Bill Maher vs. Conspiracy Nuts

Maher is fed up with them:

Personally, I've always thought that satirical mockery works better though:

But you know, whatever works for you, Bill.

Hemingway Update and Naivete

I posted about my new kitten here. She continues to eat, sleep, and act in cute/destructive ways. Weirdly though, she seems unimpressed by Bill Maher, mashing the keyboard while I was watching a YouTube clip of Maher's show and causing Bill Maher to disappear. It wasn't even a bad clip of Maher (who can be irritating or sanctimonious at times) rather it was his discourse with John Mellencamp on naivete in US politics:

If you watch the clip, one of the things that they touch on (but not quite) is the power of narrative and of image in US politics. Fred Thompson has a pickup truck! That in itself is not a reason to vote for or against Thompson, but it is a marketing ploy trying to convince anyone who can't be bothered to follow the issues that Thompson is someone to whom they can relate as opposed to man who has spent his life around power and money in Washington and Hollywood and Washington again (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Interestingly, there is less of an aspect of this narrative in Canadian politics. Perhaps this is because our current Prime Minister has been a career politician/policy wonk and our previous Prime Minister was a shipping magnate.

"The peace candidate always wins"

This is an interesting bit of commentary from Ron Paul. There is lots that I would undoubtedly disagree with if I sat down and studied Ron Paul's politics, but the man has talked more sense than anyone else on Iraq and terror in the '08 campaign. That's why he has this buzz now.