Hey, hey! The bullshit is only beginning, my friends.

Distraction is the name of this game.

With PNL now successfully on a leash, it would seem that Mircea Geoana and his communist PSD friends are very pleased with how the Romanian media salivated over the dubious accusation that Basescu beats kids at his support rallies.

If PSD can get the idiots all riled up by belaboring some 5-second video clip to death, pounding on the podium, and screaming about pedophile rape, then they’re increasing the odds for a return to communist rule simply by distracting the populace from issues of substance.

And they’d love nothing more than to increase the noise and drown out the signal.

Viewing you like a 3-week old puppy, they want to jingle-jangle squeak toys in your face to get you chasing your own tail. To that end, they’re apparently hiring video editors to work on additional bullshit clips to handfeed to their paid-off friends in the press to spread the electoral virus.

Don’t be fooled.

Bribing a journalist wouldn’t take much money. And it only take a handful to begin infecting others, particularly if the few happen to be the chain-smoking cynical bunch in the editorial room whose lives have been filled with so much disillusionment that they don’t give a whit about yours.

One should be able to measure the journalistic integrity of various media venues based on how much bullshit they like to sling. If your newspaper (or magazine or tv channel or radio station) of choice endlessly splashes this non-issue in your face, then it is clear those so-called journalists have disdain for your intellectual capacity.

In fact, shamefully, they aren’t journalists at all, but merely burned-out, hack writers seeking to coarsen the national dialogue in the chase for easy ad dollars because they don’t believe Romania can ever do better.

Here’s the deal, folks: You are actually in control.

1. Stop buying that non-journalistic newspaper or magazine. And send a politely worded email explaining why. (You may safely ignore whatever watered down response they might fling back at you.)

2. Change the tv channel or radio station. Knock those metrics down.

3. In polite conversation with friends, when a gossiping pal puts on the mask of a sly grin and says, “Deci, did you see that YouTube video of Politician X where she wore white shoes after Labor Day?” or some equally trumped up and inconsequential nonsense — such as “Adica, have you seen the Vimeo clip of Basescu punching a two year old in the crotch at the ambassadorial dinner party, deci?” — then, I recommend you issue the curt reply of “Cui îi pasă?” and follow it with some poignant comment on a political issue which really matters, to redirect the conversation.

4. Do not vote for Geoana.

Strap on a pair and demand sanity. Flat-out refuse to get dragged into the downward spiral.

Of course, if you haven’t got the chops, then you can always be a lapdog consumer. Take whatever they give you. Accept the communist return. Just strap on your helmet and occasionally wipe the drool from your chin.

Seems they fixed the Web site, but now the Romanian politicians and conjoined media circus have gone completely batshit crazy. From here it looks like a mad squabble of ruthless scoundrels which does little-to-nothing for Romania but determine which cabal gets the next round of public largess.

What’s going on, people?

I turn a blind eye for a short while and the whole world seems to fall apart…

A terrible way to undermine one’s President is to demonstrate a clear lack of sophistication in common communication mediums.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Internet. Possibly even the Web. Fairly common these days, I’d say.

Politicians rely on rapid and on-message agitprop to be delivered to the target audience(s) in a reliable fashion such that the (mis)information takes root or engenders a desired effect.

It’s probably a good guess to say no one reads this blog any more. Rightly so; there hasn’t been anything to read here for blog-eons. And I’d wager that even if there are a few last holdouts, they may not have read my previous discussion about the systemic ignorance of Romanian Web server administrators.

A while back, I opined with incredulity about the pervasive Romanian failure to properly configure something as mind-numbingly simple yet as mission-critical as a Web server. And now it’s come into the spotlight by embarrassing Preşedintele României Traian Băsescu on the international stage.

As trumpted by JurnalismOnline, it seems the Web site for the Romanian Presidency is run by an ignorant admin who clearly is unable to comprehend how to perform his or her job.

Unless it’s a PSD operative trying to subvert PD-L objectives… heh.

This is the moment where I burst forth into involuntary cackling, upsetting all around me into believing I’ve gone mad. But I haven’t. The insane asylum is connect by PRI to Cotroceni.

The fools!

(Hat tip to Monsoux for bringing this gem of hilarity to my attention.)

Back amongst friends in Texas.

Bau-bau!