The Party Of Nixon
Monday, June 8, 2009
Print
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[C]onservative politics was not ?Sreborn? after the Goldwater campaign in 1964 and cemented by Reagan. Instead, the Nixonites allowed this new ideological trend to be the face of the party, but they retained control over the institutional functions of the party, as evidence by Nixon?"s resurgence. This observation explains a lot of other puzzling feature of Republican politics. This is not the party of small government, it?"s the party of national security. The party of individual liberty and self-reliance is actually the party of ?Senhanced interrogation.? The idea tying it together is national security, with superficial appeals to whatever helps win the election.The Party Of Nixon
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
The Party Of Nixon
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The Party Of Nixon
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The Party Of Nixon
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posted by 88956 @ 10:40 PM,
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Kevin Spacey plans film of real-life sea captain's Somali ordeal
PrintEmailPDF The second true story of bravery battling pirates is announced in as many months, after Kevin Spacey buys the rights to Richard Phillips's story
A US sea captain whose dramatic rescue from pirates made headlines across the globe earlier this year is to be the subject of a new Hollywood film.
Richard Phillips, a 53-year-old father of two who secured the safety of his cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, by offering himself as a hostage to Somali pirates, has sold his story to Columbia Pictures.
Phillips was held for five days off the coast of Somalia last month before US navy snipers shot dead three of the four men who had imprisoned him on a lifeboat, an action authorised by president Obama. The fourth pirate surrendered and is in custody.
The film is being co-produced by Kevin Spacey, who would appear to be an obvious candidate to play Phillips, although no casting details have yet emerged. Columbia has optioned the film rights to the captain's forthcoming memoir.
"We were drawn to this remarkable story of heroism and courage as events were unfolding off the coast of Africa," said Columbia co-president Doug Belgard.
The film based on Phillips' story will not be the only movie to be centred on pirate activities off Somalia's 2,000-mile coastline, which has become the most dangerous strip of sea in the world, with weekly attacks on European ships.
Earlier this month it was announced that Samuel L Jackson had secured the life rights to the story of Andrew Mwangura, who heads the Seafarer's Assistance Programme (SAP), a non-profit piracy monitoring group that works to release imperiled crews and vessels off the coast of Africa. Jackson is said to be interested in playing Mwangura in a forthcoming film.
? To contact the film news desk email news.film@guardian.co.uk
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Kevin Spacey plans film of real-life sea captain's Somali ordeal
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Kevin Spacey plans film of real-life sea captain's Somali ordeal
[Source: La News]
Kevin Spacey plans film of real-life sea captain's Somali ordeal
[Source: Sunday News]
Kevin Spacey plans film of real-life sea captain's Somali ordeal
[Source: Channel 6 News]
posted by 88956 @ 9:57 PM,
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Yglesias Award Nominee
PrintEmailPDF "Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down at his church in Kansas Sunday morning in a thoroughly evil, cold-blooded act of domestic terrorism. Yes, terrorism. Not 'extremism,'" - Michelle Malkin.
Yglesias Award Nominee
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Yglesias Award Nominee
[Source: Murder News]
Yglesias Award Nominee
[Source: Rome News]
Yglesias Award Nominee
[Source: Daily News]
posted by 88956 @ 7:50 PM,
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Quote For The Day
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"What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard...
I don't think we should be afraid of our values we're fighting for, what we stand for. And so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're doing on the battlefield and everywhere else...
So one has to have some faith, I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.
When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those," - general David Petraeus, conceding that the US violated the Geneva Conventions under president Bush, and pledging to remain within the laws of war in the future, as the best way to win the war on terror.
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty.)
Quote For The Day
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Quote For The Day
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Quote For The Day
[Source: China News]
Quote For The Day
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Quote For The Day
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posted by 88956 @ 6:51 PM,
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��Loyalty through decency�"
Tim Leberecht, frog design�"s VP of marketing and communications, riffs on my post about moving past selling advertising as scarcity and about decency as the new ad (my emphasis):
Equity is the accumulation, the repeated occurrence, of actions, interactions, and transactions that add value. The best way, then, to build brand equity is to repeatedly and consistently add value through all your interactions with customers. Advertising doesn�"t add value; branded content does (information). Promotions don�"t add value; branded entertainment does (entertainment). When you brand something, you don�"t just market scarcity and advertise your products and services, you market your ability to add value that is relevant.
The web, and the social web in particular, reconciles artificial scarcity with relevance, and that�"s why more and more branding dollars are moving online. It is the ideal forum for creating an abundance of scarce moments, thousands of small great ideas instead of one great big one. These small great ideas come to live in brief moments of attachment with customers that are personalized and truly relevant for them.
�SAdvertising is failure,⬝ says Jeff Jarvis, and he thinks �Smedia only get in the way of customer relationships.⬝ And indeed, how will you make more friends at a party? Showing up with a big banner around your neck that says �SI am a great friend⬝ or engaging in a handful of conversations with strangers, listening to their stories and detecting affinities whilst accomplishing a sense of privacy that gradually becomes intimate? Right. In the end, that�"s what we should be doing as marketers to build real, sustainable brand equity - creating publicity through intimacy, loyalty through decency.
