The Olympics List (4 of 10): The Canadians

While those of us on the east coast of the United States are in the midst of yet another major snowstorm mess which will probably provide fodder for Bill O'Reilly to say Al Gore is wrong, there is no global warming, ya da ya da ya da..........we have noticed that there is seemingly no snow in Sochi!

With that in mind, here is our list of ten Canadian athletes who are assuredly more used to snow than students at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, one of the zip codes affected by today's storm:

1) Alex Bilodeau. Age 26. Home province: Quebec. Men's Free-style Skiing. Has won gold.

2) Dara Howell. Age 19. Home province: Ontario. Women's Free-style Skiing.  Has won gold.

3) Jesse Lumsden. Age 31. Home province: Alberta. Men's Bobsledding.

4) Heather Moyse. Age 35. Home province: Prince Edward Island. Women's Bobsledding.

5) Ryan Fry. Age 35. Home province: Ontario. Men's Curling. The team beat Russia 7-4  today.

6) Jennifer Jones. Age 39. Home province: Manitoba. Women's Curling. The team beat Great Britain 9-6 today.

7) Shea Weber. Age 28. Home province: British Columbia. Men's Hockey. Plays for Nashville Predators (pictured).

8) Laura Fortino. Age 23. Home province: Ontario. Women's Hockey. Plays for Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The team beat the United States 3-2 today.

9) Charles Hamelin. Age 29. Home province: Quebec. Men's Short-track Speed-skating. Won gold.

10) Rosalind Groenewood. Age 24. Home province: Alberta. Free-style Skiing.

For our list of athletes from Scandinavian countries, go to our sister blog http://www.polticscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

SIDEBAR: NBC News is reporting that my beloved hometown of Roanoke, Va., will get 10-15 inches of snow during the major storm which will hit virtually the entire east coast. This is virtually the same amount of snow they are expecting in Rutland, Vermont! Major metro areas which have been affected include Atlanta, Columbia (SC), Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh (NC), Richmond (Va), Washington DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

http://olympic.ca/

http://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/

http://olympics.cbc.ca/

http://www.nbcolympics.com/

http://www.winthrop.edu

Things We Learned on Bing Today_ All Things Washington DC

Hmm.........we suppose if Bill O'Reilly or some fringe right wing tv or radio personality is reading this, he might be wondering why we have a photo of President Barack Obama with Bulgarian Ambassador Elena Poptodorova; well, O'Reilly can read below to find out in this edition of 'Things We Learned on Bing Today.'

1) Elena Poptodorova, 52, is the Bulgarian ambassador to the United States; she took office in 2010.

2) Cong. Ralph Hall (R-Tex.), 90, a former Democrat, is the oldest active member of the House of Representatives; Cong. John Dingell (D-Mich.), 86, is the oldest Democrat in the House.

3) Cong. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.), 30, is the youngest member of the House.

4) Mayor Vincent C. Gray, 70, is the current mayor of Washington, DC. The office was previously held by Adrian Fenty.

5) Coach John Thomspn III, 47, has been the head coach of Georgetown University's men's basketball team since 2004. Thompson, the son of legendary Hoyas coach John Thompson, previously coached at Princeton University, his alma mater.

Links:

http://www.thehill.com

http://www.cq.com

http://www.c-span.org

http://www.bulgaria-embassy.org

http://www.guhoyas.com

10 People Who Will Decide the Election (7 of 10) Donna Scott of Portland, Maine

Yikes! "Politico," on the last objective sources for news in the United States, along with "The Washington Post," has stated Mitt Romney has made tremendous gains on President Barack Obama following last week's debate in Denver, Colo., in which Romney interrupted moderator Jim Lehrer at least 17 times (more or less). NPR, which the likes of Bill O'Reilly seem to proclaim as being as radical left-wing as Radio Havana, Cuba, said that the race is now a 'virtual dead heat.'

But, 'Politco' also shows Obama winning the race 303-235 though the president is only winning Colorado 47.4 to 47.2 percent. Conversely, the numbers are also close in a very politically divided Virginia, my home state, in which one congressional district represents the rural hamlet Boones Mill, where one can see signs for far-right third party candidate Virgil Goode (from nearby Rocky Mount) and the collegetown of Charlottesville, by a margin of 47.8-47.5 percent.

