Okay…so the 2010 hyperbole is a little bit Associated Press of me, but what the heck…it’s my blog.

Looks like Communists in Latin America are at it again and are preparing to take on the drug-dealing criminal fascists. Historically, the U.S.A has supported drug dealing fascists, over revolutionary communists (mostly to good measure).

Nevertheless, with Obama in office, Columbia just might be on its own.

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville worried that free, capitalist societies might develop so great a “taste for physical gratification” that citizens would be “carried away, and lose all self-restraint.” Avidly seeking personal gain, they could “lose sight of the close connection which exists between the private fortune of each of them and the prosperity of all” and ultimately undermine both democracy and prosperity.

The genius of America in the early nineteenth century, Tocqueville thought, was that it pursued “productive industry” without a descent into lethal materialism. Behind America’s balancing act, the pioneering French social thinker noted, lay a common set of civic virtues that celebrated not merely hard work but also thrift, integrity, self-reliance, and modesty—virtues that grew out of the pervasiveness of religion, which Tocqueville called “the first of [America’s] political institutions, . . . imparting morality” to American democracy and free markets. Some 75 years later, sociologist Max Weber dubbed the qualities that Tocqueville observed the “Protestant ethic” and considered them the cornerstone of successful capitalism…

http://city-journal.org/2009/19_3_work-ethic.html

Recent poll put the Tories at 39% and the Liberals at 28%.

Looks like Iggy is having trouble inspiring Obama-like excitement.

Also, the Lib’s are still torn up with infighting with Rae supporters resentful that they couldn’t vote in a leadership race.

Nice!

I haven’t made many posts lately, summer is so short that it is a shame to sit on a blog for too long…

Anyway, Obama is falling rapidly in the polls. The GOP is soaring. Harper is keeping Iggy at bay.

Politics is pretty good.

Here in Alberta the Wildrose Alliance race is heating up. Paul Hinman is running in the by-election. Good luck Paul.

Previously this blog endorsed Mark Dryholm for leadership of the Wildrose Alliance…now I’m not so sure.

As the campaign has continued I am getting weird vibes. Too “Us versus Them”.

Plus, I think Danielle would be a better front person for the party. The Dryholm’s would be better suited behind the scenes.

Gonna have to sit out an endorsement.

Vote for who you like…

Looks like almost 10% of Americans are on anti-depressants.

Unhappy? Pop a pill. Maybe some Soma, like Brave New World.

Here’s the news link…

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03411375.htm

Here’s a link to Brave New World if you aren’t familiar with it…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

Another Mark Steyn piece targets old media…Cronkite compared to Jackson….

Here’s an excerpt…

It’s sunset, and it’s no longer bliss: the heir to Cronkite, Katie Couric, is the champion limbo dancer of evening-news ratings; the New York Times, the oracle from which all three network newscasts take their cue, is now junk stock. It turns out Walter Cronkite and Michael Jackson have quite a bit in common: both performers peaked circa 1980, and did very little these last two decades. In that sense, they belong culturally to the same generation. They represent the zenith of a shared, universal popular culture: Jacko’s Thriller was the biggest-selling album of all time ever; Cronko’s newscast was the most-watched in America. Barring dramatic and severe government control of technology, no CD and no news show will ever be that big again. And, when you think about it, millions of teenagers going out and buying the same slickly manipulative pop record is less weird than millions of grown-ups agreeing they’ll all get their world view from the same source. But (all together now, again) “that’s the way it was” back in the days when ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post functioned as a co-operative monopoly.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/07/30/uncle-walter-not-so-sadly-missed/