17 posts tagged “california”

Just as I finished writing about Philip Glenister getting his driver off a ticket by acting as Gene Hunt, I surfed over to an article about Canadian actor William Shatner linked from the Daily Mail page I cited earlier:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=565380&in_page_id=1879

   In the 1960s, Shatner wore his Capt Kirk uniform rushing to work and was also stopped. He writes:

I got out of my car, dressed in my uniform. The police officer looked me up and down, frowned and asked: “So where are you going so fast at this time in the morning?”
   I told him the truth: “To my spaceship.”
   He sighed. “OK, go ahead,” he said, before adding the Vulcan blessing: “Live long and prosper.”

   Nothing new under the sun.
   The story is quite good, told in the first person. Shatner recounts his lows and the death of his third wife (after what seems to be the final paragraph talking about the price of his autobiography).

Folks may recall the videos I posted about the possibility that Hillary Clinton committed a breach of electoral finance laws in 2000 a few weeks back.
   The following was Dugg today: ‘Paul v. Clinton: Experts Question Whether Clinton Campaign Finance Case Will Impact ’08 Race’.
   It’s an old article from 2007 but the last time it was on Digg, Democratic supporters dismissed it as a right-wing attack on their Hillary.
   Now you see from the comments on Digg that many, many Democrats have joined in and the right-wing charge has disappeared. It’s obviously accepted by more of the US population.
   The excerpts are interesting (and I am being biased against Sen. Clinton in selecting these):

The star-studded August 2000 event was later deemed to be a violation of federal campaign finance laws: The Clinton campaign had to pay a $35,000 fine to the Federal Elections Committee. Clinton’s campaign finance director David Rosen was accused of lying to the FEC, indicted, but eventually acquitted. …
   The case presents the classic question of what Clinton knew and when she knew it, said election lawyer John Armor. He said the tape shows that Clinton allegedly committed at least four felonies pertaining to illegal campaign fundraising and obstructing subsequent federal investigations into the matter. …
   “No presidential candidate was ever caught on videotape engaged in felony,” Paul told Cybercast News Service. “No candidate [has ever been] engaged in major civil fraud suit [that] she was forced to testify in.” …
   In a written declaration for the California court filed on April 7, 2006, Clinton said only that she did not remember discussions with Paul about the fundraiser.
   “I have no recollection whatsoever of discussing any arrangement with him whereby he would support my campaign for the United States Senate in exchange for anything from me or then-President Clinton,” Clinton wrote.

   The following excerpt, however, is very sad:

From a political perspective, the public stopped caring about alleged misdeeds by either of the Clintons, said Gary Rose, political science professor at Sacred Heart University.
   “When it comes to the Clintons, they are generally immune to public condemnation regarding ethical lapses and violations of the law,” Rose told Cybercast News Service. “If this case continues into the general election, we'll see how it affects swing voters and independents, but it is not going to derail her bid for the nomination. I still remember Bill Clinton’s polls, and two-thirds of voters said they didn’t trust him but voted for him irrespective of his morality or ethics.”
   Even critics of Clinton don’t think the case will harm her politically.
   “She’s going to hold the highest office in the country. She’s got the money, the organization and the FBI files,” James Nesfield, president of the Equal Justice Foundation of America (EJFA), said in an interview.

   I don’t think Americans are that stupid but there is one part that rings true: we are so used to the idea of the Clintons being crooks we don’t bat an eyelid any more. The more news like this surfaces, the more it becomes part of the Clinton noise, and fewer and fewer will care. We become desensitized.
   None of this has made it into the MSM in this country and I bet little has made it into the MSM in the States. 
   Also, the voting public was different in 1996 because they did not see the Sen. Dole as being potentially effective—either have an ineffective, uninspiring president, or an untrustworthy one. Americans chose the latter, since when did politicians and trust go together?
   In 2008, the world is different—Americans have the choice between an experienced candidate (McCain) or the claimed agent of change (Obama). Or, the least experienced of the three in elected office who claims sleep deprivation causes lies (Clinton).

