Political

French Bashing Fixers – Miquelon.org knows best

~ Wiberg

Note: the following assumes the website miquelon.org is real and not a parody.

The other day I came across this site:  miquelon.org. As it’s website states, “Miquelon.org is a watchdog group dedicated to documenting Anti-French activity in news and entertainment. Miquelon.org’s activities are of a purely academic and charitable in nature.”

Purely academic and charitable in nature.  See, they are doing the world a favor. Like so many other speech-monitoring groups, they view themselves as helping others in what to say, when to say it, what to think, when to think it.  Don’t bash the French, s’il vous plait. Full disclosure: I like France. I took French language in high school.  I like hockey and the French-Canadian teams. The French president has a ridiculously hot wife. Consider this post an academic and charitable post in pointing out the silliness of such a watchdog site.

Miquelon.org is a project by Marc Cormier, who I believe is from Canada and/or Saint Pierre and Miquelon (island off of Canada, part of French territory. Note, I’m from the United States so I had to look this up because our schools suck). I’m sure he’s a nice guy, hard worker, etc. The important thing is that he’s an expert on French and North America relations (that means Canada and the U.S.. Stay out of it Central and South America, he doesn’t know shit about you). Good work if you can find it, I guess. If ‘academic’ includes Fox News-link bait, and posts about Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (who, by the way, is a PUPPET), then I guess that makes half of the internet ‘academically-inclined.  I think I’ve seen more serious-minded work on ebaumsworld.com.  Miquelon.org even have a color-coded threat level graphic:

At least we’re just between Fuck French and Leno/Stern/Talk Radio threat level. I like how they spell FUCK with F***  so as not to offend the children who must be part of their readership demographics. Canadian politeness in action when attempting to limit speech. Say  (not ‘do’ or ‘act’, but ‘say’) the wrong thing and the threat level will go up!

As with most watchdog groups, most of the watching is focused on the United States and its citizens. The Great Satan, right? But of course it is.  There are hundreds of countries in the world, and only the United States’ flag is posted on the site’s banner.  Who knew the rest of the world was so well behaved regarding the French? Bravo, World, for your have learned what the Americans have not – that free speech ends when it comes to enforcing stereotypes. How ever did you do it?

And then there is Jay Leno, one of the site’s targets. I can’t stand the comedian’s humor or show. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, too.  But I respect his hard work as a comedian and talk show host. He’s been at it for over 40 years. This country which prides itself on free speech, allowed him to make a career writing and performing stand-up comedy.  But miquelon.org doesn’t care for his apparently continual French bashing and have made some type of film called Educating Jay. How nice.  They assume he doesn’t know anything about France, because all comedy by Jay Leno must come from ignorance. But I’m sure comedy by their favored writers and performers come from understanding and knowledge .  In other words, show me a comedian, and I’ll find you someone who is offended by that comedian.  Jay Leno, who works more hours than anybody in Hollywood, and owns 85% of the cars on planet Earth, doesn’t need to be educated  – it’s not in his job description.  Being thin-skinned doesn’t mean you get to assume to know the intelligence of others and make a documentary. Or, I guess it does.

Brief sample of the academic work going on at miquelon.org – more Conan versus Leno . They get upset with comedians making jokes.  According to them, Jay Leno made over 40 anti-French jokes between 2003 and 2006. Wow!  That averages to about 1 joke a month that is ‘anti-French’ on a show that runs probably 200 episodes a year.  Maybe math isn’t a strong subject in Canada, but that doesn’t seem like very much, compared to other topics. When the OJ Trial was going on, Jay Leno made hundreds of inappropriate jokes about the murder trial. I found it offensive and so my action was to not watch.

Here, individuals are subject to hate speech by a puppet.

Another example:  one of the blog posts is titled Conan O’Brien Exports Hate Speech.  Read it. It is like something from TheOnion.

I’ll finish with a quote from their site by Edward C. Knox (yes, the Edward C. Knox, the professor nobody knows is quoted on miquelon.org! What a get.).

No other national or ethnic group appears to get the same continually negative treatment in print media reserved for France and the French, with the possible exception of Arabs or Palestinians, and even there, the treatment is not so much cultural as political, linked to a specific context or event.If one were to substitute, for example, “Mexican” or “Japanese” or “Indian” for “French”, what would reader reaction be?”.
Edward C.Knox, May 2002
Really? No other group?  No other groups come to mind? Just Arabs and Palestinians?   Think a little more.  Starts with a J. Ends with -ewish. If anyone, including Mr. Knox, spent some time in the United States, they’d quickly realize that bashing the French doesn’t even make it to the top ten.  We, politicians and citizens alike,  prefer to verbally bash the Jews, Muslims, African Americans, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Fats, the Gays, Christians, the Poor, and the Rich.  Those are the groups Americans bitch about more than the French, in my informal survey of ALL cable news channels.  The French only wish they could make the top ten.
That’s it. Just wanted to post this so this comes up on a miquelon.org search. I’m not a fan of the speech police.  I still can’t believe the site is real. I emailed them this morning about the topic of the United States flag being on the site’s banner (I told them how awesome it was that only one country remained before the French were free of bashing!)

