Opera Glasses and Popcorn
Shearing the vaunted Blue Dog PoodleDem
Yes, just an image holding up a thread…………………….
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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.
I’m hoping that thin, red strap looking thing, visible above the poodle’s head, isn’t actually looped around that frightened baby’s neck….
From the previous thread, Obama: abortions are never a good thing
Lame meaningless blather, throwing women under the bus (per usual).
Would he say “Having an unwanted child is never a good thing”? I don’t think so.
Haiti’s government falls after food riots
diane: yes it is.
Standard grooming table equipment.
From last thread, sort of.
After the terrible fall and moving house, etc I am reduced this year to growing in barrels and along the fence. My preference is for plants that are ornamental, and edible as a secondary benefit. Current plan includes:
Four colors of eggplant
Four varieties of tomato, just one of each, the others started will go to neighbors. Brandywine, Black Sea Man, Early Girl and I forgot the other one.
Ancho/pasilla, pimento, and jalapeno peppers
Delicata squash – the only squash I can’t live without.
Artichokes – surprisingly easy to grow
Crazy ass red cucumbers I got from somewhere.
Broomcorn, just because I like 10-foot tall stuff, and a couple other purely ornamental things like titty fruits.
My grow shelves are overflowing as I started too early, plus there are the summer bulbs from the move. They are really clamoring.
when they regulate vasectomies, indicate that men are too weak to know what they want, inject morality into the simplest of walk in procedures (snip those delivery systems!), then we can talk about bullshit for women.
Til then the GAME is morality, conscience, wating times, rules, rules rules and SC banning medical procedures.
And BOTH parties are funding the losing failing abstinence bullshite, which only results in “babies for jesus” as anal sex fails to be fully anal.
And it seems Bush plans to leave a 5 year renewal of killing PEPFAR rules for Africa… so voting a Dem in will most likely NOT save poor women (this has been the knee jerk retort in the blogs for more than 4 years now, they used it for waverers on La Kerry, too) from abortion and birth control and issues of prostitution being discussed freely at medical clinics.
And you know everyone wants to be friendly with BONO… another bullshitter for Jesus and Governments, Western ones…. Obama bellied right up to that bar as soon as he was in DC.
Google is everyones’ friend.
People that dye dogs should be shot.
Miss D – last thread. You certainly seem to be reading a lot into my rather brief statement. I was simply pointing out that Obama’s statement is patently false.
I know many women who have struggled with having an abortion, I know many who didn’t give it a second thought. The point is, it’s none of my business. And I support anyone who makes the decision to have an abortion at any point in their pregnancy for whatever reason. Because, after all, its their decision to make.
lucid. damn me. I read a lot. just going a long way to make a point that there is a whole range of things involved and choice is what I stand for. and I think Obama does too. And yes, he’s a politician and tunes his talk to his audience. There is no voting evidence that he has been anything other than pro-choice. he has said repeatedly it is up to the woman.
oh and hrh, he has said that children should not be a punishment. the old every child a wanted child, thang, you know.
he’s not throwing women under a bus.
anyway–the best things in life are leased. I went back down to the pool. 2 sunbathers, but still, I am the only one swimming…and then the female duck shows up. she didn’t freak as we shared the water. Perhaps she looked at my head over water and thought–that is some ugly duck!
4
Thanks NYCO, that’s hideous…
…And yes, he’s a politician and tunes his talk to his audience…
Otherwise known as twisting in the wind for the sake of a vote.
The people who insist, against all evidence, on making excuse after excuse for these assholes always remind me of the sketch from MST3K where there was a crappy robot toy that just repeated the same vapid shit over and over again. While the observing human kept saying aloud, “Oh, I’m sure this insipid, tedious, annoying act is just the big build up for all the really neat things the robot can do, right ?”
But of course, there were no neat things. Eventually the human realizes that there never will be. Too bad it was just comedy and not real life.
Because Obama is never going to do wonderful, wonderful things that belie his current barrage of spew. Neither is Hilary. Why read all this shit into it that isn’t there. They are here to do what Democrats always do, which is to remind those they already have in their pocket to expect nothing but more headache-inducing crap.
None for me, thanks. I’ll stick to gardening.
As to the George Clooney issue, I was born without the George Appreciation Gene. But I like some of his aunt’s later work.
All the actors I get weak in the knees for are sort of funny-looking by Hollywood standards.
he’s not throwing women under a bus.
Yes, he is. And like so many supposed “liberal/progressives” he muddies the waters by casting the issue as being about morality and how sad//bad it is for women to have to choose abortion. But that is a totally separate issue from the legality of abortion rights.
One more shot about choice: I’m well past sick and tired of being told that I’d better smile nice while Obama and the rest pander to pro-lifers because otherwise I won’t get my cookie.
I’m sick of smiling nice and I don’t owe pro-lifers a fucking thing beyond what they already have, which is the right to have as many fucking children as they want without any interference from me. I owe these people not a damn thing more, and I’m really fucking fed up with being slapped on the knuckles by some rich shithead who can buy their way into abortion and anything else they want for themselves and their own families.
Just once, I’d like to hear something to that effect from somebody running for office:Dear pro-lifers, we don’t owe you anything else beyond what you already have, which is freedom. Leave us alone. We’re sick of you.
