Opera Glasses and Popcorn
San Anselmo – CA – 2004
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An Opera Glasses and Popcorn view of Politics and the Assembled Multitude...
Marisacat -
- Real independent observations on current events with a particular fondness for the follies of the Big Box Blahgers.
Deflates bloated egos like a champion fencer in a balloon warehouse.
- Alan Smithee
Marisacat -
"...polish on a mud wallow"
- Meteor Blades [May 24 at Mcat]
Marisacat -
"... doyenne of donkle deconstruction"
- Who is IOZ [January 2 2007]
Marisacat -
"... hardened professionals and their primary strength lies in their being completely unconflicted."
"... the primary difference is that on the level of criticizing other blogs and bloggers, they can actually do some damage."
"... Not what I look for in a liberal blog product."
- peeder - MLW, Daily Rant [3.24.07]
Democracy NOW! / Amy Goodman Electronic Intifada / General Content Press TV / Middle East News Press TV McClatchy Headlines The Real News Reuters / Politics
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on one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.
If you click on La Louche the picture or the words, it leads to the Amazon PayPage, a way to ... oh let's say help with the cat can deliveries.
Thanks to all who made the very kind suggestion.
Chevron Slow to Announce Hire of Controversial Pentagon GC
“When a company recruits a prominent government official, it’s usually eager to put the word out immediately. But Chevron Corp. took more than a month to publicly confirm that it had hired William “Jim” Haynes II, the controversial former general counsel of the Pentagon. Chevron officials say that they didn’t make a big deal of Haynes’ hiring because they didn’t think it was newsworthy.
Haynes, however, is very much a man in the news. In addition to having run one of the biggest law departments in the federal government, Haynes has drawn fire for his role in developing the Bush administration’s detainee interrogation policies. Democratic senators maintained that Haynes had approved interrogation procedures that amounted to torture and were able to kill his nomination to a federal judgeship.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced Haynes’ resignation as general counsel Feb. 25. Two days later Chevron general counsel Charles James sent a memo to the company’s management committee stating that Haynes would be coming aboard as chief corporate counsel. Haynes, who will report to James, will manage the 45-attorney legal department.“
quaint.
1. He’ll fit right it considering all of Chevron’s human rights abuses around the world.
Here’s a follow up on The Independent’s food additive/food colouring story: Food agency calls for ban on six artificial colours
Iow, the lobbyists won that one.
FWIW
Frontier airlines went out. Bankrupt… I don’t even know wehre they flew, but at least I had heard of them…………..
2
Yeah, just like Chevron et al (and their ‘Big Four’ accounting firms) fit so nicely “sponsoring” “commercial free” public broadcasts in the ‘public’s interest.’
Very nervous… LOL
Speaking of people with enormous amounts of money getting favours: Court condemns Blair for halting Saudi arms inquiry
This isn’t over yet.
How about going after the Saudis for those “threats”? (rhetorical question, obviously)
6. Flipping hilarious! Flip-flopper. lol
4
Dominoes __ __ __////////||||||||||
6 Unbelievable……..
Marcy Winograd has a diary up at dkos now thanking Obama. Jeebus H Christ on a Stick.
they’ll get rid of her yet. Or hundreds of the others. People just cave, so fucking stupid.
600 + American flights to be canceled tomorrow.
goodnight ladies and sweet dreams ……..
I see Winograd also posted her original purge diary at dkos where she was met with torches and pitchforks. kid oakland had to weigh in, of course, to mention how special he is for not thinking he could be a delegate. Note the point finger.
IOW, shame on you!!
What makes you look bad, ko, is your constant Dem party butt-kissing.
*pointy finger
IIRC, frontier was a low-budget airline in the west, sort of like america west, or horizon air (which is part of alaska, but a separate name for whatever reason).
i just hope they can keep some planes in the air long enough for me to get the hell out of the country this fall. i suspect the long haul transoceanic flights might hang on a bit longer than the short budget ones, because the only competition is stowing away on container shipping boats.
Well Marcy is a fool for falling back in line, but Plouffe caved. So, she and the others were RIGHT.
wu ming
well they have said the low cost commuter flights were hardest hit. Makes sense.
Frontier started out as a Denver airline and basically went from everywhere to Denver – hey, it beats Salt Lake.
I flew Frontier Seattle to Denver once, but in an altered state, so don’t remember too much about it.