Joe Kennedy – Don’t Kick A Ginger, Vote For One!

~ Wiberg

Joe Kennedy III announced today that he is running for Congress. While his family name is a help, he says being a ginger is going to cost him a few votes.

JK (left) says in his youtube announcement that BF (right) has "very large shoes" to be filled by the next representative elected. And pants, and shirt, and hat.

The cool thing about Joe Kennedy is that I can write j/k and it doesn’t mean Joe Kennedy, but it kinda does. “Just Kidding” should be the Kennedy Family’s slogan.  Besides two awful deaths (JFK and RFK) the only Kennedy Curse that I can see seems to be an idiot gene that runs dominant in the family.   Remember Caroline’s 2 hour candidacy? Um, of course you do.

 

Celebrity Mortality Rate Under Obama Administration Skyrockets!

~ Wiberg

Quick – can you name one celebrity that died during the G.W. Bush Administration? I didn’t think so. Neither can I. Yet, under the current administration, we have seen the following talent pass away:

Whitney Houston, Etta James, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Teddy Pendergrass, Brittany Murphy, Ron Silver, Natasha Richardson, Bea Arthur, Dom Deluise, David Carradine, Clarence Clemmons, Jackie  Cooper, John Hughes, Leslie Nielsen, Gary Coleman, Patrick Swazye, Farrah Fawcett, Richard Harris, Amy Winehouse, Peter Falk, Jeff Conaway, Harry Morgan, Patrice O’Neal, and Corey Haim, just to name a few. There’s probably hundreds more that we don’t know about.  But I think we’re averaging 1.2 celebrity deaths a day. We are hemorrhaging talent, America. Strangely, the Baldwin brothers are immune to this phenomenon.

Obviously, the Obama policies are stressing out the celebrity population. At this rate, the Academy Awards will be a half-attended affair in 2014 because everyone who acts or sings will be DEAD! So keep that in mind when voting.  Vote for Obama and watch, helplessly, as more celebrities die, or vote for someone else and know that a new album or movie by your favorite star will soon be released.

This message has been approved by the Vote to Elect Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, Barr, Nader campaign organizations. 2012.

Obama’s week of FAIL – A List!

~ Wiberg

Politics, anyone? Serious, hardcore politics mean to boil your blood, confirm your suspicions? You’ve come to the wrong place, my friend. But I offer this list of things President Obama flip-flopped on this week:

1. Super PACS – as we all know, Super PACs are large money grubbing organizations hell-bent on making life miserable for political candidates’ opponents by funding and purchasing air time for approximately 1.2 billion 30 second spots. Recently,  The Supreme Court was, like, “hey money is free speech so have fun!” Whatever.  But, while once opposed to Super PACs, President Obama changed his mind this week, greatly helping his chances at reelection in that his supporters can better match, dollar for dollar, the opposing side: Dog the Bounty Hunter. This registers as a MAJOR FAIL. Not because he did this, but because he should have realized early on this would happen and never been so publicly opposed.

just chillin...

Please note that often times, I link to articles that I read only the first few sentences. I Google a topic and link to one that looks like won’t break.  In another words, I search for knowledge, but dodge it at the last moment.

2. President Obama’s adminstration recently came out and demanded that everyone who is religious practice safe sex all at once, all together, in the same sleazy motel. I think his specific words were: “Anyone ‘DTF ‘will be covered when it comes to birth control…so get busy, my fellow Americans. Get busy safely!”

Quickly, Obama’s administration was going to ask that all businesses, including religious organizations, include birth control coverage in their health plans. Then everybody freaked out and so Friday Obama hinted he would ease off some of the requirements.

I guess you could call this a “Birther” Controller controversy (get it? ha ha). Anyway, who cares except for the pope, whose giant hat and funny costume is never gonna get him action.  This flip-flop ranks as a SEMI-MAJOR FAIL.

Pope
Pope says yes to the dress, no to birth control. This guy looks likes Goldmember's cousin.

Other FAILs this week by Obama (and some time later I may do one on President Romney)

3. Obama allowed 3D technology to be shared with filmmaker George Lucas. Thus, The Phantom Menace 3D was released today. Meesa not so happy! I remember 3 years ago when Obama was elected, he said “On day 1, I will share with the world entertainment technology only those corporations willing and able to apply it to worthy projects. No longer, will the world suffer…” something like that. FAIL.

4. Unknown to many, but Obama’s flip-flop on Closing Gitmo ™ is more than just a regular FAIL. Unreported, Obama has opened 47 other GITMOs around the world, including EuroGitmo, which you can visit and get a one day pass to EuroCalifornia Adventures (which sucks, but everyone still goes).