Today, we are turning our attention to Maine, which seemed like a possible swing state when we planned this project over the summer, where Obama is winning 53.3-38.0 percent.

And, we are choosing a fictitious person named Donna Scott, whom we will say works at an independent bookstore in Portland (Maine). We will say she is 37, white, pro-choice and would likely vote for Obama.

Lastly, welcome to our Armenian-American blog readers. This afternoon, I posted a comment on the web site for "USA Armenian Life," (I am a Turkish-American, there are some differences between the two groups- to put it mildly) where I endorsed Cong. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) over his arch rival Cong. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) or was it the other way around?

For those of who reside in Provo, Utah, or Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who might be oblivious to American national politics, Berman and Sherman, who both represent the suburban area around Los Angeles, which has a large Armenian-American population, are entangled in a congressional race with each other due to gerrymandering, even though both are Democrats.

http://www.politico.com

http://www.armenianlife.com

http://www.ataa.org (ATAA is the leading Turkish-American group in the United States and Canada)

Portland, Maine, independent bookstores, hopefully, none of their employees has the name of Donna Scott:

http://www.nonesuchbooks.com

http://www.longfellowbooks.com

GOP Tweets_Turning It Over to Bill, Cenk and Charlie

Last year, a good friend of mine, announced to the world that he woke up one morning and decided to quit blogging. He had 10 times as many followers as I did, so this was a shock. Well, now I understand how he feels. While I'm not completely stepping away from blogging, I am going to wrap up this Republican convention tweet-a-thon sooner than I expected; but I will leave the coverage up to the subjective Bill O'Reilly (from the right) and Cenk Uygur (from the left; I personally prefer Cenk over Bill O) and the objective Charlie Rose.

But, we do hope to post entries on both blogs later in the week about a few heated races, and perhaps I will post a commentary on my thoughts regarding the GOP Convention in Tampa and coverage of it.

We are posting an image of Gov. Chris Christie (R-New Jersey) and American Olympics gold medal gymnast McKayla Maroney because we were thinking the other day that if Maroney got an on an elevator with the governor that a red light would come on. If this seems a bit mean, I should point out that I'm a hefty guy myself and folks have said much meaner things on Twitter about his weight, even Republicans!

As for Maroney, we have no idea where she stands politically (she is not quite old enough to vote), but her unimpressed/disappointment look has made her an Internet sensation, or what is called a meme. She made the wince when she got a silver medal on vault in London; an event where she was highly favored to win gold.

Here are some tweets about the GOP Convention from the night, some adjustments have been made to teh tweets for clarity: 

1) @susanlbrannigan (Susan L. Brannigan): "Rachel Maddow made the Olympic gymnast 'not impressed' look there for a second. LOL!"

2) @THEHermanCain (Herman Cain, a fringe candidate who sought the GOP nomination): "Why all the focus on #Isaac & how it hurts #GOP2012? #Pray for New Orleans and let's focus on #Solutions in Tampa."

3) @BlueInRedZion (a liberal blogger from Utah referring to the heated Congressional race between Mia Love, a Republican challenger to Utah Democratic representative Jim Mattheson): "#MiaLove to speak because she is representative of all female, black Mormons as Rs for Congress."

4) @LeslieType: "I adore Chris Christie. A straight talking mind your business, do as I say New Jersey man. I love it! Repubs and Dems are not ready for him."

5) @cocaoforreal (Touche): "not a big fan of Chris Christie, but of all the GOP 'stars,' he's the most tolerable to me."

6) @TeaPartyCat (Top Conservative Cat, a liberal satirist tweeter): "Because tonight's #RNC was rained out, no speeches from Nikki Haley, Mike Huckabee or Jeb Bush. Just reruns of 2 Broke Girls. Oh, the irony!"

