Opera Glasses and Popcorn
Don’t buy the car! Really, don’t! … 8)
110 degrees inland tomorrow, in California …and I hear conversation that Gustav could overwhelm reporting next week on the Republicans.
I think I am de-whelmed — for life.
Don’t buy the car!
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
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.
Marisacat 
Billmon bought that car and the deluxe edition to boot, just saw his Rec diary at the Orange place.
People do get sucked back in…………………………. When he defended Kos and Jerome, back during the stock tout revelations — and for weeks exalted Kos for being against the New Republic Isreali lobby Billmon claimed they turned on Kos as he supported people like Webb, I only want DEAD dogs in that three way fight, as much as I had loved Billmon, I was kinda done.
here, this -from the last thread – got lost in space:
57. I only had a bit on Biden – w/ his mouth, there’s likely more available – but here, from last Feb, quick! before a Democrat’s in the White House . . .
so far it’s not going over well w/ the supplier’s group, who also need to sign off on it – JB can play savior . . .
as millions take to the street in Kashmir – Arundhati Roy: Azadi
58. MM: Andalusia
73. just remember, fantasies are FREEEE! 😉
Note the pic.
Hmm. I read Billmon’s piece. I think he overdid it, Here are some comments
(a) The democratic party is NOT a progressive party. Just look at some of its leaders.
(b) Progressives can selectively work within the democratic party, I concede that point. There is a distinction here, at least as far as American politics is concerned. The main American political parties are NOT political movements. They are corporate entities which are mostly reactionary but can be used to do good things. Moreover, working within the dem party is mostly unrelated to the party’s electoral priorities. It’s keeping the right agenda in focus.
(c) Issues matter, candidates don’t. Actually a hat tip to Hillary Clinton, who did say that clearly in her speech. The right has understood this with remarkable clarity in its relentless pursuit of its agenda.
(d) The fact that the dem candidate is black is largely irrelevant; it’s the issues that matter.
(e) If Obama loses, the backlash against women in the US progressive movement will be terrifying, IMO. For someone such as myself that am concerned about 3rd world poverty issues, this is key. Third world poverty IS to a large extent a gender issue.
OK with that from CSTAR, I will go read it/Billmon.
Too right that gender issues run poverty, third world and first.
For anyone else, here is the billmon at Daily Kos diary. It’s entitled: Really Proud
Geesh I haven’t even started on the comments yet. The fact he is so confused abut the “proud/really proud” story (lst two grafs) indicates, good bad or snoozing, he has not been paying attention, at all.
So old men weep that Obama is nominated. Just cannot join the pre orgasmics here. i swear to god they need this nomination to tell themselves they did everything right. Cuz they got us here, … right? I mean WHITE men got us here Right? No one else.
Poor billmon. I hope i am around the day Obamammamama and the black General Kip Ward aerial bomb Africa. Not just funding a proxy war in Somalia using Ehtiopian troops, not just fomenting a proxy war in the Sudan, not just running guns and death and poverty and global corporate investments in the Niger Delta, but actually bomb from the air.
BTW, in Biden speech tonight he declared us on the side of “independent” Georgia and and that we would help rebuild. Gah. He has said it earlier and Ob backed him up.
Maybe it’s time for the pheromone insanity watch.
i suspect it’s a bit easier seeing the obvious when you’re looking from the vantage point of california, where we’ve already been through the “majority-minority state” transition from an all-white elite to an elite that adroitly allows some nonwhites into the clubhouse as long as the general pattern of power and privilege remains intact.
ioz belled this particular cat better than i here.
3 Arcturus
Thanks for reposting and sorry it languished in Spam file! Thanks for the Roy link and Biden, what a creep!
Bon Voyage…. Enjoy!
The thread is a feel good thread, very pro party… pro candidate. No demurrers
That’s been the recurring theme over there for years. No fight. Just settle.
BTW, I hope I didn’t confuse matters by saying “here are some comments”.. I should have said, “here are some comments of MINE.”
I got it CSTAR
and
catnip
yeah one reason the pre orgasmics cry or nearly cry.. such a blameless year. As they see it, except CSTAR’s last point above is going to play out.
16. except CSTAR’s last point above is going to play out.
No doubt. It’s not like a loss would have anything to do with Obama, right?
Michelle Norris on CRose said that just barely the McC pick for VP is beginning to leak out… her point was it may leak and hit tomrrow, rather than Friday.
