Faces like morning glories, unfolding in the sun…

Faces like morning glories, unfolding in the sun… 1 November 2008

Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, AFRICOM, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Israel/AIPAC, UK, WAR!.
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On The Campaign Trail : Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., left, accompanied by, from left, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., gestures during a campaign rally in downtown Charleston, W.Va., Friday, Oct. 24, 2008.
(Bob Bird/AP Photo)

Aren’t they sweet and appealing? Glad handing it to a solid mandate, I hope. Tho… hmm it really looks as if O’Biden is attempting to remove Bobby Byrd’s right thumb. Trophy of some sort I suppose.

And of course, let’s hear it for Clean Coal… right?

Doesn’t matter that they happen to be Democrats... any state with an entrenched party holding the reins, 2 senators, a governor tied to a critical industry (in this case coal), would be no different if Republican. Some worse some better, here and there a good one. Too few.

***

The other night Brokaw and Charlie were wringing their elderly hands over Obama and how little is known of his FP thoughts, his “worldview” as these great men put it. Along the way they mentioned the Congo and the so pressing issue of … forget the pat Western term for it, but I will call it Rescue Invasion. Soft war, better press. We ride to the rescue, their sovereignty be damned! King, God and Crusader! …and so on… Anyway I stopped in at Lenin’s Tomb thinking he might have something new up on that region and he did:

[D]avid Miliband is threatening to send troops if there is no diplomatic resolution. Well, then – can whitey help? Can he deliver Europe to Africa? The terms of such a question, in light of the co-responsibility of European states for the plunder and massacre, are insulting. In fact, it is implicated in precisely the sort of racist colonial ideology that not only abetted one of the most vicious slave empires in the world, but also drove the United States to crush authentic self-determination for the Congolese people when they finally broke Belgian rule in 1960. The overthrow of Lumumba and his ultimate murder had been justified on the grounds that, as Claire Timberlake, the US ambassador to Washington, argued, there was neither “a civilized people or a responsible government in the Congo”. Lumumba was “anti-white”, “just not a rational being”, and was perpetuating a “Commie design”, because he intended to govern the resources of the extraordinarily rich country in accordance with the interests of the population. The idea that whitey, not those who had just overthrown the vicious Belgian colonists, spoke for the interests of the native population, was as ubiquitous then as it is today. ::snip::

Following one of his links to an Independent report on recent events in and around Goma:

[I] was driving back to Goma from a diamond mine one day when my car got a puncture. As I waited for it to be fixed, I stood by the roadside and watched the great trails of women who stagger along every road in eastern Congo, carrying all their belongings on their backs in mighty crippling heaps. I stopped a 27 -year-old woman called Marie-Jean Bisimwa, who had four little children toddling along beside her. She told me she was lucky. Yes, her village had been burned out. Yes, she had lost her husband somewhere in the chaos. Yes, her sister had been raped and gone insane. But she and her kids were alive.

I gave her a lift, and it was only after a few hours of chat along on cratered roads that I noticed there was something strange about Marie-Jean’s children. They were slumped forward, their gazes fixed in front of them. They didn’t look around, or speak, or smile. “I haven’t ever been able to feed them,” she said. “Because of the war.”

Their brains hadn’t developed; they never would now. “Will they get better?” she asked. I left her in a village on the outskirts of Goma, and her kids stumbled after her, expressionless.

Mourners cry near the bodies of two women allegedly killed last night by a group of Congolese soldiers after looting their house in the Katindo neighborhood of Goma [AFP/Getty via Independent]

There are two stories about how this war began – the official story, and the true story. The official story is that after the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu mass murderers fled across the border into Congo. The Rwandan government chased after them. But it’s a lie. How do we know? The Rwandan government didn’t go to where the Hutu genocidaires were, at least not at first. They went to where Congo’s natural resources were – and began to pillage them. They even told their troops to work with any Hutus they came across. Congo is the richest country in the world for gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, and more. Everybody wanted a slice – so six other countries invaded.

These resources were not being stolen to for use in Africa. They were seized so they could be sold on to us. The more we bought, the more the invaders stole – and slaughtered. …

On to the Election!

