Category: The Dish

Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, 9.35 am.

Venezuela’s answer to the YearlyKos convention.  One blogger explains why the Internet and Venezuelan politics seem to be a good match:

While the outside World thinks that Venezuela is heading for a “stranger” and “extreme” form of socialism never seen before, many people here don’t take things so seriously. The best virtue of a Venezuelan (also his worst defect) is that the people are happy here. Fewer people on the earth live as contentedly as those born in Simón Bolívar’s homeland. Maybe it’s the petroleum, the incredibly beautiful women (more than statistics), beer or rum, that helps make life incredibly more “relaxed” than in other countries. Even with the dizzying politics that currently has us trapped, we look for ways to continue to live, laugh, enjoy and party. And here as in other places, there are people who are more or less responsible for their actions. This uninhibited country has something that is difficult to copy and even less, explain.

Blog on.

It’s the creation of one Azra Aksamija, who says it’s an art work designed to be humorous rather than funny.

Sometimes, you have to defend free speech even if it also means defending "an asshole of metaphysically transcendent proportion."

McCain goes back to Woodstock to battle Clinton. He has a small point about pork-barrel spending. But do we really have to re-fight the 1960s every four years?

Greg Djerejian notices a discrepancy:

"[It was] getting harder and harder to get on that airplane…I want to live in the same city as my husband," – Karen Hughes, explaining her resignation.

"It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers, but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment…I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence, and you know it," – a foreign service officer at the State Dept Town Hall meeting on Baghdad assignments.

Starbucks’ real secret of success: it’s not the coffee itself; it’s the coffee-ambience they create.

Bored at work? This guy has the idea:

This conservative thinks many of his supporters are paranoid. This story suspects he’s a closet spammer. Jay Reding voices understandable outrage. Some Paulites suspect that the Wired alleged spamming story is designed to yank extremely popular Ron Paul videos off YouTube. There’s even an unsubstantiated claim that Giuliani was behind the Wired story. Meanwhile, Ron Paul himself continues to say and do things that just feed the cult. According to Time, he had little idea who Tom Cruise was, when they met on the Tonight Show. Yay!

Some are recycling their rabbits. Bonus YouTube here.