Kerfuffles

Josh Trevina over at “Spot-On” has quite an insightful post on the bloggers who have been invited to Holland, all expenses paid by Holland.com. (See “Going Dutch to A-Dam”.) Trevina himself was amongst the bloggers who were flown to Scotland for Live 8 last summer, and now he is pondering if he should have taken the free travel and lodging from the event organizers, and whether that affected his writing. Affected his writing? How could it not have!

But you have to give it to Adam over at “Slice”, the pizza blog, who is himself one of the Netherlands 25. He holds nothing back in his post “Slice Going to Amsterdam”:

“Late next month, I’ll be going to Amsterdam. Full disclosure: The trip is part of a junket for bloggers put together by Holland.com, the web presence of the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions. Holland.com is paying for the flight as well as five nights in a hotel near the city center, and an Amsterdam public-transport pass.”

“Slice” too pondered the ethics of accepting a junket a la Jack Abramoff and came through with a most tortured explanation of his decision to go. See, Holland.com is attempting to attract foreign tourists which in no way has anything to do with pizza, the subject of the “Slice” blog. Now, if “Slice” had been offered an all expense paid trip to Chicago to review deep dish pizza pies, he would have had to decline as that would clearly be a conflict of pizza interests, and besides he hates deep dish pizza.

What Next For Cindy Sheehan and Her Lust For the Spotlight?

Taking a page out of Senator John Kerry’s playbook on how to make pronouncements to the Left with the greatest impact - from anyplace that is NOT America, Mrs. Sheehan went south to Harry Belafonte’s most favored nation, Venezuela, to announce her political plans for the future. On advice from California’s other Senator, Barbara Boxer, Cindy may very well give California Senator Diane Feinstein her comeuppance by challenging Feinstein for the Senate seat she now holds.

America’s most beloved anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan spoke about the U.S. war in Iraq at - “where else but” - the 6th World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela, on Saturday, January 28, 2006. At that Socialist spot on Socialist foreign soil is where she announced her intentions to possibly run against United States Senator Diane Feinstein, according to “The Associated Press”. Although Sheehan has not yet named the Illuminati who will be supporting her, everyone knows that Senator Boxer will be 100% behind Mother Sheehan’s bid, even though it will put her at risk of losing her Senate ranking as “The Dumbest Solon in History”.

Scott Ott at ScrappleFace is “reporting” that Howard Dean, chairman of the DNC, has selected Cindy Sheehan and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to deliver the Democrats’ response to the President’s State of the Union speech, saying “Our choice of Cindy and Hugo demonstrates our commitment to diversity, and personifies our platform for the future,” … “Plus, they’re among the few well-known progressives who didn’t vote to support the war in Iraq while publicly attacking the Bush administration for its policy toward Iraq.”

Linked at “Dr. Sanity” and Michelle Malkin. The image of the “not-at-all” strange bedfellows, Sheehan and Chavez, was originally uploaded by flap.

As I wander happily about the blogosphere, checking out the blogs of some friends, I chance upon this cute as can be chimpanzee on ice at Pettifog’s. Gun-Ho is ice-skating in the Animal Academy Show in Seoul, South Korea, and as it is quite cold there in the far north, he is snugly in his fur-lined parka. And speaking of Pettifog’s blog, I do declare that it is quite a creative one. There are more themes to choose from than I have ever encountered - a dozen! I especially like this explanation, with which I feel simpatico:

You have landed at a web log controlled by an untrained - out of control - “blogger” in curiosity mode who changes things daily in order to learn more “stuff”.