Hypocrisy - The Very Definition of the Democratic Party

In the "do as I say, not as I do" error,..um,..era of the Obamistake, does this surprise anybody:

Paterson's Sight Gag
April 19, 2009

Gov. David Paterson, who is legally blind, used his response to last night's LCA show to hit back at an 1199/GNYHA TV ad released during the budget battle that featured a blind man in a wheelchair slamming the governor's proposed healthcare spending cuts.

Paterson was pushed onto the stage in a wheelchair. He was wearing sunglasses, a white shirt and a silver necklace over his tuxedo pants - an outfit similiar (minus the tux) to the one worn in the ad by 52-year-old Juan Pietri when he asked the governor: "Why are you doing this to me?"

This is, for the record, the same governor who chastised Saturday Night Live for making fun of his disability.

In his nearly five-minute response, Paterson left very few targets unskewered, taking aim at reporters, labor unions, goo-goos, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and even his own free-spending ways vis-a-vis the executive mansion.

Here's a taste:

"These are difficult economic times, Governor Paterson. I can't pay my bills. I can't put food on my table. I may lose my home. And the reason, Governor Paterson, is because of you. It's because you haven't given the state transparency!"


"...Governor! All the people out here suffering and you give exclusive interviews to the New York Times. Have you forgotten about the pure people? The rest of the LCA, Governor Paterson. Governor Paterson, how can I pay my bills when you don't go on Fred Dicker's show every weekend? Governor, you are as phony as the sources in his articles!"

Make sure you watch all the way through to the end. You won't be sorry.

Click the link and watch the video. Chastise appropriately.

Conservatives and Their Toys

The TrekMedic at the Constitution Center, exercising his First Amendment rights, on what I want from our Chief Executive:




Unfortunately, lousy phone camera wouldn't let me focus on the fact that all of this was created under the picture of President Ronald !

When Did This Happen?

In the aftermath of the Geno's "English Only" debacle, comes this letter to the editors of the Philly Inkwaster:


Geno's reality
The sentiment behind the "English only" sign at Geno's Steaks, no doubt, is real, but there is another reality ("In plain English: Geno's sign OK," March 20).

For the last 27 years, Germantown Friends School has participated in an exchange program with a public vocational school in a semirural province of Mexico. For many of those years, as part of an ethnic neighborhoods tour I conduct, I take six Mexican ninth graders to Geno's.

Most of our guests know little English or none at all. Some with my help and some on their own struggle to place their order, but do so without incident. Each time, the kids leave with a complimentary Geno's hat or T-shirt - and a feeling of accomplishment. They are here, after all, to try to learn English, and someone at Geno's seemed to understand that.

Bob Rhoades
Wyndmoor


The TrekMedic ponders:

No doubt Mr. Rhoades letter is factual. But one has to wonder why this kind of story never made it when the local liberal press was foaming at the mouth in its castigation of Joey Vento!

I can guess why,..can you? The phone lines are open, folks,....

Without Joey Vento - This Could be Us Soon!

Forget the persecution Joey Vento is getting from the City of Philadelphia,...if we don't stop catering to any immigrant group (legal or otherwise) that refuses to assimilate, this is what we have to look forward to:

Miss Belgium Booed for Not Speaking Dutch

Monday, December 17, 2007

Newly crowned Miss Belgium speaks several languages — including French, English and Czech — but it seems that doesn't count for much when she doesn't speak Dutch.

After she failed to answer a question in elementary Dutch and switched to French during Saturday night's competition, 20-year-old Alizee Poulicek was booed by some of the 3,400 fans in Antwerp, the heart of Dutch-speaking Flanders.

In a country that has been without a government for nearly 200 days because of continued strife between Dutch- and French-speaking parties, the beauty queen's linguistic abilities has taken on larger significance.

"Miss Belgium does not speak Dutch," read a headline in the Dutch-speaking Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper Monday.

"Miss Belgium is not 'tweetalig,' " wrote the Francophone paper La Libre, using the Dutch word for "bilingual," to highlight ever-increasing Flemish demands that all Belgians in the public eye should also speak the majority language.

Dutch-speaking Flemings make up 6 million of the 10.5 million Belgians; most of the rest are Francophones, although there is also a small German-speaking community in the east of the country.

After Belgium gained independence from the Netherlands in 1830, French dominated political and economic life. It is only since World War II that Dutch speakers from the north have started turning their demographic dominance into effective power. For the past three decades, all prime ministers have been Flemish, though all also spoke French.

Northern Flanders and southern Wallonia have gained greater autonomy, but many in Flanders still pounce on every perceived linguistic slight.

Poulicek now knows that. The daughter of a Czech father and a Belgian mother, she lives in the French-speaking city of Huy. She spent half her life in the Czech Republic, returning to Belgium just six years ago. Living in the south, she has had little need to speak Dutch.

"I have to try, learn more," she told VRT television in halting Dutch. She continued in French: "I spoke almost no Dutch when I started this adventure."

For Darlene Devos, organizer of the Miss Belgium contest, it could have been a lot worse.

"I don't worry about this too much. It is the least painful thing," she said. "I would consider it different if they had said 'Miss Belgium is an ugly girl."'