I think I’d kiss the ground if I didn’t faint first.
11, ms x – exactly right.
actually, it’s more hideous when a dog wiggles its head around and gets snipped in the ear or poked in the eye. Those noose thingies are almost never slipped tight around their heads, anyway.
(Sis is a groomer, although she only does pet cuts and de-matting, not show poodles or anything)
oh bosh bosh bosh. just cuz y’all say so.
hey……are you condescending to me…???
LOL
14: or a candidate saying “Abortion must remain legal. Anyone who objects to abortion on moral/religious grounds is free to do so and does not have to have one. Other than that, I have no position on the matter.”
My religion forbids Dog Topiary and I want to pass a law preventing anyone from engaging in it. Or at least making them wait 24 hours before doing it.
Yeah, Heather. That would work, too.
I’d settle for just seeing the pro-choice groups cut off the spigot of green to see if that would get some real attention from these asshole candidates. But I’m not waiting up nights or anything.
5. melvin, I am so jealous. eggplants and tomatoes galore? make it worse–do some lemon cucumbers, and yellow crookneck squash.
what can I say? pineapple guavas grow on the grounds where I work. take that, Yakima.
you people move too fast. referencing the last thread, which im still commenting in.
boober said it. its “hard work” being a blogger.
so many thoughts to steal, so little time.
hey maybe she picked up tips for “lifting” content from those email tree’s shes been on since amsterdam.
it hit 90 out here in the central valley furnace, although the fuscias and bleeding hearts (yes, i am a bleeding heart lib’rul) did OK as long as they were in the shade (wisteria should render my southwest-facing sliding glass door a whole lot cooler this year, all hail passive anti-solar).
i don’t have any apologia for obama’s statement on welfare reform, and while i suppose i understand the electoral strategery of playing it mushy on abortion, it’s pyrrhic at best and enabling at worst. lots of little concessions are why things are such a fucking mess WRT abortion and women’s rights generally.
but i think his SF speech was pretty reasonable, and is being rather misread by those inclined to dislike him (ie. mostly everyone here but devore and myself). what i think people are missing is the initial reason for the answer in the first place, ie. that it’s totally reasonable that people in such a rusted-out economy would rightly be skeptical of someone like him, and that the onus is on him to do right by them. it struck me as rather straightforward.
as an aside, when was the last time we had a democratic front-runner making explicit claims that the clinton years were terrible for a lot of people, and that this slow decline is not just the result of republican neglect, but of both parties?
patterson in NY has made a similar connection between the long political neglect of both upstate and harlem, and obama’s race speech did the same thing in a somewhat different context. i think it needs to be named before it can be dealt with. of course, all this presupposes that his policy would be any less of a clusterfuck to the poor, the deindustrialized, the forgotten, the “reserve army of surplus labor.” which is, i recognize, a pretty big IF.
granted, everything that he says is going to sound like bullshit to someone who has decided he’s an errand-boy and a huckster. and that’s fine, we all have our assumptions, and time tends to make things clear. right now, devore and myself are betting that obama would do more than putting a pretty face on the same ugly policy, as many here did for a moment with dean. but we all have to make our own peace with this shitty system, either by participating or working to pull it down in some way. i may well end up on the other side before long, in many ways i’ve been about a year or two behind madman on much of this stuff.
wu ming: Unfortunately I think Clinton has managed to seize upon the most problematic part of Obama’s statements, which is not the concept that people are “bitter” but that bitter, downtrodden people “cling to religion.” (or “guns”) It’s easy for someone to spin that as “religion is a crutch” or something like that. Clinton is just making sweet Pennsylvania hay out of it now. He opened the door and she waltzed right through it.
Other than that, there was nothing really problematic about what he said (and as others have pointed out, he’s on to something)… the problem is that sometimes he doesn’t know when to shut up and quit while he’s ahead.
He’s very smart, but not a particularly great communicator.
As others have pointed out, Edwards was better at couching the same kind of message in clearer rhetoric that was addressed directly to those audiences – “you” – instead of orbiting high above, talking about “they” and “them.” Obama’s great at “We” and great at “They” but not so great at “You.”
One thing that is pertinent, if one reads around the written word, is Mayhill Fowler.
She is lambasted in thread after thread by the blog/blahgbiters and the Obama supporters as a Clinton supporter and as well, as too old to know anything.
Read around, she is a long time Obama suipporter, very straightforward about the 4 rundraisers that day, from the Peninsula to Kentfield to last of the day at Pacific Heights. It was for a range of people. some wealthy some not, but most who had maxed out their primary donation to Obama (as has Fowler).
She first reported on his comments about picking a running mate (again, I am certin the past few weeks he was unwisely told he would win PA), and she finally did write up the remarks as they left her continually unselttled.
There is no one saying much of America is not distressed at loose ends bitter angry disenfranchised or generally UPSET.
Not with 81% bellying up for “off track”
But that is a poll question and number to be wary of… always has been, people assuem other people fell America is off track in the same way they do.
Oh yes, errand boy. Well I spent years reading about him, poring over his speeches. I am allowed my perceptions. They are not knee jerk.
Religion is front and center with Obama… and people have been forced to try to figure him and his minister out. But he slammed people for THEIR religion. Just a tad bit of irony there.