Washington lobbying sets record in 2007
Can someone please explain to me how Obama actually plans to end their influence? (The non-fairy tale version?)
Mandela is still of the US terrorist watch list? WTF?
File this in Things We Already Knew But It’s Nice To Have Confirmation Anyway:
AP: Cheney Approved Harsh Interrogations
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2008(CBS/AP) Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.
The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them Thursday to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday. The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture.
“If you looked at the timing of the meetings and the memos you’d see a correlation,” the former intelligence official said. Those who attended the dozens of meetings agreed that “there’d need to be a legal opinion on the legality of these tactics” before using them on al Qaeda detainees, the former official said.
The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Attending the sessions were then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
CBS News link
The ACLU is demanding Congress investigate.
Bwahahahahahahaha yeah right.
Screw this useless congress. They wouldn’t do their jobs even if someone was being tortured right in front of them. Send them all to The Hague.
Ben Smith at Politico has a round up piece on the delegate purge in CA… I don’t think he has caught up to the Plouffe letter, however………….
22 — (Mandela is still of the US terrorist watch list? WTF?)
You don’t come off these lists.
hmm i have not been to Koswhacklandia… so I don’t know the reaction… but isn’t Schweitzer one of the Kos beloveds (or was)? Apparently, tho, Obama is not a Schweitzer beloved….
or something?
I burst out laughing at this one. FP advisor or bag boy?
… and you know these people are laughing at the Holy Rollers in the rallies. If they even think of them.
Good lord.
whoops! No Morning news says Frontier will keep flying.
Oh those plucky little start ups!
hahahahah… somebody is chewing their fingernails…
It appears that someone has launched an attack against the icasualties.org website. They currently have the following message posted on their FP:
With the number of fatalities for US troops having increased dramatically the last few days, I found myself wondering if something like this was happening. I’d had a lot of trouble logging onto it myself.
I think TNH last evening, said 18 so far this week… KIA in Iraq….
According to icasualties, it’s 20.
Truthfully, I’m surprised this sort of thing hasn’t happened much more often to them.
Some really good commentary from Juan Cole today:
yes it was clear in New Orleans (and the Gulf coast) that the military was in charge.
Post coup. Post collapse (collapse is the Demcrats).
Peter plays Said said (via angryarab
Enterprising little rightie chipmunk… with a camera on so called “billionaires row” when Obama came to the big fundraiser (one of three that day) at the Getty house, SF, April 6
37
Arcturus, thanks for that… thru AA I picked up yesterday on the big piece in the LAT. Seems that Rashid Khalidi is now saying that Obama never had sympathies for the Palestinians. And various people are pointing fingers at Ali Abunimah, whom I have read several times in E Intiifada, he lived in Obama’s district in the 90s…. saying he is unreliable.
All fo this to please Israel. We are so skrewed
27. re: the Schweitzer story
I see some commenters are saying this isn’t “news”. They do the same thing at Politico whenever anything critical of Obama is posted. They’re as determined to not see the complete truth as Bush’s fundies – a truly disturbing phenomenon. If they can’t stand criticism of Obama, how the hell would are they going to last during a 4 year presidency without daily head explosions? They’ve become their own narrow-minded religion.
So Congress abdicated to Bush. Bush has abdicated to the generals in the field.
I don’t know about that. Look at the retired generals who are now speaking out. When they’re active, they’re required to keep their mouths shut. Bush has abdicated to the civilian neocons, afaic. Who knows what Petraeus really thinks about the policies? He’s said repeatedly that policy-setting is not his job. (Not that I respect his position. If he had any cajones, he’d tell the truth.)
38. That was entertaining.
Torch protests in Argentina
I caught a bit of the news conference about the marine being busted in Mexico who’s charged with the murder of a female marine in the states. The DA (I think it was) decided to make a political statement saying that because (teh evil librul) Jimmy Carter had signed an extradition treaty with Mexico way back when ensuring the death penalty was off the table, the state couldn’t pursue it. That was crass. As if everybody and their dog doesn’t know that.
LOL
Yesterday BA said they would do so much better than SF… it was kind of silly really. As soon as it got there, instead of a photo op for the Flambe, it was hustled off to a “undisclosed location”. Sounds like Cheney….
What a riot!
