Gumball - I Mean Gumbel Speaks

Well….it has been a long time since I posted a new article. I have been busy though hanging out at some of my favorite blogs, having at it with some of the local trolls. But last week something came to my attention (other than the ridiculous kerfuffle over Cheney and Whittington. Of course that story has been done to death….and it is a dead issue except in the minds of certain dipsticks who a part of MSM. However, that is not what I want to talk about.

Today I want to talk about another story – Bryant Gumbel and his racist remarks on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. In case you missed it, he said:

Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t care about them and won’t watch them. In fact, I figure that when Thomas Paine said that “these are the times that try men’s souls,” he must’ve been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics. Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the winter games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won. And try to blot out all logic when announcers and sportswriters pretend to care about the luge, the skeleton, the biathlon and all those other events they don’t understand and totally ignore for all but three weeks every four years. Face it — these Olympics are little more than a marketing plan to fill space and sell time during the dreary days of February. So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin.

So what does Mr. Gumbel mean by this? First one might read it as saying that none of the sports in Olympics need real athletes. All that is needed is “pseudo-athletes”. That, by itself call Mr. Gumbel’s sanity into question. Has he ever watched the sports of the Winter Olympics? There is a tremendous amount of flexibility, strength, stamina and perseverance require in almost every single sport featured in the Olympics.

And since Mr. Gumbel seems to speaking specifically of ice skating – almost as if it is the only even featured at the Winter Olympics – let’s talk about it for a few minutes. And I’d like to take it to a personal level. Mr. Gumbel – can you skate? Even though I can get around the rink smoothly, I am not what you would call an accomplished skater. I have been watching the Dance Skating Competition tonight. I am absolutely amazed at the strength and agility required by these athletes. And they do it without having to go on pure oxygen after every play – imagine that! He is right in that somebody has to judge them. So what? That doesn’t mean they aren’t athletes.

But let’s go further. What about sports like Downhill Racing, Ski Jumping, Ice Hockey, Luge, Skeleton, Snow Boarding, etc. They don’t count? The people involved in those sports are not athletes? I suspect that if you said that to a linesman from an Olympic Hockey Team (and take your pick on which one you want to ask – but if I had my druthers you should ask any one of the players on the Russian, American, or Canadian teams) you would not have any teeth left!

But what I think angers me more is Mr. Gumbel’s statement – or at the very least intimation – that there are no real athletes at the Winter Olympics because of a scarcity of blacks. That is a racist statement made by a person who is obviously is a racist. We all realize of course that there are many exceptional black athletes, just as there are exceptional athletes in any race. But to blatantly state that due to a “paucity” of black athletes means there are not real athletes at the Olympics is ridiculous. We can also infer from Mr. Gumbel’s statement that college basketball has more real athletes. I would love to see some of those real athletes try to compete at Ice Hockey, or even better, to give a shot at Ice Dancing. And I’d love to see a football lineman (BTW – my favorite sport) try Ski Jumping. Or a professional baseball player in the 1500 Meter Speed Skate. Or the real athlete of Mr. Gumbel’s choice in the anchor spot on the 4X4 Cross Country Ski event.

I wrote to HBO about this, but after several days of hearing nothing, I can only assume they chose not to respond. So much for responsible journalism.

Society of Subversion

I have decided to coin a new term for the Democratic Party and their actions. I like it and I think it fits well.

Democrats = Society of Subversion

A “society” with the intent of “subversion” - a systematic attempt to overthrow or undermine a government or political system by persons working secretly from within.

The symptoms of this are the continuous outright lies we see from that sphere of non-influence. Let’s look at some facts:

Harry Reid claims over and over again that the money he received from Abramoff and his clients was not tainted. Yet, the more information that is gathered, the more we find just how extensively Reid and his office are tied to Abramoff. Check this article at Breitbart.com (and before you say….well it’s Breitbart….it is a copy of an article from the Associated Press). Some highlights:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, and the senator's staff regularly had contact with the disgraced lobbyist's team about legislation affecting other clients.

The activities _ detailed in billing records and correspondence obtained by The Associated Press _ are far more extensive than previously disclosed. They occurred over three years as Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm, lobbying partners and clients.

So not only are Reid’s constant claims of innocence incorrect, he makes the claims knowingly. Hence – he lies. There’s more:

Reid, D-Nev., has led the Democratic Party's attacks portraying Abramoff's lobbying and fundraising as a Republican scandal.

But Abramoff's records show his lobbying partners billed for nearly two dozen phone contacts or meetings with Reid's office in 2001 alone.

But he has no close contact…right….

Hillary Clinton, who usually tries to portray herself as centrist, told a packed church in Harlem that the House of Representatives is run like a “plantation”. The noted icon, the Reverend Al Sharpton later claimed that Ms. Clinton didn’t make that statement in a Harlem church:

Sharpton's theater of the absurd reached its apotheosis when he claimed that Hillary "did not make the comments at a Harlem church". Even the New York Times had to admit that she had spoken in "at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem," and Hardball rolled footage of her speaking at a lectern in the church draped with fabric decorated with a cross.