And following billlmon’s comment is a trail of “McCain thanks you”. party line people ae such shits (including billmon):
via Counterpunch, but the righties ae pulling up all of this… LOL
On and on it goes..
ABC news crew arrested (Denver), FOX news crew beaten up, camera seized (Twin Cities) and a three videogaphers arrested (TWin Cities)… that was a caller to KGO just now…
Will see what I can find, the ABC crew in Denver I read about, they were out in the open on a street filming a group…
hjmmm
the democratic bad cop alternative to their good cop hope soap.
its really beyond boring and doesnt even work well, judging by past election losses.
But you are: In effect, driving me away with your piss-poor product
im watching the reruns and rachel maddow actually mentioned katrina. amazing!
Remember Katrina?
That’s Fine to Say: “Off to the Taiga!”
IOKIYAZ
hmm btw, when I was at Counterpunch I sw Quigley had a new piece on NO as well as Jason Flaherty too. Will open them up later this morning.
Right too right what has happened to NO, and I just sw an ABC segment going thru parts of the 9th… and I think the 6th, people cannot get thru on “311” for information on buses out of town (700 buses, they say, will be at 16 pick up spots, so the official plans say, to ferry a big whopping 30K out of town) but no one knows where the bus stops are.
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so the big bad bouncer came for noom? LOL
I followed the link. Peeder banned denali. One fluffer down! Repeat: One fluffer dowN!
Tho it had grown contentious over ObamaRama, And whatever else
The rumor is that the selection is Romney…
OK, they could win CO and they could win NV… we hve Mormons too, but not enugh, I don’t think… we usually clock in with a plurality of 1 M votes for the Democrats.
This whole week has been incredibly depressing, and I went into it expecting it to suck. They exceeded my expectations.
Good luck in your beautiful new home Arcturus.
If Obama loses, the backlash against women in the US progressive movement will be terrifying, IMO.
And if Obama is a one-term president, think of the backlash against blacks.
What a horrible mess we are in.
Just saw some more pics of the infamous Greek column backdrop… it is clearly not intended to ape the Lincoln Memorial (a la MLK). It seems pretty clear it’s intended to evoke the White House — as if Obama is striding out to the South Lawn to meet with the press. There are lighted windows in between the columns.
Words fail me. Did they learn nothing from the presidential seal thing? Or have they truly adopted Republican tactics — keep hammering the brand, and the sheep will acquiesce?
See what you think.
Too right:
”And if Obama is a one-term president, think of the backlash against blacks.
What a horrible mess we are in.” —- NYCO
30
thanks NYCO I too think I saw a segment on the Invesco Field structure… but was not sure..
I hear gymnasts from Beijing with be tehre…
yes that si what I saw during the night, that drenched blue and obviously some party for Fat Cats.
This convention has been so very weird. It’s been like watching a forced conversion experience (for some people). Pelosi was fascinating to watch during the end of the roll call. The key moment of her conversion was when she rushed through the yea/nay process during the move to acclaim… speaking quickly so that no one in the audience had the chance to yell an embarrassing “Nay!” And the look on Hillary’s face when that happened. The oh so slight personal exasperation and disgust which she could not hide. It’s like watching humans helpless in the grip of an inexorable process being driven by Someone Else. Obama in many ways just seems like a blank at the heart of it, just another tool of the process.
Events are rapidly escaping our control. Everyone is moving about passionately and purposefully, but no one is flying the plane.
“They”, somoene I missed who, is putting up a huge Ferris Wheel in BAGHDAD, saying that Baghdad is a “leisure friendly city”… even the news reader on KGO broke in and said, ”take the money and FEED people”
34
some strange dreamscape nightmare vise we are in…
Denali’s a pious little shit, but he wasn’t literally threatening peeder, which I’m sure that peeder knows.
What a joke, all around. They can beat each other unconscious for all I care.
The tired trope about “a-vote-for-this-is-a-vote-for-that” is insulting and sorry as it ever was. Its proponents never show any interest in the nuts and bolts of altering how votes are counted and how constituents are represented, so fuck them. They are pissing themselves with fear because, once again, they know their party and their brittle stuffed shirt nominees don’t have what it takes. It’s all they have had to peddle for years: Fear. Also guilt-mongering. They suffer their own abuse silently for the chance to abuse somebody even lower down on the food chain than themselves. How dare anyone not be satisfied with that ! How dare you shoot off your mouth and complain, you troublemakers !