Along the way to the Roman forum…. Richard Seymour/lenin has a post on the gathering weight of the working class in support of Obama. Good piece. Harsh closing line…

What is happening, however, is that in unleashing a movement tied to an electoral outcome, the Democrats are raising expectations that no future administration can live up to. If the Democrats not only net all three branches of government but also, as is being suggested may happen, get a sufficient majority to block GOP filibustering, then they have no excuses.

Aw lenin! Say it is not so!! C’mon: Keep hope alive!…Keep hope alive!.

We all know the Democratic version of “drill baby drill”.

Comments

1. marisacat - 1 November 2008: If it matters, Politico has some background on the Auntie Zeituni story. She was at his swearing in in 2005…
2. marisacat - 1 November 2008: Speaking of Aunties… everything at IOZ made me laugh but here is one in whole:

Destroy All Monsters

The other day my crazy dittohead great-aunt explained to me that America was primed for a race war whether Barack Hussein Obama won or lost. I asked her which side she thought he’d pick, and she looked at me like I was crazy. I told her that depending on league in-season trade rules, I’d probably unload him to the blacks in exchange for Tiger and Lenny Kravitz. This completely befuddled her. A race war. D.L. Hughley and Jon Steward fighting to the death in the streets.

it’s about 4 th or so down…

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/
3. Madman in the Marketplace - 1 November 2008: 77 last thread – so if they do that, and it depresses turnout in CA, that pretty much helps Prop 8, no? Which I think would be just fine w/ the donks.
4. marisacat - 1 November 2008: well the pundits and political writers don’t even aknowledge it would depress turn out. I do see some commentary here,

Everything seems quite fine as long as they get teh Family Sized Bath Towel Elected.

I guess.

8 is marginally ahead, too close to call… 4 (parental notification) the same.. and we have a long long long long long list of ballot measures and props, CCSF and State wide.

The plan is aboslutely to wear us the hell oout.
5. Madman in the Marketplace - 1 November 2008: McCain’s name nowhere to be seen at Palin rally
6. Arcturus - 1 November 2008: Africom went active, when? Oct 1st was it? here’s Keith Harmon Snow a year ago:

The North and South Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo remain awash in blood. Over the past decade hundreds of thousands of women have suffered sexual violence in these provinces as a weapon of war meant to terrorize local populations and gain control of natural resources. Sexual violence includes mutilations, rape and other forms of torture.

Rwandan-backed General Laurent Nkunda has occupied eastern DRC for several years, and was involved in atrocities, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Congo during the first (1996-1997) and second (1998-2004) Congo occupations by Uganda and Rwanda.

The United Nations Observers Mission in DRC (MONUC) makes possible the occupation of Congo by General Laurent Nkunda today. Nkunda is backed by the military regime of President Paul Kagame in Rwanda and by the baby-faced Jean-Pierre Bemba, the rebel warlord from DRC’s Equateur province whose interests and ties in DRC go back to his dark alliance with the dictator Joseph Mobutu and his Western backers.

The U.S. and European interests backing General Laurent Nkunda run deeper than the blood in the fields and rivers of eastern Congo. The German Embassy in the Democratic Republic of Congo is involved in shady business deals, backing militias and plundering raw materials from Congo, and behind them is U.S. involvement. This has partially occurred through the military control of a mine called Lueshe, located in a village called Lueshe, in North Kivu, some 170 kilometers northwest of Goma. But it also involves coltan, cassiterite, diamonds and gold, and the economic benefits that accrue to those who control land and taxes.

One gold mining firm with vast landholdings in South Kivu province is Canada’s Banro Corporation. Banro has control of four major properties, 27 exploration permits and 5730 square kilometers of gold mining concessions. [17] Banro operates only in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the blood-drenched South Kivu province. Look at the size of their landholdings: . When we talk about International Criminal Tribunals, who are the real war criminals? What about Simon Village, Peter Cowley, Arnold Kondrat, John Clarke, Bernard van Rooyen, Piers Cumberlege and Richard Lachcik—the directors of Banro Corporation? [18] What is the definition of “white collar” crime? How does a company of white executives like Banro from Canada gain control of such vast concessions? Through bloodshed and depopulation with black people pulling the triggers.

