Disney Plans On Ruining "Small World" Ride

Disney wants to incorporate Disney characters into the iconic "It's a Small World" ride that was designed by Mary Blair. It also wants to replace the rain forest with a patriotic American section with Mickey in it. That's a pretty jerkish move by Disney.

While Disney Imagineers plan on ripping out a piece of the soul of Disney they can get rid of Mickey's ears, turn the Epcot Center into a cube, and change their motto to "The Crappiest Place On Earth".

Sean Hannity <3 Hal Turner

Sean Hannity and Hal Turner have a connection:

I'll expand on this later. I just remember Hannity trying to deny his relationship with a neo-Nazi.

Status: Awaiting Updating

Finding and Freeing Kareem

Though I need no protection, (at least I am under the impression that protection is unnecessary at the moment), I have decided to become an advocate for the Committee to Protect Bloggers. The link I have just posted is a shut down version of CPB, but it is what led me to Morpheme Tales, a blog by Curt Morpheme, a man whose accomplishments are long. My experience with him is short enough that I will Curt's about page describe him.

Through Curt's page I found the Committee to Protect Bloggers on Facebook and that is where I finally found Kareem. An appeal to everyone, especially bloggers but especially everyone, to send snail mail to Kareem who has been imprisoned for what amounts to attempting to exercise free speech on the internet in Egypt. He criticized his school and president on his blog and received a four year sentence early last year.

From April 7 to April 21 everyone is encouraged to send mail supporting Kareem for his right to voice his opinion. CPB in conjunction with FreeKareem.org are telling their members to send letters of support to the following address:

Alexandria
Borg Al-Arab Prison
Room 1 Section 22
Prisoner Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman
The Arab Republic of Egypt

The Arabic form of this address must be on the envelope in order for it to reach Kareem.

Obama's Race: Shhhhhhh, Don't Mention It

But I will mention it because "Obama can't escape that skin color is a factor". E. Thomas McClanahan of the Kansas City Star says what I say should be said with regards to Geraldine Ferraro's statement that Barack Obama is where he is because of the color of his skin.

Obama was supposed to be the transcendent candidate, the one who would move us all beyond race, but the race thing won’t go away, and how could it? The fact of Obama’s race is integral to his mystique and his political success.

As Mickey Kaus pointed out on his blog, kausfiles.com: “If Obama were white, he wouldn’t embody hopes of a post-racial future. Duh! That’s part of his appeal. It seems obvious. … Why isn’t Ferraro allowed to acknowledge it?”

The importance of Obama’s race becomes even more obvious when you consider that black voters comprise much of the Democratic electorate. Any candidate capable of capturing 80 to 85 percent of the black vote while grabbing a goodly share of the white vote will have the advantage.

That’s why Obama was probably the only candidate with the potential to beat Hillary. He’s doing it by yanking away what she formerly considered her base, and he’s doing it in part because he is black.

I back track to a statement he made in his first paragraph.

Geraldine Ferraro sure stepped on a political land mine the other day. Barack Obama, she said, wouldn’t be where he is today if he hadn’t been black.

It was a textbook-level gaffe, meaning Ferraro said something impolitic — but true.

Really, people need to get off of it. I do not think anyone understands what racism is to begin with. People attack with the concept like a false Samurai with a dulled sword.

Obama: He cannot recall

You know how an individual will be examined in court and when an unfavorable question is asked the witness says "I cannot recall". Barack Obama retroactively pulled that stunt when he acknowledged last Friday that Tony Rezko raised $250,000 for three previous campaigns after his original disclosures were that Rezko had raised $150,000 for him.

I guess being a Harvard trained lawyer is superseded by being a political guru who gets so much money he cannot remember where it came from.

Where are McCain's Tax Returns?

Media ignore McCain's finances after obsessing over Dems'. Jamison Foser points out that the media, from MSNBC, to CNN, to FOX, the AP, and so on and so on bring up the finances of the Democratic candidates while ignoring those of John McCain.

A February 27 editorial in the Washington Post says that not only has McCain not given up his tax returns he doesn't even plan to do it as the de facto nominee of the Republican party. Hillary Clinton has pledged to disclose her tax returns after

Hat tip to Atrios.

Speaking of Race

I notice the people of this country point out that Barack Obama is the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. On Wikipedia the editing community finds the first Hispanic president noteworthy but no one mentions other ethnicities. I just read an article about a Sri Lankan American president of the Harvard Law Review (correct me if I am wrong). I wonder if he is the first. If so, will he get any credit for it?

