Around the World Wide Web 69

A joke from my childhood. First Hippie says to Second Hippie, "Hey, man -- turn on the radio."

The Second Hippie says, "Radio, I love you."

Ah, the 1960's. You had to be there to misunderstand them.

1. Watch this video of Obama talking about private security contractors, then read the analyses in the rest of the post. Obama's understanding of the issue sounds about as good as your average Democrat who skims posts about Blackwater on leftist blogs. Leftists mock George W. Bush for his lack of intelligence; Obama is just as bad as Bush, but from a left-wing point of view. Obama is like Oakland, California: there's no there there. Somehow the welfare state works so that the stupid and the mediocre get to the top.

2. The description of this Shakespeare Festival makes me wish I were living in New York again.

3. Barack Obama looks at America like a Swede on vacation here (slumming because all the good hotels on the Riviera were booked up):

Senator Barack Obama marveled at the view here in Big Sky Country. He discovered that the gumbo in New Orleans was far tastier than in Chicago. And he was pleasantly surprised that he loved Austin, Tex., and its music — but who doesn’t?

The presidential campaign has not only given the country a chance to meet Mr. Obama. It has also given Mr. Obama a chance to meet the country, taking him to large swaths of the United States that he has never seen before.

Obama discovers that Texas is actually a nice place. Meaning, I assume, that before this campaign he thought it was not nice. This is a man who has spent his life deep in the liberal cocoon. His worldview is an amalgam of leftist bromides that have stuck in his mind over the years like gobs of plaque in his arteries.

Oh, and here Obama laughs at Americans because they can't speak foreign languages. The man is a walking liberal cliche.

4. Phil Gramm calls us a "nation of whiners" because of all the complaining about the economy. The liberal Bob Herbert calls Gramm "a remarkably out-of-touch former senator." All the talk about the weak economy is not so much whining as it is media bias. The postmodernists in the MSM have decided that since all news is merely "narrative" from one point of view or another and there are no objective facts of reality -- and since Rush Limbaugh and the rest of right-wing talk radio poison America with the conservative narrative -- that it is their job to be the propaganda arm of the Democrats. If the nation thinks we're in a recession, Obama benefits, thus only bad economic news gets reported.

5. The Imminent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Debacle. Maybe things are worse than Phil Gramm thinks. Greg Ransom blames Bush.

6. Cynthia McKinney is the Green Party candidate for President. She joins her fellow Georgian Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate. To paraphrase the Jack Nicholson movie line, go sell crazy somewhere else than Georgia -- they're all stocked up there.

Let them in the debates. This election is such a joke, we might as well make the debates a perfect zoo. These fringe party lunatics would be more entertaining than listening to Obama and McCain compete on how they will spend money stolen from the Americans who produce that money.