What has changed since King Leopold’s era?

fr. Three Cheers For Eve Ensler?
Propaganda, White Collar Crime and Sexual Atrocities in Eastern Congo

& from last Jan: OVER FIVE MILLION DEAD IN CONGO? FIFTEEN HUNDRED PEOPLE DAILY?: Behind the Numbers Redux: How Truth is Hidden Even When it Seems to be Told for more . . .
7. Arcturus - 1 November 2008: oops, her’s the 2nd link:

Three Cheers For Eve Ensler?
Propaganda, White Collar Crime and Sexual Atrocities in Eastern Congo
8. marisacat - 1 November 2008: Africom went active, when? Oct 1st was it?

yeah… oct 1 was the official start…
9. marisacat - 1 November 2008: I am mostly expecting endless public homilies to PEPFAR from Obama. The Bono Damon Clooney Celebrity Etc splutter, iow.
10. marisacat - 1 November 2008: that would be religio-splutter. to be precise.
11. Madman in the Marketplace - 1 November 2008: 6 – Speaking of the white man’s burden: The Presidential Debates Of ‘08 — 1908, That Is

Click on the link for Listen: Taft On The Philippines
12. Arcturus - 1 November 2008: right on cue, Eve Ensler:

I wonder: What stops the world from intervening on behalf of the people of the Congo?

“The Responsibility to Protect” requires that we, as the international community, particularly America, intervene where governments cannot protect their own people, demand that more UN peacekeeping troops are deployed and seriously focused on the mission of protection. Where the world sees to it that leaders are brought to the negotiating table to find solutions to the conflict so that the people of Congo are no longer pawns in this economic and ethnic battle. Where the world delivers plentiful resources to Congolese women and girls, who have survived the unthinkable.
13. Arcturus - 1 November 2008: thnx for that Taft clip MM – truly a classic
14. Madman in the Marketplace - 1 November 2008: 13 – sad how we keep repeating the same arrogant mistakes, ain’t it?
15. liberalcatnip - 1 November 2008: OMG – Ben Affleck is doing a hilarious impression of Keith Olbermann on SNL.
16. marisacat - 1 November 2008: 12

And HuffPo is a perfect place to lay down a rah rah scheme of that sort. And one can always dither that we will invade on horse back (small foot print!) and arrangements are being made for carbon credit offsets! Even jesus would agree under the new mandate/war talking point, WWJDIHWO [if he were Obama] Doctrine.

If only people could click their Ruby Shoes and realise that invasion, under any guise, is not like some back room sorting enterprise at Goodwill Industries. However much we drag the Great Christian Orgs along with us to make it look good.
17. marisacat - 2 November 2008: Poor obama, both sides on Prop 8 are using his image (isn’t use of his image blasphemy?)… I saw the NO on 8 commercial before I heard about the Yes on 8 flyer. Seeing the commercial i went nosing around to see what was being said… read reports on the flyer…

Hilarious! And the Democrats so deserve that for being FLIP FLOPPERS.
18. marisacat - 2 November 2008: Update to 17… Petrelis has a new post up. Apparently Obama made sure, practically on the eve of election, to answer MTV, on camera, questions from viewers….

The next president of our country went on MTV and gave his thoughts on Prop 8 and gay marriage. He danced around how he opposes the ballot measure based on constitutional reasons, and believes the hateful initiative is “unnecessary,” then segued into restating his support for keeping gays away from the institution of marriage. It breaks my heart that a man whose parents, if they were born in another era, because of their mixed races, would have been denied access to the right to marriage, can’t see fit to embrace gay marriage equality. [...]

“I think it’s unnecessary,” Obama told Sway, in response to a question sent in by Gangstagigz from San Leandro, California. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.”

His parents did nto even have to be born in another era, jsut be elsewhere than a mixed race society like Hawai’i.

At the close it sounds like Petrelis expects Yes on 8 to use the audio from MTV in an ad…

Tapper of ABC has a post up that he’s basically getting tired of yelling questions to Obama as he goes from plane to car, etc.