Responded Matthews, not even attempting to suppress an amused look: "You're kidding me, Reverend. I don't understand why you're defending her. Do you think she would have used that word with a Jewish group, an Italian group?  She used that phrase, 'you know what I'm talking about.' What's that supposed to mean?  She was pandering."

And this guy has the title Reverend?

And what about Senator “Splash” Kennedy? He spent hours of time, on our dime, reading the same passage over and over again, from the magazine published by the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. The visually and maybe mentally aging Senator Kennedy tried to use the passage to paint Justice Alito as a bigot, racist, and chauvinist during the embarrassing Democratic spectacle erroneously called Confirmation Hearings. In relation to Justice Alito’s affiliation with the club the Senator said:

“…affiliation with an organization that fought the admission of women into Princeton calls into question his appreciation for the needs for full equality in this country.”

And yet, it turned out that “Splash” belonged to a similar club at his own alma mater – and not only that, but his club was tossed from campus for discrimination against women. Interestingly enough, Kennedy’s club was in violation of laws that the Senator himself wrote. But to add to this the fact that after his association with a male-only club was published Kennedy quickly dropped his membership.

Want more? Let’s add in Al Gore’s speech on Martin Luther King Day. In the early part of his speech he said:

…As we begin this new year, the executive branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens…

Let’s see – I think the obvious words here are “caught” and “huge”. Caught? Mr. Gore must have meant when the NYT illegally published the information about the NSA program in their newspaper. He does not mention that this was a “secret” program and the administration regularly briefed the proper members of Congress. But even more disingenuous is the word “huge”. What is that? It sure makes it sound like thousands and thousands of people have had phone calls listened to. But the fact is, that is not true.

I could go on and on and on. Just look at John Rockefeller who is now under investigation for leaking the NSA details to the NYT. I truly think the title of “Society of Subversion” is well deserved.

Alright - One For The Thumb!

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers. I lived for many years in Pittsburgh and was there for the first three Superbowl years. It is about time that they got ONE FOR THE THUMB!

And what a team….Rothliesberger, Polamalu, Bettis, Willy “longest run in the SuperBowl” Parker, Hines Ward, Randall El – I can’t even begin to say all the names.

BTW – I live in New England Pats territory now and it feels good to be able to say, NYAH, NYAH, NYAH….”

Also BTW – Congratulations to the SeaHawks too. They had a great season and this was by far the best SuperBowl in a while….

Smething Smells Fishy.....

UPDATED at bottom (latest update on February 9, 2006).

I think that something smells fishy in the state of the world over Denmark’s publication of the Prophet Muhammed cartoons. The whole issue is nutz!

First, the pictures were apparently published in October last year. But the outrage didn’t start until last week. It sounds like several mullahs from Denmark, took those pictures, added a few of their own which were even more insulting, and then spread them through the Middle East. Because of this, the current unrest. It appears that this was done purposely to foment the rioting – the burning of embassies – the burning of Danish flags. And isn’t that suspicious? I hadn’t thought of this, but there are other people out there who did. The big question is where did all of those flags come from? Did the countries in the Middle East just happen to have hundreds of Danish flags on hand to be conveniently burned in front of cameras? How did the reporters know to be there for the burning of the flags? Something smells very rotten. Read more of this at PowerLine in the post from Scott Johnson.

But there’s more. The issue about whether our MSM should have broadcast the pictures is a big one. All of the major media outlets decided not to so that they would not offend the Muslim community. And contrary to some threads I have seen in the blogosphere, I do not think there is a “conspiracy” amongst the MSM over this. The real question that remains though is why MSM do not worry about “offending the sensibilities” of other religions? Look at Kanye West as Jesus. Look at the upcoming Will & Grace episode called “Cruci-Fixin’s” (UPDATE: NBC announced last night that they are canceling this episode due to objection by Christian groups).

I postulate that the real reason that MSM acts this way is simple. There are not any Christian “terrorist” groups that will strap explosives on their bodies and walk into the MSM headquarters. There are not any Christian leaders that would (Pat Robertson excepted maybe…if you call him a leader) issue a “fatwah” to kill the producers of the articles/news segments – to gun them down in cold blood. Yet, we have seen such actions from Islamic extremists (Note: I do not believe that the extremists represent the views of anywhere near the majority of Muslims).

You can read more at Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE (February 6, 2006):

Check out the article in the Guardian Unlimited entitled Rioting with well-planned spontaneity. It just proves this whole thing is a fraud designed to cause unrest. And worse, in the rest of the world’s eyes it portrays the rioters as simpletons – people packed like sardines on buses to cause mayhem on command – and then to stop on command. But hey…wouldn’t want to miss the bus home even for such an important cause.

UPDATE (February 9, 2006):

Here is another great site to check out. It has a fairly funny animation of “deception” by the radical Muslim clerics from Denmark.