Accept Wright, who imo lives for the collection plate but slam small town Americans for their religion.
Oh that really works.
The other thing that will not die is he slammed them for being anti trade. Come again?
The Democrats will NEVER admit what they did to America, in conjucntion with Republicans in a lurid trail of trade deals. As Pelosi finagles to pass the Colombian one, to suit the Dem leadership.
hey, fuck them ALL.
Crooks & Liars pointed out one sick thing about all this attention on Obama’s latest speech in the media … a major news organization revealed that cabinet officers and Veep micromanaged torture AND the President confirmed it, ON THE RECORD.
But Obama was mean to rural voters, so …..
just for contemplation..does Hillary seem like she is actually happy in a human sort of way?
I think Obama could live with losing the nomination; not so sure Hillary could.
And one thing I learned from years of rolling my eyes at “happy” people, when I was miserable: um. it is preferable to be happy.
granted, everything that he says is going to sound like bullshit
I think you need to step back and look at the fact that, afaic anyway, basically everything the Democrats say is bullshit. Just look at their record. As for Obama, I wrote my bit about that here. He made a boneheaded political mistake stereotyping a group of people (’typical white person’ ring a bell as well?) and he knows it – otherwise he wouldn’t have gone from cocky to apologetic in less than 24 hours. Attack what’s sacred to repubs and you can’t escape blowback. Throw in the rest of the rural people in that mix with your generalities and more than just repubs and indies will be offended by his claiming that the only reason they cling to their religion and guns is because they bitter and don’t have jobs. That is condescending since those are constitutionally protected rights. He was a constitutional lawyer/professor, after all.
I think of it this way as well: if he’d said that poor people like me gave up on religion because we’re bitter and can’t get jobs, I’d tell him to stuff it.
29 No. She seems like a miserable creature living in anticipation of something better to come. In a happy-in-her-misery kind of way. They are talking about elitism, but she is so fucking phony she can’t even laugh right. We were wondering the other day what her real laugh sounds like, when she’s relaxing with her gajillionaire buddies.
She is lambasted in thread after thread by the blog/blahgbiters
As is anyone who criticizes The One. Just reading comments at Politco, HuffPo and other sites that have opined on this latest gaffe, it’s clear that nothing can burst the bubble some O supporters live in. That’s fine, as long as they keep their whining to themselves when he fails to deliver – because he surely will.
100 days to clean up capitalism
Right. And I live in Disneyland™.
a major news organization revealed that cabinet officers and Veep micromanaged torture AND the President confirmed it, ON THE RECORD.
and like politicians I can do two things at once. Pay attention to hoof in mouth disease and KNOW from decades of observation that there is NO POLITICAL will to eitiher end our decades of torture nor to feed poor children.
So who are we as a people? As some erzatz preacher (cuz it sells well and is easy) seeks to be the latest face to lead us.
Beckman from Bread for the World was very interesting on with Moyer. Esp pertinent on the most organised special interest groups (as stated to him by Reid, insurance groups and commodity groups). And he is very interesting on the WIDE RANGE of political groups that want to end how the farm subsidies are run. But there is little political will. ….
the trasnscript, last third of the full hour, is riveting.
IMO the choice has been made. From churches to board rooms, better the people be beggars than be raised up.
Oh right I am supposed, as liberal left, to be explaining Wright.
Fuck that shit.
28. thanks Mitm.
I had a heartbreaking experience this week, listening to an Iranian artist give a presentation on her artwork, which was tight, well researched, with amazing juxtapositions of imagery from the Persian and the Western world. The audience tried to tie her down to her political position. She tried to explain that since she had lived in Iran, England and the US, she had a great appreciation for other cultures, and, as an artist, and not a political activist, she had no interest in making a political statement with her art. yet her imagery and art choices were devastating and poignant and resonated with subtle beauty.
She told the audience she wasn’t religious, so she could not relate to the religious overtones of the current Iranian regime. She told me later, that her family, still living in Iran, are very liberal. We dicussed the Pahlavis.
But at the point in her presentation where she asserted her profound appreciation of other cultures, I teared up, knowing that the powers that be in my country currently, have demonized Iran, and I considered the possibility that my country has elements who would not bat an eye at destroying her country, where her family still lives, supporting not the current religious element & thinking the Pahlavis were decadent.
There are nuanced beings all over the planet.
Newsflash: money and food don’t come from the same place.
Decouple.
Some of us seem finally willing to declare that there is a human right to health care. Kucinich says water is a human right.
Does it not follow that there is a human right to food.?
Well, I keep going back to Dr. King. Dr. King isn’t the only critic of the United States as a society, past or present, living or dead, but I don’t think anybody has ever said it better than this:
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
I don’t share King’s Christianity, of course–I’m really more a follower of Bacchus, who seems to me to be the right sort of deity–but the man had “America” pegged just right. And really, King was not just a Christian, but really a believer in agape.
Honestly…and as an American I hate to say this…I think it’s too late. Any chance we had to save ourselves as a nation passed us by. King and others offered it to us and no, we didn’t not take it when we could. Now I think it’s too late. I have all kinds of complicated reasons for thinking so, but it’s also just a feeling I have. Bush isn’t the only one who feels things in his gut, you know.