Before I begin, I should note that this story does not have a response from the Clintons directly, but it makes very disturbing viewing. As Peter Paul says in the first part, the case against the Clintons is proceeding, dealing with a massive election fraud, but there is nothing in the media about it. At the end of Part One, Mr Paul shows a video that demonstrates Mrs Clinton was in full knowledge of the campaign contributions that were raised for her by him and his organization.
   Equal Justice Foundation of America, which presents the documentary, calls the incident ‘most shocking expose on the blatant corruption surrounding Hillary Clinton. Includes exclusive home videos of Hillary to expose the illegalities that elected Hillary to the Senate and the obstructions of justice that keep her there.’ One commentator believes that Sen. Clinton has committed a felony punishable by five years’ jail time.
   Let us say this is not beyond the realm of imagination and needs to be considered fairly.

I was reading on Humbled Infidel’s blog that the US Marines’ recruiting office is going to get kicked out of town (or has already?) by the Berkeley, Calif. city council.
   I don’t get it.
   I don’t care if you are anti-war or pro-war, this is a legal organization which has, as far as I know, a very small number of staff, and they don’t even actively go out to hand brochures to university-age kids.
   The proponents of getting them out of Berkeley are a group called Code Pink, which has engaged in some questionable activities, including painting graffiti at the office.
   The talk at the council meeting included notions that the Marines were ‘bombarding’ Berkeley citizens with ‘propaganda’.
   As a non-American looking in, it’s another one of those ‘I don’t understand the US’ things.
   I have a cousin who is a cop in Berkeley so maybe I should ask him just what is up there.
   Here’s my thought. Since this is a legal organization, it should be allowed to stay. Those people who commit crimes against legal organizations should be punished, not given full reign at council meetings.
   I thought the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution protected both sides, not just one, and before you question this non-American, yes, I did study your constitution at law school.
   If anti-war families are concerned their sons and daughters are being affected by TV advertising and the presence of this office in Berkeley, then the answer is really simple: talk to your children.
   Talk.
   You’ll find it’s easier than dressing up in pink and campaigning to run the Marines out of Dodge.
   Talk to them about why you wouldn’t want to see them joining up.
   Talk to them about why you think this War on Terror is illegitimate.
   Talk to them about your feelings of loss if they were to give their lives for something you don’t think warrants it.
   What is stronger? The word of a parent or the word of a government? I would have thought the former, but maybe I am wrong when it comes to these folks.
   From where I sit, 7,000 miles away from California, this isn’t about the presence of the US Marine Corps. This is about some people being incapable parents, unable to engage in dialogue with their children all their lives. And now they are shocked that they have formed minds and opinions unaffected by parental dialogue that probably never existed.
   They say they support the troops while they call them thugs and criminals.
   And now they want someone to blame for their own inadequacies: the advertising agencies, the US Government, the lone Marine sitting in the recruiting office providing information to those young people who enquire.
   To the anti-war groups: propaganda only works if you allow it to. Why else would you yourselves engage in propaganda of your own? In the hope that yours will work if someone allows your messages to enter.
   By doing it at local level you hope to counter major advertising campaigns at a national level. That actually makes a lot of tactical sense.
   But if young people are going in to this office, then it’s their decision to sign up. They have minds of their own and at whatever the age of majority is over in California state, it’s up to them. You have any time to say to your own kids or to those close to you, ‘Hey, I don’t agree with Bush and Cheney on this. Here’s why. And now you have to weigh up your options.’
   Removing a single office won’t change much because the real bombardment of the propaganda you cite is coming from a national source through national media. And those kids who want to sign up, heck, this is California. They’re just going to hop in to their cars and find another office.
   I prefer peace to war. But I prefer freedom to censorship.
   Meanwhile, it seems that after hearing submissions, Berkeley does not understand the rule of law or the US’s own Constitution.
   The message the city is telling us is this: you can come, but only if you agree with us. We don’t care if your group is legal. We don’t care if you have free speech guaranteed and enshrined by our Constitution.
   If you don’t agree with us, then you are out of here. Berkeley is a dictatorship not subject to the laws of these United States of America.
   That’s what I am hearing.
   I know Berkeley is liberal and I have visited there many times. And I have no problem with liberal viewpoints. As a Confucianist I would probably be classed as liberal in the traditional sense. One political survey puts me as a left-leaning libertarian, to the horror of my good conservative friends.
   Yet I seem to have a lot in common with conservatives when it comes to respecting the Constitution and the little matter of some Amendments ratified in 1791. It may pay to read just why these were proposed by James Madison; without the First, Code Pink would not even exist.
   But the Bill of Rights should also protect the Marines. This is about liberty and justice for all. Not some. What about the Second Amendment or does that not apply in Berkeley?
   Liberal does not mean closing our minds to alternative viewpoints. Actually, it means the opposite: that others are free to state their viewpoints even when we disagree with them. The principle is that through engaging opposing forces we can find better solutions.
   However, many liberals have forgotten that and their finest days under FDR.
   In this context, Berkeley ain’t liberal. The Council seems to be a Politburo unto itself.
   Yesterday, I MCed a very fun show where I had to thank the Red Chinese Embassy. I did it. I even gave it its proper title, ‘the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.’
   Anyone who knows me knows I think this is an illegitimate embassy for an illegitimate government, and that I do not believe in UN resolution 2758. I think Henry Kissinger was a dickwad for his part in being anti-freedom when it came to the Chinese people.
   But this blog is my space. This is where I can say what I like and if I want to rubbish the commies and Henry Kissinger, I can.
   The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China is legally recognized by the country I choose to live in, and I have to respect its status in New Zealand. I might not privately accept it, but I respect it—just as I think anti-war groups have to respect the presence of pro-war groups in their cities and towns.
   Privately I can say what I like about the Reds, about their human rights’ record and about the fact that the Chinese people are in a state of war even though no casualties have been taken for a half-century. I have my right to free speech and I am going to use it.
   Publicly I was there to do a job and to conduct myself professionally.
   If I want the Embassy out of Dodge, I’m going to do it the proper way and campaign, but not lose sight of the freedom of speech each side has. The only way to remove an Embassy is to go to the source and convince the government of its illegitimacy. That is a near impossible task, but I still won’t shut my trap.
   I can influence those around me and if I have kids I will explain to them why the flag of the Republic hangs in my office, then they can make up their own minds.
   On that note, maybe I just don’t understand what the 21st century American family is like if Code Pink and Berkeley councillors believe it has little strength in the face of the US Marine Corps and an elected President who clearly stated that he would continue the War on Terror.
   And maybe I just don’t understand why I should even be familiar with the US Constitution if some Americans themselves don’t seem to care about their founding document.

