FINANCE THE EGO CAMPAIGN REFORM & LONDON CONVENTION

Do you want to finance the EGO campaign reform? I wrote a post in March about an upcoming Objectivist conference in London. As a "poor" capitalist (a.k.a student and job seeker) and being an "outcast" not belonging to the welfare state due to my stay abroad for a too long period of time according to the Swedish bureaucrats, I will have a hard time to easily come up with the money (conference, accommodation, flight ticket, etc), even if the conference fee is very reasonable. If you think this is a worthy cause and agree that my blog "is not full of crap," maybe you could be interested in hitting the tip jar (scroll down the page to the Support category and click on the PayPal button).

John Kerry is not a person with cash problem, but he seems to have a long track record in affiliating himself with shady characters. First he had dealings with comrades from the People's Republic of communist China and then with a middle-man to the Mullahs in Iran. [UPDATE 07/31/04: Allah has links.] Now he is turning to a guy with a connection to the mafia... [Editor's note: Could it be that members of the mob have had a "chat" with ABC News? You get this message when you click on the link: "Sorry This content is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience." Is it a cover up operation, or is due to the high traffic coming from InstaPundit?] Here is an excerpt from Andrew Buncombe's article, Convention Diary: Bing does the decent thing by Democrats:

One of the Democrats' biggest contributors is Hollywood producer Steve Bing, the ungentlemanly cad who impregnated poor English rose Liz Hurley and didn't do the decent thing. Bing has been more than generous to the Democrats however, contributing $16m. But law enforcement officials have told ABC News that Bing is a friend and business partner of Dominic Montemarano, a New York Mafia figure currently in prison on racketeering charges. Montemarano is better known by his street name Donnie Shacks. No word yet from Bing. (Independent.co.uk, 07/30/04.)

[Editor's comment: If you a fan of John Cleese and Elizabeth Hurley, check out The Human Face.]

Click here for a profile of Steve Bing. You could search on Mr. Bing's donations to different leftist organizations, if you go to Political Money Line. "The Campaign finance reform led to the birth of plenty of "527" groups." [Editor's comment: Maybe we should call it "Heinz 5(2)7" groups!? Nice try for a transition to the next topic of this post, namely: ketchup! ;)]

To give you a background, here are a couple of quotes from John McCormick's article, Kerry campaign savors tie to Heinz:

Heinz Kerry's first husband, Republican Sen. John Heinz, died in a 1991 plane crash. He had served in the Senate since 1977 and was a member of the House for three terms before that.

At the regional history center that bears the Heinz name, there are only a few mementos from his political career, one a campaign bumper sticker that features his name printed in ketchup red.

The exhibit also lets visitors in on the secret of how the "57" in the "Heinz 57" name was selected. There were more than 57 varieties of condiments at the time, but H.J. Heinz simply liked the number's sound.

Today, the company makes more than 4,000 varieties. Although the bottles don't carry the Kerry name, around here they might as well. (Chicago Tribune, 07/11/04.)

Did you know that a ketchup "war" has started between conservatives? [Via Andrew Sullivan.] Glenn Reynolds and his daughter conducted a taste test of different ketchup brands. As a "chilehead," I think regular ketchup is a bit too blend for my taste. I prefer a ketchup with more heat to it, e.g., Jonas Borssén's curry ketchup.