Only Nevada GOP Congressional candidate Mark Amodei can stop the impending Chinese invasion. It's true!

By Richard K. Barry

Who is Mark Amodei and how did he develop such an interesting sense of humour? Well, Mr. Amodei is running for the Republican nomination to fill a vacant congressional seat that became available when Representative Dean Heller filled John Ensign's Senate seat when Ensign resigned due to a sex scandal. On the other point, I don't know where Amodei gets his sense of humour.

Running in a way intended to get the attention of those swayed by Tea Party ideas, Amodei has put together a most entertaining television ad, which links raising the federal debt ceiling to a future takeover of a debt-ridden America by the Chinese. The best part is when the Red Army marches past the U.S. Capitol. No kidding, the freakin' Red Army!

Even The Daily Caller, the hyper right-wing website, seems a little taken aback by this one. Though, in a bizarre headline for the story, they did call the ad: "light-hearted fear-mongering." Let that one rattle around in your head for a while.

Anyway, here's a snippet of an interview with the candidate:

Amodei: The message is, the fiscal situation now is dire, and if you don't change the course, it will go from dire to catastrophic.

The Daily Caller: Does the catastrophic include an Army marching over the Capitol?

Amodei: Let's put it this way: If we start selling it to the French, you could substitute the French, you could substitute anybody you want. The fact of the matter is right now, this is where the ton of debt is being placed. There is no racial tone to it, it's simply factual.

I don't know. I really can't see this ad working with the French army marching in front of the Capitol. It would be marginally funnier. Then again, I can't see this ad working at all. But thanks for the giggle.

Here it is:

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Photo of the Day: Exploding Chinese watermelons

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Guardian:

The flying pips, shattered shells and wet shrapnel still haunt farmer Liu Mingsuo after an effort to chemically boost his fruit crop went spectacularly wrong.

Um, yeah.

Bob Dylan in China - same as he ever was

By Richard K. Barry 

Bob Dylan just released a reply of sorts to those who considered his concert in China last April as not in keeping with whatever mythologized idea they have of him.

This is actually pretty funny for those who have followed Dylan's career with even passing attention. On a date now etched in popular music history, July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan performed with a rock band at the Newport Folk Festival. The folk music establishment (interesting oxymoron that) criticized him for turning his back on political song writing. There are varying interpretations as to what really happened. Did he get booed by the audience, were there sharp words back stage? Whatever happened, it was clear that for some, Bob Dylan would forever have to meet their expectations or suffer the consequences, and their expectation were that he would forever be a protest song singer.

Rather famously, Dylan has always run screaming in the other direction from other peoples' expectations of what he is supposed to say and be and represent, which, to my mind, is a pretty radical message to send the world.

So, Maureen Dowd at The New York Times thought that Dylan should have gone to China, maybe sang "Blowin' in the Wind," and "The Times They Are a-Changin'."Then he should have made a political speech about China's woeful record on human rights. In other words, he should have been the Dylan we think we remember but who, if he ever existed, hasn't for a long time.

Apparently Dylan was asked to supply a set list to the Chinese authorities and did so, but he also claims that nothing in his performance changed as a result. I guess we'll have to take his word for it. But I have seen the man in concert over the past many years and I don't find that hard to believe. His concerts are not a '60s retrospective road show. Sorry Maureen.

If Dylan was still writing the old protest stuff and performing it every day and then went to China and censored himself then fine, get all high and mighty. But that is not what happened. That is not who he is anymore and if you want to talk about freedom, freedom is getting to decide for yourself who you are.

Isn't that what the '60s was supposed to be all about?

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

MMMM #108: Managing Execution Coverage - Public Editor

     It was reported last week that China is reducing the number of non-violent economic crimes (68) that are punishable by execution in that country.The stories almost uniformly reported that China executes more people than any other country.     

      But the stories neglected to point out that there are more Chinese in the world than any other country. There are other countries that execute more people per-capita. Almost every statistic about China is a superlative because of its size.

     The traditional Chinese execution method has been firing squad (or, mostly, a single bullet to the head). Now, high tech "execution vans" roam the country to conduct executions by lethal injection. In the shooting days, families of the condemned were charged for the bullet.

     I don't know of they are sent a bill for the chemical cocktail.





     There was a story in Saturday's NY Times about Japan's seven execution chambers, which were opened to the Japanese media for the first time ever last week. Foreign media was excluded, as if that was somehow going to prevent the rest of the world from finding out the details!

     Japan executes by hanging, and like virtually all countries, has developed a detailed, somewhat fetishistic procedure to be followed.

     Some governments have yet to come to their senses about the Internet age. Blocking the media only serves to make 'em angry, and that can result in even more negative coverage than otherwise. That's not fair, but it happens.

     Alabama is in the top ten for per-capital executions among U.S. States, though Texas easily wins the raw numbers prize (437 since the death penalty was reauthorized by the courts. Alabama has executed just 41 in the same time period. That's a per-capita rate of  0.179 for Texas and 0.088 for Alabama.)

     Nonetheless, the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative organization places Alabama at the per-capita top, and awards the state a couple of other distinctions as well:

Alabama is the only state in the country that allows elected state court judges to override jury verdicts of life imprisonment and impose death sentences without strict limiting standards. About 23% of the people on Alabama's death row received a life verdict that was overridden by a trial judge.

Alabama is also the only state in the country without a state-funded program to provide legal assistance to death row prisoners. Over half of the people currently under sentence of death in Alabama were represented at trial by appointed counsel whose compensation for trial preparation was capped by law at just $1000.

      About the biggest change of heart over execution in Alabama in recent years was The Birmingham News--just about the state's most conservative newspaper-- assuming an anti-capital punishment editorial stance after more than a century of support for executions. As recently as last January, they were editorially calling for a moratorium.

     And theirs was a conservatve agrument: we can't be truly pro-life and support execution at the same time.









[PLUS: On Sunday the NY Times new "Public Editor"...Arthur S. Brisbane...wrote his first column. He pledges to be a fair representative of Times' readers, at a time when those readers have a powerful new arsenal of weapons to do journalist battle with the much larger but less agile newspaper. That's a tough job, and I wish him well. I've always though a TV News operation could go a long way toward sustaining credibility by doing the same, perhaps a retired journalist from another market who could be brought in periodically to comment on the work being done by the station.]

  

{The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.}    

You traffic jam isn't nearly so bad.....

    

                                                                                                               Consider one in China that has lasted nine days! Heads up: the CNN video report at the end of that link is in Chinese (though the print story in English)...and maybe that's what's causing the jam... because all of the road signs are in Chinese too. ("This is Bejing! We speak English here!" to misquote a former Alabama candidate for Governor.

     And you thought those miners were in for a tough time waiting till December for a rescue. At least they won't run out of gas.

     Imagine nine days on Highway 280 or I-85. In a  Hummer. With kids in the back seat.



(NOTE: Thanks to faithful Editor in Chief J.C. for pointing it out!)