You gotta love our fucked system. So democratic.
19. penlan - 2 November 2008: #16 -

What is: WWJDIHWO ?
20. marisacat - 2 November 2008: Testing testing… if this were a test you would have been… etc.

via Daily Telegraph:

Barack Obama warned that terror attacks could soon test mettle

Barack Obama has been warned by intelligence officials that terrorists will attack US targets or a friendly state such as Britain or Israel to test his mettle if elected.

By Philip Sherwell in New York and Tim Shipman in Chicago
Last Updated: 7:33PM GMT 01 Nov 2008

The briefings given to the Obama campaign about possible attacks were based on specific intelligence picked up monitoring terrorist networks and informers, according to a senior military source aware of the contents of the reports.

Indeed, when Mr Obama’s running mate Joe Biden raised the prospect of such an attack during what he believed was a private fundraising dinner, he is thought to have let slip the conclusions of those highly-classified briefings.

…

The military source told The Sunday Telegraph: “Biden had received those briefings and dropped a real clanger when he revealed the conclusions.”
::snipped with the permission of the CIA!::

To think Obama has both Biden and uncontrollable family. LOL.
21. marisacat - 2 November 2008: 19

what would jesus do if he were Obama = WWJDIHWO

There is a lot of use, both serious and as a joke, in the US of WWJD/What Would Jesus Do?

I started laughing a few days ago when I read that the Obama campaign plane is called: “O Air One”.

Everythng is about being exalted or chosen or The One or a Jesus fake or or or.

He is an odd bird.
22. marisacat - 2 November 2008: Analysis piece in the Telegraph:

[A]merican commanders have looked at all the options in a thorough review and come to a different conclusion; they have decided that now is the time to fight.

“What will eventually win this war is American military power,” a senior Nato source in Kabul told the Sunday Telegraph. “There is no question of America withdrawing from Afghanistan. They are simply not prepared to let the people responsible for September 11th move back in.

“If the Europeans decided to go they wouldn’t that much missed, frankly. Some of them are in the way.”

…

As fresh American troops drive between their heavily-fortified bases next year, past ambush points and along roads where the ground can erupt at any moment in a minestrike, they will often see the carcasses of Soviet tanks. And they may reflect that every other army that has tried to win Afghanistan by sending in more troops has left the same way; in humiliation and defeat.
23. marisacat - 2 November 2008: The Vatican is all in a tizzy again, ready to hunt down gays in the trainee priest ranks.

[T]he ruling outraged Italian gay rights organisations. “If the principal requirement for being a priest is chastity, sexual orientation should be irrelevant,” said Franco Grillini, president of Gaynet.

Another homosexual group said the Catholic Church was full of gay priests and threatened to ‘out’ them to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Vatican’s stance.

“We offer ourselves as consultants to help the Italian Catholic hierarchy trace all the homosexuals hiding away in the Vatican, in the college of cardinals, in dioceses, in parishes, in monasteries and so on,” said Aurelio Mancuso, the president of Arcigay. “It would certainly be a haul to make the sacred buildings tremble”.
24. penlan - 2 November 2008: #21

Thanks for the explanation Marisa.
25. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: 23 – Is Ratzi’s personal assistant gonna start turning in the guys he sees in Rome’s gay bars?
26. NYCO - 2 November 2008: Re Obama’s aunt… This is hardly a hugely important story, but once again I can’t help feeling that Obama always wants it both ways: he wants to be seen as The Universal One, with personal ties that extend all over the globe, and in many ways his appeal is built all around that ecstatic all-embracing notion. And yet the reality always seems to boil down to a terse “I don’t know him/her. I never knew him/her. I distance myself from him/her.”

Now honestly, for him to say “Gee I really don’t know her and have little to do with her and her choices” is understandable and realistic. If only he wasn’t the Universal One, though, it would be easy to overlook. Do the various progressive factions not understand that they’re in line for the same denials?

Maybe the guy’s not Jesus after all… just Peter.
27. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: BMOC: College Papers Back Obama — By 79 to 1
28. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: No gain for Obama with churchgoers

Barack Obama has courted white weekly churchgoers as avidly as any Republican-leaning bloc of voters, though it now appears his efforts may fall flat on Election Day.

The Gallup Poll now shows Obama backed by 28 percent of white voters who attend church at least once a week — a group that makes up a roughly a third of all voters — which would be no improvement from the 29 percent of these voters who, according to exit polls, backed Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore in the previous two presidential election.