7) @TedCruz (Ted Cruz, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee in Texas; he will face Democrat Paul Sadler. Cruz has a radical Fire Eric Holder, the U.S. Attorney General on his campaign web site): "Speaking at@GOPConvention tomorrow night at around 8:10 CT! Please tune in and RT to remind your friends."


http://www.tytnetwork.com

http://www.current.com

http://www.billoreilly.com

http://www.charlierose.com

http://www.blueinredzion.com

http://www.cainconnections.com

10 Possible Running Mates for Mitt Romney

For starters, it's an open secret here at "The Daily Vampire" that we are not Republicans ourselves even though our zip code is (I will only say that it's not Provo, Utah), so if we had our way then Mitt Romney would select the Rev. Pat Robertson who said that somehow President Barack Obama's is as corrupt as the Nixon administration was during Watergate. Then again, the people who watch "The 700 Club" are probably the ones who write radical letters-to-the-editor, such as one in "The Roanoke Times" today that said providing security for Michelle Obama when she gave the commencement at Virginia Tech last week was 'a waste of tax-payer money.'

So, here is the order from least offensive to most offensive. From what we've gathered Bill O'Reilly likes Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), David Brooks, the rare rational conservative, likes Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and the GOP's man in the shadows Grover Norquist likes Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-Louisana, pictured at the bottom).

Here we go:

1. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH, pictured top)

2. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)

3. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)

4. Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.)

5. (former) Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.)

6. Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.)

7. Gov. Susana Martinez (R-N.Mex.)

8. Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC)

9. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

10. Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va)

Ironically, we get email updates from both the Virginia Republican Party and the Minutemen Project, who are convinced that Pres. Obama was born in Tanzania or Tajikistan (actually, Zimbabwe is apparently their latest suggest; this is NOT a joke!), so we will provide a link to their web sites as  well as the one for Robertson's own "The 700 Club."

But, 'to balance things out,' we will provide some links to people and groups to the left of us. For starters, there is "The Nation" magazine which in the current issue has an excellent review of a posthumous memoir by singer/poet/activist Gil Scott-Herring, the official web site for filmmaker/activist Michael Moore who speaks with Cornel West tomorrow night at Hunter's College in New York and lastly The Ineternationalist Bookstore in Chapel Hill, NC, which is hosting a t-shirt design contest. Though the Tarheel State is up for grabs, there is virtually no doubt that zip code 27514 (the zip code for Chapel Hill) will go for Pres. Obama, even if he admits that he was born in Dushanbe (the capital of Tajikistan; sister city with Boulder, Colo.).

http://www.rpv.org

http://www.minutemenproject.com

http://www.cbn.com/700club

http://www.thenation.com

http://www.michaelmoore.com

http://www.internationalistbooks.org

Image of the Day/Week- Ice Cream Cone

Spring is underway, and now it seems like the season, especially with global warming (forgive the political humor), to appreciate a nice ice cream cone, unless you live in Fairbanks, Alaska.

We were going to mention Giffords Ice Cream in Bethesda, Md., which had a reputation for being one of the Washington, DC-area's best independent ice cream shops, but they were purchased last year by the Maine-based Giffords Ice Cream, which lead to this headline in "City Paper" (Washington)  from Oct. 25, 2011, which sounds like an April Fool's Joke or a story in the satirical publication "The Onion:" 'Gifford's Ice Cream Is Now Called Gifford's Ice Cream.'

But, we did find an actual non-corporate ice cream place in Boulder, Colo., in the Table Mesa part of town called the Boulder Ice Cream Shoppe. However, we presume it may be easy to mistake it for Boulder Ice Cream, an organic ice cream company which says on its web site that it makes its produce from the milk of Rocky Mountain cows.

SIDEBAR: Speaking of ice cream, we loved this headline's in today's online edition of "Politico," a daily Washington, DC-based newspaper/web page dedicated only to politics: 'Rob Portman: Vice President Vanilla.'

This is in reference to the possibility that Mitt Romney will choose Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) for his vice-presidential nomination given that votes in places like Dayton, Toledo and Akron will matter significantly more than ones in Provo, Utah, or Princeton, NJ, two college-towns which will assuredly go to the respective candidates (the other, of course, being President Barack Obama) who are almost certain to carry Utah and New Jersey respectively.