When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
I once had a Japanese friend tell me: “America is a death culture.”
I didn’t quite understand what she meant then. Now, I think I do.
(And on the eternal question of “Where will the money come from?” Hm, tax the rich and feed the poor? Restore 95% as the top tax rate, same as it was when Ike was Prezdent? Or is Ike a Commie now, too?)
Yes, tax the rich and feed the poor.
Or, just cut out the middleman.
Honestly…and as an American I hate to say this…I think it’s too late. Any chance we had to save ourselves as a nation passed us by. King and others offered it to us and no, we didn’t not take it when we could. Now I think it’s too late. I have all kinds of complicated reasons for thinking so, but it’s also just a feeling I have. Bush isn’t the only one who feels things in his gut, you know. ——— VL
well I agree.
The Obamalama apologies continue a la every politician: “Obviously, If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that”.
Spin, baby, spin.
And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride – instead of relying on religion and guns, I guess.
Back to my movie: Bat 21
What will The New York Post do with Obama’s statement?
OBAMA TO HICKS: SORRY I OFFENDED YOU STUPID CRACKERS.
Obama is in way over his head. Should’ve stayed in the shallow end of the pool.
LOL Ed Rollins had an interesting comment on Lou Dobbs. ObamaMan had SS with him but no political field operatives.
Ooops. They got so very comfortable over this run. Big Ooops. This is not Illinois senate run. Where primary opposition and then R opposition were both taken out with released divorce details… ALan Keyes shipped in from MD to sing on stage at debates (no really in one instance he sang).
Bobby Rush, former Black Panther defended his 5 term congressional seat agaisnt Obama in ‘00 by running agasint him as elite and out of touch.
The assessment from the righties is that Hillary cannot stop him but this will – in addition to everything else – stop him in the GE.
Popcorn Futures.
thanks for that link Marisa
mind boggling:
“NARRATOR: Among the USDA payments Cohen found was nearly half a million dollars that had gone to a Texas physician for his 10,000 acres of former riceland.
GIL GAUL: This is supposed to be a safety net, but it’s not a safety net. You’re not saving anybody: you’re saving a surgeon in Houston.
NARRATOR: The Post would report that in Texas — as recently as 2005 — 37 million dollars was paid out to owners whose land was once planted with rice but is no longer.
NARRATOR: In fact, the state now had more former riceland….than current riceland.
NARRATOR: On July 2nd 2006, the Post published the first report in a series called “Harvesting Cash.” The investigation into direct payments found that nationally more than 1.3 billion dollars over six years had been paid to people who were doing no farming at all. “
LOL
More important than feeding children. For the US, always has been, always will be.
Voice from the blue: Mr Obama, this is Mary from OnStar™. I see you’ve been in a front end political crash. Do you need some help?
Obama: Yes! Tell Michelle to get speech #37 ready for me ASAP. Thanks.
I wasn’t saying that you couldn’t, Marisa, but rather that the media can’t, or won’t.
A few months ago, in the early run up to big farm subsidy flap on… a publication (unfrotunalty I forget which oen, but it is probably findable) put out a map of where farm subsidy money, big big money, was going to people LIVING IN MANHATTAN.
Very telling.
46
Why should they?
There is no political will in the people running. It was you more than two years ago sent me the VV article by whatshisname how McCain, for all his blither about torture, sold it out, in the cloakroom.
The Democrats run shitty highly vulnerable, poorly vetted candidates, over and over.
No one seems to really ask why. I say it is a plan.
Meanwhile R field agents are tracking his 1981 trip during spring break to Pakistan. Shoulda seen that one coming. A tidbit he let drop, also at a closed fundraiser, a few weeks after release of passport file rifling.
Again, a story too complicated for the times and badly told. And retold.
oh by “poorly vetted” I am not sticking up for the nepotism / patronage candidate here, either.
47. I remember that. Here you go.
And here’s one story. The Moyers show was interesting. I didn’t know about the Challenger disaster subsidies.
I had not heard of the Challenger related money either… and I loved the “cowboy starter kit” or whatever they called it. What a hoot!
Mayhill Fowler, Obama supporter, is now one of the “roaches under the sofa” (from a user article that appears on his official site).
I’d just really like to know what Hilary OR Obama really plan to do in regards to advancing the reproductive rights of women. It’s all very well to show up at a Planned Parenthood dinner somewhere and pocket a big check with the excuse that it’s “just business” or that it’s only okay to discuss “special interests” in a “safe state” or whatever bullshit explanation they tell themselves, the donors and the rest of us.
But you know what ? I don’t give a shit what you say in a friendly room that pays you handsomely to spout some ineffectual canned homilies I can read in a bulk rate pamphlet. I want to know what the fuck you’re going to do and why you won’t fucking defend my rights to the people who sorely need to understand that my fucking rights deserve your defense– because I’m a fucking taxpayer just like they are, with the same fucking rights that they’ve got.
So tell me, Miss D. As resident Obama defender, where is the speech where Obama stands foursquare in favor of reproductive rights and aggressively vows to get back what he and his patrons have let slip away for two decades and more while they sat on their fucking hands, or worse ? Where is that speech, somewhere other than to a hand-picked little group of lobbyists and the like ?