New Zealanders and Americans are divided by a common language, it seems.
   All the reports I read about the US election said that the economy is the number one issue on Americans’ minds. Why, then, did Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton do so well in the Super Tuesday primaries for her party? She has just taken California, I see.
   As a Wal-mart board member, Mrs Clinton was quite happy to be anti-union and see jobs outsourced to Red China. That was her position from 1986 to 1992.
   By the time she was First Lady, her husband presided over an administration that saw this trend continue in full force, satisfying the technocrats. That was her position from 1993 to 2000.
   Today, while Sen. Clinton says Wal-mart no longer represents her beliefs and that she respects the right of workers to unionize, she still took $20,000 in campaign contributions from Wal-mart. That is her position in 2008.
   Add the 2004 joke she made about Mahatma Gandhi being some guy who pumps gas in St Louis, and it’s plain to see that Sen. Clinton is no friend of the American worker. She spent only a year working with a non-profit—certainly her record is not as grand as she would like voters to think.
   Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton thinks along élitist lines and that is the one consistent position she has had throughout her life. Watch any speech she gives: she thinks she’s better than you.
   If it’s about the economy, stupid, to borrow a 1990s phrase, then she would be the last person whom I would associate as being a friend of the American worker.
   Or of any worker.
   Sorry, Democrats, this guy sitting in New Zealand just doesn’t get it.
   Mind you, if she gets her party’s nomination, this sure is ammo for the Republicans to use.