Portman is liked by moderate Republicans and intellectual conservatives, such as commentator David Brooks of "The New York Times," but fervent right-wingers, birthers and tea partiers, seem to be carrying the mantra of far right Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who is tauting Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Quote of the Day/Week- Augusto Pinochet

We must profess that since we have quoted both Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro this month, we are fearful that Bill O'Reilly will make the subject of scorn and label us as a far-left blog.

So, in order to make things 'fair and balanced,' today we are featuring a quip from the notorious Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006), who suppressed and killed many of his own people.

There is a bit of personal connection here as my late uncle Ilhan Gokbudak was actually a Turkish diplomat in Santiago during Pinochet's reign. When I asked Ilhan Amca (amca is the Turkish word for uncle) what the man was like; he said something to the effect of: "Well, he was nice to me."

Here is the quote from Pinochet, who was, by the way, a far-right figure if there ever was one:

"I'm not a dictator. It's just that I have a grumpy face."

SIDEBAR: Today, the world is 'mourning' the loss of another brutal dictator as Kim Jung Il, who was made famous on "South Park" here in the United States, is no longer with us.

My favorite Kim Jung Il story is of how he kidnapped South Korean film director Sang-ok Shin, and forced her to make "Pulgasari" (1985), a Godzilla rip-off that was not shown outside the Korean pennisula until a 1998 screeening in Japan. Today, it is a Youtube sensation.

"Pulgasari" was also shown as part of the "Axis of Evil Film Festival" at Duke University in 2003; the festival, which was currated by Iranian ex-pat Negar Mottahedeh, did actually get targeted by Fox News for being 'liberal academic propaganda.' The festival also included films from Cuba, Libya and Syria.

The term 'axis of evil' is believed to have come from former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, who has ironically become a voice and ration and reason within the Republican Party. I guess this means he is not endorsing Michele Bachmann.

Right-Wing Radicals Say the Darndest Things...

This comment was actually posted on Youtube against my fellow Turkish-American progressive Cenk Uygur, a talk show host with "The Young Turks" (he was once a Republican!). It is in reference to a segment that Uygur ran featuring Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller (he used to be sane!) discussing how President Barack Obama has been hypocritical with his policies:

"all I can do is laugh at that smug, dirty arab when HE calls oreilly smug."

The kicker here is that not only Uygur openly agnostic (as am I), Turks are NOT Arabs. We are completely different ethnic groups.

This illustrates one of my main points of contention with the right, especially the whacko tea partiers, they believe that racism and xenophobia in America are not a part of society.

While I would agree that there are times when the left cries wolf when there might be other factors to explain a situation like the Cambridge, Mass., incident between a police officer and an African-American Harvard professor besides racism, there are also times when it is very clear and very apparent. And, this is one such example.

Things We Learned On Twitter This PM- Bill O'Reilly Attacks Topless Gardener

Conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly of Fox News fame called Catharine Pierce, a Boulder, Colo., woman who enjoys topless gardening a 'pinhead' on his show last night according to the Twitter page for "Colorado Daily."

Apparently, O'Reilly devoted an entire segment to Pierce instead of doing his usual lambasting of President Barack Obama, gays, Muslims and every African-American except Clarence Thomas.

In response to O'Reilly's verbal attack, the woman's husband Robert Pierce told "Colorado Daily" that his wife is not a pinhead (Bill Griffith's comic strip character Zippy the Pinhead is pictured here):

"Why would I respond to Bill O'Reilly," Robert Pierce said. "He is a pinhead. He is a true definition of a pinhead."

Actually, I have now entered 491 posts on this blog and I have yet to refer to anyone as a pinhead though I did compare current Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (R) to Darth Vader. But, that shouldn't count!

SIDEBAR: One might think that Cairo, Egypt, would not be affected by the eruptions from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull (I'm glad I'm not a radio reporter), but the BBC reported last night that 17,000 stranded European tourist were still in Egypt due to the air restrictions that have been in place since last week.

There is some good news though as "Iceland News" is reporting that as of last night the volcano is cooling down and only one of its three craters are erupting.