Sounds like Cheney….
lol
They tried out a new technique there:
Dan Bacher:
UC Davis fish biologist Peter Moyle:
Indy Bay link
uggh, sorry ’bout the coding before – i need sleep
[think I got both, don't worry just took a few seconds... -Mcat]
shit. i quit.
… not to worry…
I was delayed as there was a Safeway delivery.
oh I saw a headline … SF (meaning Gavin in his peed upon Chinese dogskin slippers) was effing dumb. we are stuck for the full bill.
UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE. Dept of State, Chinese Embassy, Consulate, Chinese heavies, pro Chinese bussed in from all over…. (fine their right) and not counting the overtime copulation… of cops… it is 600K. AND Gavin or Fong (our lady chief of cops) admit they MOVED THE PROTESTORS and not the pro Chinese… and they should have moved BOTH when conflict broke out.
And boy is the City defensive. Media is REALLY laughing… There was a city rep, not for Gavin, not for the IOC, but Officially For the Torch (lol), who said,
well just go talk to the wheelchair person in paris who got assaulted.
ABC 7 nescasters laughed out loud when they cut back… “so blame the French? But hey isn’t that too easy?!”
Oh what a fucked mess Gavin made for himself.
Obama: Public finance system ‘creaky’
Whoops!
The all things to all people politician at work:
It seems he couldn’t take a firm stand if his life depended on it. Tell me again why he’s some sort of “new” politician.
47, 48 — Anadromous fish are in the same position as migratory birds. They rely not on one habitat, like an animal that lives in a limited area, but on several. A critical breakdown in any one spells trouble. In all at once and populations are certain to crash.
Certainly ocean conditions contribute to the problem. (One never mentioned is increasing clarity in the Pacific. Not good news if you are six inches long.) But it’s just standard denialist strategy to always find some possible contributory cause and say aha that must be it! and ignore everything else, including fifty years of research on salmon.
My head – it spins.
snagged this via Ben Smith…. already almost 500 comments. I was just htinking this am that Obama was due for a whopper.
WHOPPER I fully admit I would beg for a so called Spy in the House of Politics, to play on an old title… someoen to record when they feel all comfy in a wealthy house, people asking how goes it on the trail with the plebes and Holy Rollers..
I love the comment about clinging to religion. Pastor wright? Pastor Wright? Meeks? Pfleger? All the other jive artists.
Oh bust all their chops. Bill Hillary, Barack Michelle, John and that whack job Cindy.
Becasue we know they all do it.
The Ben Smith link….
56. Not only that, there’s a lot of discussion about his decision not to hand out street money in PA. How about helping out some of those poor folks who are campaigning for you, Obama, instead of hanging out with billionaires?
hmmm I read the full Mayhill Fowler piece at HuffWuffPo… and it si very thoughtful.
The Obama-ites at Politico are very dismissive of her “hit pieces”. But I would not call it that.
59. I just finished reading it too. Like I said before, I don’t think I can stand 4 years of Obama as president if his supporters are going to whine and cry over every bit of criticism launched his way. I may have to take up crocheting full-time.
What exactly is his plan for helping out all of those gun-toting, immigrant-hating, religious people in small town PA? Or anywhere else for that matter? I’d be pissed if I was in that situation and someone stereotyped me in that way. I guess that would just make me a “typical white person” though.
What the Obama-mites don’t get (Ben Smith comments well over 1000 now) is that he did a soft shoe dance, followed by a tap dance for the wealthier elites and USED people whose votes he is currently asking for…. However the show for them is different from what he performs at the Getty manse… (see link at 38, I put it up as a laugh, but it sure fits in now)
The very segment he does badly with, from poorer whites, to Catholics, to rural and so on.
McCain/aides have it in hand. The coup de grace, in San Francisco! All you can do is laugh.
LOL Obama just will not out his inner Evital…
What a hoot. Popcorn futures.
Bizarre kossack behaviour (or maybe not, considering…). Post a diary asking for impeachment over torture and make it a mojo fest at the same time. I can’t quite wrap my head around that one.
Big Donors Among Obama’s Grass Roots
This, from that WaPo article, contradicts what Obama said in another article I linked to above (54) where he said the bundlers don’t have access to him:
I forgot this quote from WaPo: “Obama policy advisers also meet with bundlers and other top givers.”
LOL of course they have access.
What bullshit.
That WaPo article went to great lengths (or at least his money people did) to claim that those big money types expect nothing in return. Right. And I’m the queen of England.