Same as it ever was.
23. I don’t recall ek hornbeck being banned for the Swedish knife gutting episode. (It was hornbeck, right? Bad memory.) (And not that I give 2 shits about denali being banned.)
speaking of always working to intimidate people
It was Darragh Murphy I heard interviewed for close to an hour on KGO, by Rnn Owens. She stayed calm… Obviously I don’t agree with her but she was logical and restrained. And i noticed he never missed a chance to slam her as IRRATIONAL the next day in his 3 hour slot from Denver.
Don’t read dkos much, do yo?
The Invesco field teleprompter is huge.
BTW, GMA still pushing that Springsteen is scheduled. Oprah will wear special sun glasses emblazoned with Obama on teh side.
What can you do but laugh…
And Biden is off an running (full text from Ben Smith)
42.
He’d obviously be banned from Pff.
Pretty ironic after they spent last nite touting how he was the so-called champion of violence against women and was the caped crusader against crime. Go ahead, Joe. Smack someone.
Btw, why is it acceptable to say Obamalama was only 8 when Ayers was in the Weather Underground but it’s not okay to note how old he was when Biden was elected?
Social injustice cutting life expectancy, UN report says
Museum defies Pope over crucified frog (with pic)
Well I have read that the VAWA act is as useless as the HAVA act.
Violence Against Women Act :: Help America Vote Act
That seems to be the only thing they can pull out of Biden’s biographical hat to woo the women who won’t vote for Obama.
Does anybody know how much tickets are for this grandiose speech tonite? (for a post I’m going to write)
I saw a woman in the convention audience the other nite wearing a “No More War” button beside an “Obama for President” button. The cognitive dissonance continues.
I wonder how much of a crowd they’re really going to have at Invesco. It seems to me that a lot of people just don’t want to deal with the hassle of attending large-scale events. I’d be curious how many tickets they have sold, but that seems like it would be a closely guarded secret.
re: #45
I just canceled a necessary exam earlier this week because I can’t afford it. $850 a month for insurance has a powerful vacuuming effect on one’s coffers, and there’s only so much play money you can pry from Discover [tm] in a given year.
[whistles] But of course it’s worth it to be fucked by doctors and hospitals and Pharma and insurance companies and their bought-and-paid-for hacks like Obama, because on my premature deathbed, I can take comfort in knowing that many people less virtuous (ie, poorer) than I got it just as bad, or worse.
God Bless America. >:
Oh, and since Mcat asked for it, a snapshot of our rescue, Steve II.
Michael MacDonald’s appearing at the Obamaganza tonite too. He should sing, “What a Fool Believes”.
51. Wow. He looks like a young Obamacat (but with more exotic eyes). I should send you a pic so you can post it.
NYCO at 50 out of Moderaton… Sorry!
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ms xeno
850 eek. My COBRA was 550 a month and was pretty scary…
Thanks for the pic of Steve II… 😉 He’s a cutie…
catnip, he’s definitely got Oriental Shorthair in him. That super-sleek coat, long neck, big ears, Siamese-sounding squawk.
We just delivered him back to the neighbors this morning. He was surly, but he was eating. Also they had to shave part of his face to clean the abcess, but he should get better really quick.
50
They are closing I-25 that runs along Invesco, yu can’t park at the site yu have to be bused in ro dropped off, somehow.
I cannot imagine bothering but then again… LOL not my thing.
Mcat, the pathetic thing is that WE GOT MARRIED to placate Pope Rat’s Insurance Co., and in the long run it don’t mean shit. The system is designed to repel and rob the people who support it, the exact opposite of its stated purpose.
You go to the local Catholic Hospital and it looks like an opulent hotel from a 1930s musical: Everything’s gilded, overstuffed, gleaming.
That’s where our fucking money goes. It doesn’t go to support us. It makes me furious. But mr_xeno is still going to pull the lever for Obama because “we have to stay focused on what’s really important.” Yeah, Roman column props and Blackwater in Darfur. Stay focused on that. Christ on stilts. [fume]
Glad you liked the pics. =^..^=
Biden also recalled having “hundred of thousands” of people at his announcement speech for his first U.S. Senate run, which would have been a lot in Delaware.