Either way, congratulations Thiru Vignarajah.

Barack Obama: Offended by Race

Barack Obama is not just fortunate to be Black. He is fortunate to be a fortunate Black man. Throughout Senator Obama’s career he has been more notable because of his success as a Black man. In November of 2004 the headlines did not read “Barack Obama is the 50th U.S. Senator from Illinois”. They read “Barack Obama is the 5th Black U.S. Senator in History”. When he became President of The Harvard Law Review he was not heralded as the 105th President but the “first Black president” of the review. Even the Illinois Senator himself said during the 2004 Democratic convention that his status is incredible, in part, because of the background of his African father. The notoriety of Barack Obama is due, once again, in part, because Barack Obama is Black.

Geraldine Ferraro is making the same assertion when she said Barack Obama’s success is due “in large measure, because he is black” Ferraro expanded upon this using herself as an example.

“Let me also say in 1984 -- and if I have said it once, I have said it 20, 60, 100 times -- in 1984, if my name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would never have been the nominee for vice president"

Ferraro has an obligation to stand by the truth against those who would be dishonest by censoring a perfectly legitimate statement. Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars called her statement erroneous and instead of trying to understand what was being said offered these words from Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite (I truncate it to its most “offensive” part):

The New York Times has reported the Justice Department statistic that “an estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20-34 are in jail or prison…The proportion of young black men who are incarcerated has been rising in recent years, and this is the highest rate every measured.” Just for comparison, note that 1.6 percent of white men in the same age group are incarcerated.

So, let’s see, to follow Ms.Ferraro’s logic, the other 88% of African American men are being promoted to high public office? Facts dictate otherwise. There are more African American men now in prison than in college and the employment rate for African American men has dropped to just over 50%. It’s nigh on to impossible to get a job in this economy anyway, let alone when you have a prison record. Incarceration rates, unemployment and poverty are linked.

Reverend Thistlethwaite criticizes Geraldine Ferraro for being “willfully ignorant”. But Thistlethwaite ignores the fact that Obama is both half white and the son of an African immigrant. A distinction must be made from the African American born in an urban setting with disparaging conditions unto African-American parents and the African American born to a more advantageous setting.

One only has to look as far as the studies of Jennifer Eberhardt, who explains:

how this prejudice may implicitly influence policy preferences and causal attributions, even in the face of the widespread belief that discrimination is an issue of the past. Race “influences us in unsuspected and undesired ways despite our wish to be egalitarian,” according to Eberhardt. Her research has shown how “subliminal priming”-flashing images of black males too quickly for conscious recognition-increases the speed with which test subjects recognize weapons and other images related to crime. Her work on lineups and sentencing suggests that “black defendants are punished in proportion to the blackness of their physical features.”

One must even know that a study at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania finds that large numbers of black students at the nation’s most selective colleges and universities are either financially well off or have parents who were born in foreign nations. Barack Obama does not live with the same stigma as African-Americans who are the descendants of American slaves.

Thistlethwaite’s statement comes from a misunderstanding. She removes the context, that of a revered African American, the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Magic Johnson, or Cornel West. She removes the context, that of a Black man born of a White woman from Kansas and an African from Kenya. In doing so she lumps together every class of African-American into a simplified unit and forms an argument that is as (if not more) erroneous and willfully ignorant as the Reverend believes Ferraro’s statement to be.

A shell game is being played and not one person is acknowledging the other side of the coin. There should be equal criticizing toward those who are irked by Ferraro’s statement. Those people are guilty of sweeping race under the rug.

Addendum:
If truth should offend Barack Obama, Reverend Thistlethwaite, Nicole Belle, or anyone else of the same ilk then here are some other true “offensive” remarks they may find equally disgusting:
Barack Obama was lucky that he had virtually no candidate to oppose him in his run for the United States Senate in 2004
Barack Obama did hard drugs while he was younger and he refuses to say how much and for how long
Barack Obama was chosen to be an important African American speaker at the 2004 Democratic convention immediately after the African-American Harold Ford was chosen to speak at the 2000 convention.

Addendum 2 (Interesting Reading):
"Roots" and Race - John Harvard's Journal

I'm proud of Hillary Clinton for her wins in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

That's all.