The News Hour is doing a lovely segment on Van Cliburn… an interview with him in his house outside of FW, TX….
Politics is all bound up in everything but it is good to remember that some things DO transcend.
Compassion forum or Desperate Housewives? I’m conflicted.
Ben Smith links to HuffWuffPo with audio from SF fundraiser…
he says it is not that great, best with headphones. gah.
Maybe sew his mouth shut.
I suspect this is calculated. I very much doubt he wants poor votes, no matter the color. And rememeber, they are all poor now:
“desegregate”… hmmm mmm.
71. And “Now, everybody was poor” is a Good Thing? Or even true? People who receive aid are still seen as “undeserving”. Maybe I’m missing something, but wtf is he talking about?
Obama seems to be on a downhill roll with these mistakes this week which, I’ve believed all along, would be what we’d see in his presidency if elected. He’s not Jeebus, folks. He’s a politician.
To be honest I am unsure what he is saying. I followed the TruthOut link at SMBIVA, it is the reprint of that NYT look back at Welfare Reform in the light of the economic downturn (not the first since it was enacted)… with guotes from Hillpac, ObamaRama and the Wright-Edelmans….
I don’t know, I think he is just blithering out the words, in some vague hang togehter.
The Righties are circulating YouTubes of Denzel Washington playing Malcolm X, and it ain’t pretty. Sell me the movie, let me buy a ticket, it would be easier than this run. To be blunt.
I just don’t know. The three of them, ObamaMan, Hillpac and the old crazy white guy are a good snapshot of USA! USA! today.
KO just called Obama’s comments “pretty heady intellectual stuff”. Mon dieu. If that’s what passes for that characterization, America has been dumbed-down to the point of being unrecognizable.
I think what KO was really trying to say was (ironically adding more insult to injury) that if you don’t get what Obama meant, you’re stupid.
What exactly is his plan for helping out all of those gun-toting, immigrant-hating, religious people in small town PA?
Who cares? Fuck ‘em. If there is one group of people that I am completely out of compassion for, it’s moron white people who’ve suckled on gov’t subsidies for years, voted against their own interests for years, voted for the destruction of public education FOR years, clung to racism and homophobia and misogyny … FOR YEARS … fuck ‘em.
Bubba needs to go on a long vacation.
77. Now, now. They’re “Obamacans” – or at least they were until today.
Now, everybody was poor, and everybody had to work.”
Yup, you fucking house Negro, keep pushing Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” meme. In my experience the poor were mostly working already, for little pay and less respect, and all Clinton did was take away the last line of support if something went wrong or they needed a little help.
Fuck Obama, fuck the donks.
Sorry, cranky tonight.
Someone needs to ask Obama if he clings to his religion because he’s bitter.
80. Maybe he’ll bring back government cheese. That would get those Wisconsin “welfare queens” working again.
Well for every Haseldine PA with a nasty white ethnic Barletta as mayor… there is a Dover PA where people fought back agasint creationism. And a R appointed judge helped publicise the battle. In order to win, after the court facts, agaisnt ID – if possible.
Locales will save themselves. Or not. But the Federal Government is in the way.
heh:
I know there are good people in small towns, but I’m sick of hearing that people in places like that are the “heartland” and “real Americans” and “hard working” (which carries with it the assumption that other people aren’t). I’m tired of how their tender sensibilities are some tripwire not to be touched, but it’s okay to a attack single mothers or urbanites or the working poor in cities or college students or pick your other acceptable punching bags.
I am from people like that, and “bitter” and “clinging to religion” and “hating people who are different” and immigrants is pretty fucking descriptive.
“So this guy walks into a Colombian trade deal, and he says…”
well the problem is that more and more the off hand pejoratives from ObamaMan seem to describe him. He is conflicted beyond belief. And a juveile in his searches for his own meaning..
Don’t fucking run for the presidency… he and his wife don’t much like anyone, as best I can determine watching him for 4 + years and her for over a year, that is not like themselves. And she oozes bitterness. he oozes disdain. Wight is retiring to a 1.6 million dollr house with a hinkey land deal and letter of credit all mixed up between a bank and the church. In a gated communiyt. What bullshitters.
All of them. They cannot lecture to anyone, afaiac.
There is no unity… and they – and the fucking religious entourage Obama nd Michelle draag like baby blankets behind them… presume to rule us. As I say, they want to become Bill and Hill.
