing the hordes of stupid white men who are itching to 'get even' for decades of imagined slights. Arguing issues with these people is pointless.

These people are not interested in issues, social justice, or even the fact that the US government will go bankrupt in a decade. All they want is to get back at welfare mothers, blacks, Arabs, immigrants, liberals, feminists, and intellectuals for shrinking their paychecks and threatening their masculinity. They are a nation of psychopaths created and sustained by right-wing hatred and are utterly beyond the limits of reason.

The way to approach this vital segment of the electorate is not with issues but rather with propaganda. Speak to their hatred and direct it not towards the goals of the Texas Fascist Party but rather against them. Make them hate not liberals for raising taxes but rather offshoring that deprives them of their jobs. Make them hate big government which takes from hard working people such as themselves and gives it to the rich. Chanelling hatred, not addressing issues, is the challenge for resistance propagandists." -- Resistance Is Futile ....

(Thanks, Charles.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 01/01/04 10:15:17 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

"New Year" by Wearing

Upon the threshold of another year
      We stand again.
We know not what of gladness and good cheer,
      Of grief or pain
May visit us while journeying to its close.
      In this we rest,
God dealeth out in wisdom what He knows
      For us is best.

Thomas Wearing (b. 1881)

Masterpieces of Religious Verse (1948), ed. James Dalton Morrison, # 310.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 01/01/04 07:52:31 AM
Categorized as Literary & Religious.