#32: …That’s fine, as long as they keep their whining to themselves when he fails to deliver – because he surely will.
It’ll all be Nader’s fault. It always is.
Oh my god: Gun totin’, whiskey swillin’ whore with a heart of pure tin. Somebody shoot me. I reckon, Hillster, I’d dress out at about 150 pounds of usable meat salted down, right near enuff to feed the younguns through the winter.
It’ll all be Nader’s fault. It always is.
Well, at least they’re predictable in that sense.
Nader ate my cheesecake. The bastard.
57. Hilarious comment from that thread:
rofl
May the lord make us truly grateful.
Ho Ho Ho Hosanna!
59 I don’t get it, we’ve been through most of the West already talking ’bout uranium storage, aerospace, immigration, green Puget Sound, biodiesel, and Calamity Jane pulls this OK Corral shit in Pennsylfuckingvania?
Little Lord Fauntleroy versus Calamity Jane
Premiering in Denver:
Mandingo, Part Two
This time, she’s packin’ heat.
Furore over Hitchens’s sapphic slip
Pompous asshole fight!
Pompous drunken loon. Hitchens is what would have happened to Malcolm Lowry if he were evil.
That reminded me that Dennis Perrin had a good post this week on Hitch. whom he used to know in NYC… he had thought that, while ugly, Hitch was playing out a sales routine, signed on with the neocons, the war as a money making schtick.
Til some recent commentary…. and he figured out Hitch is fully certifiable. The long sleeved shirt routine should be employed. And so on. Maybe Hitchens finally landed at teh bottom of the bottle.
The man is a parody of himself.
Good luck to everybody.
In bot news: US war robots in Iraq ‘turned guns’ on fleshy comrades
68
That sounds like a farewell Victor, are you okay?
I used to take offense back in 2002 when Cockburn had extended letters comments on Counterpunch about Hitchen’s alcoholism. I thought it was in terrible taste, precisely because he could easily be rebutted by rational argument.
But as time goes on, I sometimes wonder if that is really the central issue with Hitch.
I mean, I’m a drunk, but he really seems to have lost any control of his frontal lobe…
hmm it’s hot here tonight, ‘cat on a hot tin roof’ night.
Tapper at Political Punch has a good headline, all things considered… :
End of Saturday Notes: Somewhere, Wayne LaPierre Is Laughing…
he sure is.
********************
Victor... I hope you are ok… ?
Tsk. And it all just got a lot harder:
65. 100 points & a bushel of pineapple guavas for mentioning Malcolm Lowry.
ms-x this “resident Obama supporter” knows that BHO & HRC voted against the “partial birth” abortion ban.
wu ming–wisteria….how Faulkneresque. In the last building I lived in the landlord stupidly stripped the vine that was growing all over the building, which kept my place cool in the summer.
Since the sun hits my new place obliquely, it wasn’t a bit hot here on an 86 degree day. I do have a/c but may not have to use it.
also decided I could probably leave the porch door open during the day, when I am at work, so the dog can go “outside”
the only thing I miss about my last place is the wasps. for the first time I have bugs on my succulents. maybe i can buy some ladybugs..
Clintons deep in the shit:
http://tinyurl.com/5ernrx
I had written Hitchens off as a washed-up nut, like Perrin has, until he came out with God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Excellent book – I highly recommend it. Though I don’t agree with some of what he says in it, most of the time he’s spot on.
24, wu ming: is being rather misread by those inclined to dislike him (ie. mostly everyone here but devore and myself)
I like Obama and will probably vote for him, but my liking for him is a lukewarm feeling at best.
At the same time I don’t have the deep loathing for Hillary that many do. I’m not excited about the idea of her being President but I don’t think it would be an earthshattering disaster if it happened, either.
My feeling is that neither of them is a worthy candidate for the office and they both exude the stench of politics-as-usual duplicitousness.
I’m more interested in baseball, frankly,
Oh yes, about Hitchens calling Sullivan a lesbian: that’s hilarious, actually, given the fact that Sullivan is a notorious dickwaver whose misogyny is always bubbling just beneath the surface – and sometimes spurts forth in ridiculous ways. For example, in his ode to testosterone therapy, “The He Hormone”:
It is to laugh.
48. Why should they.
Good point. Sometimes I forget just how totally lost this country is … probably out of disgust with it.
ms-x this “resident Obama supporter” knows that BHO & HRC voted against the “partial birth” abortion ban.
What you don’t seem to understand is that votes like that are arranged and “traded” for by the party leadership to give vulnerable (or ambitious) pols cover with needed constituencies. What DOES matter, and does damage to reproductive freedom, is both HRC’s and BHO’s continued repetition of misogynistic, anti-free-choice themes to pander to so-called “Reagan democrats” and other religious and misogynistic nuts. “Safe, legal and rare” is a PRO-LIFE (sic) spin. Abortion is bad is too. They are helping to move the conversation further and further to the right.
…this “resident Obama supporter” knows that BHO & HRC voted against the “partial birth” abortion ban…
Well, that settles it, I guess. For the one-leaf-really-does-a-forest-make-crowd.
It all really does work better as high comedy than as politics. Don’t believe me ? click here and jump to about the 4:00 mark. Not only does it sum up my exchange with Miss D, it kind of sums up every exchange I’ve had in the last eight years or so with Democrats determined to believe that THIS TIME it’s going to be different.