We are so blessed. They too can retire to a Presdiential Library in South Side Chicago dubbed the Double Wide.
Senator Barack Obama, said in an interview that the welfare overhaul had been greatly beneficial in eliminating a divisive force in American politics.”
what a barbershop asshole that dude is.
from a comment by kactus in the thread to this post (also by kactus)
Monday Afternoon at the Welfare Office
85. I’m with you on that to a point. His mistake was in stereotyping people with attacks that play to the Repubs’ strengths. He’s going to lose votes which, afaic, is fine with me. But it was a stupid political mistake. You don’t go to a cloistered meeting with billionaires and dis the poor saying the only reason they “cling” to religion and guns is because they don’t have jobs and are bitter. I highly doubt that’s how those people he was talking about see it.
Mcat also noted to me that he included “anti-trade” in those remarks. Isn’t he supposed to be “anti-trade” (NAFTA), as well? Or is that just talk for the regular folks while he winks and nods at the people for whom NAFTA’s actually brought benefits – the rich?
speaking of the end of welfare, Moyers is doing a piece on the strain that food pantries are facing.
88.
And that’s definitely a problematic, red flag kind of statement since he’s running on ending divisiveness. If he thinks so-called welfare reform was a good way to do that, what else might he cave on?
Good post on waiting at the welfare office. I lived through that too as a young single parent and it’s no bloody picnic. It’s dehumanizing.
Thanks for the heads up on Moyers…
The food pantries here have been in trouble [here anyway] for a couple of years.. and now it has gone critical.
A smart local news crew walked thru some supermarket warehouse a few weeks ago, just walking by the staples, everything had gone up between 5 and 15 %.
But you know it was noted years ago out here, that with masses of cash roiling the state, the new industries and the new moguls and billionaires were not much interested in charity. Not a Carnegie or a Packard among them…
Like those nice people at the Getty manse.
it’s an interesting lineup … he starts w/ food pantries, then goes to a gov’t farm subsidies program which wastes money on wealthy landowners who may not even farm (the segment on Texans who cashed in on the Shuttle disaster under that program is amazing), then closes with an interview w/ David Beckman from Bread for the World.
Baying Fox News mob yuks it up over pregnant trans man, calls for his suicide. This crowd, concerned as always about the unborn, refers to the coming child as “the little Ewok she’s gonna crap out.”
94. Neanderthals.
59
I would agree for the most part Marisa, but I did take exception to this (near the end of her post) perhaps she’s very young:
California is the, most racially tolerant and ethnicity-tolerant state in the Union.
Well hmmmm, no in fact California isn’t that… although, historically California has been far more subtle at its racism; and, quite creatively, economically abusive (versus tolerant) of its ‘ethnics.’
I would expound further but frankly, I’ve worn myself out silently debating the ridiculousness of the claim.
I will say though, I’ve heard things out of the mouths of born and raised Californians that would make the least politically correct folks outraged at the apparent cruelty, total self absorption, and ignorance of United States history.
can’t believe that people who have chided BHO for his referencing religion in his life, freak out when he expresses a nuanced view–that in some circumstances the religious impulse embraces isolationism or a flight from substantive participation.
most Americans are sick of the way everything is going. You think they want McCain to continue surge/pause? You think they want to go through the First Laddy’s scorecard of undermining his wife?
Yes, BHO is a politician. A damn good one. Better than Howard Dean, which is where a lot of us hoped previously.
Raw story had a little bit about Mark Penn lunching with Karen Hughes today. Sure it was about keeping the dynastic siccessions intact.
most Americans are sick of the way everything is going.
And Obama will only put a fresh scent on the same old shit.
98. I disagree. I think he is a nudge in the right direction. I don’t think I’m infallible, but I don’t think you are, either.
Off to read mearsheimer & walt..
And Obama will only put a fresh scent on the same old shit.
I saw a cliche in a comment today that I’ve never heard before: “You can’t stick the shit back into the horse” (or something close to that). Maybe it’s because I’ve become delusional from all of this political minutiae but, for a moment, I found that funny.
96. When I read that, I thought of Rodney King. There’s still a long way to go.
Feisty Obama adds gays to the mix. Obamacans’ heads explode.