��Loyalty through decency�"
[Source: Good Times Society]
posted by 88956 @ 6:30 PM,
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The other Susan Boyle
PrintEmailPDF The global success of the Britain's Got Talent star has had an unlikely impact on one unassuming Texas artist. Stuart Jeffries hears how
There is, you might think, room in the world for only one Susan Boyle. But you would be wrong. The American artist, Susan K Boyle, was living her quiet, unassuming life in the pretty hill country of Kerrville, Texas, when a friend sent her an email.
"It was a link to Susan Boyle's YouTube performance a few days after her audition," recalls Susan K. "I thought she was wonderful - what a beautiful voice and what a compelling story. But I thought it was just an interesting coincidence, nothing more."
Except that back in 2002, Susan K Boyle had set up a website, susanboyle.com, to display her artworks. That site had been rusting in cyberspace for a couple of years - until the Britain's Got Talent finalist sudenly came to the global consciousness last month, and something rather strange happened. "A journalist called me and said, 'Do you know your site is getting 1,800 hits per hour?' I had no idea - I hadn't upgraded the site for a couple of years." Yesterday, she calculated the cumulative total of hits to be more than 172,000.
Susan K's website shows her figurative line drawings and head studies in oil. Like her namesake, she has got talent, though not the sort to irrigate Simon Cowell or Amanda Holden's tear ducts.
And then the madness, as it does in such cases, began in earnest. "A couple of Susan Boyle fans emailed me to say they thought I sang beautifully. Another thought I sang beautifully and liked my artwork! Among the emails were inquiries for price quotes on a couple of my art pieces. However, I have had no sales as a result of this. Yet."
So is Susan K expecting a surge of sales as a result of the sudden celebrity of an unglamorous though sweet-voiced woman who lives on the other side of the Atlantic? "That would be too weird, wouldn't it?"
Next, she started getting calls and emails from people wanting to buy her website's domain name. "One guy, within a minute, had increased his offer from $100 to $500,000. I'm not sure how serious he was, but that sort of thing is very strange to happen to someone like me." She consulted a company called Sedo that sells domain names and, following their advice, has now put her web address up for sale for a cool $25,000. She hasn't sold it. Yet. (She has moved her artwork display, though, to sboyleart.com).
Surely she'll be rooting for her namesake to win tomorrow night's final? "I haven't heard the other finalists, so I can't say." Admirably diplomatic - but Susan K now has a pecuniary interest in the other Susan's success. According to Sedo's director of business development, Nora Nanayakkara: "The value of the domain name really depends on the sustainability of Susan Boyle's popularity."
I ask if Susan K's life story is as heart-rending as her namesake's. "I don't know much about her biography," she replies. I'm thinking of the fact that the 46-year-old singer from West Lothian claimed - apparently as a joke - never to have been kissed, at least until Piers Morgan made her life story even more harrowing by kissing her backstage last week. "Oh, I've been kissed," Susan K replies finally.
The 64-year-old from Kerrville is an art major who has drawn and painted throughout her life, while working mostly in the airline industry. "I was a stewardess, as they were called in the 60s, for PanAm. I left just before Lockerbie [the PanAm crash in 1988]."
In addition to Susan K's new website, her work can be seen in a show called Turning Point at the Hill Country Arts Foundation in Ingram, Texas, from 6 June. She is understandably eager for the media circus (ie me calling her at the prearranged time of 7.30am from London) to move on, so she can walk her "lovely old dog" and then get back to her art.
After the interview, she sends me a disarming email: "Please be kind to me in your article. Another outfit in the UK wrote about me yesterday and made me sound stupid AND greedy - and they hadn't even spoken with me!! Egads!"
For the record, Susan K Boyle is neither of those things (and I'm always a sucker for a woman who exclaims "egads"). She is, like her namesake, a breath of fresh air. The last thing the "other" Susan Boyle says sounds sweet coming down the line to this celeb-crazy nation. "I am an artist and am happiest in my studio working on my art. I don't deserve, or want, fame".
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: International News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: News 2]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Mexico News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: News Weekly]
The other Susan Boyle
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posted by 88956 @ 5:44 PM,
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Obama's a 'Powerful New Ally' for Muslim Outreach As 'Myths Abound' in America
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Eli Saslow, the young Washington Post reporter best known for his giddy promotion of Obama?"s "glistening pectorals," touted Obama as a "powerful new ally" against "Islamophobia" on the front of Wednesday?"s Style section. The protagonist of Saslow?"s story, Aida Mansoor of Hartford, Connecticut, tries to educate an apparently (and painfully) bigoted America about Islam. This is where Obama comes to the rescue:
Her attempts at cross-cultural connection can sometimes feel futile, Mansoor says, but her energy this year has been fortified by a powerful new ally: President Obama, a Christian who has promised unprecedented outreach to the Muslim world. More than 85 percent of Muslims in the United States approve of Obama's performance as president, according to a recent Gallup poll, which is his strongest endorsement from any religious group.