“There has been remarkably little change among whites in the religion gap,” said John Green, of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and a top specialist on the convergence of religion and politics.

No Democratic nominee in the modern day has made more of an effort to court religious voters than Obama. Jimmy Carter, a Southern evangelical, was the last Democrat to narrowly contest weekly church-going voters in a two-man race. But where Carter attempted to deemphasize his faith in the 1976 campaign, Obama has repeatedly returned to his faith to narrow the so-called God gap that has dogged Democrats for decades.

The party’s primary saw repeated and unprecedented events emphasizing faith, such as the Compassion Forum a little more than a week before the Pennsylvania vote. In the general election, in no less unprecedented form, the first event attended by the two candidates was not a presidential debate but a forum on religion and cultural politics at an evangelical megachurch.

Gee, worked out so well to pander to their ignorant, misogynistic, homophobic asses …
29. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: Wanda Sykes on the bailout.
30. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: Colorado Poll: Egg As Person? Over Easy!
31. marisacat - 2 November 2008: 26

oh he’ll say: ”They voted for me? Donated? Rallied? I am sorry, I don’t know them… it was cross over Republicans, Catholics and Pentecostals who put me in.”

He’ll have the pundits.. LOL Chris Matthews just declared that election night was going to be “very emotional, very very emotional for many of us”. So we will have weepy emotional over 50 y/o whites and a couple of blacks on view, that night. Hand the TV a hankie.
32. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: I really hate assholes like these two:

Voter Beware: Of Ralph Nader

But bring about a close election in a number of states – especially Ohio and Missouri, where polls show Nader winning about 2 and 4 per cent, respectively – and it is just possible to see how Nader, with his messianic vanity, and destructive urges that are best explained by God or psychiatry, can again determine the future of America.

From almost any non-Republican perspective – except nihilism – this is a travesty. In 2000, many of Nader’s votes came indeed from young nihilists (and Old Leftists, who should have known better) who imbibed his bunkum that there was no difference between the two parties or their two candidates. And he has been preaching the same nonsense today, with particular fervor on college campuses.

It is even possible to foresee a way in which–if the national electoral result is unexpectedly tight on Tuesday– the student population of Ohio State University (60,000) could, if Nader attracts enough support on campus and the final vote in Ohio is as close as Florida was in 2000, determine the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. (Memo to Ohio State students: share this message with your friends.)

NO TIME FOR NADER: A LETTER TO NADER AND MCKINNEY VOTERS

Most of Nader’s supporters suggest their votes won’t make the critical difference. Or insist “the lesser of two evils is still evil.” Or list Obama stands or votes they disagree with, some of which I disagree with as well.

But let’s assume that the current election still hangs in the balance: that between Republican voter suppression, last-minute attack ads, latent racism, and the uncertainties of turnout among new registrants, McCain and Palin just might be able to win. If you’re a Nader or McKinney supporter, I’d like to address this article to you, and ask how you’d feel if, by not voting for Obama, you ended up helping electing them.

I’ll feel just fine, fucker.
33. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: South Carolina Man Shoots and Kills 12-Year-Old Trick-or-Treater

Quentin Patrick, 22, an ex-convict in Sumter, South Carolina shot and killed a trick-or-treater T.J. Darrisaw who came to his home on Halloween — spraying nearly 30 rounds with an assault rifle from inside his home after hearing a knock on the door. T.J.’s 9-year-old brother, Ahmadre Darrisaw, and their father, Freddie Grinnell, were injured but were released after being treated at a hospital.

T.J.’s 9-year-old brother, Ahmadre Darrisaw, and their father, Freddie Grinnell, were injured but were released after being treated at a hospital.

Patrick left his porch light on — a general signal for kids that the house was open for trick and treating. The boy’s mother and toddler sibling were in the car.

Patrick emptied the AK-47 — shooting at least 29 times through his front door, walls and windows after hearing the knock. He said that he had been previously robbed. That may be so, but it is unclear what an ex-con was doing with a gun, let alone an AK-47.

