RIGHTWINGSPARKLE

The UN continues on it's never ending quest to desensitize our children.

"The Three Amigos" -- as the cartoon condoms named Shaft, Stretch and Dick are called -- are pictured in a variety of settings from a spaceship to a soccer field to a casino. Twenty different spots are available in each of the 41 languages varying from 20 to 60 seconds in length. Some spots are blatantly sexual, others more restrained.
The punch line in the spaceship spot says: "No condom, No blastoff. Stop the spread of AIDS." The soccer spot says: "You just can't score without a condom." And the spot focusing on a roulette wheel in a casino says: "Not all gamblers realize the odds stacked against them. Don't gamble with your life. Use a condom. Stop the spread of AIDS."
h/t Beautiful Atrocities via Agenda Bender

UPDATE: OMG! SondraK has the actual cartoon of these three!!



Air America (Remember them? Well, they are still holding on by their claws) frets over the corporate cash sponsoring the inaugural quoting the Washington Post.

"at least 88 companies and trade associations , all with huge stakes in administration policies, funding the $40 million dollar party. This ultimate big-tent corporate event will be a veritable roll call of influence peddlers: Practically all the major donors have benefited from Bush administration policies, especially from corporate and individual tax cuts, deregulation and the new prescription drug benefit that is part of Medicare. Most also stand to boost profits further because of Bush's second-term proposals, which include limiting medical malpractice suits, creating private investment accounts as part of Social Security and making a tax-code revision that is expected to reduce taxes on investments," the Washington Post reports.

Of course that never happened during Clinton's inaugural. It was nothing but a bunch of regular folks from the hills of Arkansas. No companies financed it either, just money from bake sales and a few larger donations from abortionists. No movie stars or movie mogels. No corporate heads. And certainly no one who would later be pardoned by the President.
Yep, those dems have the moral high ground here.

Air America quotes many critics including Republican (yeah right) Texas billionaire Mark Cuban "having called for cancellation of everything but the swearing-in because they find it unseemly to spend $40 million on shrimp, spirits, floats and frivolity while American soldiers must scrape together money for phone cards to call home."

Hey! Here's an idea Mr. Cuban. Why don't you pony up some pocket change of a hundred million or so and buy out all the phone cards from Walmart to the The Dollar Store. It's called 'giving' instead of wondering why the government isn't taking care of it. Try it. It feels good. I promise.

I'm thinking the soldiers probably find it more "unseemly" when Democrats take pictures of themselves holding signs saying "I'm Sorry for invading your country" to Iraq, while they fight to keep Iraqis free.



A lot has been said about Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, talk-show host and newspaper columnist being paid by the Dept. Of Education and a private PR firm to comment and endorse the "No Child Left Behind" policy. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. So far I have not seen or heard of no evidence of anything illegal, although I think there are some some dems calling for an investigation (of course!) So I usually go take a peek at the other side and see if there is anything I should know that would better inform me. So this is how Frank Rich from the New York Times sees what Armstrong did:

"Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, talk-show host and newspaper columnist (for papers like The Washington Times and The Detroit Free Press, among many others, according to his Web site). Thanks to investigative reporting by USA Today, he had just been unmasked as the frontman for a scheme in which $240,000 of taxpayers' money was quietly siphoned to him through the Department of Education and a private p.r. firm so that he would "regularly comment" upon (translation: shill for) the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind policy in various media venues during an election year."

Notice the wording here. "Unmasked as the frontman for a scheme..." and "taxpayers money was quietly siphoned to him." It brings to mind Williams riding in the subway in NY, a man across from him leaves his newspaper and gets off the train. Williams picks up the newspaper, checks to make sure his $250,ooo is there, stuffs it in his briefcase and gets off at the next stop. Come on! I don't like the idea of Armstrong not disclosing that he was being paid, but a PR firm paying a "conservative commentator" to talk about an issue that he already believes in is hardly 'covert.'

Mr. Rich goes on to compare the irony of Williams chatting with Vice President Cheney and Cheney's criticisms of the press.

"In that chat, Mr. Cheney criticized the press for its coverage of Halliburton and denounced "cheap shot journalism" in which "the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective."
This is a scenario out of "The Manchurian Candidate." Here we find Mr. Cheney criticizing the press for a sin his own government was at that same moment signing up Mr. Williams to commit."

One little problem with this comparison. Williams is, as Rich pointed out, a conservative commentator. Get it? He is openly partisan. He likes the Republicans. He is a Republican. Everyone who listens to him knows this. HE IS NOT A MAINSTREAM JOURNALIST. I don't think Cheney was criticizing Al Franken or Randi Rhodes for their comments. He was referring to ABC, CBS, and NBC. You know, those guys who are SUPPOSE to be objective and report NEWS, NOT COMMENTARY!

I think Mr. Rich is fully aware of this difference. He is just hoping most Americans won't be.