"What he says could go a long way toward dispelling the myths," Mansoor says. "For a long time, Muslims have been the bad guys in this country. There is so much hate and misunderstanding, and he might be able to help the world overcome some of it."
Before Obama hosts his global diversity seminar, Mansoor begins her local equivalent.
The assumption behind the Post story is that America has a long way to go to be properly "educated" that Islam is a peaceful religion. The headline was "As the Myths Abound, So Does Islamic Outreach." Will knowledge defeat ignorance? The Post's headline inside isn't optimistic: "Explaining Islam to? Americans: It's Not Any Easier These Days."
The Post doesn?"t ask: is it possible that Muslims can exaggerate the harshness and everyday commonality of "Islamophobia" among Americans? Saslow brings his story right around to how the 2008 election displayed "the worst of Islamophobia" in the United States:
After Abdul-Karim [Mansoor?"s imam] finishes his introductory lecture at the library, Mansoor plays a series of media clips compiled during the past year. The 2008 presidential election, Mansoor says, revealed the worst of Islamophobia in the United States. "Anytime you turned on the TV, they were saying, 'You know, maybe Obama is a Muslim,' " she tells the class. "Well, first of all, he's not a Muslim. But more important: So what if he was? What's wrong with that?"
Mansoor turns out the lights and starts the projector, which the class takes as a cue to relax.... One of the census employees closes his eyes as Mansoor plays the first sound bite, from a broadcast of Michael Savage's radio show:
"We have a right to know if [Obama's] a so-called friendly Muslim or one who aspires to more radical teachings," Savage says.
Then comes a clip of Sen. John McCain at one of his campaign rallies, responding to a woman who asked whether Obama was Arab: "No ma'am," McCain says. "He's a decent family man, citizen."
Eventually, Mansoor finishes with a video of an experiment conducted by a television station. The clerk at a bagel shop pretends to refuse service to a Muslim woman, and the camera focuses on other customers' responses. Three customers congratulate the clerk for taking a stand against "un-American terrorists." Several others leave the store in protest. One man, moved to tears, tells the clerk, "Every person deserves to be treated with respect, dignity."
Mansoor stops the tape and turns on the lights. She's crying. The attendees set down their pens and cellphones. They're watching now.
"This always brings tears to my eyes when I see it," Mansoor says. "This is what we face every day. Every day. Maybe it gives you a little bit of an idea what it must feel like. What are your reactions?"
Nobody speaks....
Finally, Lillian Ruiz, the human-relations director, raises her hand.
"I think we need to stand up like we did in the 1950s," Ruiz said. "You watch things like this and it makes you want to just fight back and do something, because it's so sad. Obviously, discrimination is still very alive."
"Yes," Mansoor says. "Yes. Thank you."
That's how the article ends. America's stuck in the 1950s, and Muslims are the new blacks.
Here?"s where the whole story turns on fiction: Saslow is writing about a February 26, 2008 episode of ABC?"s Primetime: What Would You Do? in which actors playing an obnoxiously bigoted clerk and an offended Muslim woman try to nudge unsuspecting members of the public into action. The "Islamophobia" is exaggerated for ratings and to make a liberal point against discriminatory attitudes. ABC?"s John Quinones, the host of these "thought experiments," explained:
QUINONES: The young woman in our experiment is an actor. But for this woman, discrimination is all too real. Nohayia Javed [ph] helped us design our experiment. Although born in Chicago, she says she's constantly characterized by fellow Americans as the enemy.
JAVED: They always start off with, 'You're a terrorist. Osama-lover. Towel-head. Camel jockey." On and on.
Fellow Americans "always start" with terrorist accusations? They?"re "constantly" attacking Muslims with harsh ridicule? At what point do ABC and The Washington Post acknowledge this kind of harassment might not be a constant occurrence?
In that 2008 segment, Quinones acknowledged "At the end of the day, 13 people stood up for the Muslim woman, while six sided with the clerk. But the majority of the bystanders, 22, did or said absolutely nothing." Because twice as many expressed offense, Quinones placed all the blame on the bystanders, so that the vast majority looked like they needed an Islamic training seminar.
PS: Here's what gets left out of the sympathetic story: does Islamic outreach always ring true? A newspaper account of another Aida Mansoor event in Connecticut features Muslim convert Ingrid Mattson uncorking this whopper:
The most common misconception about Islam is that it is oppressive to women. Muslim women, like women all over the world have often had to struggle to enjoy their natural rights, but Islam is most often seen by them as a source of strength in advocating for their rights.
Obama's a 'Powerful New Ally' for Muslim Outreach As 'Myths Abound' in America
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Obama's a 'Powerful New Ally' for Muslim Outreach As 'Myths Abound' in America
[Source: China News]
Obama's a 'Powerful New Ally' for Muslim Outreach As 'Myths Abound' in America
[Source: The Daily News]
Obama's a 'Powerful New Ally' for Muslim Outreach As 'Myths Abound' in America
[Source: News 2]
posted by 88956 @ 5:18 PM,
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