T.J. was hit in the head and Patrick has now been charged with murder. Police have also charged a 19-year-old in his home, Ericka Patrice Pee, with obstruction of justice when she was caught trying to run away after the shooting with $7,500 in cash. She reportedly left her 2-year-old daughter inside after she fled.
34. marisacat - 2 November 2008: and it is just possible to see how Nader, with his messianic vanity, and destructive urges that are best explained by God or psychiatry, can again determine the future of America.

That’s just plain funny, all things considered!
35. ms_xeno - 2 November 2008: #32:

Thanks for the obligatory eleventh hour ooga-booga, Madman.

I just threw up coffee and muffin fragments all over my shoes.
36. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: 34 – I thought that sentence was especially silly.

35 – Your welcome!

You know us nihilists, always working hard to spread our life-denying darkness.
37. liberalcatnip - 2 November 2008: My latest: Sunday Food for Thought: How about a non-campaign?
38. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: LOL … so much fun this morning, watching O’Reilly on CBS Sunday morning whine about how mean our discourse it.

seriously.

Actually compared his fear of “crazies” to John Lennon getting killed.
39. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: If Obama Wins . . . Conservatives Panic, Pessimistic

LOL
40. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: Speaker Pelosi Heckled During Press Conference
Asked Why She Refuses to Debate Opponents
41. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: What Do They Have to Do to Lose Your Vote? The Trail of Broken Promises By Matt Gonzalez

On the street when I am approached by an Obama/Biden volunteer or someone who tells me they’re voting for Obama, I usually ask “What about the FISA vote?” And each time I hear in return “What’s that?” Or if I say, “You know he supports the death penalty,” I usually hear in response, “No he doesn’t.”

At what point will there be intellectual honesty about what is happening? People are voting for Obama because they find him to be an engaging public speaker and like his message regardless of his history of being part of the very problem he professes to want to fix. Most people don’t want the actual facts to interfere with the desperate hope that he is everything they want him to be. Do you really want to vote for someone who has already voted to take away your civil liberties because of some vague wish that he’ll act differently as president?

Obama himself, speaking of Sen. Hillary Clinton, made a remark that could just as easily apply to him, and, unwittingly makes the case for why no one should vote for him: “We can’t afford a president whose positions change with the politics of the moment. We need a president who knows that being ready on day one means getting it right from day one.” (Salem, OR, 3/21/08).

If voting for war appropriations and taking away civil liberties was bringing us closer to a more democratic and egalitarian society, well, I would advocate it. But it isn’t doing that. What is your breaking point? At what point do you decide that you’ve had enough?

What do they have to do to lose your vote?
42. marisacat - 2 November 2008: From the link on Nancy in Madman comment:

The last time Pelosi debated any of her opponents was in 1987 when she first sought election to Congress following the death of Rep. Sala Burton.

Too true… Harry Britt and Carol Ruth Silver ran agaisnt her, both from the left. Sometime last year I saw the tape of the debate again, it was very very tense. By now Nancy is in no shape to hack thru that level of confrontation. Just not capable.

Madame Czarina frankly…
43. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: I just loved the guy in the suit barking out “show some respect”.

So much for that revolution against a monarchy.
44. liberalcatnip - 2 November 2008: McCain rally:

McCain (paraphrased): Obama = socialist!!

crowd boos

McCain: I’m gonna protect Social Security and Medicare!

crowd: YAY!

Fuck some people are stoopid.
45. liberalcatnip - 2 November 2008: I need a vacation in a monastery somewhere just to shake off all of the stoopid I’ve absorbed this year. Detox – stat!
46. marisacat - 2 November 2008: HA! TimesOnline has an extract from Audacity of Hope…not too long and a real hoot to read, all things considered. He mounts a TOO DAMN FINE APOLOGIA for Bush along the way… and finishes up with a cool dismissal of all those pesky kenyan relatives. Even ties it to being antithetical to American concepts of Freedom.

You have to laugh.

The president’s eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and I appreciated the wisdom of America’s founding fathers in designing a system to keep power in check.
47. ms_xeno - 2 November 2008: There is no breaking point. Sorry, Matt G. I’ve searched and searched and it doesn’t exist for proggies. (Waves at Alan Smithee, wherever he might be.) No wonder I’d rather go to the library and check out comic books. As I tell mr_x, at least I KNOW that’s a fantasy world, which gives me one up on the average Obama drooler.