Yeah, the state’s current population is roughly 850,000. I was living there in the early 90s. Bill Clinton came twice, in ’92 and ’94. I didn’t see either event, but was just a few blocks away, and if the crowd had been as much as 10,000, no one would have been able to walk or drive through the main part of Wilmington, which I should add is the only place where rallies such as this are held in Delaware (Rodney Square, just outside the Hotel duPont). Biden is from Wilmington, and would certainly have made his announcement there.
Also they had to shave part of his face to clean the abcess, but he should get better really quick.
Obamacat had one of those on his face last summer. Eww. It healed without a problem though.
striking kat! love the eyes.
im afraid the donks have let everyone in the firm go except the marketing department. their problem isn’t the consumer, its the product. and their shelf-talker “vote for us or your an enabler of evil!” just doesnt cut it with a lot of folks.
In Wake of Deadly US Air Strike, Jeremy Scahill Questions Lawmakers About Obama’s Afghanistan Policy
bingo. but falling back on some rule “everyone knew” that doesn’t apply to keith moon, or as catnip points out, ek hornbeck, is chickenshitism. stones say “banned for being an asshole and calling me a “retarded Jew”. i’d surmise that’s a little closer to the truth.
might just turn out there never really was “something new” under the sun in democraticpartay blogwhirled, as promised.
They’re going ga-ga over the ratings for the convention. Evidently Tuesday night had 26 million viewers, beyond expectations. I haven’t heard the numbers yet for last night.
63. Clearly, they wanted to see if Hillary was going to cackle and disappear in an orange puff of smoke. (But all they got was an orange pantsuit…)
The two main political parties in the US are corporate entities with a different “business model” than usual profit maximizing firms. They can provide services (usually to corporations, but in principle also to political movements), much in the same way that Target or Wal-mart provides goods to consumers. Would you go GaGa over Target? Not if you’re a wise consumer.
We should get over thinking that the parties themselves are “movements”.
especically today of all days, as ob crowns himself on mount olympus stage as heir-apparent to martin luther king.
66. Yes, I wonder how differently the civil rights movement would have unfolded if King and other leaders had capitulated to the Kennedy Administration on some things. Things would have “happened” sooner, but they might have been half measures.
Why do I get the feeling we’re about to embark on a gigantic and enduring half-measure?
our country needs columns badly, i fear all all we’ll get in the end are props.
August 28,1963
weve fallen so far. from “i have a dream” to “i have a scheme”.
66. A further thought. I am bemused/disturbed by the continually shifting comparisons: Obama is JFK! No, he’s MLK! No, he’s RFK!
Well, JFK was not MLK. MLK was not RFK. RFK was not JFK. In fact, JFK opposed some of the things MLK wanted to do. (Tell that to an average Koswhack… watch their head explode.)
Today’s generation’s appreciation of what went on in the ’60s is getting hazier by the year. Pretty soon all understanding will be lost.
I just noticed this on Huffpost
My latest: No Drama? Obama’s Big Speech
My prediction for McSurge’s VP pick: that eBay woman
JJB
apologies, just got you out of Moderation from 8:50 am…
well, we can expect further entertainments from Bi… LOL
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CSTAR
The only thing I can add, LBJ has been ignored before, left out of a series of Democrativ portraits at conventions and so forth. Not mentioned…
I wish they could find a way to remember the legislation, but my guess is that Teddy prefers people think it was all Jack.
But it was not. Also I think by now they want lots of Americans to forget abut, if they ever knew (a friend of mine had no idea ther is a Fair Housing Act), some of that landmark leg
I love how fucking petty they all are.
58 – ms xeno
The only good thing is that the Catholic hosptial in town is very very bery good. St Francis. It is also nearest to downtown, hotel, theatre, shopping disstrict, and I am sure rape victims get taken there (as well as other hosptials too) … and we all know of the complications of lack of care, about to be codified thanks to HHS
What a mess we are in.
The Temple of Ob staging supervisor is a veteran of Britney tours.
I was feeling Daily Koshish… they seem to be in full architecture mode over there. (in defense of, that is).
Well look at the bright side, at least there’s not a giant toilet bowl in place of the columns.
nhu thred:
LINK
…………………. 8) ……………….
Hearing Anna Eshoo, a california congress critter, saying Obama “needs to introduce himself tonight”, Gil Gross (KGO) just flat out said, ”how abut not needing to do that, but instead talking to people about what MATTERS TO THEM? What about connecting with the voter?”
What a fucking loser party.