I also (really) don’t understand the connection he made between rural PA folks not having jobs but turning to guns as some sort of catharsis – unless he’s talking about militia types.(?)
the only way to get a new direction is to break the duopoly of the current, corrupt political parties. Obama will only ratify center-right idiocy that the donks have been selling for nearly 20 years now. How can he even remotely claim to be pushing “change” when he keeps praising that monster Reagan?
If you’re sick of it, vote third party, or withhold your vote from the top of the ticket. Quit buying into their fearmonger of the so-called “other side”.
How Many McVeighs Will This War Create?
100
True, but that’s one of the more blatant instances of racism in Cali.
Cali’s prisons are loaded with Arian Brotherhood, the dog that so viciously ripped apart Diane Whipple, in San Francisco, was in fact owned by an Aryan Brotherhood member adopted (as an adult) by two not unsuccesful attorneys in San Francisco who were keeping his dog for him.
105
I should have expounded on that one, the chosen clientele of those two (married) attorneys, were specifically Aryan Brotherhood.
Diane
oh I would never call California racially tolerant. It is a cauldron, and in places it does work… but that is it. Mayhill is 60 or more, in fact there are comments around that “she knows nothing as she is 60″ – and I don’t know where she lives, where her home base is….
BTW, I am a couple of blocks from where Diane WHipple lived… I followed that case in the legal press here in CA. What a fucking mess.
Bill Maher: “That’s what the Catholic Church is, the Bear Stearns of organized pedophila”.
Tonight’s New Rules finished with a bit about how the compound in TX isn’t that different from the Catholic Church.
107
Never thought you even implied it Marisa (I would never call California racially tolerant) and yes, what a mess, sordid would be putting it too kindly…
What really went on with the BAE fraud case? Now Gordon Brown wants the investigation dropped as well. Just what lengths will they go to to protect the Saudis?
Just what lengths will they go to to protect the Saudis?
More likely to protect their own investments, their own personal foibles (the Saudis have deep pockets … who knows what they know about Blair/Brown et al?).
I was just disagreeing with Mayhill’s particular line, that was all. When I called it “thoughtful” I was thinking of the overall tone of the piece (and she has a subsequent piece up as well). AND how the Obamamites howled.
LOL…. In a way the whole thing is pretty entertaining… he could nto keep buttoned up what he really thinks of people. The glaring lack of outreach to certain groups is … well glaring.
I know people were so shcoked shocked that he did nto win CA… but he made no outreach to Hispanics, some, a little, late. Sent his local Chicago outreach, Gutierrez, a state senator too iirc, out here, after he complained publicly in the press (twice, that I caught) that Obama CA outreach was lacking.
We have a 6% black electorate (which came out in a smaller proportion than in 04,, btw) but we have a Latino electorate at close to 36%… LOL…
re. Bill Moyers show about food banks (which I’m watching). One of the former ministers in charge of dealing with the poor here in Alberta was asked what he knew about food banks a few years ago. His response? He’d driven by one a few times.
And our former assholish, drunk Conservative premier Ralph Klein decided to stop by a homeless shelter one nite to reem out the clients. If that had been my shelter, he’d have gotten an earful.
111. Well, something big definitely smells there. Hopefully, there’s enough pressure against Brown and the Tories who have sided with him to either change that decision or bring him down.
I’m just so baffled by people. Especially by people with MORE.
Just to give some perspective. I’m a loner. I don’t really like very many people. They depress and disgust me most of the time. The social games and lies and all the rest exhaust me. I don’t like people.
Still, all of that being said, people are capable of such beauty, such kindness, such creativity. Just the music and art produced by the human race alone has brought such joy and enlightment to my life.
So why are people capable of so much that is good and beautiful so fucking horrible?
Why don’t people who claim to LIKE other people, all of the good, religious, “decent” people leave more space for compassion? Why don’t all the people in political parties and civic organizations and churches and all of the rest manage to find a way to actually inject some care and openness for other people into western (or any, to be honest) society?
We let people, CHILDREN, suffer and die for want of food and healthcare and shelter in this country, this “good” country, built around the “heartland”, source of truth, justice and the American Way.
I don’t get it (and from catnip’s comment 113 apparently we’re not alone in this criminality in the western hemisphere).
I think people, particularly native Californians, tend to think that California has a far higher black population than it actually has, especially compared with the south and states west of the Mississippi, for one of a multitude of reasons why his results in Cali may not match their expectations…
About Obama: well, it shouldn’t be a surprise to people (unless they were snoozing through their history classes) that economic misery aggravates existing fears/resentments and triggers the search for scapegoats.