I think from now on I’m just going to post this link every time, or the MST3K link, when I find it.
But, Madman. It’s okay if they cut off your arm to appease their buddies… so long as they don’t light you on fire at the same time.
Yeesh. Yeah, I’m inclined to “dislike” the fucking weasel, along with all the other weasels in the brigade who’ve taught him everything he knows. Gee, what other magical wonders await ? Will Lieberman be tapped for veep again ? No ? How about Casey ?
79.you ARE condescending to me. Shame on you!
I think you are wrong in this case, madman. You act as if speech hampers reproductive freedom more than legislative action. both BHO & HRC could have pandered in that case. they didn’t.
Via, IMDB, my every exchange with Miss D about Obama, summed up:
I’m the pig, of course. This is rather like every exchange I’ve ever had in the last eight years on the subject of A Democrat Will Save Us All. I should have employed it a lot sooner.
…You act as if speech hampers reproductive freedom more than legislative action.
One action is suddenly more important than a whole bunch of speeches and years of playing kissy-face with the pro-life movement. Action is more important than speeches, except when it’s not, I guess.
One rejection of a barbaric law that uses a grossly inacurate term to describe an extremely uncommon medical procedure, and everything’s great ! Cue up the finale from Life of Brian ! Wheeeee !!
If action really mattered to Democrats more than soothing-syrup lectures in the spirit of Reagan, the citizenry would be writing in somebody very, very different for the post than Obama.
Which is it ? Do you vote for a candidate who acts decisively in the long-term and uses the adversarial system as it’s meant to be used (cribbing a shtick from Madman there), or do you vote for one who can give pretty speeches about unity while he does the same old conniving shit with right-wingers that the guys before him did ? I don’t think it’s fair for the defenders to have it both ways, so which one do you really want ?
You act as if speech hampers reproductive freedom more than legislative action.
Speech leads to legislation.
81. Any speech that pushes the debate further and further to the right, as Madman says, is hampering reproductive freedom.
We should be able to declare their support for reproductive freedom without the ritual handwringing and clucking chastisement (”safe, legal, and RARE!!”) of women who dare to control their own bodies. I expect that crap from the righties, but it’s appalling to see it coming from those who purport to be liberals and expect feminists like me to vote for them.
Sorry, “They”, not “we”
Hard-Liner With Soft Touch Reaches Out to U.S. Flock
Hide the alter boys!
#85, all the way.
Not that Hilary is any better than Obama on this front, of course. Who could forget her repulsive “sad and tragic” speech. Hey, Hilary, if you care so much about your 5,000 ton free market economic grinder ruining women’s chances to have the kind of families we want, put down your Bible collection and your cross and work to shut the fucking grinder off !!
83. but in this case, BHO & HRC did the right thing.
face it, you are not going to give me a point. you are dug in your position.
have a nice day. oh wait. you’re an admitted misanthrope so it isn’t possible. so here’s to something becoming productive out of your….bitterness.
hrh–you said you were probably voting for Obama.
oh, I’m a feminist, too.
Mcat, way at the top of the thread:
If you have a link for this, I so want it, Mcat. I know of a certain feminist blogger who needs to see it very, very badly.
“Recalling her father’s “working-class” childhood in Scranton, Clinton said she “grew up in a church-going family.”
“The people of faith I know don’t cling to religion because they’re bitter,” she said.
As for guns, she added, “people of all walks of life hunt, and they enjoy doing so because it’s an important part of their life, not because they are bitter.”
I remember, when questioned about the Lewinsky days by Tyra Banks, HRC said that she just prayed and prayed….
but in this case, BHO & HRC did the right thing.
Like I said in an earlier post before the filter ate it, since when does one leaf make a forest ? Why should anyone get to dine out on the fact that once in awhile, they’re willing to do some tiny part of their fucking job ?
Who said you weren’t a feminist ? That’s not the discussion at hand. I don’t even know if I’M one anymore. I don’t even know what it means. If I ever knew.
well, you used the term feminist in your previous post, so I just assumed you used words you knew the meaning of.
not a matter of dining out on someone doing their job once in awhile; just the point that the legislation was opposed, when it was exquisitely set up for pandering.
Wait. You’re complaining about other people condescending to YOU ?!
Nobody is denying that they voted to oppose the legislation. What I’m personally denying is that it means they are to be trusted, or counted as wholesale defenders of reproductive rights. Again, why does one leaf equal a forest ?
Oh, and last year you were one of the people at SMBIVA who actually liked my column where I mockingly threatened to secede from feminism. Don’t play dumb now. You know perfectly well what I mean when I say “I don’t even know what it means anymore.”
Nothing Obama says or does actually refutes any of the points I tried to make in that column, hence my bewilderment with you and others who insist that he’s something special. Even for those who like soothing-syrup generalities on the campaign trail, he’s not anything special. Clinton I did a variation of the same act and we all know how much further along we were when his reign ended in terms of recapturing the freedoms we’d lost.
88 hrh–you said you were probably voting for Obama.
So far, he looks like the best of a bad lot. I may vote for him but I won’t jump on his bandwagon, kiss the hem of his garment, or send him any money.