President Barack Obama Makes His Final 4 Picks

President Barack Obama has once again filled out his brackets and chosen his Final Four. Even though I voted for him, we only chose one team in common-the Villanova Wildcats.


Interestingly enough, three of the four teams Obama selected are nicknamed Wildcats, including Villanova, Kentucky and Kansas State.

The lone exception is the team he is picking to win it all: The Kansas Jayhawks (mascot pictured here) though even if they win, I would expect that since Kansas is a very red state (though they actually have a Democratic governor) they will go for Sarah Palin in 2012. (I will not!)

Obama picks the Jayhawks to beat Ashley Judd's beloved Kentucky Wildcats in the final. Former President Bill Clinton told ESPN that he also likes the Jayhawks' chances, but his pick to win it all is Syracuse- a top-seeded team which Obama did not put in his Final Four.

Last year, when Obama picked the University of North Carolina to win it all, he was criticized by right-wing talk show host Bill O'Reilly for going public with his picks. Of course, if Obama had not chosen to disclose his brackets, O'Reilly would have found another reason to bicker.

In order to preserve a remote sense of journalistic objectivity, I checked Newt Gingrich's Twitter page to see if he made any picks in the NCAA Tournament, but he is more concerned about federal dollars potentially going to women who want/need to have an abortion.

Political Confusion Test (15 of 21)-Kirk Cameron v. Sean Penn

Boycotts seem to be the rage these days. Once upon a time, boycotts were synonomous with fringe groups like PETA who urged folks not to eat at KFC or McD's.

But, today people of all political persuasions have called for boycotts. Fringe right-wing talk show host Bill O'Reilly, who was the subject of an earlier Political Confusion entry, told David Letterman that he is boycotting all Sean Penn films since the actor who recently Oscared for "Milk" has visited Venezuelan El Presidente Hugo Chavez.

While I agree that Penn is going a bit too far, I am not inclined to remove "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" from Netflix que anytime soon.

But, I was wondering who Keith Olbermann, O'Reilly's counterpart on the left, could tell folks to boycott.

I came up with Kirk Cameron, who is unquestionably as far from the political center as Penn. Cameron, who was a teen idol in the 1980s when he starred on the sitcom "Growing Pains," is now a Christian fundamentalist whacko who has appeared in propaganda films like "Fireproof" and "Left Behind."

Interestingly enough, while researching this, I found that Cameron and I were both born in 1970 though I'm a few months older than him.

Whichever one of these stars you are more inclined to boycott might just indicate who you should vote for in 2012.

Could it Barack Obama against Sarah Palin?

Political Confusion Quiz (Entry 8 of 21)

In today's edition of what seems to be (I hope!) one of more popular series, we ask you the blog reader if you had a tv with only two channels_ Fox News and PBS, and it was a boring Friday night in which both your girlfriend and your bowling partners were preoccupied with other things, would you choose between Bill O'Reilly or Bill Moyers.

These two actually have a connection as O'Reilly producer Porter Barry ambushed Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform this past summer in Minnesota. A Youtube video of the incident has received a lot of views.

Moyers is 74, and he served as White House press secretary for Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965-67 before turning to journalism. He is best known for being a CBS News commentator, but in recent years he has moved back to PBS.

He is currently the host of "Bill Moyers Journal" and recent interviews have included Sarah Chaves, a reporter who spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, and Gov. David Paterson (D) of New York.

Moyers has been heavily criticized by conservatives for expressing his liberal views with his segments and interviews.

O'Reilly, 59, was once a semi-pro pitcher for the New York Monarchs. Today he is known for being an over-the-top talk show host who tilts to the right_to put it mildly, though he claims to be a fair and objective talk show host.

The web site for his Fox News show did not seem to list any up-coming guests, but his hostile rants during an interview with Cong. Barney Frank (D-Mass) in October have received about as many hits on Youtube as the latest Shakira video.

There are some interesting tid bits I found out both men. O'Reilly was once a reporter for the alternative weekly "The Boston Phoenix," which is known for its progressive perspective!

Similarly, Moyers was born in Oklahoma, the same state that former action movie star Chuck Norris was born in.

From my perspective, Norris arguably makes O'Reilly look like a Greenpeace activist.