:p
48. marisacat - 2 November 2008: 45

Obama! and Oprah! both espouse Green Tea… maybe that could help you, even as heathen Canadienne. Plus prayer circles will be formed to pray for your spiritual detox.

What more could you ask?
49. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: If the Democrats not only net all three branches of government but also, as is being suggested may happen, get a sufficient majority to block GOP filibustering, then they have no excuses.

I like the signs in the background of Biden-Byrd’s hearty & resolute thumb-job:

NO TURN ON RED

ONE WAY (arrow pointing left)

Doesn’t matter that they happen to be Democrats… any state with an entrenched party holding the reins, 2 senators, a governor tied to a critical industry (in this case coal), would be no different if Republican. Some worse some better, here and there a good one. Too few.

In New York, the two parties openly discuss (and bicker over) their mutually entrenching collusions. From (Dem, “liberal”) Gov. Paterson’s remarks in an editorial chat with the Albany Times Union yesterday:

Another question: Governor, what happens if the [state] Senate is to go Democrat? What happens? Does that put additional pressure for you to deliver since there will no longer be a difference in the two houses?

Paterson: I honestly think that both the Republicans and Democrats do recognize this problem. And I have worked very well with the Republican conference. And the individual members of the Republican conference from the time I came to Albany…I’ve always worked well with them. I have the highest respect for them. I don’t mind the ideological differences that we actually have. I don’t mind them at all.
50. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: I’m actually drinking green tea at the moment, and I still misread a space news headline as Meteor Showers Could Spawn Bright Furballs, so I guess one’s mileage might vary.
51. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: 11 – Good old Edison the innovator. Wax cylinders for all, and a $500 tip to get things rolling.

David Giovannoni, who helped write and produce the CD, says the time limits on these cylinders forced the candidates to hone their messages.

“They may sound a little long and drawn out to us today, but I would argue that the 20th century’s march to the sound bite begins with these recordings,” he says.

Are you familiar with Edison’s epic battle with Westinghouse (DC versus AC)? Here’s a quick recap, from Google: Death and Money, History of the electric chair.

(I once had to write a short bio of William Kimmler, the drunken ax-murderer from Buffalo whose appeals Westinghouse funded – to the tune of $100K – and ultimately lost.)
52. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: A cake in honor of Halloween.
53. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: Wait a second. Cake?! Cake?! ms_xeno’s puking on her shoes, catnip wants to run away with the monks (do they let female herbs into monasteries?), nobody can seem to do anything about the hell on earth of life in the Congo, Pelosi hasn’t had to debate ANYONE since 1987(???!!!), and now Madman is offering cake.

Hell of a time to lose your grip on life-denying darkness, dude!

At least the cake is covered in Peanuts characters. (Big fat surprise that was, whenever it was, learning that Charles M. Schulz was chronically depressed.) The dog was the only remotely fun character in that bunch.

Please let it be Wednesday soon. Every second person I talk to seems to be holding their breath, waiting for the country to turn blue. Or the blue blue sky to fall, again.
54. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: The pumpkins on the cake, however, are grand.

Passes farmstand fresh cider donuts to all.
55. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 November 2008: I loved the pumpkins!

I always liked Marci best.
56. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: Anybody wanna play guess the Kossack?

Phonebank with me!! Now!

Includes tips like Always always always be polite and answers to such questions as

What do you do when someone calls you a “pesky bitch”, or some other name?

Answer: “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, sir. You have a nice day.”

Snicker snicker.
57. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: Forgot about Marcie! Hadn’t ever made the connection with Billie Jean King – a Schulz friend apparently – but vaguely remember something about this:

Marcie also “dated” Snoopy when he was in character as World War I ace fighter pilot Roy Brown, and when he suffered the flu, she nursed him back to health – right around November 11, 1918, the date of the signing of the armistice that ended the War. In the later years of the strip, it was established that the “small French cafe” in which Snoopy the Flying Ace drinks root beer is in fact Marcie’s house, and Marcie serves as waitress, serving Snoopy his root beers and doling out words of comfort and encouragement when needed. In a story in which Snoopy was an airline pilot, she served as flight attendant. This storyline, involving Schroeder as a passenger on “Ace Air Lines” on a flight to music camp, blurred the line of “fantasy” and “reality” within the strip and may or may not be considered “real”.