Wait. You’re complaining about other people condescending to YOU ?!
LOL, that’s just what I was gonna say.
Also, I must point out that the stuff about “You’re picking on Obama because you just don’t like him” is the same shtick trotted forth by the DKos loyalists: “You criticize this site because you hate us“. There seems to be no recognition of the fact that the dislike arises because of the very qualities that are being criticized.
I thought this dKos manifesto was interesting on a day when my local paper ran a big op-ed feature on local and state bloggers. The local paper and local independent bloggers have developed a sort of unique interaction which is quite unlike the corporate Daily Kos/Wonkette model; then again it’s nothing “revolutionary” or “crashing the gates” in nature. (Still, there is always a possibility that either “Corporate” or “Blogger Ego” could someday step in and stop or ruin the experiment and its potential.)
I asked if anyone in the dKos thread had actually met or interacted with any local journalists and what the local journalists feel about blogging and how involved in blogging they are. Possibly my query went unnoticed but then again, on perhaps 95% of blogs out there there is no way to tell where the blogger is actually from. They’re always writing about lofty matters, hoping to impress, influence or beat the crap out of national media. (They might write about a great restaurant in their city, but that’s about it…)
I’m not very impressed with a lot of the ongoing belligerence out there… it really is corporate excess vs. the (usually male) blogger ego, as far as I’m concerned. As long as you have a few people trying to get around that unwinnable battle, things will be OK.
two comments of ms xeno rescued from Spam and Moderation….
check up thread…………..
**********
ms x
will check for soemthing on the PEPFAR, I caught reports on television but there has to be something. He also mentioned it in speeches when he was in Africa.
Legislation
what fucking bullshite. One thing the Dems have known for a long time (and I have posted legal writing links here indicating they have a 20 + year history of approving pro life judges to the Federal Bench, where are the SCOTUS noms often drawn from?) is that we were headed to a SCOTUS that would nullify Roe.
As moiv has posted for years, you can kill Roe without overturning it. We don’t live under Roe, we live under Casey.
Thanks, Mcat.
Oh, and I publicly deplore any pernicious and/or persistent rumors that I’m a misanthrope. Once I studied to be a Nihilist but washed out. Now I’m a Situationist. At least Scruggs once told me so and he’s the closest thing I ever had to a patron after moving out of my parents’ place. So it must be true.
I’m the misanthrope here!
I don’t “hate” Obama. I do verge on hate for the Clintons, but none of that matters … it’s just the flipside of “which candidate would you rather have a beer with”. It’s used to scare people into voting against their beliefs and interests because they “hate” the other guy. Being a lefty, of course I “hate” McCain, so therefore I HAVE TO vote for the Great Savior Obama.
Fuck that, I’m not going to do it. I dislike Obama because he panders to people who are destroying what little is good about this country, and takes for granted people who actually NEED a champion. He was in a position where he could have gone left if he wanted to … there is an enormous amount of political space for SOMEONE w/ some charisma and backers to do that, but instead he got to the Senate and immediately glommed onto Lieberman and the Clintons. He’s not worth me “hating”, but I am disgusted by the political choices he makes, and I am going to say so when I please.
This time next year you can blame his loss on people like me who voted for Cynthia or Nader, instead of on your own lame, clumsy candidate.
I don’t kiss the hem of Obama’s garment, either, so I’m not so far from you, though I think he is pretty good in a bad lot. i think I mentioned something in an other post yesterday, that all these folks that are criticisizing Obama for “characterizing” people, often do much the same when someone says they decided they will vote for Obama. “They worship him”, etc.
ms-x–I was referring to MITM’s admission he was a misanthrope.
Mitm, I will piss you off by not blaming you in that scenario.
hillary alienates kentucky, give signal to canada:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
just a joke, ya know.
Last week I watched Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA, this morning I watched her “sequel” American Dream, about the clusterfuck that was the 1986 Hormel strike in Austin, Minn. Mucho depressing, you could also get a good lesson of how the strikers lived and died by Saul Alinsky’s famous rules.
By the time the movie is half over it’s like watching a slow motion train wreck where the renegade workers (the ones who followed the local onto a “crashing the gates” type course prescribed by a charismatic activist) have been pushed way into unfamiliar territory. Which of course, is one of Alinsky’s warnings: “Never go outside the experience of your own people.” This was finally accomplished by having the already-isolated Austin local start picketing other Hormel factories. And the strike went on too long: “Any tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
To make matters worse, for a time it appears that Hormel went outside their enemy’s (the local’s) experience in putting management employees on the factory floor, at least keeping their Spam production going. Huh.
One very short but telling scene involved a female clerical worker who protested to the floor workers that she was unable to get in to work because of the strike, and had lost a day’s pay. Obviously a thoughtful and articulate woman, it was unclear whether or not she herself was unionized (probably not). The floor workers pretty much shouted her down.. when you wonder if they might have been better off engaging her and her fellow clerical workers. Water under the bridge I guess. But very much in keeping with the theme of the illusion of worker solidarity in the Reagan years (and today).
But now, I’ll bet Hormel keeps those clerical workers and those floor workers far far apart. (Like, the floor workers in Mexico or something, with the clerical workers back at corporate.)