About the Olympic Flame: the Olympics is a wretched fraud, a completely corrupt boondoggle. And the TV “spectacle” isn’t even entertaining anymore. I refuse to countenance any of it. Boooooooooring.
113
In PA, those pulling all the strings apparently know much about their Food Banks – a person has to inexplicably give their Social Security number when receiving food from a charitable organization.
Don’t have a clue which is worse……..
oops, comment 116 was in response to comment 112, sorry.
115, Madman: they do, actually. If you go around your community looking for people who are helping and providing goodness, you’ll find them. You might even find a way to assist them.
The problem is that they don’t tend to make the news. The news is devoted entirely to the bad and the shocking. The more vile, the better. If it bleeds, it leads. And when a rotten tidbit is particularly tasty, we have to chew it over for years. For example, catnip’s story about the drunk former premier is seven years old.
We all have to choose what to focus on.
that economic misery aggravates existing fears/resentments and triggers the search for scapegoats.
yes well hardly nooz. Breaking broken or otherwise. But that was not my issue with his little performance for a select group here in the City..
well the last line of the NYT article, the Truthout version linked above in the comment i posted with his quotes on welfare “reform”, it states that there are 1.2 million more children in poverty now than just a few years ago. And of course this is the second, worse and longer I suspect, economic downturn since “reform”.
But plenty of hard hearted political currying faavor comments from the likes of ObamaMan and Hillpac and others.
I really laughed at his pulled from the ass comments. ‘desegregated’ and complicated explanations of ‘division’. Making hay off the poor.
Such bullshit.
well i can chew over shit Reagan excreted. And i often do. And he is dead. But sadly not gone. whether I speak of him or not.
For example, catnip’s story about the drunk former premier is seven years old.
That exemplified Klein’s behaviour towards the poor for the entire time he was premier. We’ve had 4 decades of that type of Conservative rule here with poor and so-called “lesser” people being thrown off the bus. There are much more recent examples from the party but that one says it all.
LOL
from a late post at Ben Smith, apparently Obama also delivered a parallel diagnosis of the bitterness of the inner city.
trying to bite my tongue and analyze some comments I’ve read.
I must say, some things do actually need to be repeated, for years, if that’s what it takes…..
Re my comment 126:
To put it another way, Heather Rose Ryan, the future is built upon the past. If folks don’t understand what fucked up the past, they need to understand, no matter how boring it may sound to some who may be beyond all that.
They can’t build a better future until they do.
We all have to choose what to focus on.
And I choose to focus on the poor at times because I’m one of them.
So much for the “success” of the so-called surge: 289 killed, 1448 injured in two weeks in Sadr City – medic
goodnight all, sweet dreams…
cheesecake with blueberries and funnelcakes, lightly powdered with confectioner’s sugar for breakfast!
YUM!
Madman at #115: A misanthrope is a disappointed idealist. At least that’s the source of my antipathy for most of my kind. People, in crowds, have this disturbing sheeplike tendency. People want a Big Daddy Savior, at least most of them do, and it’s just appalling.
Miss Devore at #99 wrote: I think he is a nudge in the right direction.
What a stirring campaign slogan:
Vote O’Bama in 2008! Nudge America in the right direction!
I would prefer a nudge in the LEFT direction, but oh well…..
Henceforth, I shall call O’Bama The Nudge. McCain can be The Grudge and Hillary can be The Drudge. Collectively, they are the Three Stooges.
Sorry, Miss Devore, I don’t mean to pile on, but I simply can’t stomach the notion that O’Bama represents anything other than Business As Usual.
nuuuuuuuuu thred………………
LINK
pretty perfect, I’d say…
103. Madman in the Marketplace – 11 April 2008
“the only way to get a new direction is to break the duopoly of the current, corrupt political parties. Obama will only ratify center-right idiocy that the donks have been selling for nearly 20 years now.”
Some good third party news: The Greens are on the ballot in Arizona. We needed to collect 20,449 valid signatures to get our candidates on the ballot through November 2009. We got 22,570.
There’s plenty of work to be done, including in my home state of Virginia, but I’m hopeful about getting on the ballot in most states.
Go Green!
http://www.gp.org
http://www.runcynthiarun.org