And that’s it. Not as funny as I had planned for it to be…..the point is, if I read one more thing about a politician flip-flopping, I will totally start another blog about it. Every politician (at least the successful ones) wants to be liked, wants votes, and will do whatever they can – and that includes FlipFlopping.

Super Sunday – Mark’s Instalanche story

~ Wiberg

Wow – yesterday was fun! My blog went from an average of 6 hits a day to just under 4,000 hits!

The topic – that Superbowl commercial and my brief criticism of the Chrysler commercial featuring Clint Eastwood (who, by the way, is one of my favorite actors/directors).  On a whim, I sent it to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com, whose blog is one of my favorites. It ‘made my day’ as one fictional film detective used to say. Only once before years ago did I email Glenn with, understandably, no reply as he probably gets hundreds of emails a day. Last night, I sent Instapundit an email and nearly ‘instantly’ he linked back to my site and post. Let Instalanche begin! “Instalanche” or “Instalaunch” is a dramatic spike in traffic driven by a linked post from the widely followed Instapundit.  It was a most awesome surprise, and I believe the timing of it (last post of the day for Instapundit) meant that it had a pretty visible spot on his site until this morning.

So, some numbers, for others who have had an instalanche. On Sunday Feb 3rd I had about 3,900 views. Today, February 4th, I’m nearing 10k views. CRAZY!  I’m not a blogger by any means; I post things from time to time that interest me. During the 2008 election, I posted a a bunch of funnies/commentary about the presidential contest. Lately, I’ve begun posting things that interest me more, things I want to revisit and watch or listen to later. I may do more politics later (comments off) and humor. That is what interests me most.  This also reinforces the strength of Instapundit. He often links to the same fellow bloggers about bigger issues, but he also links to what I would call ‘non-affiliate’ blogs/pages – one-offs because, I assume, he finds the post somewhat interesting to him or somewhat worthy of attention. So his site is more diverse and those wide range of topics keep on appearing, drawing his readers back every day.

The Instalanche was informative (to actually have wide range of data was a first).  Besides the views and other analytics, moderating was a first for me (usually I’m deleting silly comments from friends and family). This time, strangers who were interested in topic at hand were sharing their thoughts. I was pleased that most of the several dozen posts were relatively civil. Thanks readers!  I know you’ll be off to more prolific and interesting bloggers but maybe we’ll meet again.

Halftime America! Clint Eastwood Makes It All Better! Ugh.

~ Wiberg ~ 26 Comments

I thought this commerical was well-made. Who doesn’t like Clint, right?

But the ad invites criticism. Would Dirty Harry ask for a handout? Hell no, he wouldn’t. He could build a car made out of his melted Smith and Wesson handgun, all while eating a sandwich and zinging bad guys with one-liners.

So, bringing in the city of Detroit as some city on the ‘comeback’ after being knocked down, and blah blah blah, was a bit disingenuous as it fails to mention they knocked themselves out.  Detroit and the American car industry would not have made it to ‘half-time’ if it wasn’t for the Bail-Out ™.  They were carried by the taxpayer to half-time, beaten and bruised by building inferior products, bloated management and union mismanagement and over-the-rainbow promises to it’s retiring workforce. People will debate for years whether the bail-outs work, and I’m no expert. The point of this post is that having cool music and the coolest American film icon in a commercial about American ‘can do’ is a bad idea when you bring a failure of a company like GM/Chrysler/Chevrolet.

Both Bush and Obama are to be blamed/credited for the various bail-outs which rewarded those industries who behaved (and will continue to behave) in a reckless manner, knowing that they have a safety net in the brain-dead taxpayers via the federal government.  If America was hit and is readying for a comeback, it’s only because it allowed itself to get hit. The economy isn’t some otherworldly force that visited us by random chance and gave the United States a concussion.  Americans, rich and poor, in and out of Detroit, in and out of government, acted stupidly in spending and borrowing.

So, it was nice to see Clint talk about how America will soon roar back (easier said than done), but when I think of Detroit and the auto-industry, I think of  bailouts, the U.S. taxpayer being on the hook for a company that refuses to change, a company that thought the Chevy Volt was a good, affordable idea.

America will roar back in spite of Detroit, thank you very much.  The rest of us will pick up the slack so crappy car or solar-energy producing companies can exist and disappear and reappear depending upon who is in the White House.

———

(update: thanks go Instapundit for sharing the post this evening!)

Further update: I’ll let the other sites, like Big Hollywood, to provide more info on this issue, where Eastwood is distancing himself from any political tones or intentions that the Chrysler commercial has.  If I don’t post (approve) your comment, it’s only because I think the few dozen listed are enough to provide several viewpoints and moderating comments isn’t on my Bucket List.