Yeah, but Miss D, I never said you were a worshiper. Nor wu ming, nor anyone else in this room. Now I’m taking my iced coffee and going outside to sulk in the sun amidst the greenery, because Madman always gets the good roles.
:p
ms-x I know you didn’t. but others have. just sayin’.
it’s 86 degrees here and I’m going out to the pool that no one in my apartment complex seems to be swimming in. cannot figure this out. someone was treadmilling in the exercise room.but no one in the pool.
going outside to sulk in the sun amidst the greenery
You hate me. Just admit it!
109
Some sunny greenery for Nepetia
and a picnic basket…
oops
Well at least the food is good.
Thanks, diane. I protest too much actually. It’s supposed to be about 20C here today although “greenery” is still just a dream.
We do have a lot of muddery though.
Republicans are praising Jeeeeeeeeesuhs! Hallelujah and Hosanna to the Highest! LOL Wright preached at TUCC yesterday.
Republicans are praising Jeeeeeeeeesuhs!
That never ceases to amaze me, since if you have a one on one conversation with many of their more vociferous supporters, they’ll tell you they don’t even believe in Jesus. Ender at pff comes to mind for one.
I’ve always thought the heat on the Catholic church, leading up to bombing Iraq, about Priests and sexual abuse – which has been common knowledge for decades – had more to do with taking credibility from the previous Pope speaking out against that bombing than anything else. It really all seemed to just blow up just prior to the bombing, as if an army of investigators had been sent on a mission. How come all that justice came about in a time so famous for absence of it?
112
You’re most welcome, wish you could have seen the pretty pic with the lake…
Yes ti clearly seemed that in the early part of the decade law suits against the Church got greenlighted.
I think it was a classic discipline action from the BushCo system. I have posted before that in ‘99/’00 Bernard Cardinal Law give Rove the US Catholic database. (From Congressional Quarterly in 2004). That gave Bush the ability to (I think for the first time) to better the Democrats with the Catholic vote.
Then stuff began to happen. In 90/91 the shit hit the fan big time over ecclesiastical pedophilia as insurance companies pulled the plug. They, for the most part, stopped paying off. Also the 30 year DA in NO retired. Whatshisnames father, the crooner….he, apparently, kept a lid on a lot.
Times change, power grids fail. I could see BushRoveCheney slapping the church hard – and in their pocketbook, the “US purse”, lest they think BushCo needed to be grateful, or anything.
There is talk around that Benedict is snubbing Bush on this visit. I haven’t spent any time on it…
Hilarious
According to Forbes, the best city in the US for jobs, had the highest forclosure rate in the US for February 2008.
All in one neat, twisted, insane paragraph.
116
Thanks much for the validation Marisa, I’ve been bewildered for a while now about the absence of commentary on that, other than the fact that more than anything else, the Republican church has undermined the Christian Faith, by deliberately using it as a premise for murder and setting up the hypocrites in the Churches with their various and sordid scandals.
I’ve never believed the power brokers have faith in anything but power and destruction.
ahahahahah… just landed on this… because the righties are starting to scream:
Ponnaru from The Corner (scroll down a bit for it):
Yeah right.
that’s always the scam … if you point out the obvious connections, then you’re pushing a “conspiracy” theory because can’t prove an “organized political movement”, as though the people involved don’t travel in the same social circles, send their kids to the same schools, have the same lawyers etc. Plenty of colusion goes on w/o being “organized”.
… and the problem now is that, due to the close to 50/50 split in the nation, the Dems will do anything for the religious conservatives, whether evangels or Catholic, freaking lunatics … or whatever, in order to win.
There is not a blowhard on earth that can dissuade me that backing Casey for the senate is not a deal with the Catholic Church. And a complete sell out of women. I “know” that Dems think they can save birth control if they “cave” on abortion.. Ha!
Fools, sell outs and monsters. All of them.
Spread the Wealth and Give Workers a Raise
Greetings opera-gazing corn-poppers, misanthropes, situationists, gardeners, swimmers, cheesecake fans, and other hunter-gatherers.
Emerging from a month or so of tragic deaths, professional uncertainties (then emergency overload), and other sorts of end-of-winter mayhem. Can barely stand to follow the daily dithers of the political prom-airy, at the moment, but was cheered to see this international item today:
Board grants amnesty to AP photographer
(Who still have him, at Camp Cropper, apparently. So now it’s up to the US to let him go. . . .)
ms x – belated sympathies to you for the loss of Methuseleh. Wonder if Walter greeted Baby at the Purrly Gates? If so, I’m sure he’s showing her all the very best places for heavenly brunch.
Comment gone to the belly of the Hormel beast!
Sorry!
Madman out of Moderation and Intermittent Bystander out of Spam File…
Apologies!
Thanks, MCat.
Speaking of comestibles . . . don’t try this at home, kids!
Fed up with Italian politics, man eats vote.
nu thread (and I moved Madman comment and Intermittent Bystander comment forward to the new post)
LINK
IB
sorry to hear of the deaths emergencies and turmoil… I hope things go better and you can catch your breath.
yes I jope Baby got a nice welcome, whereever. After a friend’s dog died years ago… and she had always referred to the dog as her “first born”, which I loved, I wrote her that ‘they go to a place of endless play, never again having to attend in our world’..
nah, hes not. you are.