So much of the comics page in newspapers when I was a kid seemed like such a historical puzzle of idiosyncratic grown-up obsessions.
58. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: Ha. Just remembered I bumped into a cake decorating tutorial while hunting around for something daisy-related, a couple of threads ago.

Daisies My Way by Glenda Galvez ICES President (www.ices.org) Glenda Galvez demonstrates how she makes daisies.

I think this was the other find: Eels, Daisies of the Galaxy.
59. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: Correction: Daisies My Way by Glenda Galvez.

(What can I say, I learned a thing or two about the toolkit. . . gum glues, cornstarch, etc.)

And ICES is apparently the International Cake Exploration Societé!

http://www.ices.org/
60. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: Ain’t Google the greatest?

Cake with daisies AND morning glories. Perfect!

(Godless third-party-no-party insidious subversive nihilists – mind your shoes!)
61. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: Source: San Francisco Sweet Tooth.
62. bayprairie - 2 November 2008: Are you familiar with Edison’s epic battle with Westinghouse (DC versus AC)?

heck, why not do both?
63. Intermittent Bystander - 2 November 2008: 62 – Blank page intentional? Or do we need to

rectify?!

Schenectady, New York Industrial History: The General Electric Company.

WRGB.

WRGB claims to be the world’s first television station. It traces its roots to an experimental station founded on January 13, 1928 from the General Electric facility under the call letters W2XB on channel 4.
64. bayprairie - 2 November 2008: nah its a java applet. works on my machine… a mac, go figure. a visual circuit model that illustrates how diodes in series convert alternating current to direct current.

oh well :::pout::::
65. bayprairie - 2 November 2008: marisa, you might find this laughable. susanG is frontpaging the dailykingfish.

Listening to the Locals: Louisiana
by DailyKingFish

can i get a rape harrassment comment with that to go please?
66. marisacat - 2 November 2008: yeah Dkos had a soft spot for that kingfisher site from the get go… operatives hang together I guess…
67. marisacat - 2 November 2008: 49

maybe I am too far away to catch the bad stuff, but Paterson seems like some strange miracle… He’s just not the norm.
68. marisacat - 3 November 2008: Prop 8 crests to an even bigger ‘biggest money proposition of the season’.. 70 million – and expected to grow in the last two days, they say.
69. marisacat - 3 November 2008: hmm I have to say it has been fun to watch Liddy Dole’s fake cheeks deflate. Seems pretty certain she’s going down.

Coleman less so… sad to say, then again… what a choice.
70. marisacat - 3 November 2008: Nocera has an interesting report in the NYT… on some of the plans around to help homeowners – but the government’s plan is MIA (what a shock!!)… and a look at Bair of the FDIC etc… anyone wondering what the next congress is going to be like, just think back to Nancy and her lieutenants and their games with Paulson. Disreputable people, all sides.

LOL Well it is up to Ob now to smack them around. Or be like them. One or the other.

[N]o, the hang-up, apparently, is that aid is going to homeowners, not giant financial institutions, with the negotiations revolving around who will be eligible for the program and what will constitute an affordable new mortgage. Ms. Bair is arguing for a broad definition; the Treasury wants something narrow, which of course will mean fewer people will get help. This is hardly a surprise. One of the reasons previous efforts at helping homeowners have had such little success is precisely because the Treasury has insisted on defining the number of eligible homeowners as narrowly as possible.

It is also, of course, maddening. When it comes to the nation’s financial institutions, the Treasury is willing to hand billions of dollars to healthy banks, like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, that don’t even want the money. (It did so to disguise the fact that other, weaker banks, like Citigroup, do need the money.) Yet, inexplicably, it seems to feel that homeowners have to be treated much more severely. ….
71. marisacat - 3 November 2008: nooo thread…

LINK

………………. ………………
72. Intermittent Bystander - 3 November 2008: 64 – Very groovy! Was able to check it out on the work machine.