I wouldn’t be happy being an American taxpayer right now.
   The Los Angeles Times says Britney Spears’ hospital motorcade, probably smaller than the one Dick Cheney has for his annual heart attack, cost the LAPD $25,000.
   There were motorbikes, cruisers and even at least one helicopter escorting the ambulance carrying the singer.
   The last time I saw a motorcade-with-ambulance that huge was in the fictional film Dave, where the President of the United States was driven to hospital.
   In fact, satirical site The Spoof wrote, ‘White House Press Secretary Britney Spears was rushed to a hospital early Thursday morning while riding with President Bush in his presidential motorcade, a White House spokesman said.’
   I can understand, for her public safety, having some police presence but considering that a few cops on duty at the courthouse were enough the last time she had to embarrass herself in the public eye, this is excessive.
   She only went in for a psych. evaluation, for goodness’ sake.
   This woman managed to get more cops escorting her than, say, a fallen US soldier who paid the ultimate price serving her or his country.
   I still vote for leaving Spears alone, and let her get her treatment in peace. She might actually get better if we treated her as a normal person and that means keeping her out of the headlines.
   I’d rather hear about someone making a difference to our world. I mean a real difference. Marrying a dude with the same name as the guy who played George Costanza does not count.
   And, if I may follow the order of the news here: ‘in other news,’ Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo! for $44·6 billion.

With the good news of the engagement between my friend Jennifer Siebel and Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, whom I had some contact with in his first year on the job, I have to note that the usual anti-Jen bloggers have been more silent.
   Either it’s the time of year or they have moved to other targets.
   It makes me wonder about the type who has a need to target others. I know: I deal to politicians as though they were subjects of sitcoms—but I like to think I do so with some restraint. Men such as Winston Peters or John Key have not escaped my sarcasm, but I admit it is done with what I see as a failure for them to grasp their jobs. In short, other than the ridiculous hours at Parliament, I think I could do better. I believe I have the intelligence to. And if they wanted to dignify me with a response to justify their positions, I will welcome it—not that they would.
   When it comes to someone like Jen, who defended herself on a blog and through that attracted more negative comments, I question: why? Here is someone who is merely stating her opinion, and that opinion is then rubbished by people who are even further away from the subject than she is—yet those people all proclaim themselves experts.
   What we have is a generation that has to lash out because of envy. They wonder why they are not as loved as others, they dislike being corrected by the real facts, and express their disdain by pretending to be more important than the next person.
   These are the people who, with their cellphones, speak loudly to assure others of their self-importance, so that we all know what their business is. And giggle to ourselves about their optimistic view of their trivialities.
   And when it comes to a civil discourse, which one assumes one should be able to have in a medium where opinion-sharing is one of its raisons d’être, they no longer know how to have one. There used to be a thing called netiquette, which I thought extended to the blogosphere.
   I wonder if we can restore our values this year. I’d certainly like a 2008 where I didn’t have to quote John Gabriel’s Greater Internet F***wad Theory again.

Katharine McPhee at Too Faced benefit

[Cross-posted] With less on the newswires today except for more Sarko and Bruni, we thought we’d put up a few of the unpublished images from the Lucire server. Here are two that didn’t make publication for one reason or another: American Idol’s Katharine McPhee (mentioned by Summer Rayne Oakes in Lucire 20) at a skin cancer benefit hosted by Too Faced Cosmetics in May 2007; and, in the same month, two models at a Diesel function in the same area. These were from Lucire’s west coast editor Elyse Glickman.

DieselCar

[Cross-posted] Would you go short? The bob is the “it” hairstyle for 2007 and probably the beginning of 2008, and Ultimate Style convinces one woman to try it out at the Ken Paves salon. The video airs today on the Lucire home page.

Death row. Twelve prisoners. One grant of clemency by Governor Schwarzenegger.
   This seems less bad taste than the transplant one where a dying woman would decide whom to grant her kidney to. Well, OK, that show never happened. It was just reported as having happened. (When revealed as a hoax, not as many media outlets were willing to report that.)
   Each week, the Governor chooses who will be electrocuted, after a round where the prisoners are judged on various labour tasks that they may find out of the ordinary (e.g. baby photographer, maître d’hôtel) and attempts to escape are dealt with by immediate dismissal from the show, also by electrocution.
   The show is best known for the Governor saying, ‘You’re fried.’